I can't comment on whether NetworkManager stores Wi-Fi passwords in plain text, but I do have some very painful experience with NM in RHEL 6 and I strongly, strongly encourage everyone to avoid using NM. It's buggy and works very, very poorly.

Bob Park, PhD. in physics and former head of the American Physical Society, famously wrote that it's so expensive to go to LEO and return that if LEO was full of 24-carat gold chunks, you'd lose money trying to retrieve it.

What are you going to bring back from the moon and turn a profit with it?

Luckily, the guys at NASA are into that kind of thing....

No, the guys (and gals) at NASA were into that kind of thing. No longer. NASA, sadly, can't even put someone into LEO, much less land them on the moon and return them safely to earth.

"Five Million Years to Earth" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062168/?ref_=nv_sr_1.

enlighten me please

Internet access is pretty cool, irrespective of the delivery method, but get back to me on how well that works without power (storms or other disasters). If you have a ham license and a battery-backed transceiver, you can communicate easily over long distances. Because of its narrow bandwidth, CW works very well.

During a recent contest, a ham in the northeast U.S. communicated with Wake Island using CW and four watts of power. Pretty impressive.

Not everyone foams at the mouth over the latest toys.

Let's don't rush to judgement there, zippy. I take a daily multivitamin plus a vitamin A capsule (8000 IU) plus beta carotene (25,000 IU). I didn't need reading glasses until I hit 52. I don't generally use reading glasses while doing computer work.

YMMV, of course, and you can't overdo fat-soluble vitamins without serious consequences, but don't suggest multivitamins are of no use. If I cut out all of the above, my vision begins to worsen in a week or less.

Some years ago a friend of a friend was showing off his big, new, expensive car (I think a 700-series BMW). It had a joystick (or some such pointing device on the console) to control stuff on the display screen above the console. I've often wondered whether he has killed himself or others with his inattention to driving.

Come on, folks, be responsible adults and play with your toys anywhere but on the road.

... so I reach for the remote and turn off the sound. Which means I don't hear the ad, which is probably not the intention.

I see commercials as a challenge: can I hit the mute button before the first syllable of the commercial emerges? I win a lot! :)

... do you people just suffer through it, or are these advertisers more stupid that I thought?

In advertising, there is a constant and continuing race to the bottom. Not being a Millennial, I really hate many ads aimed squarely at Millennials, especially the auto ads. I get the impression advertisers must think they can convince Millennials to buy anything if they throw in enough music, squirrelly looking people, and scene changes that occur at two second intervals.

She handed out nanoseconds at the end.

I was fortunate to hear her speak on two occasions in the 70s. Packed up with all my XDS/SDS stuff is a pair of Grace's nanoseconds.

obligatory XKCD

Interesting timing of this posting. Last night I told two millennials in my wife's family that "Scotty" (James Doohan) lost a finger to a bullet just after D-Day (URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Doohan). I thought everyone knew this, but neither of them had heard this tidbit before.

Sure, no problem. Try Linux.

AC says, "By the way there Red, it ain't 1913 anymore."

Sorry, AC, Red has a point. When I got my EE degree, I used a slide rule. Calculators were just coming out and I couldn't afford even the cheapest model. Not everyone is born rich.

When I learned to fly, I immediately felt comfortable with an E6B (a circular slide rule used for navigation). Never turn up your nose at knowledge; you'll never know when you'll find it useful later.

Thanks, Red.

when one of these things slams into a residential area.

With the NSA now wanting to spill the beans, it feels as if I've stepped into some kind of bizarre universe, devoid of logic and reasoning, and perhaps based on Idiocracy.

Who will end the secret courts, massive spying, and all the other unConstitutional overreaching that is occurring?

Unfortunately, by opening the clam which scientists refer to as 'Ming,' they killed it instantly.

I see parallels with obamacare.