(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Oh good, another opportunity for Eric Schmidt to wax poetic about the liberating powers of technology: Bloomberg News reports that after more than 20 years, the U.S. has lifted its ban on sales of electronics like computers and smartphones to regular Iranians.

You still can't sell to the Iranian government, though, so don't get any ideas about apps to help manage a covert nuclear weapons program.

And yes, the U.S. government has explicitly underminer-y reasons for the move. Bloomberg News says:

The action “aims to empower the Iranian people as their government intensifies its efforts to stifle their access to information,” according to a Treasury Department statement.

The ayatollahs are really going to flip their shit when they hear about Snapchat.

(Photo: sportsgrid)

The Manti Te'o scam, which revealed that the supposedly dead girlfriend of a Notre Dame football player had never really existed, sparked a maelstrom of hype about the dangers of online dating. The New York Post even discovered a Second Life-type virtual reality world where people can have--gasp--virtual sex! (The only drawback, you'd have to say you met on "Utherverse.")

Now, the U.S. government has jumped into the fray, offering some helpful tips on how not to get Catfished, or--as they put it--"don't become the victim of a sweetheart scam!"

The guidelines point out that scammers will frequently develop a strong bond with someone via their Facebook or online dating profile. Key hints that you're actually having Skype sex with a Nigerian prince and not a hot girl are: they're constantly request for money,  something bad is always happening to them and they claim to be from America but their English seems to indicate otherwise.

When will the State Department issue a warning about journalists joking on Twitter?

"But YOU SEE..." (Screencap)

Sometime soon, Google chairman and unfiltered man-about-town Eric Schmidt is due to set out for North Korea in the company of former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson.

However, it seems the U.S. State Department is not particularly keen on this trip. In fact, it sounds like America's highest-ranking diplomats are downright pissed that Messrs. Schmidt and Richardson have seen fit to embark on their own private mission to Pyongyang.

Via Reuters comes this glaringly aggravated tidbit from a State Department spokesperson:

"Frankly, we don't think the timing of this is particularly helpful," Nuland told reporters, citing North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket in December. "They are well aware of our views."

That "well aware" is practically vibrating with thinly disguised anger. Ms. Nuland went on to distance her agency from the trip in the strongest language possible:

"They are private citizens. They are traveling in an unofficial capacity," she said. "They are not going to be accompanied by any U.S. officials. They are not carrying any messages from us. They are private citizens and they are making their own decisions."

ERIC SCHMIDT DOES WHAT HE WANTS, WHEN HE WANTS, OKAY?