FPGAs have been dynamically reprogrammable for years. You could load one with whatever special "hardware" custom instructions you wanted on the fly. Yes, custom logic is faster, but is inflexible.

I suggest you take a Geiger counter with you on your next trip to the crater before you go mucking about too much there.

Look at the search results for cambrioleurs aspirateur monoprix.

Absurd? You don't think you're owned or that you're a slave? Think again.

Yes, but cross breeding between for example, spider genes and potato genes is relatively new.

"Load an EntroPay card from a personal credit or debit card: 4.95%"

Almost 5% transaction fee to use your "virtual card"? Are you kidding? A person would have to be a fool to pay that kind of fee. Have any customers yet?

Citibank still has virtual credit card numbers (one time use for a single merchant with user selectable maximum charge and expiration date). You can generate using one of their websites, or (if you use Windows) you can run a small application that lets you generate them without visiting a web browser.

They're here now, although they are a little expensive.

It was a long, long time ago, but if I recall correctly Mars Polar Lander was a "Class C" project (meaning that QA requirements weren't very strict, and it didn't have to pass the much more stringent requirements like dual-fault tolerance, etc., that are enforced for class A and class B projects). The breadboard for the meteorology subsystem was a one hundred dollar 8031 CPU board purchased off the Internet from some company whose name I forget. The project couldn't even afford an In Circuit Emulator for the meteorology subsystem CPU. :-(

Since moving to Oregon from California, I was inundated with junk calls and even automated harassing messages from bill collectors trying to contact people I've never heard of (presumably previous owners of what is now my telephone number), until I discovered that the new set of wireless Panasonic landline telephones I recently purchased can themselves (as a function of the telephone itself using the caller's "caller ID") block telephone numbers from ringing my telephone without any special service from the telephone company except caller ID and rejection of calls that do not supply a caller ID.

When I block a number using that function of my telephone (and it can be ANY telephone number even if it is a charity or government caller which are normally exempt from "Do Not Call" regulations), the telephone itself silently answers, delivers a short verbal warning that their telephone number is blocked, and then hangs up. It quickly put a stop to all the recurring harassing calls I had been getting, but it does require that the telephone company reject callers that do not supply a caller ID.

We already did something very similar to this on the BAIL backup subsystem of the Cassini spacecraft many years ago, and it didn't require a "special" processor.

If you like the ADA programming language (Yuk!), then choose VHDL. If you prefer the C programming language, then choose Verilog.

If you think you're going to work all that into an introductory programming course, you're nuts. First teach them to use a programmable calculator. Then introduce them to the (Ugh!) BASIC computer language. That's probably about all the time you'll have, but if at all possible try to teach them the C language. That should serve as a good foundation to branch off into the other areas you mentioned for the more advanced courses.

If on the other hand, your job is to teach them to use computers instead of programming computers, by all means concentrate on applications - both native and web apps.