If they use a flash drive with a (properly-implemented) hardware write protect switch, it might only allow one-way transfer, so this is still potentially useful as the return channel.

You do not necessarily need a more efficient CPU to block this. Less efficient would also do—just make every operation consume as much power as the worst.

date '+%-m.%d%y%-H%M%S'

Logically would be 2015/3/14. Or rather, that is big endian & the other way little endian. I suppose 3/14/2015 is, then, American endian...

People have done this on TI calculators (& likely other systems with similarly little shielding & sufficient clock rates). No hardware support needed—just cause some long enough trace (e.g. on the data bus) to oscillate at the correct frequency. Granted, a 6 MHz Z80 can pretty much only only do AM radio (& can only be picked up right next to the radio), but the principle is not new.

You could use reversible computing to crack (classical computing-based) encryption, so it would only take however much energy you need to keep the system shielded from the environment. The only potentially-unknown bits that need to be erased are those used for error correction.

& of course, the line installation people would have been towing the party line.

I once got a rather disconcerting shock (painful tingling) from a single 9V battery while attempting to disconnect it from a circuit. I must have had something conductive on my hands. It was similar to the feeling of accidentally touching both prongs of a partially-inserted 120V plug. On the other hand, I got a much worse shock from a plastic slide...it was so bad that I fell down the slide & could not move for a bit afterward. (I did go out of my way to poke a wet stick into a crack & reach the metal pipe holding it up, though.)

I actually have seen anti-GMO posts mention genetically modified sugar.

A superconductor could be used as a superinductor, & some are—form it into a loop, put electricity in, & it keeps going around indefinitely (or as long as you maintain the superconducting state, anyway).

Stephen Omohundro's The Basic AI drives (abstract & link to paper itself) outlines what we could expect an AI to do if we give it any goal at all.

I read it as "present self-signed HTTPS connections to the user like plain HTTP is now," rather than "reconnect via HTTP instead."

02111 02102 02220 01012 02201 10010 01012 02112 02221 01012 10010 10001 02201 02220 02102 10001 10022 02100

I was not aware cats were ever allowed to bear arms in the first place.

Oh, no! Daleks are even worse!