andorov

And so they did:

https://stripe.com/blog/idempotency

Yes but this case requires Turing machines that produce very very large (BB large) outputs and then halt. Is that provable for a specific machine?

But no one could play because you can't create a Turing machine that provably halts, no?

What if the schools were required to underwrite the loans on behalf of each student? Incentives would be more in line.

They only need to survive long enough to swap genes with existing bacteria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer

It is useful in cases where you want to verify something is the same as a stored (encrypted) value - e.g. passwords.

One-way encryption where the entire process including the equivalent of salt/pepper is publicly available and not reversible might have some interesting applications.

Did they need it?

Heck, sometimes I'm amazed that when I turn on my computer it does anything at all with all the complexity going on inside it

From a similar experience I have found this to be true. Specifically:

  - one size fits all is very difficult to do.  most companies have a critical feature that is unique to them

  - the CEO is likely to view this kind of product as 'trivial', without really considering how much engineering effort it will take / they really need that custom feature.  so yes they build it themselves.

  - very small companies are not comfortable providing 3rd party access to their db

  - larger companies want more than this

  - the selling cost to companies tends to be high enough that going the low cost / high volume route is difficult, quickly driving you into consulting level prices / a more fully featured & tailored product

Perhaps a future where modern English has become archaic but still spoken only by computers to each other, because the upgrade is not cost effective

If you have a kindle you can send a pdf to your kindle email with the subject 'convert' -

http://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email