high school python classes

[John Abreau]

Her favorite joke was about overhearing a colleague muttering to himself
while using a sliderule for simple multiplication.

"Two times three equals 5.999.... Oh, heck, just call it six!"




On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 7:56 AM, John Abreau <jabr at blu.org> wrote:

> My high school chemistry teacher taught us how to use a sliderule. She
> *hated* pocket calculators with a passion, and said that they rotted the
> brain.
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 7:18 AM, Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> wrote:
>
>>  On 01/20/2014 09:19 AM, Kevin D. Clark wrote:
>>
>> Lloyd Kvam writes:
>>
>>
>>        * Public Key Encryption
>>
>>  I took a class at UNH when I was a high-school senior (wooly mammoths
>> were still wandering around campus back then...).  It was a class with a
>> topic of number theory.  I liked all of the math proofs in the class
>> -- very cool stuff.  I really wasn't prepared for the class but I did
>> the best that I could.
>>
>> As I sat in these classes on Saturday mornings, it did occur to me
>> that a lot of this stuff was pretty dry.  I couldn't see the point of
>> the mathematical excercises that we were going through ("why on Earth
>> do I care if two numbers are 'relatively prime'?", I mused).  I
>> couldn't fathom how any of this stuff could be used in the Real World.
>>
>> Everything that I thought about these Saturday morning classes changed
>> during the last class.  We had a guest lecturer that day -- a
>> professor named David Burton.  He came into the classroom with a
>> twinkle in his eye and told us that he was going to teach us some
>> interesting things that morning.  In the next two hours he taught us
>> the basics of symmetric key cryptography, and then he moved onto DH
>> key-exchange and public-key crypto.  He built on all of the concepts
>> that we had learned in previous classes.  I took notes like crazy that
>> morning -- this really was some interesting stuff that this Professor
>> Burton was teaching us.  Wow....
>>
>>
>> Anyways, I look back upon that morning (eons ago) pretty fondly.  One
>> of the things that I do as a software engineer is to design and
>> implement secure systems and protocols.  I still use the knowledge
>> that I gained on that Saturday morning as a high-school senior pretty
>> frequently.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> --kevin
>>
>>  When I was in High School I learned how to program a slide rule.
>>
>> --
>> Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> <gaf at blu.org>
>> Boston Linux and Unix
>> PGP key id:3BC1EB90
>> PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66  C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
> Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / 2013 PGP-Key-ID
> 0x920063C6
> 2013 / ID 0x920063C6 / FP A5AD 6BE1 FEFE 8E4F 5C23  C2D0 E885 E17C 9200
> 63C6
> 2011 / ID 0x32A492D8 / FP 7834 AEC2 EFA3 565C A4B6  9BA4 0ACB AD85 32A4
> 92D8
>



-- 
John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / 2013 PGP-Key-ID 0x920063C6
2013 / ID 0x920063C6 / FP A5AD 6BE1 FEFE 8E4F 5C23  C2D0 E885 E17C 9200 63C6
2011 / ID 0x32A492D8 / FP 7834 AEC2 EFA3 565C A4B6  9BA4 0ACB AD85 32A4 92D8
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