Actually, they still sell logic chips and miscellaneous electronic components, albeit fairly well-hidden in the back of the store. I had a last minute idea for a project for a summer camp group I was leading last week and was able to pick up all the components I needed from RadioShack. Admittedly, the selection isn't what it used to be, but it's still there when you have a sudden pressing need for resistors, LEDs, transistors and capacitors....

Who knows what this "rebranding" will do for that section of the store....

This is not a new idea. Actually, this idea has been thought about before and dismissed. The researchers referenced propose using millisecond radio pulsars for navigation. This is a poor idea from an engineering standpoint because it requires having a large collecting area of radio dishes in order to get an apporpriate signal level.

A better idea, which is currently being researched, and was suggested four years ago (at least the earliest I recall it being mentioned) was using x-ray pulsars, which require much smaller collecting area. See for example this thesis on the subject.

LaTeX is certainly the standard in physics and astronomy. Of course your point about Unix workstations is correct, as most physics, CS-types, and astronomers use Unix/Linux all the time.

Most of what you say I agree with. I do realize that lots of the information is available offline (I can think of two sources which it could easily have come from). The fact that the GOP (and/or henchman) is searching either of those sources is what bothers me.

What I am somewhat concerned about is that you state that this business information could be used to look up my SSN. Most universities have similar information posted for all graduate students, researchers, and professors. Is it true that anyone could then lookup SSNs, or only someone who is in a position of trust (in your case, managing pensions). A quick search online showed sources whereby it might be possible, but they required additional documentation to prove the looker-upper had the right to access that information.

Sorry, but that is not true. Radio astronomy needs improvement in a wide variety of areas in order to tackle the tremendously wide variety of science that is done at radio bands. Examples include sensitivity, field-of-view, dynamic range, image fidelity, resolution, and wavelength coverage. But sensitivity is one of the most important. That is why the SKA is on the table to be the world's next generation decameter/centimeter wave radio telescope. The most important thing it provides is sensitivity (i.e. SK = square km = sensitivity). And Arecibo is already a 5-10% SKA.

For my own research (pulsars), Arecibo's sensitivity is what sets it apart. Although, truthfully, the fact that it can't observe any of the southern sky (where most of the pulsars are) is a definite downside.

Finally, you mention surveys and imply that because Arecibo is doing a larger percent of them now that that means it is washed up. However, that also isn't true. Modern astronomy is driven by large surveys (including several of the instruments that you mention, for example, Sloan, PANSTARRS, LSST) as they dramatically increase our discovery space.