What is it?

1. Type a random paragraph from the New York Times or from any source except A Void by Georges Perec into the field below:
   
   
   

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2. Click on the Analyze button
   
   

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3. Open a spreadsheet application like Numbers or Excel.
   
   

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4. Create a blank document:
   
   
   

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5. Select ROW 1 and select a font size, font and text color.
   
   

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6. In cell A1 Type ASCII.
   
   

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7. In cell B1 type Letters.
   
   

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8. In cell C1 type your name.
   
   

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9. Going across row 1 enter each student's name from the class.
   
   

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10. In the last cell across row 1 (the cell after the last student's name) type total.
    
    

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11. In cell A2 type the number 65. In cell A3 type the number 66. Grab the little box in the right lower corner and drag to A27:
    
    
    

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12. Click on cell B2 and type:
    =CHAR(A2)
    Press RETURN
    
    

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13. Grab the little box in the right lower corner of cell B2 and drag it to B27.
    
    

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14. Select cells C2 to your last column of student names to row 27, and click on the the function button and select sum from the pulldown:
    
    
    
    

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15. Using the results from above (the text analyzer) fill in your data
    
    

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16. Add the other students' data. You could write every student's result on the board so each student could share their results.
    
    

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17. Select cells in row 2 from C2 to the column before the total column. Then click on the Function Icon and select Sum:
    
    
    

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18. Click on the small circle in the lower right corner of the cell in row 2 in the Total column and drag down to row 27.
    
    

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19. Create another column after Total for Average.
    
    

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20. Click on the cell in row 2 in the Average column and type =(, then click on cell C2, D3, E4, until the last student in Row 2. Type )/number_of_students and press RETURN.
    
    

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21. Grab the little box in the right lower corner of Average cell in row 2 and drag it to row 27.
    
    

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22. Select cells C2 to your last Column in row 27 and select Format>Chart>Chart Type or press the Chart Icon.
    
    

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23. Select this type of chart:
    
    

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Caesar Ciphers

Multiple Shifts

Vigenére cipher

1. Start with a phrase:It is easy to decode
   
   

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2. Place the keyword over the phrase. In this example, the keyword is message. Repeat as necessary
   
   

   m

   e

   s

   s

   a

   g

   e

   m

   e

   s

   s

   a

   g

   e

   m

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   I

   t

   i

   s

   e

   a

   s

   y

   t

   o

   d

   e

   c

   o

   d

   e

   
   
   

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3. Each letter of the keyword is associated with a cipher (the row in the Vigenére square beginning with that letter). Once you found the row you can encrypt the letter in the phrase.
   
   
   In the example m is row 12 so i becomes u

   m

   e

   s

   s

   a

   g

   e

   m

   e

   s

   s

   a

   g

   e

   m

   e

   u

   t

   i

   s

   e

   a

   s

   y

   t

   o

   d

   e

   c

   o

   d

   e

   
   

Challenge

1. Write your own urban legend.
   
   What is an Urban Legend?
   

   Urban Legend

   
   
   An urban legend is a secondhand story that is told as true. It must be plausible enough to be believed, and likely to be framed as a cautionary tale, about some horrific, embarrassing, ironic, or exasperating series of events that supposedly happened to a real person.
   
   An urban legend is meant to be believed. They are a type of folklore, which in turn comprises the beliefs, stories and traditions of ordinary people. They are about the things we fear, the things we dread, or the things we wish for.
   
   The phrase urban legend entered the popular lexicon in the early 1980s with the publication of folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand's first book on the subject, The Vanishing Hitchhiker (W.W. Norton: 1981).
   
   Common characteristics

   • It is a narrative.
     
     
   • It is alleged to be true.
     
     
   • Its veracity is unproven.
     
     
   • It is plausible enough to be believed.
     
     
   • It is likely to take the form of a cautionary tale.
     
     
   • It is attributed to trustworthy secondhand sources (e.g., "a friend of a friend," "my sister's best friend's cousin," etc.).
     
     

   
   Examples:
   
   The Poodle in the Microwave
   
   My mother just told me this story. Her friend has a neighbor who is an old woman that lives alone. Yesterday, the neighbor bathed her miniature poodle, Pierre, and was about to towel-dry him when her phone rang. It was her daughter, reminding her that they had arranged to meet for lunch a half hour earlier. The neighbor apologized for being late and said she'd be there as quickly as she could.
   
   As she began towel-drying Pierre, it dawned on her that there was a quicker way to do it: the microwave. So she put the dog inside the oven, selected "defrost" and pressed "start".
   
   A half a minute later, when she was getting ready to leave, she heard a muffled explosion in the kitchen.
   
   Pierre the poodle was no more.

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   "The Poodle in the Microwave" (a.k.a. "The Microwaved Pet") enjoyed its first wave of popularity in the mid-1970s. In part, it's a cautionary tale reflecting societal ambivalence toward technological change (a recurrent theme in contemporary folklore). Greater convenience entails greater risks, such stories seem to say, so we should approach new technologies with caution. Yet "The Microwaved Pet" also hearkens back to warnings dating back to the 1940s, if not earlier, about dogs and cats suffering injury or death after crawling unnoticed into old-fashioned gas ovens. While one can always quibble over the "function" or deeper meanings of urban legends, it's safe to say that they almost always serve as a barometer of our everyday fears.--David Emery, About.com

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   The Mexican Pet (version 1)
   
   This woman and her husband go to Mexico. Outside their motel room, the lady notices a strange-looking small dog. She feeds it for a couple of nights and eventually she lets the dog sleep in the room with them. She falls in love with this ugly, but adorable animal and decides to take it home at the end of their vacation.
   
   They find a vet and make an appointment to arrange for the paperwork to get the dog into the country. When they arrive for their appointment, the vet informs them that the dog is actually a type of Mexican rat.
   
   Version 2
   
   My brother's college roomate was working in Boston. At work he saw this little white dog. People started to feed it, bringing treats when they arrived. My brother's roomate's girlfriend had been thinking about getting a dog. He told her about the stray that everyone had been feeding. Together they decided to adopt the stray.
   
   When he went to work the next day, the dog did not show up, but the next day the dog was there. He coaxed the dog into his car and brought him home. The couple cleaned and bathed the dog, and it slept with them that night and the next night.
   
   When the girlfriend came home from class the following day, she found that the dog had eaten her cat. The only thing left of the cat was the skull. There was no blood anywhere. She called the vet who told her to bring the dog right in. He could not do anything for the cat, but the bones from the cat could do injury to the dog.
   
   She brought the dog in and was in the waiting room when the guy at the desk asked her to step into one of the rooms. When she got in the room the vet came in and asked her where she got the dog. She told him it was a stray she found.
   
   The vet told her she had to kill it immediately--that it was not a dog, but a 40-pound Cambodian rat that came in on some boat. The rat was so big that it looked liked a small dog with a little snub tail.
   
   There's a variant of this legend long told in Europe called "The Turkish Pet"—indicating that no matter where in the world it is told, this story conveys a xenophobic message: Beware of foreign lands and all things that come from them Ñ they're bound to be strange and unsafe.
   
   Death is a frequent motif in this legend. The misidentified "dog" either kills another family pet, is found to be dying from some very unpleasant disease, or ends up drowning in the toilet.—David Emery, About.com

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   Cactus
   
   My brother's neighbor in Tuscon bought a large cactus from a nursery. When she go it home, she noticed something odd. The cactus appeared to be breathing. She called the nursery and said, "I know this sounds crazy, but I think my cactus is breathing."
   
   The woman from the nursery told her to get out of the house, and that she (the nursery woman) was going to call the police. The police came into to the house and took the cactus and put it in a van. Just as they got it into the van, the cactus exploded and thousands of scorpions came out!
   
   
   
   Version 2
   
   My friend's mother told me this story about her cousin.Her cousin was either given a cactus or bought one—I don't know. At any rate, she took it home and gave it a place of honor in the dining room. (Or sun room or living room...)
   
   She soon noticed an interesting phenomenon--the cactus appeared to be "breathing." In-out, in-out, ever so slightly moved the sides of the huge plant. At first she and her family thought nothing of it, but then I think it was her husband decided to check it out with the local nursery.
   
   A telephone call was placed and the "breathing" described. The nurseryman told the father to "GET THE CACTUS OUT OF THE HOUSE, GET IT OUT NOW!" The guy dropped the phone and raced to get the plant out into the yard.
   
   When he took it outside the cactus EXPLODED and hundreds (thousands, tens of thousands) of baby spiders erupted from the interior of the houseplant.

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   "The Spider in the Yucca," as this tale was known early on, first popped up in Scandinavia during the 1970s. The southwestern decor fad breathed new life into the legend during the early 1990s, when it also became fashionable to peg Ikea stores as the source of the infested houseplants.--David Emery, About.com
   
   
   

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2. Create your own or print out an encoder ring to encode or decode the stories.
   
   

   Thing:14891 by cymon	Thing:18315 by cymon	Thing:17582 by cymon

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3. Encode your own story by typing it in the box below. Choose a cipher to start, like C, and press the encode button:
   
   
   Enter the text to be encoded:
   
   Starting Cipher:
   
   
   Encode Ciphertext (this is where your code will be displayed or where you should paste encoded text):
   
   
   
   
   This cipher works like this:
   1. You pick a cipher for your message.
      
      

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   2. You perform the normal Caesar cipher on the first character in your message.
      
      

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   3. Now the encoded character acts as the next cipher. Shift the next character by the amount corresponding to the last plaintext character's place in the cipher. So if C or 2 is your cipher and a game is your message a becomes c. c's place in the alphabet now becomes the cipher for letter g, which becomes a i. I's place becomes the cipher for a, the third letter in the message, shifting the letter by 8.
      
      The statistical information about letter frequency is now very well hidden.

      a		g	a	m	e
      c		i	i	u	y

   
   
   

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4. Give your encoded story to a classmate without the key.
   
   

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5. Give another copy of your story to a classmate with the key.

Standards