Of the approximately 600 members of Dreamboard, only 72 were charged, and twenty of them as John Does. According to the Twitched Indictment, Dreamboard gave advice to its members as to which encryption to use, but obviously the Feds aren't shouting from the rooftops about which security protocols they weren't able to break and/or circumvent...

One of my colleagues who lives up in the Boise Hills has been feeling a strong urge lately to live closer to the land and further off the grid, if only by buying a goat. I suggested that she start selling halal goat meat to the local Muslim population, such as it is. More seriously, I recommended the Foxfire anthologies --and much to my surprise, she'd never heard of them! There are twelve in the series now, so whether you want to churn your own butter or fix up some bear stew, that's the place to go. It came from the backwash of the '60s, but AFAIK it's still a good DIY resource.

If I was still living in earthquake country (Loma Prieta, 1989) I would still have a Sprint/Nextel phone with the latter's Direct Connect, which is half-duplex. Even if the infrastructure was totally shot, they'd still function directly as walkie-talkies.

I'm in no sense a survivalist, though. If the civil order collapsed I'd probably be standing in line with virtually everyone else. My 9mm Glock 17 wouldn't even come into play --I'm just a geek with a gun.

Still, it's a good idea to stock up one's larder, just in case.

It also depends on what you're in the market for. I had the opportunity to buy an Idaho for Obama laptop for $300 after the campaign, a serviceable
machine on which I had done much data entry, but I decided against lugging around the so-called fourth screen to coffee houses. (I'm glued
to the screen at home as it is!) But that was then and this is now; I've just ordered an HTC EVO now that every pimply-faced intern and many a
child has a 'droid, and for less than that amount after the rebate. My current cell phone is a utilitarian Motorola i580. It's five months out of Sprint/Nextel contract, my defunct 200 minutes per month service plan was grandfathered in (on average I use 80 minutes per month), and it's basically dial-up compared to any smart phone's cable modem. But then came Android, and for me the smart phone market had gelled; that was my tipping point. It's worth my while nowadays to be on-line whenever I please, given that such mobile access is now a commodity. When that wasn't the case, I was quite happy with my dial-up dumb cell phone. Too, I go a long time between upgrades, so my previous device always becomes Fred Flintstone's device anyway!

Yes, I know and appreciate all of this.

Quite so.

http://bahrainiblogger2011.iyobo.com/7Y6tcbdcxdE

Just in case you want to see a human brain vs. a .50, savvy?
       

I've been calling this "mediajihad," i.e. media struggle. It's been fascinating to watch.

I've been on-line in one forum or another since August of 1989 (think cold fusion). Modem hiss... FidoNet... BBSes... and StarFlight. Nowadays I edit Wikipedia, run a couple of Tor relays and plaster myself all over Facebook. Who knows what the 2020's shall bring?

Have fun tracking it down, but I once came across an anthology of contingency speeches which were never given: _The Ungiven Speeches_ by Learie John Fraser. General Eisenhower's in case D-Day failed... President Nixon's in case Apollo 13 didn't make it back... Fascinating what-ifs!

I was at home when my mother told me that the shuttle had blown up. I immediately asked "On the launch pad or in flight?" When she said in the air, I knew they were all dead. A sad day.

Or Getty Images partnering with Flickr. A small slice of the market shall always pay for really high-end, professional work, it's just that the slush pile has grown so large and accessible that the lower end of that slice has effectively vanished. Verily all God's children got bandwidth now, and new business models shall come into being, and nothing is new under the sun.

Some might consider the Trekker option closer to fine:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kencf0618/4719438855/

I've several palm-sized tattoos, all covered up. And mathemamatically, I'd go with phi.
     

Along those lines:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kencf0618/4719438819/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kencf0618/4722147757/

And the inevitable counter-example:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kencf0618/4722147783/

Yogi Berra lives!

Stalkface (as I now call it) has become such an integral social platform that it really does have us by the 'nads. I'm middle-aged, and Stalkface has enabled a certain level of ambient social chatter for me which ranges from elementary school deaf kid cohorts to contemporary friends, acquaintances and correspondents. Then again, I've been on-line in one forum or another since 1989, circa the cold fusion debacle, so I figure that getting screwed by the panopticon became the default long ago.

I attended Greendell Elementary in Palo Alto, California. Same set-up, same era --my Dad tells me
that this was the pilot program for computers in education. Anyone know anything more? In any case,
those ASR-33 Teletypes were so loud, even we deaf kids could hear them! The terminals were connected
to Stanford University, but all we got out of them was spelling and arithmetic.

I remember being intensely annoyed that the terminals would instantly spit out WRONG ANSWER --TRY AGAIN,
not even allowing you the dignity of completing your mistake, but I had my revenge. One rainy day they
weren't connecting via the acoustic modem. Each terminal had a PRESS TO START button. Knowing full well
what I was doing, I slowly but surely pressed mine down into the plastic chassis and physically broke the
switch.

"But it said 'Press to start!'" I haven't played the innocent as well since.

Epilogue: I gave my nephews an obsolete IBM ThinkPad last Christmas, figuring that it would get the ball rolling
even if they had to get software from eBay. And indeed they were so intrigued by it that their parents invested
in a modern laptop. They're nine and five --and I can't imagine how their sensibilities shall evolve as they grow
up and the technology itself continues to accelerate towards the Singularity. O brave new world...!