You may misunderstand the EAS. While the EAS (and the old EBS) have a theoretical role in national defense, the few times I've actually seen it activated have never involved a security issue. In fact, this test is the first time EVER that the EAS has been used nationally -- though I've heard stories of national EBS (the predecessor) activations decades ago. The few times I've seen EAS activated it has been on a local level to announce extremely unusual severe weather events that pose an imminent threat to life -- hurricanes and tornadoes. It's an easy method to reach a large number of people in a very short period of time.

Time Warner analog broadcast the alert about a minute after it completed on our local NPR affiliates. For about 5 seconds before the alert the TV displayed a Linux command prompt at login. I used to see this screen appear late at night occasionally when using the set top box on the other TV. The set top box would display "EAS" instead of a channel number and a login screen would be displayed for a couple minutes. There was some sort of identifiable brand name on the login screen and at one time I looked it up on google. Sure enough, it's a company that sells computer hardware and software for interfacing with EAS -- apparently linux based. Just kind of interesting.

Why do you feel the need to qualify this? Is technically true somehow less than just true?

Yes, as I explained above, the Social Security trust fund has been lent to pay for other underfunded programs. People who say there is a problem with Social Security funding have it all wrong. The problems is with all of the other underfunded programs -- not with Social Security. It's misdirection.

This is so wrong! You have bought into the shell game and misdirection that so many politicians have been leading. The Social Security trust fund holds over $2.5 trillion. Most of this has been lent to other under funded government projects. That's the problem. We don't want to pay back the the money we borrowed from the Social Security system and instead say the system is broken. It isn't. The systems is fully self funded. We've just been treating the huge Social Security surpluses as a giant piggy bank for so long that we find it easier to say Social Security is broken than pay back the money we stole!

Just stick with ME. Instead of spreading yourself thin with a double major, take advantage of other opportunities to gain experience in your field. Take part in club or engineering competitions. Find a professor who does interesting engineering research and get a position in his or her lab. There is WAY more to school than just classes and most students don't take advantage of all there is to do. These activities outside your class will get you face to face with people who will serve as future career contacts. If you really want more education, wait for grad school.

Close! A number of friends worked at MS but I was an AT&T guy when I was in Washington.

As a former Washingtonian, I too used to avoid Amazon in favor of Newegg if possible.

Yeah but Californians are all one offs. 270 million Americans don't live in California.

This is why Best Buy needs to change their name to Test Buy. Everyone knows that you go to Test Buy to test the model out before buying it from Newegg.

Oh, you left out the super secret part that makes the whole thing work! The current limiting resistor!

That's what those are for? Nasty!

Your point is well taken that the general technology is pretty old (even gps is quite aged) LORAN has an error measured in hundreds of meters -- not an inch.

In defense, this might be the first time a ball point pen has been used with conductive ink. While I've used conductive ink on boards before, they have all been felt tip pens. What benefit does a ball point have over felt tip? I have no idea.

This whole bitcoin phenomenon is amazing to watch. It's quite unlikely that those who "steal" bitcoins will ever be "caught" or in any way be penalized for their actions. Also, I find it absolutely amazing that MtGox, as a trading platform, has unilaterally decided to roll back trades that have occurred since bc has lost virtually all of its value. I wonder how those who value bitcoins are going to react? Consider that trades, purchases, conversions, etc. are occurring outside the MtGox exchange as well. It's not like the entire bitcoin market can be rolled back -- only those trades which have occurred within MtGox. Maybe the market will fall once again and MtGox will roll back to try to prop it back up? Interesting indeed!

This is incorrect. These satellites are among the easiest birds to catch. If you have a VHF scanner and a computer with a sound card you almost have a complete downlink station for these birds. An "egg beater" receiving antenna can be constructed for literally a few dollars in a couple hours. APT decoding software is available at no cost. Just about the easiest downlink station there is.