The wonderful 3A1

Most people are familiar with Amazon. Jeff Bezos' Amazon has played a major roll in the growth of e-commerce, and brought us products such as AWS, the Kindle and the Echo. However, I believe that the most utilitarian and overlooked item sold from Amazon is the 3A1.

Amazon 3A1

The Amazon 3A1 is a fully featured device that is appropriate for the younger members of your family, and this is a strong differentiator in the age of technology. The 3A1 is larger than the competitors; however, at 31" x 20.5" x 10.5", the extra space is something that you'll learn to love. The 3A1 comes from the factory with emotionally pleasing bubble wrap, and often other stuff that I cannot currently recall. The bubble wrap is the critical to the user experience of the 3A1. A picture of the 3A1 in action:

Come on Jeff, let's make this happen

A person cannot just own one 3A1. There are just too many appropriate uses. I believe that this superior Amazon product should be available through a subscription model. It is worth the money. Come on Jeff, let's make this happen.

SIMON and SPECK Ciphers, where they got their name.

I had the pleasure of talking with Doug Shors at a conference. I asked him about the origin of the SIMON and SPECK name for the ciphers. His answered that "simon" is from Dr. Seuss and "speck" is because he likes bacon. There you have it.

Acronym list for cryptography.

I have an issue with acronyms, and simple descriptions. Everyone is correct in all statements but you need to understand their assumption set. I have found that cryptographers are particularly fond of acronyms, to the point that I am unsure if they know what they are talking about. You get sentences such as "CBC requires an unpredictable IV".

Acronym	Meaning	Example
IV	Initialization Vector	You often see this in relashionship to one-way hash functions.
ECB	Electronic Code Book	For block ciphers, when a stream is divided into blocks and each block is encrypted separately.
CBC	Cipher Block Chaining	Like ECB for block ciphers, but each block is XOR'd with the previous block before encryption.
CTR	Counter	Counter Mode turns a block cipher into a stream cipher by adding a counter to the blocks in a stream sequence.
AEAD	Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data	Block cipher mode (based on CTR) that creates an output and an authentication tag.
SIV	Synthetic Initialization Vector	A vector based on a dependency sequence, the best description is this paper.
ARX	Logic Design	A structure of cipher based on Additions (a ∧ b), Rotations (a >> i), and XORx (a ⊕ b).

I will add more to this list as I get frustrated with them.

I created a table from /dev/random, /dev/urandom and a time trend. The time trend was to confirm that random behavior of /dev/urandom and /dev/random were indeed random by picking a random number and then incrementing it to create an upward trend.

index	/dev/random	trend random	/dev/urandom	trend urandom
1	3090913448	3093559761	1146094747	1148741060
2	1725384933	1730677559	2272041705	2277334331
3	2519982800	2527921739	672398708	680337647
4	4122969282	4133554534	3573000125	3583585377
5	829870557	843102122	3890184886	3903416451
6	1137466054	1153343932	3033196081	3049073959
7	1749860515	1768384706	289899107	308423298
8	1086191125	1107361629	2583955473	2605125977
9	2960121018	2983937835	2044022238	2067839055
10	1391878942	1418342072	3912550192	3939013322
11	2341971286	2371080729	3236438696	3265548139
12	1705867838	1737623594	132825467	164581223
13	753914462	788316531	304667943	339070012
14	3508276657	3545325039	2915100256	2952148638
15	1875191105	1914885800	1012669187	1052363882
16	3703457764	3745798772	3452319568	3494660576
17	354771931	399759252	2873521363	2918508684
18	1440622486	1488256120	3077894758	3125528392
19	95590728	145870675	954438133	1004718080
20	1494851198	1547777458	617444881	670371141
21	3463282696	3518855269	1210761559	1266334132
22	2763078310	2821297196	1551406163	1609625049
23	845299620	906164819	3649401839	3710267038
24	1700972881	1764484393	1089683906	1153195418
25	955272830	1021430655	3982767222	4048925047
26	650720476	719524614	971589845	1040393983
27	3287043751	3358494202	3145132743	3216583194
28	1908951424	1983048188	4215965221	4290061985
29	470755280	547498357	627089318	703832395
30	3831082648	3910472038	1101883066	1181272456
31	71926512	153962215	4005292614	4087328317
32	1105700659	1190382675	3320547984	3405230000
33	2350999734	2438328063	2915198482	3002526811
34	60380453	150355095	2014112616	2104087258
35	1040967499	1133588454	734403762	827024717
36	351870294	447137562	1205264218	1300531486
37	1390463641	1488377222	194203856	292117437
38	2930925789	3031485683	3238614567	3339174461
39	53665085	156871292	1425212007	1528418214
40	3215787494	3321640014	3694264521	3800117041
41	3367283152	3475781985	1902890120	2011388953
42	3187584017	3298729163	933685552	1044830698
43	1859788408	1973579867	1711326701	1825118160
44	1054803870	1171241642	3457011070	3573448842
45	2360444578	2479528663	1051693432	1170777517
46	3811363929	3933094327	2956558631	3078289029
47	1011729055	1136105766	1212604488	1336981199
48	3643401256	3770424280	1244477930	1371500954
49	3115115165	3244784502	2846283813	2975953150
50	656115332	788430982	2591892426	2724208076
51	2082787750	2217749713	2651238877	2786200840
52	3110320829	3247929105	2729262093	2866870369
53	753082727	893337316	3466011077	3606265666
54	2911477629	3054378531	714762268	857663170
55	3787367806	3932915021	3355974321	3501521536
56	1589750894	1737944422	624948913	773142441
57	4155645711	4306485552	3577805429	3728645270
58	1816595958	1970082112	1639866852	1793353006
59	2481584779	2637717246	16909395	173041862
60	4132149189	4290927969	3652892113	3811670893
61	1598933723	1760358816	2197834849	2359259942
62	3744374840	3908446246	2088693600	2252765006
63	2053368070	2220085789	3178914513	3345632232
64	3301704446	3471068478	2880564908	3049928940
65	2185631082	2357641427	3420597153	3592607498
66	3832147979	4006804637	113709751	288366409
67	2362338048	2539641019	1611188583	1788491554
68	302586833	482536117	3853880993	4033830277
69	1859359559	2041955156	2102925372	2285520969
70	2595404044	2780645954	2341954598	2527196508
71	2993709235	3181597458	2122271498	2310159721
72	3833863061	4024397597	1407393014	1597927550
73	3150310233	3343491082	451722778	644903627
74	180901532	376728694	739693901	935521063
75	2202712885	2401186360	3748596151	3947069626
76	250732140	451851928	3793176280	3994296068
77	2972237033	3176003134	1475646375	1679412476
78	1878442067	2084854481	4092325325	4298737739
79	1009851020	1218909747	4127235886	4336294613
80	974318580	1186023620	3741001624	3952706664
81	2019291070	2233642423	835040996	1049392349
82	299298648	516296314	669288129	886285795
83	427571604	647215583	2180665975	2400309954
84	2338337598	2560627890	493610159	715900451
85	3937148072	4162084677	33862552	258799157
86	3091053649	3318636567	2019279108	2246862026
87	2750818025	2981047256	3201562413	3431791644
88	2018951173	2251826717	1701584444	1934459988
89	872900948	1108422805	63116109	298637966
90	265806730	503974900	1160493344	1398661514
91	1043275026	1284089509	3599575440	3840389923
92	1376193275	1619654071	324303775	567764571
93	482211967	728319076	3009784414	3255891523
94	960682921	1209436343	942803081	1191556503
95	2361449773	2612849508	137251334	388651069
96	1353503034	1607549082	2377967043	2632013091
97	3673165482	3929857843	1791508587	2048200948
98	2962520613	3221859287	3023302955	3282641629
99	653473584	915458571	3790293488	4052278475
100	1534899190	1799530490	2149654832	2414286132

Arabic numbers.

I have to say that I thought this concept was terrible funny. Enough so that I hazarded a go at art.

I love arabic numbers.

TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [main memory size=5000000]

LaTeX is a weird bird. I ran out of memory. The solution: add the line "main_memory = 8000000" to the file /usr/local/texlive/2015/texmf.cnf

$ sudo fmtutil-sys --all

It's worth noting that 8000000 seems to be the maximum value.

\strip@pt undefined in LaTeX, and the fix.

I could not get the statement \strip@pt in LaTeX to parse. It would always just give an undefined value. The solution is to change context, which is such as hack, but that's how you do it.

\documentclass[journal,letterpaper]{IEEEtran}
\usepackage{fp}     

\begin{document}
\newcommand\bitfieldwidth{32}  
\newcommand\bitfielddivision{8}
\makeatletter
\FPeval{\bitcolumnwidth}{(\strip@pt\textwidth) / \bitfieldwidth}
\makeatother

\begin{tabular}{|c|c|}
\hline
variable & value \\
\hline
textwidth &\the\textwidth \\
\hline
columnwidth &\the\columnwidth \\
\hline
bitcolumnwidth &$\bitcolumnwidth$ \\
\hline
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

The rendered table is: