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was no need to invade and force your orgasm,

There's that problematic language again.

THE CONVERSION OF COMMANDER ROGERS

I'm sure you're joking.

But just in case you're not, read the terrifying account of Klebsiella planticola.

Had they just released it to see what would happen, we might all be starving to death right now.

'This organism has had to figure out everything on its own,' says Amend, 'it splits water into hydrogen and oxygen for metabolism.'

It's hard to believe that geochemist Dr. Amend said that about Desulforudis Audaxviator, since D. Audaxviator is completely intolerant of oxygen, and its sulfate reduction mechanism is right there in its name!

If anyone had bothered to follow the links in that discovery.com article, they would have found this useful article that quotes the original discoverers of Desulforudis Audaxviator: "Tullis Onstott classified the microbe under the genus Desulforudis for its ability to get energy from sulfate and its rod shape... Living deep underground for such a long time has also stripped D. audaxviator of the ability to use oxygen as an electron acceptor in its metabolic pathways, thus making it a strict anaerobe. Instead of oxygen, sulfate is used as an electron acceptor...These [2157] genes allow the microbe to live in almost all conditions except in the presence of oxygen." (my emphasis)

What about the "crank or circle-squarer" bit? He was afraid of getting put in a crank file. See this article for a fascinating discussion of mathematical cranks, among them angle trisectors and circle-squarers:

"Many mathematics departments do not bother with crank work, throwing it out or putting it in a file labeled 'nuts' or 'crackpots.'"

That he was at all afraid of that outcome implies his insecurity, regardless of his work in game theory (which is of course distinct from cryptography) or his own opinion of it. By the way, Nash hadn't won any major awards by 1955 (as far as I can tell). His Nobel came in the 90's, for instance. He used MIT math department stationary, probably for convenience and also as proof that he was at least somewhat respectable. Conversely, he wasn't not respectable either; his mental problems didn't develop until around 1959. He was just afraid of getting ignored.

I just recently graduated with my BS in Electrical Engineering from Missouri University of Science & Technology (formerly University of Missouri - Rolla, UMR) in Rolla, MO. This isn't a huge change, although I never really understood it in the first place. I could understand lab fees and the added expenses for physical equipment and upkeep (although the rates were ridiculous), but we had to pay an "Engineering Supplemental Fee" for each Engineering course. So my 3 hour lecture for Circuits cost $986.4 instead of the expected $784.80; add to it the IT Use fee and Student Activity Fee (see below) the cost goes up to: $1123.38 [note: the student activity fee costs cap at 10 hours]... all for ONE lecture in a single semester. Current costs: Cost/credit hour: $261.60 Engineering Supplemental Fee/Engineering Credit hour: $67.20 IT Use Fee/credit hour: $13 Student Activity Fee/hour: $32.66 Total Cost/credit hour of engineering course: $374.64 for 3 hour lecture (not including associated lab): $1123.38 Source: http://enrollment.mst.edu/documents/Cost_of_Education.pdf The largest crock was the student activity fee. This was lobbied for and set by a council of students, so it could be said that the fault lies on the students, but this cost kept growing. It paid for student design teams (legitimate) and other extracurriculars. Ones I had problems with: Ethnic/Racial Associations (Black Man's Think Tank, India Association, Chinese Students Program, etc): Not that I am racist in the least, but its unfair to expect all students to pay for events and clubs that are racially, religiously, or ethnically biased on membership. Nonvarsity Sports: Clubs like Trap & Skeet, Paintball, and Rugby would require members pay a nominally semesterly or yearly fee (on the range of $15-30) but would have budgets in the thousands to pay for hobbies, IE Ammunition and Sporting Clays, Paintballs, CO2, Rugby jerseys (new one each year/person, each one costing upwards of $100 each).

The bacteria in the Dead Sea are particularily interesting extremophiles, Haloarcula sp. is just an example. As a biochemist, I definitely view that as a resource worth preserving. Who knows what we can learn of such extremely adapted metabolisms?

It has a cab.

So do world speed record bicycles: http://experiencethis.mst.edu/2008/04/

With respect, while I'm sure both of those places had wonderful engineering programs, they weren't colleges dedicated towards engineering.

When I said it was an engineering college, I really meant it. That, I assume, was the major contributing factor to the attitude.

What always amused me was how many people I saw trying to get a liberal arts degree there. It wasn't that liberal arts wasn't worth it, but UMR (as it was named while I was there) had a minimum number of engineering courses you had to take to enroll, and often enough the 'liberal arts' offerings were sparse enough that between the required courses and attempting to "Tetris" your way to required number of credits in your major, you'd be stuck there for six to eight years. It was like these folk were masochists.

And as far as the simularities in jobs, yes. That's one of the reasons why I was so drawned towards EE. If you get right down to it, EE is where CS came from.

The ACM Chapter that I preside over at Missouri S&T (Formerly the University of Missouri - Rolla) has been writing simple RTS games with AI APIs for the last two semesters. We're currently working on a third game to add to our repertoire. We host a tournament at the end of each semester and invite anyone that will come - the main site is at http://acm.mst.edu/~mstai. The API is easy enough to get a handle on that a C++ novice could pick it up and do something with it within a few hours. Competitors are given 24 hours to write their AI, then we pit them against each other. Generally speaking, for the RTS style games we have written, AIs that act on an individual unit level only perform the best (both in execution time and scoring). This is probably due to the 24 hour time limit imposed, but it does show that even simple/greedy algorithms can perform well in game AI situations. I believe the winning team of our first tournament had an algorithm that went like this: for each unit: doBestActionForUnit(unit)

Taken from https://itweb.mst.edu/~p2preq (I am a student at S&T)

Question 1 The copyright holder can still sue after filing a DMCA violation notice.
        True
        False
Question 2 What can be protected by copyright?
        Creative works in tangible form
        Ideas
        None of these
        Facts
        All of these
Question 3 Do you disagree with the Acceptable Usage Policy
        No
        Yes
Question 4 No files shared on Peer-to-Peer networks are actually viruses
        True
        False
Question 5 The Digital Millenium Copyright Act was created in order to:
        All of these
        Extend copyright law in order to keep up with technology
        Make it illegal for people to share information on the Internet
        Make Peer-to-Peer file sharing networks illegal
Question 6 Do you intend to infringe copyright?
        No
        Yes

Here's the guy responsible for this:
  From: http://web.mst.edu/~kfl/
  Karl F. Lutzen, CISSP
  Office: CS 334
  Office Hours: Monday through Friday by appointment.
  Email address: kfl@umr.edu
  Phone: 573-341-6398

Where you got your degree may not matter much on the resume, but it can make a big difference in finding job opportunities, at least early on. Major companies recruit at the schools with large and good programs, and it's much easier to get an internship during school or a permanent job once out if you're in a place where a lot of people are looking to hire.

I'm an engineer, not a CS guy, but CS is the largest non-engineering department (3rd overall I think, behind ME and EE) at the university I graduated from (Missouri S&T in Rolla, MO). The career fairs they have every semester regularly draw over 200 employers, nearly all of whom are looking for engineering and CS majors, and the career center on campus is very effective. The placement rate within a few months of graduation is consistently between 95 and 100%.

The key factor there isn't just that people doing the hiring recognize the name of the school (though I'm sure it helps in some cases), but more importantly that you have the opportunity to make contact with the people who might hire you.