Could be fun for educational projects...

I was at The Next Hope over the summer, where they had Adrian Lamo on a panel along with Emmanuel Goldstein, Kevin Mitnick, BernieS, and Phiber Optik, discussing the ethical issues of becoming an informant. It was obviously a pretty tense panel; Julian Assange was originally supposed to be the keynote speaker the day prior, though obviously he couldn't because by that point he was a wanted man. A lot of people had really, really harsh words for Lamo, and you had to give the guy credit for knowing that and still being willing to show up.

Anyway, at one point during the panel I recall someone asking him how he came to know Manning; his response was that Manning found him after reading a little about him online, and then proceeded share a lot of "personal things" with him. The insinuation seemed to be that it wasn't anything as simple as moral opposition to the war or his role in it; the fact that Lamo left it so open and wouldn't go into details seemed to me that Manning may be gay, and was struggling to deal with being a closeted member of the military under DADT policy. If you check Lamo's Wikipedia page, it classified him as being an "LGBT person from the United States". Maybe Manning spoke at length to Lamo about being a closested homosexual, and the frustrations that came with it, especially being in the military?

I could be way off here, but maybe the reason they don't want to release the logs is more to protect Bradley Manning's right not to be outed, or to have other potentially "embarrassing" things revealed about his private life that are irrelevant to the rest of the case.

Fight the power and the power will fight back!
You're only as good as the system you hack;
If you become a problem you will be replaced--
banned, shut down, erased!

The world has capsized, gone erratic
Constitutional rights have dissolved into static
The truth is based on misinformation--
reality is only a hallucination!

-MDFMK, ©ontrol

that we've clearly got out budget priorities straight in this country.

Difference; I can take down that art. I can't easily remove a tattoo from my skin. I know this is subtle, but it's important.

Just because your skin will be wrinkled doesn't mean it's a good idea to go for broke and make it wrinkled AND hideous. Some of us want to maintain a modicum of good looks, if possible. Tattoos aren't helpful in this area.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that kids 30-50 years from now are going to be much like kids today in that they would not find that stuff interesting in the least, and use your rambling lectures on the importance of some math equation as further proof that you're off your rocker. Not saying that they're right, but that's probably how they would take it.

I'm not opposed to tattoos either; I'm just opposed to shallow decision-making. No matter how you slice it, this guy's presentation of the question just reeks of it; and sadly, it's demonstrative of a trend I've noticed over the last decade or so of considering tattoos more or less temporary. It still costs a lot of money to get them removed; it's not exactly something you just walk into a clinic and get done in an hour. I have enough friends with tattoo regret to be aware of the details. It's just not pretty.

Even beyond the "professional" consequences, it's a remarkably stupid thing to do. A lot of people are dishonest about their interests in getting a tattoo - it's all about fulfilling some vain ideal of what you want others to think of you, and does little to enhance any actual substance on your part. All it says is that you care so little about yourself and your body that you'll gladly deface it to for some kitschy image. This will make for a great novelty at a party or con, sure, but nobody will care after the first time they see it. After that, you have to live with knowing that you thought so little of yourself that you actually prostituted your flesh to some kitschy idea.

Like an idea, or symbol, or picture a lot? Get a fucking t-shirt of it. This has the advantage of getting the cheap laugh at the party, but you can also walk home with your dignity relatively intact. It takes a remarkably low level of self-respect to devalue yourself by attaching the whole of your existence to a few cheap symbols.

In what way will having these tattoos enhance your existence? Do you really foresee finding it "cool" ten years from now? Or twenty? If you have to ask what it is you want tattooed, that should be sign enough that it isn't something you want permanently engraved into your skin.

Think of how dignified those tattoos will look when you age and your whole body looks like Reagan's neck. Do you really want to explain to your grandkids why you thought a math equation or Mighty Mouse or a kanji character that means "desk" was something that held enough meaning that it required you to permanently scar your body with it?

This applies to everyone who resolves to get a tattoo before deciding what it is of, btw.

Afghan minerals may reach 3 trillion dollars: minister

Again - no idea whether this is true or just hype, but thought it was worth mentioning.

In some cases, your work is your social network. I work as a sysadmin for an insurance agency, and probably the most important day-to-day function for the insurance agents here is keeping in touch with clients. The ones that are "hip" enough to know about Facebook et al can see the value these things could have in doing business, but nobody has any delusions of being able to use one in any useful fashion because of regulatory compliance.

First, the only social networking site you're allowed to have a profile on is LinkedIn, which is fitting because it's designed from the ground up to do nothing but exchange business information in the most factual and boring way possible. Access to Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter is blocked in the office by our corporate-run firewall, and if you get caught discussing business with clients on a personal profile with one of these sites, you're subject to being written up.

Second, every change, even correcting a typo, requires submitting paperwork and waiting a matter of weeks to hear a "yea" or "nay" from corporate; given that timeliness is a key factor in most social networking sites, this fact alone renders them completely useless.

Most end up passing on making a profile at all, since it ends up being a huge hassle for little benefit compared to just calling people and meeting in person the old-fashioned way. I find it hard to believe there isn't some better middle-ground that corporate entities can find which would leverage communication technologies with adequate record-keeping.