I was just reading through the latest Politech email from Declan McCullagh, and this article caught my eye.. it's an in-depth report on the feasibility of creating conventional, inexpensive EMP (electromagnetic pulse) weapons, not sure of the publication date, but it certainly seems right up the extropian alley. For one thing, relating to the current conversation on data storage tech, we're not even looking at the possibility - no, the virtual *certainty* - that such weapons, and the use of such, will become widespread. When one considers this, we're right back to chiseling on stones..
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/kopp/apjemp.html
Excellent report, full of pictures, diagrams, and decodings of those annoying acronyms... worth taking a look at.
-Danny
PS: I just generated a new 4096-bit PGP key, in response to Shamir's creation of a faster cracking engine... if you want it, you can retrieve it from the new international PGP database at ldap://pgp.surfnet.nl:11370 (port 11370).. look for 'Altan Daniel Yavuzkurt' or 'ayavuzk@fas.harvard.edu'