Judea Perl, a UCLA professor, devised an algorithm called Beleif Propagation which is the basis of the powerful error-control decoding algorithms that go into the chips that I design. I found a mention of this algorithm on a blog called Due Diligence, which discusses the application of belief propagation to email spam filters. The blog author mentioned that Judea Perl is the father of Daniel Perl, and that Daniel Perl copy edited the book which introduced belief propagation. I've often fallen into a perception that science and academia are ivory tower disciplines, far removed from the shaky events of the real world. Obviously that isn't true. But it is somehow more surprising and unnerving when the theater of terrorism encroaches on my academic reading than when I just see it on CNN. It's as though they cheated, somehow bypassed the TV and barged directly into real life.