Adam Bachman abachman

Retrieved from Reddit 2015-12-10

As an undergrad who has recently become very interested in this field, I would like to know of a roadmap to develop a solid foundation in order to pursue a research career in cryptography. Things like course sequence, major/concentration, books, etc would be helpful.

Currently I'm a second year CS student and have noticed that my school's program focuses more on the practical side of things. Since cryptography requires a deep understanding of some abstract areas of math, would it be best to transfer to a pure math program?

Thanks in advance!

You should definitely have solid mathematical skills, but computer science helps as well. I did both (bachelors in both, masters in both, PhD in a mathematics/CS hybrid department).

The Joys of the Craft

Why is programming fun? What delights may its practitioner expect as their reward?

First is the sheer joy of making things. As the child delights in their mud pie, so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of their own design. I think this delight must be an image of God's delight in making things, a delight shown in the distinctness and newness of each leaf and each snowflake.

Second is the pleasure of making things that are useful to other people. Deep within, we want others to use our work and to find it helpful. In this respect the programming system is not essentially different from the child's first clay pencil holder "for Daddy's office."

Third is the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles, playing out the consequences of principles built in from the beginning. The programmed computer has all the fascination of the pinball machine or the jukebox mechanism, carried to the ulti

Note to self:

If you run into "Error: Invalid value for HOMEBREW_CC" while trying to install things with homebrew on Mac OS X, make sure you don't have export HOMEBREW_CC=something in your ~/.bashrc file.

	[
	{
	"first": " Richard",
	"last": "Black",
	"city": "Democratic",
	"status": "Baltimore City",
	"joined": "Withdrawn - 11/18/2015",
	"website": "Regular - 08/24/2015",
	"facebook": "",
	"twitter": "facebook.com/BlackforMayor",

	import java.util.Map;
	import java.util.Set;

	Center[] centers;
	int[][] connections;
	HashMap<Integer, Center> world;

	static int PONS = 40;
	static int CONS = 4;
	static float STEP = 1;

	# Conway's Game of Life
	# 2015-09-18
	# by
	# Nathan Hessler https://twitter.com/spune
	# Adam Bachman https://twitter.com/abachman
	# at Ruby DCamp 2015 http://rubydcamp.org/

	# awesome test library
	def assert(value)
	if !value

	require 'readline'

	list1 = ARGV[0]
	list2 = ARGV[1]

	badwords = File.readlines(list1).map(&:strip)
	words = File.readlines(list2).map(&:strip)

	puts "remove #{ list1 } #{badwords.size} words from #{ list2 } #{ words.size }"

	function poptest {
	nexttest=`head -n1 failed-tests.txt`
	echo "removing $nexttest from the list"
	sed 1d failed-tests.txt > failed-tests.txt.tmp; mv failed-tests.txt{.tmp,}
	}

	function runtest {
	test_name=`find $1 -name "$2*" \| head -n1`

	if [ -n "$3" ]; then

	#!/bin/env ruby

	# Usage:
	#
	# $ deacronym ASDF
	# Attracted Shrinking Development Finish
	#

	# You'll need your own copy of Seasoning of Wood by J.B. Wagner
	# http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26598