alex chiang: web 6.0

Interesting article in the L.A. Times about how the Aryan Brotherhood used invisible ink to covertly send messages to each other. Basically, they used their own urine to write invisible messages. Not only that, they used a secret code to pass seemingly innocuous messages (in regular ink) and snuck it out underneath the guards’ noses.

Take a look at their codes. First, observe that the “A” script is a sans serif script while the “B” script is serif. So if you’re typing up secret messages on your home computer, you’ll want to use a combination of Arial and Times New Roman.

Second, look at the way that the “A” scripts and “B” scripts combine to form other letters. Folks, this is just binary code, and transcription of something like this is first year Computer Science education. Think of the “A” as zeros and the “B” as ones. You get:

And so forth. The only thing that’s weird about this scheme is it starts at hexadecimal 0xB, and doesn’t increment in any rational order. I suppose if you’re trying to avoid detection from large guards who will come and beat your ass for sending secret notes, and you are in Supermax for multiple life sentences and have all the time in the world to memorize crazy schemes, it doesn’t hurt to add an element of randomness to your code.

Finally note that they needed 5 letters per group to encode every letter of our alphabet. This is because 2⁴ is only 16, and you won’t be able to encode every letter if you only use groups of four. On the other hand, 2⁵ is 32, which gives you more than enough combinations to encode all 26 letters.

For a bonus, let’s see if there are 9 letters you could eliminate from the alphabet so that you only need 4 bits for encoding.

• C because the hard C can be replaced with K and the soft C can be replaced with S
• Q because you can again replace with K
• X … man, that K sure is handy
• U because the Romans didn’t need it, so why would you?
• J because it can be replaced with G

Well, that’s 5. Only 4 more to go, and you can save yourself a bit in your encoding. May not seem like a lot, but over a long enough text, saving 20% is pretty good!

And that’s today’s computer science lesson, courtesy of the Aryan Brotherhood.

Insightful essay on the purpose of our Constitution:

The Constitution doesn’t exist to implement a certain “American way of life.” It exists to ensure an environment of freedom in which the ways Americans live can flourish and evolve, within a common commitment to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

Background: The US is playing the Czech Republic today in group play

Problem Statement: I don’t have cable TV, thus, I don’t get ABC as it’s not broadcast over the air here

Alternative 1: Watch live streaming internet tv using TvAnts, which streams TV from China, with commentary in Mandarin. (TvAnts setup here and channel info here)

Alternative 2: Watch on Telemundo, which is broadcast over the air, with commentary in Spanish

Fluency: about equal in either language

Solution: Telemundo wins due to lack of sufficient bandwidth for CCTV. Plus, I don’t have to feel as guilty while “working” from home.

One of my favorite activities in life is grilling. There are few things as viscerally satisfying as heating meat over an open flame and then devouring it moments later. Of course, in this day and age, some silly humans have decided that they want to eat some vegetables too, and so we must satisfy them. With that in mind, I present a delectable spread of some tasty bbq treats.

Main Ingredients

• package of chicken legs (drumsticks)
• red pepper
• mushrooms (criminis are really good, but you can use whatever type you prefer)
• garlic heads
• couscous (optional)

Seasonings

• 1 egg
• bread crumbs
• soy sauce
• olive oil
• cooking sherry
• salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, brown sugar

Tools

• baster
• tin foil
• grill

Prepare the chicken legs first. Ideally, you want to marinate them for a half day to 24 hours, but you can get by on little as 45 minutes. Remove them from the store packaging and give them a rinse to clean them off. Next, place them into something big and flat — I prefer to use a Pyrex baking pan (kinda like the 13″ x 9″ thing you use for brownies). Drizzle soy sauce and sherry over the legs, enough so that the bottoms of the legs are sitting in about 5 millimeters of liquid. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and then add on a very sparse coating of brown sugar. Rotate the legs so that the side with the marinade is turned upwards, and season with salt, pepper, and brown sugar again. Cover the entire pan (using Saran wrap or similar) and let it sit in your fridge. Half way through your marinading time (ie, 6 hrs if you can spend a half day or 20 minutes if you only have 45 minutes), rotate the legs again.

Closer to actual grilling time, you’ll want to prep the veggies. Rinse the mushrooms and set them aside. Break one egg into a bowl and beat it like a red-headed stepchild (ie, as if you were making a scrambled egg). Place bread crumbs into another bowl. Proceed to bread the mushrooms up by dipping them in egg, and then rolling them around in the bread crumbs. Place the breaded mushies aside.

Next, rinse the red pepper and cut it in half. Rip off a piece of tin foil that is big enough to wrap the red pepper half, and place the pepper on it. Drizzle olive oil onto both the outside and the inside of the half, and spread it evenly with your fingers. Season with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper to taste. Wrap up each half and set them aside.

Last are the garlic heads. We’re gonna make roasted garlic, which is delightfully easy and super tasty. Cut off the top of the head such that you’re lopping off the top 1/4 of each clove. Drizzle olive oil over the exposed cloves. Your hands will probably be covered in oil, so go ahead and rub the outsides of the garlic heads to give them a thin coat of oil as well. Tear off a small piece of foil — enough to give each garlic head a little tin foil hat such that it covers up the cloves.

Ok, the prep work is done. The next step is crucial — crack open a beer and start drinking. In the summer months, I prefer something light and hoppy, such as Deschutes Brewery Mirror Pond or O’Dell’s 5 Barrel.

Heat up the grill to medium heat and put the garlic heads onto the top level. Wait about 10 minutes, and then put the red pepper halves on the top level, rounded concave side down. After another 5 minutes go ahead and lay all the drumsticks on the bottom level of the grill. The key is to keep a nice medium heat — not too hot or else the chicken will get burned, and not too low or else you’ll be there forever. After about 10 minutes, go ahead and turn each drumstick. Use your baster and squirt the marinade over the chicken. At this time, you can put the mushrooms on the top level as well.

After another 10 minutes are up, you can rotate the drumsticks as necessary to even up the cooking. Each leg should have a very nice browning at this point. The chicken should be totally cooked after a total of 25 minutes from the time you put them on the grill, and everything else will be done too. Of course, you should cut into a leg or two to check to see that they are actually done. Hopefully, they are super juicy and tender, and not burned. The mushrooms will definitely be done, but the breading will not turn golden brown as if they were fried. Don’t worry, they’re gonna be good.

(5 minutes before you pull everything off the grill, you can optionally start some couscous if you feel that you must have a starch with your meal.)

Now you’re ready to enjoy your feast. Go ahead and take the tin foil hats off the garlic heads and unwrap the peppers, being sure to savor the juices running out. Eating is obviously self-explanatory, but for those who haven’t grilled or roasted garlic before, a suave way to get the cloves out of the head is to place the head on a hand towel, and cup the entire thing in your hand. Then, gently squeeze your hand together and cloves should start popping out of the head. They’ll still be garlicky-flavored (obviously) but the grilling/roasting will caramelize them and turn them sweetish. Eat them plain or use them to season whatever else you want in the spread. Yum!

Celebrate in your manliness.

To the four people that read this blog, I apologize for not updating it more often. What can I say? It’s summer time and there’s too much stuff to do that’s not on the intarweb. So I’m dialing it back, and going to try for a once-a-week update rather than the every-two-to-three days frequency of winter boredom.

To further prove my laziness, I’m just going to link to another article today. I found this story about Dean Potter climbing Delicate Arch in Utah to be well-written and interesting, even if you’re not all that into climbing yourself. Give it a read.