Random Doctor

I was recently asked to talk about my project at work to a bunch of guys who were going to use it. During part of this presentation, I mentioned that we can use a temporary unique identifier to identify something. I suggested using a UUID. Only one of the audience, a certain Dr from a certain national body of higher education, asked me for an example of UUIDs. So, I told him that they are random numbers, usually 128-bits in length.

Then, he asked me for an example of a 128-bit random number…

I think that I must have given him ‘the look’ as another member of the audience, a certain contractor who works with us, stepped in and mentioned that they need not use UUIDs but can use anything they want including any sort of random number. I looked at him, smiled and said that he was correct.

Seriously, this certain Dr has been giving me a lot of doubts about his credentials recently. However, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt as I did not know his background. He could be a PhD in English Literature for all I know. Even if he was a PhD in IT, it could still be something random like e-commerce instead of something technical like security.

As a result, I decided to check him out using my dear friend, Google. Turns out that he was doing a PhD in computer graphics and such, more than a decade ago. So, this person should have easily understood the meaning of a 128-bit random number and not ask me for examples of what UUIDs are.

So, it makes me wonder what this person is trying to do. He asked me not to be so negative the other day and I corrected him. I am not the one who is negative. I am absolutely positive even if I may be on a short fuse. He can ask me to relax a bit and not so stressed up but I am most certainly not negative.

I guess that he is not an English major after all.