Presumably the reason to allow this is not to permit hams more freedom, but rather to persuade hams to purchase encryption units so that when the authorities ask them to provide communications they can do so in an encrypted way. Or, for the lobbyists, to make the ham radio service appear to have more utility in handling emergencies.

I can't think of any reason why encrypting ham communications would do anything to improve the hobby, but I can see why authorities might like to have access to another somewhat secure communications alternative. How secure could it be anyway, you still have to distribute the keys ?
The best this would do would be to make it slightly harder to listen to.

I'm a new ham, looking into installing an antenna in my back yard. I have kids.

The impedance at the center of a half wave dipole is low, say 70 ohms or so if it's the right length for the transmission, but at the ends it is really high. 100W (small beer for a ham operator) into 70 ohms is 80 volts or so in the middle of the antenna. At the end of the antenna the impedance is very high, say 4000 ohms, the same 100W is then 630 volts or so.

The impedance can be much more, the power can be much, much more, these are moderate numbers for RF that can be generated from a small radio. That's one of the reasons the antennas are hoisted into the trees, it's not just for propagation.

I think a ham operator can encrypt the control link to a spacecraft legally.

I only wanted windows, can I get a refund for the hardware ?

I too want a pager. Something where I can be on call but still go to the gym / swim and know I won't miss a call. I have a device that makes sure I don't wander far from my cell phone, but it doesn't work well. It needs to be cheap, waterproof, robust, flexible, reliable reception even when intermittently immersed, great battery life and very small. Bonus points if I can tell the time by it.

I have to say that I enjoy learning to write at least a basic application in lanuages that I will probably never use for production code; like erlang, forth etc. I find they help me think about things differently, in ways that I can sometimes apply to applications written in my go-to languages.

So a, presumably, leading scientist balked at doing some research work for, presumably, sound technical and professional reasons, but all it took was the prospect of winning $100 to persuade her otherwise.

This field needs to pay more!

so you mean to tell me that the telcos that spend millions, billions on spectrum licensing don't spot rogue basestations mooching on their frequency allocations ? Or were all of these in unlicensed spectrum ?

For various values of success, sure anyone can succeed. Teachers all seem to have graduate degrees out the wazoo, quite why they can't implement a solution to teach each kid whatever will get the best out of each them, at least at the elementary school or middle school level, is beyond me. Maximizing the progress each kid makes is their individual success.

I think they meant that there was no divinely appointed royalty. After all, half the guys writing and approving the thing kept slaves. Back in the day this was a rejection of what the established line on god's word was on the subject. A break away from the god botherers.

More of the usual right wing BS...

from: http://www.cbpp.org/files/esta...

Today, 99.86 percent of estates owe no estate tax at all, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC).4 Among the 3,780 estates that owe any tax, the “effective” tax rate — that is, the percentage of the estate’s value that is paid in taxes — is 16.6 percent, on average

...

Only the wealthiest estates in the country pay the tax because it is levied only on the portion of an estate’s value that exceeds a specified exemption level, currently $5.25 million per person (effectively $10.5 million per married couple).

it's an ingredient in diet coke

What's this search nonsense ? It has pre-computed solutions for a number of scenarios, why not just look up the scenario based on the detected failure directly.

Given that tape data storage refuses to die, I too have to wonder why there is not optical tape. Anyway, with this paper available, my 16kbyte ZX81 RAM pack is beginning to look dated, they could print it on a large postage stamp.

I always wanted the glass screen option, once the fighting starts I just raise the screen and enjoy the peace.