This guy is trying to rip you all off.

My firm can do it in 3 weeks for $2000, and for an additional $8000 we’ll include our patented Knowledge Crystals which when placed under your pillow imparts the hyper advanced course while you sleep.

A slow-burn read by learning Japanese first. This one will take me while.

Which one, if you can recall? I love interactive books.

It’s a worthy story. Lots of little Easter eggs.

Write a book where the spine is a required piece of the story for its understanding or completion.

Kind of like how House of Leaves is best enjoyed with the actual book.

I don’t understand. Someone read this to me.

Ahh, fair. I misread that.

The US went off the gold standard in 1971 and OP is talking about 10 years ago, so 2016.

Disregard. The commenter is referring to the 100 or so years ago.

It’s what it’s.

Explains the seemingly random PW reset request email I received the other day.

Use a hardware security token for 2FA and sleep easy at night.

Why you gotta call me out like this

Well, part of that is owed to the fact they were basically using a speaking code, Cockney.

Or to Stranger in a Strange Land, at least the very beginning.

When you borrow $1M from the bank, it’s your problem. When you borrow $100M, it’s the bank’s problem.

Are you crabs yet?

It’s what plants crave.

To be real, the worst part isn’t that we’re joking about it; it’s that it’s already happened:

Betteridge’s Law

In short: No.

One of the best no-noise locations I ever did was in a fully powered-down sailboat in the southern lagoon at Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas. Leaky consumer electronics are the worst.

To contrast, I managed to work Indonesia from Alamogordo NM despite being in a residential neighborhood, HVAC capacitors and foreign over-the-horizon-radar (OTHR) be damned. Taught me a lot about being patient and picking out transmissions in the noise.

Did it work?

Only preppers really care about shortwave radio these days.

I’d like to welcome you to the modern era of amateur (ham) radio, and encourage you to learn about the plethora of activities, equipment, and options available in the hobby now.

The miniaturization of electronics means operators are no longer bound to ham shacks. You can make contacts with as little as 1mW (Morse code), 1,500 miles with 10W SSB, (personal experience, from a park in North Dakota and a wire sent up over a tree branch), over 8,000 miles on 100W (also personal experience, with an antenna I built myself), with both home-made antennas or commercially procured antennas.

There are xOTA programs, POTA, SOTA, Scouts, BOTA—literally dozens of flavors of “On The Air” to suit all manner of individual interests.

And don’t even get me started on digital modes: RTTY, FT8, FT4, JS8, JS8Call to name a few, even old school Hellschreiber or SSTV (send fresh digital photos over the air).

There is a persistent old stereotype of amateur radio; it’s not like that anymore.

There are amateur radio operators aboard the ISS, they beam down SSTV images regularly, and if you’re particularly lucky and appropriately equipped, you can even talk with them and request a QSL card.

There’s quite a lot.

Remember, the medium is the message.