Relatively new cryptographic scheme that is designed to be easily implimented in Java, Pascal or C. It's specific advantages are speed and simplicity, ease of customisation, and applicability to datastreams.

Authors: Dianelos Georgoudis, Damian Leroux, Billy Simón Chaves, TecApro International S.A.




(For more info on the violin refer to its node)

frobnitz = F = frogging

frog alt. `phrog'

1. interj. Term of disgust (we seem to have a lot of them). 2. Used as a name for just about anything. See foo. 3. n. Of things, a crock. 4. n. Of people, somewhere in between a turkey and a toad. 5. `froggy': adj. Similar to bagbiting, but milder. "This froggy program is taking forever to run!"


An amphibian, about which more below.

Also, a derogatory term for a French person.1

In addition, a slight hoarseness in the throat caused by mucus on the vocal cords (as in "a frog in the throat").

As well, a small metal holder arrayed with sharp points, placed in the bottom of a vase to hold flower stems in place.

Finally, a recessed panel in the large face of a brick.

But back to the amphibious frog. The adults are tailless, neckless, and stout-bodied with long muscular hind legs for jumping and webbed feet for swimming. They have no ears, instead sporting exposed eardrums on the sides of their heads; they have big bulging eyes. They have lungs but don't use them much; when resting in dry places they mostly breathe through their mouth lining, and when in wet places absorb oxygen through their skins. They are carnivorous and have long sticky tongues which they shoot out to catch insects and worms; some large frogs eat snakes and small mammals. Frogs have voice boxes and each species has one or more characteristic calls. At least one type plays the banjo and sings.

Frogs are from the order Anura, which includes both frogs and toads. The difference is not clear-cut: colloquially frog is used to refer to those types that have smoother, moister skin and live in damp or semiaquatic habitats, while toad refers to those that are warty and drier-skinned and prefer more terrestrial environs. Toad also seems to be applied to those frogs that secrete poison from skin glands, though biologists generally use the term toad more strictly to refer only to members of the Bufonidae genus.

Frogs live in every continent except Antarctica. Most hibernate in underwater mud and lay thousands of eggs in the early spring; the eggs are contained in a gelatinous covering that causes them to float, and are fertilized externally after they are laid. What hatches is a tadpole, a small limbless tailed larva that metamorphizes into a wee frog by the end of the summer. Some species, though, lay eggs on land that hatch into tiny frogs, with no intermediate tadpole stage. It takes several years for frogs to grow to their full size.

There are dozens of frog families, including the "true frog" (Ranidae), which are common in North America and have the misfortune of being important laboratory animals; the small tree frog (Hylidae), which sport an adhesive disk on the tips of their toes to help them cling to their arboreal environment; and the booming-voiced bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana), the largest of the North American frogs (4-8"/10-20 cm long body with legs up to 10"/25 cm long) whose legs are extensively marketed in the States, so it's not only the French who eat this!

Amphibians seem particularly vulnerable to habitat destruction and pollutants, and frogs are no exception; they suffer, as the good Oolong put it, "outright death" as well as "strange and frankly alarming mutations", of which "extra limbs seem to be the most common." Biologists have been noticing population declines in frogs in the last few years which cause many to worry that precious ecosystems are being irrevocably destroyed.

1I wondered about the origin of this slur, and thought it have derive from the French delicacy, frog legs, at which many English-speakers look askance. But it turns out there are many other possibilities: the fleur de lis is thought to resemble a frog, and may actually once have represented a frog. The French during World War II were said to resemble frogs when fully camouflaged and in hiding. The early French king Clovis had a frog as his emblem. The French used to refer to Parisians disparagingly as "grenouilles" (frogs) because the city was swampy, and the term gradually expanded to refer to all French people. Queen Elizabeth I used to affectionately call her French ambassador lover "frog". Pushkin thought "Quoi? Quoi?" ("What? What?") sounded like a frog's croak. All plausible sounding to me.

A Frog (Free Rocket Over Ground) is also another one of those Soviet-era weapons systems that you find scattered throughout the developing world. It has currently come back to the headlines from its use against Coalition forces during the Second Gulf War. Countries fielding this rocket include Cuba, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, and Yemen.

The Frog-7 is the Scud's little brother, a short-range battlefield artillery rocket a little less than 7 meters long (roughly 21 feet) with a range of 70 kilometers (about 43.5 miles) and a payload of roughly 500 kilos (a little over 1,100 lbs.) It was first fielded in 1965, and is still used in Russia as a training weapon and for sale to aforementioned developing countries.It can carry a high explosive, nuclear, or chemical warhead.

It is a highly mobile system, mounted on an 8x8-wheel truck carrier/erector/launcher a little over 10 meters long. It can be prepared to launch from travel position in less than 10 minutes.

A character from the Super Nintendo RPG, Chrono Trigger. You find him in 600 AD. Frog uses Water magic, much like Marle, and possesses several healing spells. His Masamune (as well as his much less plot-specific sword, the Demon Hit) does twice its usual attack damage against magical enemies. In comparison to the other characters, he's probably the weakest as far as spells go, and is overshadowed as a fighter by Ayla and Crono. His ultimate spell, Frog Squash, increases in power the lower his HP is.

On to the spoilers...

Frog's real name is Glenn, and, once upon a time, he was squire to the dashing knight Sir Cyrus. Unfortunately, Cyrus was killed in battle by the evil sorcerer Magus, and Frog blamed himself for being unable to save his friend and liege. During the same battle, Magus turned Frog into an amphibian, adding insult to injury. Both the death of Cyrus and the humiliating transformation bestowed upon him by Magus left Glenn feeling lower than mud.

At first, Frog was treated like a freak when he returned to the court, but gradually he regained his sense of self worth, and played a large role in helping to unmask the evil monster who had secretly kidnapped the Queen. Later, he was revealed to be the legendary hero much whispered about throughout the kingdom, and wielded the Masamune against Magus in a battle that caused a rift in time.

Frog eventually made his peace with Cyrus during a side quest, and, depending on whether you decide to battle him in 12,000 BC or not, either revenged himself upon Magus, or showed the misunderstood wizard mercy. If you kill Magus, you can get the ending where Frog is restored to his true form, and Lucca will comment on how handsome he is.

End of the horrible, hideous spoilers

In the Japanese version, Frog's name, appropriately enough, was "Kaeru"*, which means "frog". Heh. Well, actually, it goes deeper than that, since "kaeru" can also be used as a verb meaning "to change" or "to return". His name was actually a pun. Frog was "changed" into a "frog" and sought "to return" to his old form. His given name, Glenn ("Guren" in the Japanese), was likely another pun, this time on the French "Grenouille", which also means "frog".

I can't imagine why they would pick French as the language to make a pun on Frog's real name...

Finally, here's a quick list of all the single techs Frog can perform in the game, plus their cost in magic points (MP) and their effect:

Slurp         1 MP   Heals one party member
Slurp Cut     2 MP   Hits one enemy with physical damage
Water         2 MP   Hits one enemy with water magic
Heal          2 MP   Heals all party members
Leap Slash    4 MP   Hits one enemy with physical damage
Water 2       8 MP   Hits all enemies with water magic 
Cure 2        5 MP   Heals one party member
Frog Squash  15 MP   Hits all enemies with physical damage

*Thank you to Hyena20 for your translation efforts

What do frogs see?

Frogs have quite a unique visual system, particularly compared to humans, monkeys, and other higher mammals. The root of the vast differences in the visual perception of the frog lies in its unique retinal ganglion cells.

Retinal ganglion cells receive input from the photoreceptor cells of the retina. They are the first real stage of coding visual information that goes beyond simple changes in response according to light intensity. The nature of the connections of photoreceptor cells to a retinal ganglion cell define what is coded. Lettvin (1959) studied the ganglion cells of the frog and identified four types of ganglion cell fairly unique to frog physiology. The properties of these cells provide an insight into what frogs see.

The first type of ganglion cell identified was termed a “sustained contrast detector”. These cells show no response to diffuse light across the cell’s receptive field1, but they have a vigorous response to a lighted edge passing through the receptive field. The response of these cells are sometimes dependant on the direction of the edge of light. Frogs were also found to have “moving edge detectors” which respond to moving edges, regardless of their level of illumination. These types of ganglion cells provide information about the nature of the frog’s environment, identifying the edges of objects and how they move to identify the boundaries of the objects present in the world.

Net dimming detectors” give a prolonged response to the extinction or reduction of a diffuse light stimulus. This has the advantage of potentially alerting the frog to the presence of a predator looming near it. These cells also have the property of responding to any moving stimulus regardless of size, shape, or contrast, and does so in proportion to the amount of dimming the stimulus produces when passing across the ganglion cell’s receptive field. This has clear advantages with respect to detecting possible predators and other imminent dangers.

The most intriguing type of frog ganglion cell is the “net convexity detector”. These cells have the curious property of being selectively responsive to a dark spot anywhere in the cell’s receptive field. This spot must be darker than the background light intensity, but can be of any size. These cells continue to respond for as long as the spot is present within the receptive field. There is an increased response when the spot moves, more so if the spot is moving jerkily rather than smoothly. If the frog is presented with an array of spots which would normally produce a response, these cells do not respond. However, if one of the spots moves relative to the others, the cells respond nearly normally. The benefit of these cells is clear. They are an efficient mechanism for the frog to use to detect flies and other potential food sources. It requires little cognitive analysis as the input is fairly direct, and since frogs have very minimal cognitive abilities, this rather automatic “fly-detection” system works well.

What is clear is that the frog receives visual input that is very different from the sort we humans receive. They would appear to not have any sort of “photographic” representation of the world from the retina as we have. They lack the right sort of retinal output. All the visual information a frog receives is directly relevant to its immediate survival needs. Our needs as humans are very different to that of a frog, and much greater. It is very unlikely that a frog will have the same sort of “mental picture” of the world that we have. They might not even have any such picture at all, and may just respond to visual stimuli in a fairly autonomous fashion.

1 – The receptive field is the area of photoreceptor cells that can effect the firing rate of the ganglion cells.

A frog is a simple device used as a backing for various pins, commonly refered to as "one of those thingies that go on the back of the pin." The principal purpose of a frog, thus, is twofold- to hold the emblem onto one's clothing, and also to prevent said individual from being impaled by a mere docorative item.

Frogs commonly come in four varieties, the names of which I don't know. Less common... and for good reason... is the silicon rubber frog. The simplest type, it is merely a piece of silicon rubber shaped like a frog. (Actually the shape is basically a small disk about 3/8 inch in diameter with some manner of semicircular protrusion from the non-flat side, which serves as a grip.) The silicon frog works by mere friction, and will not hold a button of much mass or against much force, and appears on the cheapest of pins.

More common, practical, and expensive is the metal frog, which can be open or closed on the back. An "open" frog allows the point of the pin to pass through. This makes it easiest to align it, and provides for a very secure grip; however, it leaves a possibility of some degree of personal injury from impalement or scratching, but allows the pin to remain sharper, helful for use on thick clothing.

Metal frogs are most common in the "closed" variety, in which the pin does not pass through the rear of the frog. This is clearly the safest type of frog, but is more likely to fall off than an open frog and may eventually dull your pins. Most metal frogs use a simple clamping mechanism consisting of two bits of spring metal, which press against the pin, extending beyond it so that it can be squeezed to release much like some types of hose clamp. These frogs are probably the most common, and can be purchased at most uniform stores for about $0.05 each.

Premium metal frogs, commonly found on expensive jewelry bits, may use a screw or spring mechanism to adhere. These frogs are heavier and have a machined appearance, matched by greater cost- but pose the least risk of either impalement or detachment.

Sadly, most quality frogs will only work properly with certain types of pin; as such, I cannot purchase premium frogs for my ribbon bar or nametag.

Frog (?), n. [AS. froggu, frocga a frog (in sensel); akin to D. vorsch, OHG. frosk, G. frosch, Icel. froskr, fraukr, Sw. & Dan. fro.]


⇒ The edible frog of Europe (Rana esculenta) is extensively used as food; the American bullfrog (R. Catesbiana) is remarkable for its great size and loud voice.

2. [Perh. akin to E. fork, cf. frush frog of a horse.] Anat.


3. Railroads





The loop of the scabbard of a bayonet or sword.

Cross frog Railroads, a frog adapted for tracks that cross at right angles. -- Frog cheese, a popular name for a large puffball. -- Frog eater, one who eats frogs; -- a term of contempt applied to a Frenchman by the vulgar class of English. -- Frog fly. Zool. See Frog hopper. -- Frog hopper Zool., a small, leaping, hemipterous insect living on plants. The larvae are inclosed are frothy liquid called cuckoo spit or frog spit. -- Frog lily Bot., the yellow water lily (Nuphar). -- Frog spit Zool., the frothy exudation of the frog hopper; -- called also frog spittle. See Cuckoo spit, under Cuckoo.


© Webster 1913.

Frog (?), v. t.



© Webster 1913.

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