While I have no doubt that TFA describes a fine public service built by those of the highest integrity, I must confess that my first thought was quite the opposite, given recent history.

Or, even,
populous != populace

I don't want to think about it.

A little-known example of negative differential resistance is the common electric arc. In an arc, as the current increases the arc gets "fatter" (wider), and so the voltage across the arc decreases. Increasing current with decreasing voltage is negative differential resistance. This enables oscillations, which were first encountered as audio noise in electric arc lighting in the mid-1800s. These led to William Duddell's "Singing Arc", in which Duddell added a tuned circuit to the negative resistance, creating a stable audio tone. The next step was obvious; he wired a keyboard to the arc and made the first electronic music.

Danish physicist Valdemar Poulsen took Duddell's audio oscillator and, by placing the arc in a transverse magnetic field, and in a hydrogen atmosphere (and somehow not getting blown up in the process), moved the frequency of oscillation up into the low radio range, around 500 kHz or so. This was the arc radio transmitter. It differed from the more common spark transmitter in that the arc's output oscillation was continuous, while that of the spark transmitter was a damped (decaying) oscillation.

The arc transmitter caught the attention of Cyril Elwell, of Palo Alto, California, who arranged to obtain the rights to the arc from Poulsen, and started commercial production of it with his company, the Federal Telegraph Company. The arc transmitter became a big success in World War One, when transmitters as large as 1 MW (one million watts) output were installed by 1918.

Much as the Fairchild Semiconductor Company spawned several successful companies in Silicon Valley in the 1960s, Federal did so, too, 50 years earlier; refugees from Federal formed well-known companies like Magnavox and Litton Industries.

You got marmalade at a diner in St. Louis? As in, jam with fruit peel in it? That must be a first. Are you sure it wasn't just jam? While I'm sure it can be done, finding marmalade at a diner in the American Midwest is still quite a feat.

Don't worry about feeling bad for wasting food. It's a common sentiment among those visiting the US. After one spends enough time shopping in a Costco or other bulk food warehouse, the feeling passes.

Ted Williams would roll over in his freezer if he read this. At least, his head would. . . .

Let the record show that TFA correctly states "I-5". Somebody in Michigan needs to watch his typos.

Having a vaccine that must be injected intravenously (not just intramuscularly), five times, in order to be effective is an interesting scientific advance (as stated in TFA), but isn't what one would call a practical solution to the malaria problem in the underdeveloped world (also as stated in TFA). Also keep in mind that many other proposed vaccines have looked good initially, but failed to pass muster later on, and that this trial was very, very small:

It's a big stretch to go from six protected individuals to hundreds of millions, so I suggest that the champagne for the "End of Malaria" party not be put on ice just yet. While it is an interesting result, I think someone describing the status of the malaria vaccine as "nearing reality" isn't a very good judge of distance.

No cars that I know. The cars I know would speed up to tailgate the car in front of them, and then honk their horn in indignant aggression at the thought of someone trying to merge in front of them.

Supertasters, approximately a quarter of the world's population, have the ability to taste PROP and PTC, finding them incredibly bitter while the rest of the population cannot taste them at all. (Supertasters have other differences from non-supertasters, too, including a larger number of fungiform papillae on the surface of the tongue.)

Plants of the Brassica family, which includes broccoli (as well as cabbage, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts) contain a compound similar to PTC. People who like broccoli are living in a genetic world supertasters can only dream of; even the smell of the Brassica family is immediately repulsive to supertasters. This is believed due to the genotypes they carry of the TAS2R38 gene, which codes for a bitter taste receptor.

Frankly, I don't think Dr. Bjorkman's work will be done unless he gets the PTC-related compounds out of broccoli.

Yes, in the NTS the net is controlled by the net control station (NCS), but the actual message-passing is done on a side frequency, without the direct involvement of the NCS. In this way, the NCS does not have to handle all of the traffic handled by the network, so its workload is much less. The workload of message-passing is shared among the other stations in the network (principally by the regional net representatives, a task that can be rotated among stations in the network), and is performed largely in parallel to network control functions, which increases time efficiency.

By RTS/CTS I meant the code symbol(s) sent by those wishing to join the net. While in operation the NCS periodically sends open requests to join the network ("QNI"), then stands by for responses. Stations wishing to join the net then send a short signal (usually a single Morse character, often the first letter of their call sign suffix). The NCS then repeats the signal of the station it authorizes to transmit, and that station then begins its transmission.

This is akin to beacon transmissions in a modern wireless digital network, followed by a contention-access period (CAP); during the CAP the stations send their RTS signal (the single Morse character), and the NCS sends a CTS signal by repeating the character. The station authorized to transmit then does so.

SOS, as an emergency indicator, is a single symbol, not three separate letters -- di-di-di-dah-dah-dah-di-di-dit or, in your notation, 10101011101110111010101.

If you're interested in an amateur, as opposed to a commercial, version of a radiotelegraph network, have a look at the National Traffic System. This system, created in the 1940s, has many features that predate modern digital networks, including a Request To Send / Clear To Send (RTS/CTS) system, and separate logical channels for network control and data.

No, they're a form of digital communication; they use on-off keying (OOK).

The fact that something is imperfect or incomplete does not mean that it is not useful or valuable -- no machine is 100% efficient. A system with the Fifth Amendment is better than one without, for at least this reason.

One can either solve this problem, or avoid it. It's very difficult to come up with a scheme to ensure that judges (or jurors) will "properly" (whatever that means) evaluate the possibility that the defendant made a false confession. It's considered by most to be better to avoid the problem, by allowing the accused the opportunity to not say anything at all.