Unmasking the D’Agapeyeff Cipher (XV, the recipe, not the message)
A short update, because the pessimistic take from part XIV has now been stress-tested properly, and it survived in an unexpected way. Since the last post, the work flipped from...
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Unmasking the D’Agapeyeff Cipher (XIV, pessimistic take)
Addendum XIV (May 19): A synthetic generator now reaches the cipher’s own Simulated Annealing (SA) scoresSome findings worth recording. None of them is a decryption, and at this point the...
Unmasking the D’Agapeyeff Cipher (XIII)
This article presents a continuation of addenda to https://msgtrail.com/posts/unmasking-the-dagapeyeff-cipher-a-multi-faceted-architecture Addendum XIII (May 14): The lattice geometry is not unique, but a new asymmetry survivesSome findings worth recording. None of them...
Unmasking the D’Agapeyeff Cipher (V-XII)
This article presents a continuation of addenda to https://msgtrail.com/posts/unmasking-the-dagapeyeff-cipher-a-multi-faceted-architecture Addendum V (March 28): The letter frequency budgetAny column permutation of the 2x98 grid produces the same 196 decoded letters. The...
Unmasking the D’Agapeyeff Cipher: A Multi-Faceted Architecture
For over eighty years, the D’Agapeyeff Cipher has stood alongside the Voynich Manuscript and Kryptos as one of cryptography’s great unsolved mysteries. Published in 1939 at the end of Alexander...
This is not an entire IT department
Once in a while, someone posts on X, or another platform, something along the lines of: “Dear recruiters, if you are looking for: • Java, Python, PHP • React, Angular,...
Meeting reminder coaster
I recently set up a small home lab to get back into tinkering with electronics and 3D printing. For my first project, I decided to build something I’d been wanting...
Omakub and Omarchy: Linux with taste, not tedium
Some X users called my praise for Omakub and Omarchy hyperbolic, even disrespectful to Linux’s stalwarts. Nonsense. These projects (https://omakub.org, https://omarchy.org) from DHH at 37signals aren’t just another distro tweak—they’re...
Pipedrive’s billing system: a special kind of madness
Imagine running a growing business where you're adding new team members regularly. Now imagine your CRM provider has decided that every time you want to add a new user, they'll...
How AI and LLMs can personalize learning without adding more teachers
I wrote this blog post in response to this tweet: I responded by writing: IntroductionTraditional education follows a one-size-fits-all approach, where every student is taught at the same pace, regardless...
Disassembling 40-Year-Old Code
There is a website called The C-64 Scene Database (CSDb) that collects and curates programs and information about the Commodore demo scene from the early 80s. On this page, someone has...
Restart Europe’s Innovation Engine
The European Central Bank recently published an article titled “Europe has strengths it can build on”. It starts with: “Europe must act. Our competitiveness is at risk. While a global...
If I Had 10X the Agency…
This tweet by Paul Graham made me think: The question “If I had 10x the agency I have, what would I do?” is fundamentally about exploring what you might achieve...