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I had the pleasure of meeting Joe at his brother Jack's birthday party back in 2001 (I worked with Jack for almost five years at IFAS while at school). Joe is a great guy, very friendly, and a great cook - he served a delicious bean soup with Piri Piri sauce at the party. Unfortunately, Jack passed away shortly after; I still miss him terribly.

Depending on what your current degree is in, you might want to follow it up with a degree in Computer Science with a heavy emphasis on Computer Security and Information. A while back, when I was applying to graduate schools, I found that there were very few universities, on the list that I had created, that specialized in Computer Security; albeit, I was more concerned with their EE/Computer Engineering than Computer Science.

With that said, I do know that there are a variety of courses available at places like Johns Hopkins University (http://www.cs.jhu.edu/academics_catalog_grad_cour ses.html), New York University (http://www.cs.nyu.edu/web/Academic/Graduate/cours es.html), George Washington University (http://cs.seas.gwu.edu/academics/graduate/courses /), Virginia Tech (http://www.cs.vt.edu/site_pages/courses/), and the University of Florida (http://www.cise.ufl.edu/student_services/grad/cou rses/) that might suit your needs. While computer forensics is useful for a variety of agencies and institutions, the fundamentals behind those methods are important, as it governs how new tools can be created. MIT (http://student.mit.edu/@5675354.9107/catalog/m6a. html) also has a very interesting course selection, and the techniques and research coming out of there are very top-notch. If I had the time, I'd attend more lectures there, as the content is very diverse and alluring, especially when a grade is not on the line.

It is possible to die from drinking too much water.

You Can Drink Too Much Water

Water intoxication is a problem not only among athletes. For instance, it has become one of the most common causes of serious heat illness in the Grand Canyon. Some people hiking the canyon drink large amounts of water and do not eat enough food to provide for electrolyte (salt, potassium) replacement and energy. Fears of dehydration has led to a mistaken belief that the safe thing to do is to drink as much and as often as possible. But even with drinking water, there can be too much of a good thing.

Well, if by "light bulb" you mean electric light, the phenomenom was well known in scientific circles back in 1820, as the folowing quote from "Oersted and the Discovery of Electromagnetism" at http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/fgregory/oersted.htm
shows:

"Since I expected the greatest effect from a discharge associated with incandescence, I inserted in the circuit a very fine platinum wire above the place where the needle was located."

In other words, a current through a thin wire made electric light.
Not very practical though, only known power source was galvanic batteries (Which quickly ran down), and needed expensive platinum wire to keep the filament from melting or burning up right away.

The obvious solution was to encase a cheaper filament in a vaccum (ie: bulb), but good vaccums were difficult to achieve, and good filaments were also a problem at the time. They needed to be cheap, very thin, mechanically strong, electrically conductive, (but not too much) and with stand high temprature, not an easy combo to come by.

After some twenty years of research, English physicist and electrician, Sir Joseph Wilson Swan successfully demonstrated a true incandescent bulb in 1878 (a year earlier than Edison) http://www.maxmon.com/1878ad.htm

Not that they were the only two working on it, just the first two to produce a practical version that got public attention. (As I recall, a German and a Canadian also demonstrated similar lights at about the same time, but I can't remember their names.) }:-P

I know that this is the trend in my state's public universities.

Here at FSU, I think the enforced policy goes into effect this fall, and I think something similar is happening at UF.

http://www.fsu.edu/~trustees/meeting/minutes/09-24 -04.html
http://www.circa.ufl.edu/computers/

At least UF makes some mention of consideration for this in financial aid.

I suspect the schools think they can save money buy not having to create/maintain the labs, even if more financial aid has to go out. And I'm sure they'll get some nice kickbacks for pushing something like Dell on the students.

...just not very well.

There are several different sites that report the numbers of birds killed by wind turbines in the US and around the world.

• http://web.syr.edu/~bpburtt/Birds/Aug08-04.htm
• http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-01-04-win dmills-usat_x.htm
• DOE.gov
• http://www.njaudubon.org/conservation/Opinions/07- 03.html

Disclaimer: I used to work for GE Energy, which makes wind turbines.

There have been thousands of shark attacks over the years. I propose that we install cameras and other surveillance equipment in your bathroom, to prevent more unnecessary carnage. If you actually mind having your privacy invaded, it's probably because you hate America and sympathize with the sharks. What are you hiding?

You're missing the latest history!

2002--Communism fails utterly at the North Pole due to the nature of the elves. Claus VII, flying clockwise around the earth making the Christmas rounds, collides with Anti-Claus, who was flying counterclockwise. A huge explosion and blinding flash of light occurs, leading scientists to believe that they annihilated each other.

2007--The North Pole becomes a democracy, run wholly by the elves. Christmas is no longer commercialized or exploited. Happiness is finally achieved throughout the kingdom.

2011--It is discovered that Claus VII did not die in the explosion, but merely made it appear so. From there he went to live in the Bahamas. He is later found, dead of a heart attack, in a jacuzzi with two and a half dozen nymphets.

--

Anyone know the origin of this? I found it on a few sites, but this one is the only one that mentions any form of credit (using the word lightly there).

The term wireless has been used for cellular & PCS systems since the first forms of mobile phones appeared in the late 1940s. The term wireless was used for early telegraph systems back in the late 1800s. Anything that employs a radio can justifiably call itself "wireless". In case you did not know, a mobile phone is simply a fancy radio. The term "wireless" is not particular to WiFi, although WiFi also uses that term (WiFi is just a radio, too). If anything, it might be more appropriate to say that 802.11 hijacked the term, not the other way around, although the truth is that both mobile phones and WiFi have equal justification to use the word wireless.

Here is a brief history that someone put together of wireless communications. Note that WiFi isn't even on the list (although that's certainly because the list is outdated).

You can get some good information on large crocs here:

Which is the largest species of crocodile?

According to this site Gomek is a saltie from Papua New Guinea, which made more sense to me. There are a couple species of crocodilian South America that get large, but not as consistently.

In fact...

The largest species of crocodile in the world is Crocodylus porosus, the saltwater or estuarine crocodile. In fact, this is the largest living reptile in the world, bar nil. Snake afficionados may argue that there are longer snakes, but none combine both length (over 6 metres) and body mass (over 1.5 tonnes) to reach such large overall sizes like the saltwater crocodile can.

Big Croc

Burt, in the photograph above, is a captive crocodile in Darwin, Australia. He's over 16 feet (4.9 m) long, which is close to the average maximum size for saltwater crocodiles.

Would you believe the largest saltwater crocodile ever reported was 10.1 m (33.1 feet)?

------

So in wrapping up... ooowww lets all tremble with fear at the might ancient crocodile. The croc's of today would eat him for breakfast!

Go you modern day crocs!!!

[Quote]Largest crocodile ever recorded? What about the big fish stories I mentioned earlier? Would you believe the largest saltwater crocodile ever reported was 10.1 m (33.1 feet)? This animal was apparently killed in the Bay of Bengal, and was so large only its head was recovered. A skull reportedly belonging to this animal was stored in the British Museum, but when it was measured later it was estimated to have come from a 15.7 ft (4.8 m) crocodile - less than half the claimed length. The skull of another claimed 29 ft (8.8 m) monster was also later determined to belong to a crocodile no larger than 16.2 ft (4.9 m). These are still big crocodiles, but typical of the exaggeration normally associated with large crocodiles. Still, some of these stories seem more credible. Saltwater crocodiles above 6 m (20.3 feet) were certainly much more common in Australia and SE Asia before extensive hunting for their skins in the 1940's, 50's and 60's wiped out the big crocodiles. Some old hunters claim to have shot animals over 8 m (26 feet) during this period (e.g. a 27 ft [8.1 m] saltwater crocodile from the Staaton River in Queensland in the early 1970's). But without reliable measurements, such records are lost to the past. These days, if you wish to convince anyone then please use a straight tape measure whilst sober from the tip of the upper jaw to the tip of the complete tail! So what is the largest crocodile ever recorded? In more recent times, there are very few reliable measurements of extremely large crocodiles, but they do exist. A skull from a saltwater crocodile from Orissa, India, was large enough to have come from a crocodile between 20 and 23 feet in length. Its true size remains a mystery. The two largest reliable records of complete animals are both from 20.3 ft (6.2 m) crocodiles: the first was shot in the Mary River in the Northern Territory of Australia in 1974 by poachers and measured by wildlife rangers; the second was killed in 1983 in the Fly River in Papua New Guinea. In this latter crocodile, it was actually the skin that was measured by zoologist Jerome Montague, and as skins are known to underestimate the size of the actual animal it's likely this crocodile was at least another 10 cm / 4 inches longer. This is my candidate for the largest crocodile ever recorded. Unfortunately, because of the time needed for wild crocodiles to reach this size, the low number of individuals which seem predisposed to reach such sizes, and problems of crocodiles conflicting with expanding human populations, it seems unlikely that we will see many of these giants again.[/quote] http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/herpetology/britto ncrocs/cbd-faq-q2.htm

Not only Tuna, but even this specific shark: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/Sal monShark/SalmonShark.html

Predators
        It is unlikely that any creature would prey on adult salmon sharks because of their size.

Thermoregulation
        As with all other members of the family Lamnidae (the mackerel sharks), the salmon shark is endothermic, meaning it is able to maintain a body temperature above the temperature of the surrounding water. This is unusual because most fish are ectotherms, having internal temperature that is nearly identical to the ambient water temperature.

        All lamnids have vascular counter-current heat exchangers (retia mirabilia) that allow them to retain the heat produced by the metabolism of these fast-swimming sharks. Salmon sharks have retes in the cranium near the eyes, in the locomotor muscles, and in the viscera. They also have vascular shunts that allow them to alter the route of blood flow, further regulating rates of heat gain and heat loss. A few other fast-swimming fish, like tunas, also have this homeothermic ability, so this is an instance of convergent evolution between lamnid sharks and tunas.

        Recent studies have shown that the salmon shark does indeed maintain an internal temperature well above ambient water temperature. In fact, the salmon shark probably has the greatest thermoregulatory ability of any shark, and internal body temperatures up to 60.1F (15.6C) greater than sea surface temperature have been recorded.

        This thermoregulatory ability allows salmon sharks to range vertically through the water column in search of prey and to extend their niche to boreal waters.

All the states listed are pretty socialist, compared to the US anyway. I wonder if France and Canada and so-forth have subsidised internet from the government.

Heavily.
http://bear.cba.ufl.edu/centers/purc/documents/WU- bbcankorjapfeb05v2.pdf
South Koreas subsidies are measured in the billions. In the US it is measured in the millions.

nice translation, no need to AC, imo.

a little googling would have yielded this:
http://www3.inspi.ufl.edu/space/program/abstracts/ 1146.pdf

text:

MOA: Magnetic Field Oscillating Amplified Thruster and
its Application for Nuclear Electric and Thermal Propulsion

Norbert Frischauf1), Manfred Hettmer2), Andreas Grassauer3), Tobias Bartusch4)
1)BAH - ESA/ESTEC
Raiffeisenstrasse 31-33/6/2, 2322 Zwölfaxing, Austria
Tel:+ 43 1 706 15 99, Fax:+ 43 1 706 15 99, Email: Norbert.Frischauf@cern.ch
2)Manfred Hettmer Datenverarbeitung
Palmgasse 10/7, A-1150 Wien, Austria
Tel:+ 43 676 540 20 69, Email: palm_net@magnet.at
3)Green Hills Biotechnology
Dr. Bohrgasse 9/3, A-1090 Wien, Austria
Email: a.grassauer@greenhillsbiotech.com
4)Rudolf-Diesel-Technikum Augsburg
Hainhoferstraße 2,D-86356 Neusäß, Germany
Email: leaffrog@gmx.de

Abstract - It was in 1942, when the later Nobel laureate Hannes Alfvén published a letter, stating,
that oscillating magnetic fields can accelerate ionised matter via magneto hydrodynamic
interactions in a wave like fashion. These waves were later called "Alfvén waves", in honour of
their discoverer. Although the evidence for Alfvén's hypothesis came already rather early with the
observation of certain plasma phenomena, such as being connected with high solar wind Wolf-
Rayet stars, more than 60 years had to pass by before a technical implementation of Alfvén waves
for propulsive purposes was proposed for the first time.
The name of the concept, utilising Alfvén waves to accelerate ionised matter for propulsive
purposes, is MOA - Magnetic field Oscillating Amplified thruster. Alfvén waves are generated by
making use of two coils, one being permanently powered and serving also as magnetic nozzle, the
other one being switched on and off in a cyclic way, deforming the field lines of the overall system.
It is this deformation that generates Alfvén waves, which are in the next step used to transport and
compress the propulsive medium, in theory leading to a propulsion system with a much higher
performance than any other electric propulsion system.
Based on computer simulations, which we conducted to get a first estimate on the performance of
the system, MOA is a highly flexible propulsion system, whose performance parameters might
easily be adapted, by changing the mass flow and/or the power level. As such the system is capable
to deliver a maximum specific impulse of 13116 s (12.87 mN) at a power level of 11.16 kW, using
Xe as propellant, but can also be attuned to provide a thrust of 236.5 mN (2411 s) at 6.15 kW of
power.
Although a dual-use system, space propulsion is expected to be the prime application for MOA. As
MOA works best in high-power mode and with ionised matter, utilisation concepts range from a
high-efficient Nuclear Electric Propulsion System, to an 'afterburner' for Nuclear Thermal
Propulsion Systems. This wide range of applications makes MOA a unique accessory for any
nuclear propulsion system to overcome specific concept drawbacks, allowing a full-fledged hybrid
nuclear propulsion system, with attune able thrust / specific impulse parameters, perfectly suited
for nearly all types of space missions.

I just got that from my school listerv. Yeah, it's definitely a sad one.

I have 7 invites to 30gigs.com. They can be found on my blog here: http://plaza.ufl.edu/prestia/B321242444/C171085616 8/E20051004123347/index.html. First ones to request them can have them. I'm not impressed with the service, but I might as well let other people give it a shot.

For real world examples look at November 1914 and what it led to in 1945.

Really? I didn't even know UF had a DARPA team. Well, that fills me with some serious school pride. :)

After searching UF's website, I found some more info about the UF team, Team CIMAR: http://cimar.mae.ufl.edu/grand_challenge/

Go Gators. :)

ObBTTF quote: "...the only power source capable of generating 1.21 gigowatts of electricity is a bolt of lightning."

Seriously though, there has been some research done about using lightning as an energy source... Namely, the University of Florida has built equipment that attracts lightning, and the results have been pretty impressive. That said, however, they are less than hopeful of using it as a reliable power source.

since C64 was dying, quantum got a deal with apple to create a consumer service (applelink) - which complemnted the corporate network service apple commissioned from GE.

this arrangement didnt work out, but it did later grow into apple's 3D/avatar-driven network platform - called eworld; which was so well designed that quantum kept it and turned in into aol (after teh appropriate amount of de-mac, dumbing-down).

which justified quantum killing its C64 network service, qlink.

check out the full quantum/apple/AOL timeline: http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall2000/

more details about the server side would be really interesting (lucious Tandem beasts, as i recall).

cheers:dlf

At my school (UF) students have been hired to chalk the sidewalks with DarkWatch's logo in order to promote interest in the game.

"Attack! Marketing kicked off a week-long guerilla-marketing campaign Monday for its new first-person shooter video game, Darkwatch."

I'm not sure how much interest some chalk on the sidewalk garnered for the game, but the subsequent article in our free student newspaper surely grabbed attention from the geek crowd

This sounds like gas absorption refrigeration. A good web page describing how it works can be found here . A little searching on the web shows that this has other potential uses as well, since all it needs is a heat source and gravity. I would think someone could build something like this but use solar energy as the heat source and thus have free A/C. There are no moving parts and it is a closed system, using a combination of water, ammonia and hydrogen.

Another site here describes using such a system to also generate electricity as well as cooling.

An excellent point. In addition, the atmosphere greatly limits what's observable by ground-based telescopes due to molecular and aerosol scattering, and molecular band absoption. For example, much of the UV spectrum is unobservable on the Earth thanks to atmospheric scattering and absorption by ozone. In addition, regions of the IR spectrum, where AO can be used, are absorbed by H2O. See here for more details.

IS BETTER AND MORE SECURE than

jdk-6_0-ea-bin-b49-linux-amd64-25_aug_2005.bin

;)

By + + + J.C. Pizarro + + + ATH OK.

UF posted an audio interview with one of the professors involved on the Audio section of its news site. You can also get it on their podcast.

UF posted an audio interview with one of the professors involved on the Audio section of its news site. You can also get it on their podcast.

UF posted an audio interview with one of the professors involved on the Audio section of its news site. You can also get it on their podcast.

Or at least, not any time soon.

One of the most feasible design for a solar car that I've seen was the TNE III, from Team New England. The folks who run Sunrayce (GM) specifically changed the rules after 1995, to make sure that the design, or anything resembling it, wasn't allowed again.

What was different about their design? They didn't keep the solar panels in a charging configuration while the vehicle was in motion. They would charge up, pack up the array, then race for the finish line. If they ran out of power, they'd have to stop, unpack the array, then sit and charge for a while.

Besides that their car was one of the only ones with trunk space (although, it was filled with the solar array), their design gave more space to the driver compartment. Provided it's used for simple commuting (office, home, charge, repeat), their design makes perfect sense.

Now ... why won't solar cars ever come into real use? They're not strong enough to pass crash safety tests. They draw at most 2kW. That results in major weight stripping -- they weigh at most 700lbs with a driver in them. They also reduce the cross section ... maybe 0.5 to 1 m^2 ... which means it has about the visibility of a motorcycle (worse, as they're so low to the ground).

Combined with a Suburban or a semi, whose driver isn't paying attention, and it's a death trap on wheels.

The only way that I see fully electric vehicles really coming into their own is in a controled environment where they're not mixing with larger vehicles. (planned cities, golf courses, etc.)

I'm personally for planned cities -- visit a town like Venice, and you'll see that it's perfectly possible to get around without owning a vehicle, so long as they're a little bit of public transit Think about how much cleaner New York could be if people couldn't bring vehicles in from outside, and there were only delivery vehicles, mass transit, and taxis.

I would actually expect alternative fuels, most likely oil, but not necessarily petroleum based, to be the most likely candidate for the next generation -- biodiesel, or byproducts from trash digestion or biomass recycling.

I'd say that the car companies realize that people are willing to pay a premium for more environmentally friendly cars (just like they used to be able to sell 'agressive' looking cars, more comfortable rides, 'luxury', or carrying capacity), but they have to weigh that against making sure it's reliable. They could go bankrupt from lemon laws if they don't make sure they're rock solid, and aren't hazardous to their passengers.

the pharmacists I know take their oath seriously. They have a moral obligation to (among other things) do no harm.

What oath is that? The Oath of a Pharmacist I found makes no mention of "do no harm" but does say "I will apply my knowledge, experience, and skills to the best of my ability to assure optimal drug therapy outcomes for the patient I serve." (Emaphasis added).

While trying to locate the origin of the pie in the window story, I came across this amusing anecdote.

About the oldest source I could find was A 1933 cartoon. Here is some evidence of the thief holding the pie.

I know that they have at least three running into Detroit.

The trick was that they replaced nine undereground power lines, that were already oil-cooled. Basically, the continuing cost for the LN2 is less than the pumps needed to circulate the oil.

The three new cables contain only 250 pounds of superconductor, yet they will be able to carry just as much current as the 18,000 pounds of copper in the nine cables they replace.

The trick is, you don't need to pump the LN2, as it just boils off, you just have to keep it 'topped off'. The cables are heavily insulated, so the boil off rate is actually low, as the cables don't produce any heat, whereas the copper lines did.

I remember reading that they actually made money on the replacement, as 18,000 pounds of copper is quite a chunck of change.

A source, the rest I'm working off of remembered articles that aren't easily found on the internet today.

I'll admit, it's going to be a while before they bother running a superconducting line to your neighborhood, but for the main trunks out of power stations, into cities, or other major distibution centers, it makes sense.

Deathstar disks was a problematic series. It was the DeskStar 75GXP, the 75GB disks from IBM. They was using 5 platters, instead of the normal 4, in the same height. This meant denser packed plates, which ment less space for heads. This crashed. But other disks from IBM was entirely fine.

Here is a page with more info on the DeathStars. And Yes, I've been using many IBM/Hitachi disks, and never had problems with the 4-platter versions. It was just that 5 platters was kinda exprimental...

Threads of deliberation at the records management forum http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html have a number of contributors interested, concerned or affected by it.

The records management forum at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html has a number of active contributors who write about it.

The ECE Department at UF had Dr. Scott Thompson, an Intel Fellow and former Director of 90nm Logic Technology at Intel, teach a class on semiconductor nanotechnology. This was a great class because Dr. Thompson didn't overburden the students with tedious homework but rather would assign projects to help us get a better understanding of the different nanotechnologies. He lectured about the future of these technologies and how soon we could be seeing such technologies. He went into great detail about MOSFETS, CNTFETS, spintronics, Single Electron Transistors, Resonant Tunneling Diodes, Quantum Cellular Automota, Molecular Electronics. I highly recommend anyone interested with new technologies to try out a class like this if its offered at your school.

This means, as many other posters are saying, that you have to create school environments where the children themselves value education.

A few ways to do this...

(1) Remove disruptive kids for the sake of the class, rather than forcing the class to endure disruption for the sake of the disrupter. http://bear.cba.ufl.edu/figlio/sue.pdf

(2) Stop holding kids back. Doing so means the slow and disruptive become the older and larger role models for the grade behind them. If a kid can't cut it in a regular school with kids his own age, that kid needs to be sent elsewhere.

(3) Don't tolerate racial stereotyping. The surest way to churn out dumb black kids is to teach them that black kids are dumb. (And no, that doesn't mean blowing smoke up their ass in an indulgent attempts to boost their self-esteem).

This makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense. Even Steve Ballmer agrees with it.

How does that contribute profit to MS?

Two words:

increased brainshare.

You might well have asked "Why do companies spend millions of dollars each year advertising their products - how does that contribute profit to them?"

According to Intel Fellow Scott Thompson, he says the next display technology will be carbon nanotube displays.

The consume less power, produce better lights and have much clearer displays because you have groups of CNTs together to produce one pixel.

Motorola released a Carbon nanotube display recently. Not sure how quickly the rest of the markey will follow.

I better post this now since there will probably never be another opportunity to post this and still be ON TOPIC!

My Master's thesis compared Simplex Method algorithms. I can almost remember the many nights I fell asleep (quickly) reading the research material.

what's wrong with calling a dolphin a fish?

And my quest for a link showed me a really delicious recipe for dolphin. Wow... that sounds really good.

The greatest hurdle faced by those of us seeking to extend Moore's Law to the pultem calidus (atomic limit) is the exothermic waste present in today's electronics. It's no secret that computers nowadays give off terrible amounts of heat -- excessive thermal generation is a sign that not only is there resistance to cooling, but there is resistance to electricity as well!

What baffles me is that while reversible computing is a concept that has been around for decades, it has all but disappeared from the modern CS cirriculum. Reversible computing holds the key to unlock both unparalleled levels of computing performance and complex nanotechnological machinery (i.e., any that does not solely rely on chemical or physical properties of tiny matter to get the job done). The concept is nearly above my head, let alone you folks, but I'll try to simplify it as much as possible.

In the 80s (and maybe before) computer scientists determined that virtually all exothermic waste is given off by erasing bits. Some even created a language, Janus, which demonstrates reversible computing principles. The concept is that if you create a chip and a lanuage that permit you both to advance in your program (normal behavior) but also reverse to any previous execution point, you only move bits around instead of erasing them.

One of the problems with reversible computing is that occasionally you get more bits than you have space for. At the time, they felt that each chip could be loaded with as many bits as you needed like an electronic abacus at the factory, and perhaps this is practical for nanotechnology, but development hit the wall until the concept of "garbage collection" emerged as a programming idiom.

There is a step before quantum computing, or perhaps it's the other foot stepping besides it, and it is reversible computing. Tomorrow's PC will look much like today's, but reversible computing in conjunction with garbage collection will shift extra overflow bits from your CPU to your peripherals and underflow bits from your peripherals to your CPU. It will be hybrid technology with unreversible computing, as any interface to hotswap peripherals would put a reversible computer at risk of a deficit of bits if disconnected at the wrong time, but it will function much as your computer of today. But cooler -- in more ways than one.

What does reversible logic mean for cryptography? Take a look at the quantum solutions, which rely on the fact that the act of observing changes the observed: a weak photon with a particular spin can only be picked up by one detector -- an eavesdropper will be instantly spotted because the message won't get through, the communication will be broken, and the eavesdropper won't have enough of the message to do anything. I argue that the parity of reversible computing offers the same solution: apply it to a network connection, and if an extra bit appears or disappears the message is undelivered but also undisclosed to a snoop.

If there's anybody out there working on reversible computing, I'd be interested in perusing your research. It seems like a lonely field but one with lots of potential if venture capital ever comes available for IT R&D in the industry again.

Google for something like "stubby legs bottom dwelling" to see plenty of examples of water dwelling critters with leg-like appendages. It's a very common adaptation, apparently useful both for locomotion and for hanging on tight, both excellent capabilities to have when you're living in shallow/moving water.

But for something more like extreme like going from water to land, I just don't get how the intermediate organisms are more successful

Water's-edge habitats (sorry, I'm not a biologist, I don't know the correct word) are subject to both seasonal variation and long-term climatic variation. Lots of critters have body parts and behavior that help them survive such variation. Walking Catfish, for example. Now, what if you're such a beast out on a stroll to the neighboring pond-that-hasn't-dried-up-yet, and you happen upon something good to eat? You just might survive when your non-strolling brethren perish.

A robot that makes shots :)

http://www.mil.ufl.edu/IMDL/papers/IMDL_Report_Fal l_03/chinault_aaron/shotbot.jpg

http://www.mil.ufl.edu/IMDL/papers/IMDLFall2003.ht ml

A robot that makes shots :)

http://www.mil.ufl.edu/IMDL/papers/IMDL_Report_Fal l_03/chinault_aaron/shotbot.jpg

http://www.mil.ufl.edu/IMDL/papers/IMDLFall2003.ht ml

I work for the University of Florida's Open Systems Group http://open-systems.ufl.edu/ which manages the email system used by 49,000 student + faculty among other services. AOL treats any mail from *.ufl.edu as spam simply because they receive so much mail from our domain, mainly due to numerous students forwarding their email to their AOL account. Our university and many others have been trying unsuccessfully to convince AOL to create a whitelist (or use SpamAssassin) for educational institutions and other legitimate sources but have been forced to discontinue email forwarding for students. This is a case of maladroit administrative policies so I would not use AOL as a basis for generalization.

Yeah. University of Florida.

First we took their President, then we took their football coach, next... we take their mathematicians!