What's up Crypto Peeps!
This is Josh Saadati and Joseph Tarrant bringing you the inside scoop on the sneakiest May X of Furman University. Today was spent in preparation for our presentations tomorrow. It is crazy to think that this is our second to last day here in London! It seems as though we just arrived yesterday and now our time is coming to an end. Despite the sadness that comes with that, we had to keep being productive, though.
Like so many times before, we boldly started off the day with a class session at the IES center. I (Josh) traversed the tube from our dorms with several friends, but left them to their own devices when they caved to the primal desire for caffeine while on the walk from the tube station to our classroom. I pride myself in my ability to maintain energy without assistance from drugs. Class today took a bit a of a different turn from the usual: after a short briefing on return travel plans, we split off into our project groups in order to put the finishing touches on our presentations for tomorrow. During this time Dr. Millichap and Dr. Woodard met with each group to check in on progress, offer suggestions, and answer questions. While we certainly didn't achieve Alan Turing levels of concentration and productivity (looking back having all eighteen of us working and talking in a small student lounge area might not have been the best plan...), we still managed to get a lot done. In particular, my group focused on ironing out the order of our presentation, working out the kinks in the computer algorithm we plan to use as a demonstration, and cleaning up the slides to make them look as professional and cohesive as possible.
My (Joseph's) group spent most of today finalizing the information we wanted to put on our slides for our presentation tomorrow. We already had an outline for what we wanted to do and how we wanted the presentation to flow but we needed to finalize our information and rehearse how we would present. That took most of the morning, afternoon, and evening today. We took a brief break after lunch on our preparation because Ava Kinghorn went on a side trip to the Museum of London to see Jeremy Bentham’s (the father of Utilitarianism) skeleton.
A few days ago, several students (including myself--Josh) who went to a restaurant called Slim Chickens for an allegedly paid-for group dinner tragically had to use their own funds to buy sustenance after the card reader rejected all six cards Dr. Millichap and Dr. Woodard produced. Thus, as reimbursement, the professors graciously treated us disenfranchised folk to lunch today at a large outdoor food market near the IES building. Since our usual greenspace behind the building was closed for construction and the student lounge was occupied, most of us made do with the couches in a small area between the lounge and the stairwell. For our afternoon entertainment, Ella recounted a tale from her mystical hometown of Naples, Florida involving a young girl with magical hair who was kidnapped as a baby and trapped in a tower by an evil old woman. It took some of us more time than others to notice the similarities to a certain beloved Disney movie, but Jay remained particularly convinced that this was just another wild "Florida Man" story until near the end.
After lunch, everyone split off to do their own thing for a couple hours. I personally wandered around for a bit with Lilia, Ella, Hannah, Kali, and Katie (and later Jay and Rhodes) through various markets and shops, where we of course stopped for some sweet treats! Jay and Rhodes in particular found some stunning new garb at the Camden Thrift Shop. Unfortunately, I didn't think to snap a photo, but stay tuned and you just might see them sporting their fresh fits before the trip is over.
Another interruption to our presentation preparation today came when we had a zoom call with Ralph Simpson. Mr. Simpson has a ton of knowledge about historical cryptology and also owns a ton of cool machines related to historical cryptology. He showed us several of these machines and gave several interesting anecdotes about how cryptology happened in World War II and after. It was interesting to see the covert side through things like the CIA supplying other countries with machines that they had a backdoor entrance for. It was really incredible to get to learn from Mr. Simpson and to be able to ask him questions. It was especially useful for my (Joseph's) group as we were able to learn more about our project topic from him.
This evening, I (Josh) went on a personal adventure to do a photo shoot at a local TARDIS (a.k.a. a blue police public call box that has come to be associated with the sci-fi TV show Doctor Who). Props to Lilia, who made the forty-minute trip just take pictures of me in front of a random box from a show she doesn't care about!
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I grabbed some delicious Turkish dinner before heading back to the Stay Club to meet with my project group. We made some final modifications, ran our presentation, and congratulated ourselves on a job well done. Can't wait to impress the profs tomorrow!
Speaking of which, it's high time all us cryptographers got some rest before the big day. Until next time!
-Josh Saadati
-Joseph Tarrant
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