So, it seems to me those most unlikely to take FB up on this offer are the ones who are most in need of doing so.

Maybe Billy Bob Nye knew this, and just ignored it, but NASA's customers for time in its wind tunnels at the Langley Research Center include several NASCAR teams.

Hey VHF and UHF are cool. Not saying anything bad, about them, just a matter of range. In fact, you could make long-distance contacts with the right antennas by using amateur satellites, or with a lot of power, the Moon. And then there's these crazy guys. http://www.df5ai.net/Material/... I'd hate to have to rely on that for comms, but it's remotely possible. My first cross-pond QSO was via Packet on 2M connecting up to an HF gateway to London in '92. Back then it was pretty impressive, I didn't get my first real email address til 1994. The great thing about our hobby is that there are so many different ways to be a ham, there's something for everybody!

Surprising that so few hams in Nepal are setup for HF operations. I wonder how many HF ham stations there are in the U.S. One can't tell by license class. I know that in a real emergency my QRP FT-817 is not going to be the most reliable but until I can fork out for some bigger solar panels and batteries to run an amp, 5 Watts is going to be what I've got. With morse code that's enough to work the world, sometimes. Beats the hell out a walkie talkie.

Recruiters are idiots. You're going to have to do some coding for free to prove your mettle. Open source projects are always looking for coders if you can't think of anything that you'd like to write. Something like http://code.google.com/p/kerne...

From the first article linked:

You're assuming the PIN was in any way related to the 3DES key. That's almost certainly not the case. More likely, Target requests a transaction key from the bank which is then used to encrypt the PIN and sent the encrypted PIN to the bank. The bank then decrypts the PIN using the 3DES key and verifies the PIN.

They probably should switch to RSA or some other public key algorithm. With 3DES, both parties need to share the key. With RSA, there is a public key and a matched private key. If the public key is compromised, it's no big deal. Since the bank retains the private key and doesn't share it, it's at least theoretically more secure for this kind of transaction.

The article also says "Target does not have access to nor does it store the encryption key within our system." The problem is that 3DES is a symmetric encryption algorithm; both parties need to share the same key to encrypt or decrypt anything. So at some point, they needed to have a key for the transaction.

I think you'll find the Japanese consider China's intent to wrest control of the Senkakus from Japan's administrative control as an aggressive act... or do you consider Japan to be "on the other side of the planet" from China? The U.S. considers it aggressive (to the extent the Obama administration has a coherent foreign policy which can be differentiated from abject appeasement at least) because it has important strategic allies in the area, namely Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations. In economic terms China is also an important trading partner to the U.S., and anything which destabilizes the area, or interferes with the flow of trade will impact this partnership to the detriment of both. And lastly, the U.S. has a possession in the area (i.e. Guam), not to mention its treaty obligations to assist the Japanese from outside threats.

Failure to recognize these and to take them into account, while may be good from a "rose colored glasses" perspective, is nonetheless both naive and ignorant.

It's more than purely symbolic. There are extensive undeveloped natural resources in the area which the Chinese would like to control. The islands also lie at a strategic location between the Pacific and the East China Sea, and just north of Taiwan. If the Japanese, Americans and Taiwanese do nothing to abate this, the Chinese will be emboldened to act more aggressively in the area.

4 cm across? I say use birdshot on the swarms. Just watch your backdrop.

Funding for space goes up in Republican administrations because space exploration has traditionally been an outgrowth of the armaments industry. Put a capsule on a Titan II and it's a rocket. Put a warhead or several on it and it's an ICBM. Building and testing peaceful rockets helps national defense.

WTF are private organizations allowed to issue identities for? Government IDs may be a hassle, but they're the ones with the vested interest in keeping track of people. We don't permit Walmart to issue driver's licenses or passports. We already have a mess with the private CAs on the Internet. Do it once, do it right and keep a monopoly on it. IDs and currency are Government's job! If the Treasury had issued decent ecash, Bitcoin wouldn't have a market and Credit Card Companies wouldn't be adding their 2.9% inflation to every purchase. If the Gov't were to do this right, with closed-loop verification necessary for anybody to do anything with your Identity, and if it were secure it would be a great boon. No more having to notify 42 entities of your change-of-address. Change it once at the Identity agency, and it's changed everywhere. I really doubt they'll manage to get it right though. No, I don't work for the Government. I'm just a guy who hates constantly giving and updating contact info.

In Kelo v. City of New London, SCOTUS decided a municipality could use eminent domain to transfer property from one private owner to another.

I thought the real threat of the Internet was the time people waste posting to FB or reading /. comments. Think of all that lost productivity.