You mean, like the Enigma machine? Remarkably simple code... breakable with sufficient processing, or with improper use of the protocols, it's true. However, for all intents and purposes it required a highly-specialized bank of mechanical computers to break the code, and it generally took quite a while if the encryption was being used properly.

This is supposed to be an improvement?

First, we need serious candidates to run... otherwise, we'll just be voting in similarly problematic candidates.

Wrong breakthrough, I'm sorry to say. That one was an analysis of a protein that all retroviruses (including HIV) have - this one is an actual (albeit in vitro) treatment method. This paper is in a completely different direction, and arguably one step further along its path... and no, FoldIt was not involved in this particular breakthrough. Both are cool, but not the same work.

Yes, yes, yes! I almost wish they'd make this part of contract law... it would eliminate a LOT of problems in negotiation.

IANAL, but I don't get it. On a brief reading of the claims, and contrasting them with what I know of how BitTorrent works, I can't see how BitTorrent violates any of the Claims. Specifically, all of their claims include Claim 1, which is as follows:

Claim 1: A media distribution system, comprising:
a media file database configured to store media files, wherein one or more of the media files have been compressed prior to storage in the media file database;
a computing device configured to receive user requests for delivery of the one or more of the media files stores in the media file database, the computing device further configured to: (identify average network throughput between computing device and the requesting users; and route the user requests for delivery of the requested one or more media files to a distribution server capable of servicing the user requests based upon at least the average network throughput;) and
a distribution server coupled to the media file database, the distribution server configured to simultaneously deliver a single copy of the requested one or more of the media files identified in the routed user requests to the requesting users in less-than-real-time, wherein the distribution server automatically adjusts delivery of the requested one or more media files to the requesting users based on current average network throughput between the distribution server and the requesting users.

That isn't quite BitTorrent. Specifically, I don't think BitTorrent shapes its routing from the server-side based on "average network throughput between computing device and the requesting users". Nor is the system attached to a database configured to store media files - at least, I hope filesystems in general don't count.

Out of curiosity, how much did that cost you? A ballpark estimate of startup cost, I mean - the lessons to get your license, and the airplane components. Ongoing costs would be interesting too, I confess, but that's more easily researched.

Beautiful trick. There's exactly one point where the problem is introduced, and it's one of the subtler ways you can go wrong with solving an equation algebraically... Hint: Consider the problem, step-by-step, in the complex plane. Every quadratic has either two solutions or is a perfect square. This one's not a perfect square. At one point, we turn it into a cubic - which necessarily has either three or two solutions. This one has three. Where'd the extra solution come from?

Bizarrely, I did - despite being born in 1987. Skiffle's not really my thing, either. But I took this class on the Beatles in college, and well, you can't AVOID skiffle, given how heavily it influenced them.

As for Connecticut Yankee - I can't second this one strongly enough. Sci-fi & fantasy, with some wonderful play with the story. It'd probably help if they knew at least a bit of the King Arthur myths first, though.