12.13, due on November 22

1. (Difficult) I had a hard time following what was going on with the permutations.  I thought it was cool how they things could be cancelled out, but I didn't really follow the specifics.  I'm glad there's examples, so hopefully I could go back and understand better if I need to.
2. (Reflective) This is one of the more interesting readings, mainly because of the historical problems.  We often think of cryptography as interesting intellectual exercises, but the people cracking the Enigma were doing so to save themselves, their countries - even the world.  I can't imagine how tedious it must have been to do all this by hand what sounds like every day.  It sounds like a miracle they were able to figure these things out, and the people who put in the hard thought and hard work seem to deserve great respect for their heroism.