I was the guy who wrote this article. I have to say, I've had a few stories posted to Slashdot and it's always useful for feedback :) Just to clarify a few points though, in the picture, those little tin cans, Tumino actually did say they were telegraph keys. He had them on display next to an old antique one to show they're not hard to build. I guess the article was a bit babbly. It was written under a new column I started, basically just about people doing cool things with technology. I thought the ham radio guys were pretty cool, and I know that during the Arab Spring, when people were having their Internet shut down by governments, part of the care package released by Anonymous Operations taught people how to access the Internet over radio. So I thought this had some added relevance, since radio still does have some interesting uses when it comes to digital freedom, and you can do some pretty cool stuff with it. Also, sodium clouds do exist. They're pretty cool, actually: http://deep-red.sr.unh.edu/model/io/cloudescr.html

Thanks for taking the time for this. These are all interesting. In terms of drugs being grown in Afghanistan, in particular, I'm wondering now where the market has gone (if at all) with all the pressure on poppy farmers there.

Yes, I work for an independent newspaper. I pretty much have free reign over what I write (although I still need to pitch stories to an editor). Politically or corporately controversial isn't a problem. The basic rule is that the reporting has to be solid enough that it could stand in court (usually after I write a story like that I have to go through a long fact-checking session with a layer before it can be published).