They are trying to bring back Salish up here. There are a few that can speak it, and some that can also write it.

I was at NAS Pensacola also, but already gone to Barbers Point when you were there. I worked at NAMI in Pensacola. Anchors Away!

Hm-m-m. Oats would be better? I'll go for "Hey!".

Nope. Ask Ursis when he is available. (Hint: It's not RAH.)

Hay, I would be one of those that would suffer greatly for a while as I looked up many words in the dictionary and referenced my old grammar book (whatever it was called).

But we knew that Robbie about the Corps.
GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY! and I didn't go to Canoe U on the Chesapeake. AOCS (AVROC) 90 day wonder in Pensacola 1975.
I will say that I would trust any graduate from ANY of the service academies over the any graduate from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Rutgers, Berkley, ... I guess I'd have to list almost every institution of higher learning. Sad.
Cheers

Time to bring back the Code Talkers? Here in Native America there are lots of almost extinct languages that even the NSA would struggle to decipher. Navajo is particularly challenging, since there is no time sense, directly, in the language - no past, present, future tense. I won't give away how they get around that - might need it soon.

Ya know, it took some real balls to be able to handle an IBM... (ba boom crash)

When my stepmom finally left work to become a full time housewife (she had been a professional steno and legal secretary for some 20+ years) they gifted her the one she had... I still remember watching her make hers "sing" - she would reach incredible speeds on that thing, and I think she averaged upwards of 90-100 WPM... (kids may laugh at that, but at the time that was scary fast typing!)...

I eventually picked one up second- (or third- or fourth-) hand from a Goodwill for a song... had some strange fonts with it, including a math symbol ball and a Cyrillic... It was pretty beat up by the time I ended up with it, and started to go wonky (the spindle was worn, and eventually looked like I was typing ransom notes!) so I re-recycled it back to Goodwill... someone probably restored it and has a real gem.

The fact that we are at the point were we assume the NSA could have modified our computing hardware is very troubling. I don't think the SciFi books imagined the NSA intercepting a shipment to modify hardware. The problem is much more than the NSA. It is our society.

Its a guess on my part, but I'll go with Space Cadet.

G'Kar was a great character! Humility is a sign of character... of virtue. "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance." Socrates

But only hardcore RAH fans recognize it. Can you recognize, "To ice, to snow; To Sodeskaya we go"?

My 1927 Smith-Corona portable does not have that possibility with the ribbon, once it is heavily used. It's a cloth ribbon, not a carbon one.

The inkjet typewriter might have a memory in it. Easier to steal and read than my faded ribbon.

I'm jealous of today's technology. My senior thesis, then a requirement for graduation, took me five months to complete, with an entire weekend to type (40+ pages).

With the internet and MS Word, it would've taken me two weeks (tops), and I could have enjoyed my last semester in college.

Little hope of success. With the exception of a manual typewriter, we can intercept pretty much everything. Are they going to hand-deliver everything, or would someone fax a document? If they mail it, we can grab that too. You're talking sneaker-net and diplomatic pouches, with zero corruptible employees in a country that is mostly embarrassed by their past.

We used to have cameras inside the Xerox copiers at the Kremlin and the Russian embassies, anything they copied, we took a picture of.

An IBM Selectric would be easy, it uses a processor to send an ASCII code to the daisy wheel,and we can grab that and print it remotely somewhere else, we would catch everything, even the backspaces.

We used a sub to attach a vampire tap to undersea cables in Russian military harbors and reproduced everything, even if encrypted, then broke the encryption with super computers.

If all else fail, a lot of Germans drink a lot of beer, just buy one off to make copies.

Point is, we are fantastically good at this, and we spy on everyone and they spy on us with varying degrees of success.

We came out of the Cold War pretty good at spy craft.

Like I didn't by recognizing a two word, 5 letter quote?

Literary "name that tune" :)

Bolshoyeh thanks. Since may years ago. Started out on "Farmer in the Sky". Oops, just gave away my age.

"Oh, Bog"

Another Heinlein fan I see, well done.

This is just like in AS when they had to revert to stage coaches for transportation in the end. Big government screws everything up. I agree with the government funding programs like NASA and cancer research, I don't mind my tax dollars being spent on new discoveries, however, I think everyone can agree they don't want their tax money spent on spying on the German president or other innocent people. Germany is one of the few countries left that still has its act together.

Dear Tech-
Your point on spelling issues is well taken, as many here will attest concerning my major activity here. Just ask. A return to a rote spelling paradigm, not this ersatz spelling by phonetic pronunciation, as well as conjugation skills, context and tense agreement would be highly recommended. Most here are well spoken and courteous, taking my occasional jab in the spirit in which it is given. As for the rest... Oh, Bog.

IBM Selectric II - The best typewriter ever made in my opinion....bar none

30+ pounds of awesome