Back around 1999 or so, I lived in a house built in the early 1940's with three other friends. Since it was built during the war, you couldn't get cast iron for the sewer pipes, so they were made of this rolled wood pulp tar-infused stuff called "orangeburg pipe." This stuff delaminated and fell apart over time, so it is no longer allowed by building codes. Anyway, the house had a basement, and being a bunch of techies, we all had computers, plus the "MP3" server, the print server, and the game server: so 7 computers. We were young and stupid and single, so we left the machines running pretty much all of the time. We also had a rudimentary "home cinema" system (a 22" TV hooked up to an old stereo with some thrift store speakers) and a futon in one corner of the basement. I came home tired from work one day and flopped on the futon to watch "The Matrix" again (it had just come out on video.) My housemates wanted to go out to dinner, but I didn't want to go. Before they left, one of them started a load of laundry and turned on the dishwasher. I subsequently fell asleep, and awoke later to the sound of my swearing housemates, standing at the foot of the stairs to the basement. While I was asleep, the sewer pipe had collapsed, and all of the waste water from the washing machine, dishwasher, and the two upstairs toilets (used when they got home from dinner) had nowhere to go except all over the basement floor, which was now covered in about 15cm of water (well, the North end of the basement anyway, the floor wasn't flat.) As luck would have it, that's also where all 7 computers were; all of them turned on, sitting on the floor, and all of them plugged into power strips which were also laying on the floor. After somehow not dying when I sprinted from the futon to the stairs through the water, we thought (a little late) to pull the fuse (there were no breakers) to the outlets and investigate. Luckily the lights were on a different circuit. The power strips emerged from the water twisted, deformed, and mostly melted. We were all shocked that: something hadn't caught fire; the fuse didn't blow; after drying out, the computers all still worked; I was not electrocuted at any point; a power strip that had melted into the shape of a twizzler still managed to function. When the plumbers arrived two days later with a backhoe, a jack hammer, and a compressor and said we wouldn't have water or sewer for more than a week as they dug up the front lawn, and broke up the basement, I moved out.

Um... Why? I assume most Facebook employees can work remote. Being a tech company, they are probably already paid decently. Why do they need an extra $1000? If they are working from home, they aren't commuting, paying for gas, tolls, train tickets, etc. They are probably eating more at home, going out less, spending less money...
The people that really need that money are all of the service workers who run the restaurants and theaters and gyms and such that the Facebook employees have probably all stopped going to.
This make no sense.

Wow, really? So you got full credit because your calculator solved the problem for you, but they guy that made a stupid mistake but showed he understood the concepts better using his brain got half credit? Glad I wasn't in that class...

My parents bought me an HP-48 because the university said I had to have one. Graduated with honors in Mechanical Engineering, and the ONLY thing I used the HP-48 for was to play tetris. (Yeah, okay there was one math class where we graphed a couple of equations one week to justify having to have a graphing calculator, but I can't say I learned much that week.) Pretty much any exam I went to where calculators were allowed, there was a TA at the door wiping the memory of every calculator that came in to prevent cheating. Didn't want the memory to be wiped? Don't bring the fancy calculator. Phones were not allowed. Period. Too easy to cheat with those, so I don't see the calculator apps working that well for university exams. It sounds like future tests will be online, and a graphing calculator app will be part of the test. The phone app would be useful for learning how to use it before the test I guess.

So, what calculator did I actually use to get through Engineering school? An HP-20s that I won in a math competition in 7th grade. At the time they were $20, and have since been discontinued. It couldn't graph anything, it wasn't RPN, you couldn't program it (it supported very limited macros, a feature I never used, but that's it.) I never really understood the purpose of the graphing calculator. I passed the EIT with that same HP-20s, not even sure they allowed graphing calculators. Need to find the local maxima and minima? That's what calculus is for. Need to find a slope or a tangent, or decide if the equation is asymptotic? Again, that's what math is for. Understanding how to manipulate equations makes you understand the math better. Oh, yeah, I've done the 12-page Diff-EQ problems (that you had to do over three times because you reversed as sign on page 3.) However, if you got through it all, you KNEW it, and you knew what was going on when you plugged a bunch of stuff into a calculator or a computer to AUTOMATE things that you proved you understood by doing them by hand a bunch of times first.

Whatever. This post probably just proves I'm old now... sigh.

Okay, so let's do the math.... T-Mobile has something like 63 million subscribers. Every Tuesday EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM could get a free pizza at Domino's. Even if one half of one percent of the people eligible actually took advantage of the deal, that's still 315,000 free pizzas per week. Domino's only has around 5000 stores in the U.S., so that works out to 63 free pizzas per store, every Tuesday. Since I'm sure the number of free pizzas would not be evenly distributed, There were probably some Domino's locations that did nothing but give out free pizza's all day. How anyone thought that was sustainable I don't know...

As others have pointed out, you might be able to source a cheap computer or even an android stick, but the problem is that if a family can't afford a computer, they also probably can't afford an internet connection. There are still some free options, like juno/netzero, who have plans that give you 10 hours per month (which is enough to email assignments, and watch a few short videos, but little else.) However, these are dial-up services, which means you need a phone line. These days, I'm guessing that most low income families have a cell phone (lots of cheap options there, like Virgin Mobile or Net10 or T-Mobile, with a plan that has a little bit of voice/text and little or no data) and no land-line. There is freedompop, which offers 500GB/month on a free plan, but then you need a device to take advantage of the service (they use the Sprint network) so you'd need a cell phone or a mobile hot spot, and even used, you already well over the $20 limit before you have even purchased a computer. Also, the way freedompop works, they will want to charge you for more data when you get within 100GB of your limit, so they require a credit card to sign up. You can turn off auto-updates so that when you hit 500GB the service simply turns off, rather than charging you, but as the instructor, you might have to put in your own credit card, as you can't assume a low income family has or would be willing to sign up for something like that.

Another option might be to structure the class so that students can type up assignments at home, and then bring in the files on a USB stick or something and print them out or you can copy them when they come to class. This removes the need for an internet connection at home, but now you need something that can easily interact with a USB stick, so that eliminates most cheap tablets and some android sticks.

As far as sourcing cheap computers, you could look into something like freegeek (or something similar in your area, if it exists.) Freegeek is an organization that allows donations of computer equipment and then will teach people how to rebuild a computer from parts. Once you've built the computer, you get to keep it. The 'cost' is the volunteer time. I is probably too much to ask the kids to volunteer themselves, but if there is a similar organization in your area, you could volunteer yourself and collect computers for free that way, or set up a similar program at your school, and get the more affluent families to donate equipment to the school, and then have kids volunteer to rebuild them (with linux, to avoid licensing issues.) However, this is an entire program that requires storage space, management, time, etc. So, that might not be a good option.

Honestly, as other people have mentioned, you might just need to deal with allowing kids (any kid, not just the low income ones) to write their assignments on paper. If your school has a computer lab, you could take class time to allow kids to type up some assignments just so they get some exposure to using a computer and a word processor, but making it a requirement for everyone all the time is just going to disadvantage kids that already have the deck stacked against them.

I used to have that very laptop. So first, let me say:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Okay, that's out of my system.

No, wait...

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Okay, I'm done. Really.

I can speak from direct experience on this one. I installed Redhad 5.0 on a Compaq Contura Aero back in the day (after downloading the entire distro over a 14.4 modem) so I had to solve this problem. Here are the issues:

1. No CD-Rom drive. No internal drive, and no way to connect one externally.
2. No USB ports
3. No built-in ethernet port
4. Only a single 16-bit PCMCIA type II slot (meaning it won't take those double-height PCMCIA hard drives IBM made back in the day.)
5. You are dealing with Dos 6 (probably 6.2) and Windows 3.11, so you don't have a lot of built-in drivers and software for transferring files. Do you have Windows for Workgroups 3.11, or just Windows 3.11? It makes a difference. The 'for Workgroups' version has software for sharing files across a network. The regular version does not.

Options:
1. As other people have stated, your best option is probably an IDE 2.5" to USB adapter. Remove the drive, plug it into the adapter, and plug that into a modern USB-equipped computer. This will give you the fastest, most reliable way to transfer files.
2. If option 1 isn't an option, you could try to find a PCMCIA to compact flash adapter. You will then need to find and install the drivers so that DOS can mount such a drive. I might still have those drivers on a disk somewhere, but it also might depend on the flavor of the adapter. Seems like you had to load a PCMCIA driver, and then a mass-storage driver on top of that, and then possibly a TSR to actually enumerate and mount the drive. I can't remember anymore, but there is some complexity to overcome. Of course, to get the drivers on to the laptop in the first place, you will either need to transfer them via floppy, or get a dial-up internet account somewhere and download them over the internet. (Good luck with the second option -- if you even have a browser already installed, it is probably Netscape 3 or 4, or IE 3 or 4 which might not be able to load whatever page you need to go to in order to download the drivers. FTP might be an option, but then you have to already have an FTP client installed. If you don't, you run into a bigger problem than before, since an FTP client or a web browser is going to be bigger than a set of PCMCIA drivers, and now how to do you get THAT on to the laptop? Transferring the drivers via floppy is probably your best option. You can buy a USB floppy drive that will work on modern computers if none of your other computers have floppy drives anymore. If for some reason a floppy drive isn't an option, then you'll need a null modem cable (more on this later)
3. You could try to find a 16-bit PCMCIA ethernet adapter. (Try ebay.) Again, you'll run into the problem of how to get the drivers installed. Again, floppy is probably your best bet. This will probably only work if you have Windows for Workgroups 3.11. If you have the standard version, you won't have any built-in software for transferring files over a network. You could use FTP or something, but then you need to get the FTP software onto laptop in the first place. Again, you might be able to do this via floppy drive.
4. Get an old parallel-connection ZIP drive off of ebay. You'll again need to install the drivers via floppy.
5. Get a copy of laplink or interlink and a null modem serial cable. You will need to install the laplink/interlink software via floppy, and then you might need to buy and old computer that can still run DOS, since I don't know if you can get a copy of laplink or interlink that can still use a null modem cable on anything other than DOS. A Windows 95/98 machine should work though. I'm sure you could find something on craigslist for not much money. Transferring files over a null modem cable will be SLOW. VERY VERY SLOW. (This is how I had to install RedHat, so believe me, I KNOW.) So, if you can't use a floppy for some reason to transfer the drivers you need to get one of the other options above working, you could try using interlink (which came with DOS 6.22) with another computer running DOS 6.22 (you can boot into DOS with a boot disk and use interlink that way without having to actually install DOS, provided that the hardware is old enough that DOS can mount the FAT-formatted hard disk) to transfer driver files so you can bootstrap yourself into one of the other solutions above.

Good luck. Dealing with old hardware like that can be a lot of fun, but finding all the software you need to make something work can be a challenge.

I had no idea that the personalization venders send the actual encryption keys to their customers. This is so very very wrong. That's not how you are supposed to do it.

The correct way is to generate the master keys (separate sets of keys for each customer) inside an HSM (hardware security module). The HSM protects the master keys from being stolen. You then split the key into parts, encode those parts on smart cards, and HAND DELIVER those smart cards to the customer (in this case cell phone carriers or banks) with several different people, each with a piece of the key encoded on the smart card, but who do not know the pin to extract that key, and then you restore the master keys into an HSM located at the customer with aid of additional employees who know the pins but don't have the cards until everyone meets in front of the HSM as a group. Once the keys are restored, you erase the smart cards there on the spot. At no time does any one person have access to the master key. At no time is the master key (encrypted or not) ever available on any computer anywhere for any length of time. Never ever ever.

Once both the personalization vender and the customer have a copy of the master keys, you can then derive the keys that you actually write into the SIM cards. Then, the only thing you need to transmit is the meta data used to generate the keys. This information can be sent in the clear over the internet all day long. Without the master key, the information is all but useless. The customer, once they have the meta data and the master key in their HSM, can re-derive the necessary keys whenever they need to, but usually this is not necessary (and not advised) -- all you need to do is perform a handshake with the SIM card by encrypting some data with the key stored in the card, and the information needed to reproduce that encrypted data. The carrier's HSM can then derive the same value inside their HSM to validate the SIM card. The keys, not even the key inside the SIM card is ever transmitted, stored, or is allowed to exist outside the HSM at any time, other than inside the SIM card itself. This would give NSA no opportunity to steal them.

Sending the actual keys written into the SIM cards over the internet? Really? (sigh)

Why limit yourself? Learn both a popular language and a less-popular one. I had the fortune of picking up both Java and COBOL in a previous job, which helped me land my next job, which involved (guess what?) both Java and COBOL (and Perl, and SQL, and XML, and C#, and PHP, and....). Never have I encountered a job where you only need to know one language. All those big banks and manufacturing companies running COBOL? They probably need to make those systems talk to something written in a more modern language like Java, or C#, or PHP, or even Ruby or Python. They are probably even trying to move some of their old legacy systems off on to newer systems, so having an engineer who knows both the legacy technology as well as newer technologies is just what they need. Knowing more than one language and more than one technology also means you don't get stuck when the company re-orgs or you finally decommission the old system or they hit a rough patch and downsize.

What makes a valuable employee isn't someone who is an expert in one thing. A valuable employee is flexible, can teach themselves new things without having to take a class or being asked. A good programmer is good at programing regardless of language. The more you learn, the more valuable you are, and the more options you have finding a job. Once you have experience solving problems with software, picking up a new language isn't really that hard. Yes, you could specialize in something like mainframe COBOL and there will be niche jobs for you in the financial industry for a long time to come, and you might be able to command a hefty salary as well, but do you really want to write COBOL for the foreseeable future?

I just ran into this with my wife's Dell laptop. I tried an aftermarket battery at newegg that had some glowing reviews and some terrible reviews, but was cheap enough (about $35) that I was willing to give it a try. It sort of worked for about a month, and now won't charge at all. So, we wound up buying a replacement direct from Dell for $150. I also recently bought an aftermarket battery for an old Toshiba laptop, but it only lasts about 1.5 hours if I'm lucky. It was $15 from Amazon. I guess you get what you pay for. So, other than paying through the nose for a genuine battery from the manufacturer, I don't know where to get good quality laptop batteries anymore (it used to be you could find decent batteries at various places on line, but all I see is junk now...)

On the other hand, I bought a new battery for my phone (an HTC) and got a battery made by a company called Anker. It works great and have had no problems with it. Bought several more for my wife's and my mother's phones, and they work well too. You can find Anker batteries on Amazon.

If you can un-brick the phone after it has been bricked, I'm sure someone will figure out a way to do this without involving the official channels. Theft might go down for a while, and it might never be as high as it once was, but once someone figures out how to un-brick the phone, steeling a phone will still get you something, even if you have to use it on another network or another country. Think blocking the IMEI is going to do it? There are already methods of changing or spoofing IMEI codes on lots of phones. This will stop casual theft, but like most locks, it won't deter determined thieves.

I, too, think that the $6 billion figure for the possible size of an iWatch market to be completely fictional. Not going to happen, but I'd really like some of whatever these guys are smoking to come up with a number like that.

As others have already said, a lot of people no longer wear watches because they now carry cell phones. Still others only wear watches as jewelry. Yes, I take the point others have made here that many/most/all Apple products are fashion statements, so you could argue an iWatch would still be jewelry, but in the world of watches, there seems to be generally two categories of "fashion" watches: watches that are "traditional jewelry" meaning that they are gold/silver/titanium, or made from other "traditional" jewelry materials, and watches that have an interesting/modern design (think the original "Swatch".) An iWatch can't compete against the traditional jewelry market and still have a touch screen. The two designs are pretty orthogonal -- I have a hard time thinking that the watch's function as something pretty/shiny/classic can be shared with something with a usable touch LCD screen and not fail at both. I can see how it might be possible to go after the modern/interesting style of "jewelry" watch with a stylish simple/elegant design -- again, think "Swatch" only with some ipod/iphone features included. (I realize the Swatch group now owns many luxury brands. I'm referring to the primarily plastic modern-looking watches like the original Swatch that came out in the 1980's) Anyway, a modern-styled plastic-case iWatch sounds really workable to me, but will that capture 10% of the market? Not bloody likely. Look at watch sales. Where is all the money being made? At the low-end plastic watches? Nope. The highest sales and margins are in the traditional jewelry-type watches. Something I can't see Apple competing with.

So, if Apple is going for an iWatch, they can't target the high-end jewelry watch market, so that's out. They can't target the low-end quartz or digital watch market, because that is already saturated with low-margin products. Their only hope is to define a new market somewhere in the middle with enough margin to make money. So, what is this watch going to *DO* that will garner more than a yawn from the general population (certain Apple fanboys excepted.)

You've got to do more than tell time. A cheap quartz watch will do that, and do it more stylishly.
So, okay, add in an MP3 player, stop watch, and maybe GPS, and other features runners/cyclists might want.
Yes, an iPhone/Smartphone can do those things, but they aren't as small/compact/portable. That's really all an iWatch might have going for it. -- size. Target the sports crowd so that you don't have to take your iPhone running with you. Otherwise, the crowd that already stopped wearing watches because they have a smart phone won't give it a second look.

Could they pack the ability to make phone calls into a watch? Maybe. Generally the two things that eat power on a smartphone are wifi and the display. Take out wifi (or turn it off) and make the screen much smaller, and you might be able to shrink a cell phone into a watch. That might make an iWatch attractive. However, the nice thing about having a smartphone is all the other things you can do with it --things that are going to be hard on a watch (texting, web browsing, e-mail, playing games, etc.) So, if you buy an iWatch that can make calls, do you also keep your smartphone? Do you have two cellphone contracts? If that's the case, I'd rather just have one device and use (or not) a regular watch. The trend in smartphone screen size is going bigger, not smaller. So, the iWatch as a cellphone replacement doesn't seem to make sense.

Really, the only market opportunity I can see for an iWatch is as a wearable ipod with more features (like GPS, maybe have it sync with your iPhone calendar to alert you to appointments, etc.) That could actually be kinda cool. Would I buy one? No. Will it grab 10% of the watch market? Um... probably not.

Well, okay, so you you think you might (or might not) need a fighter jet, or maybe a drone, or a cruise missle... Here's why you might (or might not) want these things:

Drones:
Drones are good for when you need to maintain a presence above a section of ground to observe what is going on, and if you have an armed drone, they are great for taking out point targets (people, vehicles, small buildings, etc.) They can stay in the air much longer than a manned air craft, and they don't risk a human going into harm's way.
Drones are NOT good at carrying a large amount of weapons for taking out larger targets (air bases, power plants, radar stations, bridges, etc.) Some of the larger drones are starting to get this capability, so it is logical to assume that this limitation will go away with some of the larger (and more expensive) drones. However, currently drones do not work well unless you control the air space they are flying in. While man-portable surface to air missiles may not have the range to engage a high-flying drone, they would probably be effective against lower-flying drones. Since most current drones do not have much in the way of stealth or counter-measures, they are vulnerable to any surface to air missile that has the range and altitude to reach them. Even old 1960's vintage SA-2's would have little trouble shooting down most drones. Only when you go to very expensive stealth drones do you gain much chance of surviving air space that is protected by even older, cheaper, less-capable SAM's. However, even with a stealth drone, if the enemy has fighter air craft, you are still in trouble. Once the fighter is close enough to see the drone on radar (stealth only reduces the range at which an air craft can be seen with radar, it does not make it 100% invisible), or the drone can be seen with infrared or visually, the fighter has the advantage. Today's drones are unable to dog fight, and the latency and lack of situational awareness that comes from piloting a drone remotely makes them unable to dog fight effectively, even if a drone were made maneuverable enough to even attempt it (which none currently are.)
So, bottom line, drones are useful if you are facing an opponent who does not have fighters, or where their fighters have already been destroyed.

Cruise Missiles:
Cruise Missiles are great for hitting fixed targets from long range, like bridges, buildings, military bases, fixed command and control stations, etc. They are not as good at hitting moving targets, as they generally lack the ability to search out and find a mobile target and attack it after they are launched. For the vast majority of cruise missiles, you have to know where the target is when they are launched, and the target can't move while the cruise missile is in flight. This makes cruise missiles largely ineffective against mobile army units (tanks, trucks, infantry, etc.) Army units are the only combatants that can invade territory and hold it, so dealing with them is important. Also, while some cruise missiles can be fired from ground launchers, you can drastically increase the range of cruise missiles if you launch them from a mobile platform like a ship or an air craft. Drones, as of yet, can't carry cruise missiles, so you either need new very large drone, or a manned air craft capable of launching a cruise missile to get enough range to make these weapons effective. The nice thing about a cruise missile is that you can attack well-defended fixed target from a distance without having to risk a human in an air plane, and they are faster and harder to shoot down than a drone.

Conventional Fighter (e.g. a F/A-18E/F Super Hornet)
The Super Hornet is a very versatile air craft. It is capable of both air-to-air as well as air-to-surface combat. If you face an enemy that has fighter air craft, the Super Hornet can try to shoot them down at medium range with missiles, and/or at close range with short-range missiles and a gun (e.g. dog fighting.) In the 1960's, the U.S. thought that missiles were the way of the future and that fighter planes didn't need to dog fight anymore. In the war in Vietnam, they discovered that their missiles didn't work as well as they hoped, and that tactics employed by the North Vietnamese air force meant that it was difficult to avoid getting into dog fights. For example, if you are attacking a military base, and that base is defended by air craft, unless you shoot every single aircraft out of the air from long range fast enough to avoid having your attacking air craft getting withing dog fighting range, you are going to have to deal with defending fighters at close range, which means you need to be able to dog fight. The argument against maintaining this capability is that in a modern war, you can just destroy all of the enemy's air craft on the ground with cruise missiles, and never have to engage them in the air. However, this strategy may not work. Most Russian and Chinese built air craft are designed to operate from rough air fields -- roads, or even flat stretches of grass or dirt, so an enemy can distribute, move, and hide their air craft, making them difficult to hit with cruise missiles (remember when I said cruise missiles don't work well against mobile targets?) Another scenario is if the air craft are based in another country which which you do not want to start a war with (like during the Korean war, when MiG's were based in China, and the U.S. would not attack the air bases in China so as to not risk a war with them) the only way to destroy the enemy air craft is in the air. So, since you can't always deal with an enemy air force with either drones or cruise missiles, you are going to need the capability to engage flying air craft, and history teaches that it is hard to always avoid close-range air to air combat, so you'd better have a fighter that can dog fight.
Assuming you win the air war and gain dominance over the battlefield, a fighter with air to air combat ability becomes less useful, unless it can also operate against ground targets. The Super Hornet is actually pretty good at this, and can carry a useful weapons load of precision guided bombs/missiles, unguided (and cheap) bombs and rockets, missiles that target radars, etc. So, once the air war is largely over, the Super Hornet can start attacking ground targets. However, without something that can effectively deal with enemy air craft, you may never get the chance to attack ground forces, which is ultimately the way you win wars. Turning the tables and looking at defense, the only way to prevent an attacking enemy from taking out your ground forces from long range is to deny them the ability to use their air craft, and that means destroying them (often in the air.) This is why air to air combat ability is so important and needed by any effective air force.

Stealth Fighters (e.g. F-35)
Everything said above about the Super Hornet also applies to the F-35, in terms of why you want a fighter plane that can shoot down other fighter planes, and why it is nice to have a fighter plane that can also drop bombs when the air war is over.
The advantage that the F-35 has over the Super Hornet is all about stealth. Making it harder for your opponent to locate your air craft means a number of things: Your stealth air craft has an easier time shooting down enemy air craft, because you can shoot at them before they even know you are there. If you can shoot at the enemy and they can't shoot at you, that's a huge advantage, and helps you either deny their air craft from access to shooting your ground forces, or allows you to gain access to shoot theirs. Another advantage to stealth is that it allows you to strike at enemy ground targets BEFORE you gain air dominance over their territory. If they can't see you very well, you can strike at their ground forces before you've completely dealt with the enemy air force. That is a significant advantage, and something you don't get as easily with a Super Hornet. However, this capability comes with a hefty price, and that price only makes sense if YOU are the one having to engage the enemy on day one.

So, what does Canada need?

Air defense: Is Canada likely to be invaded? Well, no, and if an enemy force decides to try, Canada will not be going it alone, as the U.S. will step in to help out. Will Canada be invading anyone anytime soon? Probably not. So, what sorts of threats is Canada likely to see?

Well, there is a very large amount of area up north to patrol. Who knows how relations with the Russians might go over the next 30 to 40 years? In the past 30 to 40 years, they've already gone from mortal foe to friendly to sort of strained distance, so who knows? Is Russia likely to field a long range stealth bomber any time soon? Maybe, but advances in radar might keep pace with any developments there, and you don't need a stealth fighter to shoot down a relatively unmaneuverable bomber, whether it is stealthy or not. You need something long range and reliable. The Super Hornet is a better fit than the F-35 here, even though the Super Hornet could use a bit more range. Actually, an F-15 would be a better fit, but I don't know if buying those is on the table. Canada in unlikely to get in a shooting match with another fighter over their own territory, so they really need long-range interceptors. Again, an F-15 would be ideal, but they are more expensive than a Super Hornet. The F-35 isn't that great of a long-range interceptor because it has relatively short range, a small missile load, and only one engine.

The other thing Canada might do is cooperate in a NATO action or some other joint-operation, probably including the U.S. In that scenario, if Canada had stealth fighters, it could participate in the first few hours/days of an air war along side the U.S. If it had Super Hornets, or some other non-stealth air craft, then Canada would have to wait until a country with stealth air craft made the first attacks to degrade the enemy defenses before joining the fight. (This would all depend on how advanced the opponent was.)

It is unlikely that Canada would ever go it alone in some sort of military action involving air craft. So, honestly, the only advantage I can see for Canada buying a stealth air craft is to gain favor with the U.S. by spending more money in the U.S., and by sharing the higher risk of attacking an enemy in the first few days of a war, when the enemy is at its most dangerous. The other advantage would be to have more capability to act with military force without the cooperation of a more capable ally, but does Canada want or need to be able to do that? Canada has few enemies, and what enemies do exist are shared with the U.S. and Europe.

Others have complained that the Super Hornet is older technology and would be need to be replaced sooner than an F-35. Well, yes and no. The airframe is based on a design from the 1970's, but it has been updated, improved, and is made from more modern materials in many places. Also, the laws of aerodynamics really don't change, so the only disadvantages to an older air frame is efficiency and fatigue life. Since the Super Hornet would be newly built, as would the F-35, there is no advantage to either plane in terms of fatigue life -- they will both start new and slowly wear out to the point they need to be replaced or repaired. In terms of efficiency, the Super Hornet is actually better than the F-35. The F-35 has quite a number of compromises made to it's shape in the name of stealth. The F-35 is slower, less maneuverable, and can't carry as large a weapon load as the Super Hornet. The F-35 has a longer range on internal fuel, but the Super Hornet can carry more fuel in drop-tanks to compensate. So, there's no real advantage there, either. The electronics in the F-35 are more advanced, and this gives the F-35 more capability in certain scenarios than the Super Hornet, but electronics can be upgraded, often much more cheaply than buying a new plane. In fact, the biggest long-term obsolescence risk is actually with the F-35's stealth technology. If Russia or China makes a more advanced radar than can better detect the F-35, than the major advantage of the F-35 is nullified (at least for well equipped opponents.) The stealth features of the F-35 isn't something you can easily upgrade later, because it is built into the structure of the air craft. When advances in radar technology make the main advantage of the F-35 less of an advantage, what are you left with? A plane that really isn't that much better than the Super Hornet, at twice the cost.

The F-35 will have significant capability advantages over well-equipped opponents compared with the Super Hornet for probably the next 20 years or so. After that, the differences between these two planes in terms of capability will be largely down to which air craft is getting a radar upgrade and better electronics. Is that 20 year advantage worth the cost? For Canada, and their needs, I don't think so. For the U.S.? Maybe.

Yes, that's the one. However, I don't think you can scale up the costs by a simple price per pound ratio. It is entirely possible to build an airplane for less than $10,000:

href=http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/ten_grand.html

If you don't have to put a pilot inside, and using more mass-production techniques, you could probably get the cost down even further. My cousin built a plane in his garage for less that $30,000 that can easily carry 500 pounds (assuming no people on board). It was designed for aerobatics so it traded speed and maneuverability for range, but the concept is the same. The biggest road block to doing something like this before now is the prohibitive cost and complexity of building an autonomous guidance system. That part is getting cheaper and easier all the time.

Heck, this guy: Bruce Simpson built a cruise missile with off the shelf components for $5000, though I think it is too small to carry a reasonable payload.

Phalanx shoots 75 rounds per second. I don't think you can just fire 3-10 rounds per target. These would quickly run out of ammo. GPS can effectively be jammed at ground level. With directional antennas, it is much harder to jam them in the air, as you can filter out any signals at a little above the drone's altitude and below. So, you'd have to be ABOVE the drone to jam GPS signals. This limits the available platforms to electronic warfare aircraft, but with a movable directional antenna, even these signals could be filtered out without much difficulty. There is also more than one GPS system, so you can't just turn it off, or reduce the error correction to make it unusable. Cameras with relatively straight-forward image recognition software would be enough for terminal guidance. The technology for this has existed since the 1980's, and is relatively cheap these days. While not full RPV, it shouldn't be difficult to make the drones able to accept basic directional commands (change navigational way points, confirm target selection, etc.) Using spread-spectrum frequency hopping and limiting the number of times updates are transmitted would make jamming this communication channel extremely difficult. There are open-source software radios that could handle this sort of set up easily at very low cost.

You are correct that the drones would not have any defensive ability. An air craft could easily pick them off with a gun. However, this gun has a high rate of fire and limited ammunition, so each fighter can only shoot down a limited number of drones. Fly lots of drones, and accept losses due to aerial engagements.

Yep and Yep. So don't hide them. Distribute them, so that a single air strike takes out only a fraction of them. Then, build ten times that many out of cardboard and distribute them as well. Turn everything everywhere into a potential target. Short a preemptive nuclear strike, what are you going to hit with your air strike?