Whenever someone presents data to me and I find some that is completely false I believe it is wise to cast all the data as false until proven other wise. If they lied about that then what else are they lying about?

Out of curiosity, do you apply the same logic to governments?

What purpose is served in releasing the fact that Hilary Clinton worries about the mental health of other world leaders? How does that aid in our international relations?

Perhaps Mrs Clinton has a valid concern that, in her opinion, some of the world leaders she has met have mental health issues. I for one would like to know if one of my representatives my have those sorts of concerns if peoples lives are going to depend on that leaders ability to make decisions.

That's just one of 1000's of items that were released that are not crimes, are not important for the American people to know, and still undermine our government's ability to operate on the world stage.

Democracy can be embarrassing and people have opinions, the political process will get over it. More honesty in politics today is what we need if we are to confront the very real issues we face as a world. Only those who seek a nanny state cry foul here and scripted politicians are getting really tiresome. It's the 21st century and what better time to shake loose the entropy of the past.

Releasing those kinds of documents doesn't serve a greater good. It doesnt expose any wrong-doings. It doesn't help create stability, ensure -anyone's- safety, or promote any kind of cooperation between nations. It was released to embarrass the US government and garner sensationlistic attention from a little weasle.

So says you but I think you are attaching too much emotion to the issue. Secrets cost a lot of money to maintain, the greater good that it can server is to really make those in power think about their actions before committing them to any secrecy act. There may already be an enormous financial benefit to getting all this stuff out in the open because it no longer incurs a cost to maintain it as a secret.

Not to mention that this guy released the names of confidential informants in the middle east. In doing so he signed the death warrants of those people. What greater purpose was served by releasing their names? What good will come of that? What crime did they commit? What evil are they responsible for? Where are your indignant tears for them and their families who will almost assuredly be slaughtered?

I think the U.S military coined the term Collateral damage for the un-intended consequence of their actions. Perhaps it would make you feel better about this if you consider it as the collateral damage that is incurred as a requirement to fix our democracy and prevent more loss of life. I know it's not right - but collateral damage never has been.

Assange has forced politicians to act by the ideals the espouse. You should be blaming those who made the secrets not those who exposed them in pursuit of a stronger, more functional democracy.

Then you've never seen any of Moore's work. His wildly skewed to the left shows, skewed to the point of being "creative edits" that completely misrepresent the truth, are presented as documentaries.

I'm sure if Nixon was running for office today with the policies and views he ran with then he would also be viewed as a lefty. World politics has quite clearly kept moving to the right so any right wing views of the past will look quaint compared to today and balanced or left leaning views will look like, as you say, "wildly skewed to the left shows".

He makes some good points, but he makes them incredibly badly. He's the kind of person who could turn 'water is wet' into a controversial statement. Even when he says something that I agree with, he makes me want to argue.

Yes, he has mastered the art of talking to his countrymen (and women).

Every IT guy who has been in the trenches for 10+ years has "I once" stories. Oftentimes they salvaged hundreds of thousands of rands of damages for the company, or helped mitigate a bad management decision.

The thing is, one of several scenarios invariably happen:

I think your sentiment is right on the money, but I will add one more to your list of scenarios...

4 - The disappointment you experience after not receiving the gratitude you expected is because any shown is an admission of management not doing their job properly.

The biggest lesson I have learned from my "I once" stories is to pass the appropriate amount of pain onto management. Any business critical technology issue that is bad enough to cause a Single Point of Failure is a business decision not to implement enough redundancy, usually because they are to cheap to do so. Learn this mantra and repeat it over and over in your head;

A lack of planning on your part is not an emergency on mine

-USA taxpayers paid a private defense contractor to buy Afghan cops a boy sex toy. Apparently it's a pre-taliban tradition.

Lets be call this what this particularly wrong tradition what it is. Whilst I don't know the exact spelling it's called "batca bazzi" - which apparently translates to "to be with the boy" or "to have the boy" - in other word to have sex with boys.

This Afgan tradition of the warlords and other power elites is no more than a form of institutionalised paedophilia and is one of the sickest forms of repeated rape of a child. I really don't want to know what sort of mental gymnastics these sick motherfuckers go through to justify this sort of behaviour all I know is it's wrong. This stands as the case in point about the Afgan vs Iraq war and I just wish that the worlds resources were focused on fixing Afganistan. This one issue illustrates the epitome of the brutality and ignorance that occurs in Afganistan and highlights why actions that expose dirty laundry like this must be supported.

I think - if anything - Wikileaks makes democracy stronger and Anonymous enforcement of it demonstrates the undercurrent of fury that exists in the world over these type of in-justices.

Fume extraction has been nagging at the back of my mind for a while.

If you can't get fume extraction for the workbench extract from the room and have a small wall mounted fan that gently blows air across the desk away from the person soldering (but not enough air that it cools the iron). I would not even attempt any welding, machining or grinding in the same space (as some have suggested) you are going to do electronics work leave that to the workshop where you can get sweaty and where it doesn't matter about metal shards getting into every nook and cranny.

For your work benches consider benches that you can work comfortably at while you are standing up as you don't want to be crouched down "head over desk" all the time whilst seated. Make the benches so your arms are almost at right angles to the work area whilst standing then buy some quality "bar stool" sized height adjustable chairs. Bench construction should be marine ply (not crappy chipboard or MDF - blech). Mine are 32mm thick and will easily take 100Kg, YMMV.

For the chairs consider dentist style saddle chairs that can be raised to bar stool type heights with a circular footrest. The reason is you may find yourself working on something and getting up and sitting down kinda gets annoying. If you have to sit for longer periods of time at the work bench that's when you use the stool when you get sick of sitting you can stand and still work - much more efficient. You'll also find that you are more energised while you are working especially if you can stand, work and move. Enough has been said about power and storage but you may want to consider that the power has ground loop cut-off for safety if you are working on mains-rated gear so you can minimise the chance of electrocution. A second smaller shelf or other arrangement that suits you to mount oscilloscopes, multimeters, lab power supplies and some mounting underneath to get the computer off the ground (if you really need one there at all) so you don't kick it all the time or bang it with your knee - have up to four ports wired into the wall to under the desk that you can use for ethernet (cat5/6) usb and rs232/432 to suit your needs.

Have some separate lighting for the workbench beyond room light, a quality florescent with diffuser mounted just above the workbench that illuminates the work area generously (not your eyes) and can be switched on and off easily in case you need you use a magnified work lamp as well. Have this above a 100mm vice that includes an anvil space behind the jaws and has a mount that you can rotate. Mount it on a corner of the desk so that you can re-orient it 90 degrees. Buy a quality British, American or Australian made vice, more than likely the British vices are probably the best. You will use the vice more than you know - also have aluminium and wood vice guards that you can interchange handy.

You will get burnt, you will get cut so mount a first aide kit on a wall nearby and also mounting space for safety gear like eyeglasses and hearing protection. Consider using the fine grade mechanics gloves that still give good feel for when you are working.

This is basically the set up I have, obviously you have to consider the workbench for your needs and the stuff I have here is just the basics. When you construct the space consider what you need to do in such a way as to minimise the clutter. I have not even gone into tool selection/mounting because that is going to be dependent on what you are trying to do - but mount your tools so they are accessible and easy to put away - nothing slows you down more than not being able to find what you need quickly.

Hope this helps.

The ideas guys seem to forget the work part, most of the time and thinking is the hardest work.