Wednesday, 2024-04-28

secret war

Action This Day, Michael Smith and Ralph Erskine, editors. Bantam Press 2001. ISBN 0593 049101.

A collection of essays about Bletchley Park during the Second World War.

The most entertaining one is by the late John Chadwick.

This is how he describes his arrival in Heliopolis following the evacuation of Alexandria in 1942:

My arrival created administrative chaos, since I was a lone naval rating attached to an Army Intelligence Unit, itself attached to an RAF station.

He was later promoted "Temporary Sub-Lieutenant (Special Branch) RNVSR" because the material he handled was classed 'Officers Only'.

Later, after the Italian Armistice, he wanted to promote code discipline in the Aegean:

[...] I volunteered to go on the next mission to act as liaison with the Italian Navy in Leros, in the hope of preventing any further breaches of security. My suggestion was rejected, and I was told brutally that my superiors did not mind if I were killed, but they were unwilling to take the risk of my being taken prisoner.

Chadwick later deciphered Linear B along with Michael Ventris.

more on dave's trip

Here's another strange thing about David Winer's trip to Europe -- he's started a temporary weblog for the trip.

Why can't he update his regular blog, the one read by millions each day? He seems to have a laptop, and connects through internet cafés. So he should be able to update a server somewhere.

I don't get it. I can update this blog from a web interface or from Emacs on a remote box. I'm nobody. Dave Winer is a respected internet personality. Go figure.

chutzpah

David Winer has some strange idea on how SMS works. So the gang at #mobitopia discusses a little, and David writes a post about it.

But how do we let Dave know about it. He's travelling in Europe right now. With a mobile phone.

So now he has an SMS on it from yours truly. Hope he can read it.