Look, you all, I'm *really sorry* I even brought up the subject of proofs of correctness! As I feared, any mention of certain loaded words immediately brings the quibblers out of their lairs to dissect the "real meaning" of one or more terms. I had thought that my carefully worded mention of the Boyer-Moore prover and that this means little for actual implementations would deter quibbling over the cosmic significance of "proof." (An interesting topic, by the way, as Ray's knowledgeable article makes clear. But metamathematics is an arcane subject and short articles are rarely persuasive...we debated the same stuff a couple of years ago on the Extropians list.) With 700 subscribers, quibbling is the usual state of affairs. No matter what is said, someone will quibble over terms or meanings. No wonder it is the major venal sin at West Point. The Boyer-Moorer theorem prover is an accepted ("Huh? Define what you mean by "accepted"! Not all of us accept that term.") term of art. If you disagree, or wish to raise the possibility that the computer glitched during the proof, there are entire newsgroups devoted to such arcania. On a more mundane note, my Internet Service Provider of the past 6 weeks just sent out an urgent notice tonight announcing that they are no longer "sensemedia.net" and have become "got.net" (as in "got net?" as in "got milk?). This means my 3 years as "tcmay@netcom.com" is followed by 6 weeks as "tcmay@sensemedia.net" and an as-yet-undetermined time as "tcmay@got.net" (at least until the "Got milk?" ad people get wind of this pun and tell them to change to something else. --Tim May Special note: My ISP has changed its domain name from "sensemedia.net" to "got.net" (as in "got milk?"), so I have to again ask you all to bear with me and use my new e-mail address, "tcmay@got.net". ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net (Got net?) | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-728-0152 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Corralitos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."