"There is a remarkably close parallel between the problems of the physicist and those of the cryptographer. They system on which a message is enciphered corresponds to the laws of the universe, the intercepted messages to the evidence available, the keys for a day or a message to important constants which have to be determined. The correspondence is very close, but the subject matter of cryptography is very easily dealt with by discrete machinery, physics not so easily." --Alan Turing

This morning [Imelda Marcos] offered the latest in a series of explanations of the billions of dollars that she and her husband, who died in 1989, are believed to have stolen during his presidency.
"It so coincided that Marcos had money," she said. "After the Bretton Woods agreement he started buying gold from Fort Knox. Thre thousand tons, then 4,000 tons. I have documents for these: 7,000 tons. Marcos was so smart. He had it all. It's funny; America didn't understand him." --The New York Times, Monday, 4 March, 1996

To S. Town Stephenson,
who flew kites from battleships

Two tires fly. Two wail. A bamboo grove, all chopped down. From it, warring sounds.

For a long time there is really nothing to be seen except steam; but after Golgotha's been burning for an hour or two, it becomes possible to see that underneath the shallow water, spreading down the vally floor, indeed right around the isolated boulder where Randy's perched, is a bright, thick river of gold.