C, C++, C#, Java, Php, Python, Ruby, Go, D, Perl, etc., are all dead, most programmers just don't know it yet. They're dead because they cannot easily adapt to the new multi-core reality. Quad core machines are common place now. 16 core machines will be common within two years, with hundred core machines not far off. The only way to make good use of this power is with a language that has no deadlock cases and no critical sections. There are few languages that meet those requirements. There are even fewer that can continue operating despite bugs and can evolve without down-time. Erlang is the only language I know that meets all these future necessities. Coding in anything else means a short system lifespan.

IANAL but my reading of court cases found that internet traffic was not treated as on a "wire" like a phone. It was instead treated as a broadcast like a CB radio. The law therefore views internet traffic as being on "public channels" and therefore eavesdropping is perfectly legal. Employers, ISPs, government officials and Joe public can all legally eavesdrop on traffic. I'd love for someone to show I'm wrong though!

Vacuum is lighter than helium. We could always fill them with vacuum. America has rich natural reserves of that stuff.

People just love picturesque fanciful solutions to problems. They love the idea of pleasant Dutch-like windmills turning in the gentle breeze, or raising healthy green corn to make friendly ethanol, or shiny happy solar panels under a crystal blue sky. It makes them all warm and fuzzy. It's a smiley face on that frowny problem. If only it weren't for those the nasty science details: lunatic costs, minuscule power production, nasty secondary environmental consequences.

I love fantasy land but there's a reality to confront -- civilization's energy requirements grow exponentially. Hundreds of thousands of years ago we used kilowatts. A few thousand years go it was megawatts. Today we use terawatts. Energy requirements aren't going to go down, no matter what some treehuger tells you. Thirty years from now we need solutions that produce petawatts. So if you're going to solve the future energy problem, what sort of solution do you implement? Happy little windmills that produce one billionth of what you need, and do it unreliably?

There's only one solution I know to this problem, and that's Thorium reactors. It's the only solution that gives us petawatts in thirty years without miracles. It's the only solution that doesn't destroy the environment. It's the only solution that has plenty enough fuel to last us until we move to exawatts.

This situation doesn't make any sense given a few seconds consideration. Just tell them the passkey -- just not the correct one. When it doesn't decrypt the file say "Well it should... maybe you guys broke something." They can't prove you gave them the wrong passkey. If pressed say the obvious -- "Hey! Laptops are easy to break, maybe you guys were too rough with it, it's always been finicky, or maybe you guys screwed it up." What are they going to do now? How do they prove your memory of the passkey is faulty?