US Army warns: Tweet with care

America’s enemies include those who are “trolling social networks, blogs and forums,” a new Army document claims.

But don’t worry: leaving snarky comments won’t get you an early hours visit from the Green Berets. Trolling in this sense refers to foreign operatives reading through such sites for information that could compromise military security.

The warning comes in a 39-page document setting down the US Army’s social media policy, which effectively boils down to: go ahead, but don’t be stupid.

The document opens with a letter from the Army’s chief of public affairs, Stephen Lanza, who says military staff should “embrace social media.” The guide says “soldiers have always been the Army’s best and most effective messengers” and that social media allows every solider to “be a part of the Army story.”

However, it’s not anything goes: the guide warns that when using social media, soldiers must:

  • follow the Uniform Code of Military Justice (effectively the body of law that specifically governs those in the military);
  • maintain security by avoiding ” mentioning rank, unit locations, deployment, dates, names, or equipment specifications and capabilities.”
  • never geotagging photographs;
  • not use location-based social networking applications while on deployment; and
  • not use copyrighted material on social media sites.

The guide also gives some further tips such as setting all social media accounts to the highest level of privacy setting, reviewing all pictures for potential security risks before uploading, and making sure family members know what they can and can’t mention in online postings.

There’s also specific advice for those in command positions, including a warning that “if you wouldn’t say it in front of a formation, don’t say it online”, and a suggestion that senior-ranking soldiers should not befriend or follow subordinates unless they are using social media in a purely professional capacity. (The logic appears to be that no soldier should see what his or her sergeant got up to on Spring Break all those years ago.)

There’s also a warning to Army communications staff that social media is not a one-way medium: “Answer questions as often as possible… Listen to what the audience is talking about and be prepared to engage. This is the best way to stop rumors before they run rampant.”

And in case you’re wondering, yes that is a genuine image from the guide. And if you’re tempted to comment on the photo editing skills involved, just remember: these dudes have big guns.



The International Year of Chemistry

Rejoice, Geeks! It’s the International Year of Chemistry, according to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). How can you celebrate? Well, DO SCIENCE, of course. Get some resources from the IYC website or carry out your own experiments.

After all, “we need to teach our kids that it’s not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair.”

San Diego Comic Con Ticket Disaster Doesn’t Stop Record Sellout Time

On Saturday, after two failed attempts of trying to get their tickets out, San Diego Comic Con sold out of all tickets in one day.

Tickets were released at 9am PST and TicketLeap, the company handling distribution this time, had already crashed by 8:58am. (For some reason they allowed people to go the registration page an hour before registration started, clogging the servers.)

Some Sad Geeks will not be going to Comic Con This year

TicketLeap took to Twitter, saying that all we needed to do was keep refreshing our browsers and power through. This determined geek personally spent over an hour refreshing browsers on 2 computers to get his tickets.

TicketLeap had an interesting method for showing their inventory on the site. (EX: I put 3 tickets in my cart; those tickets are marked out of inventory for 15 minutes. During those 15 minutes the tickets do not show and the site actually says that there are not enough tickets that match the request. If I’m not able to purchase my tickets, due to the constant refreshing, those tickets are placed back in the inventory and the “not enough tickets” notice is removed until it happens again).

Some people weren’t so lucky and spent the better half of the day refreshing their browsers and complaining on Twitter – blaming the world, San Diego Comic Con, TicketLeap, God, everything.

Then the news from the Comic-Con Twitter kept coming in: All 4 days sold out. All Saturday passes sold out, then Friday, and then Thursday were announced to have been sold out that day, which came as kind of a shock because normally those are held back for later sales.

Then Sunday was announced gone. The day when NO ONE goes to Comic-Con, except to clean up, sold out on the first day of ticket sales. It seems as if the Geek World hulked out and smashed puny ticket sales records. Checking the #SDCC hashtag on Twitter should net you a few choice responses.

While it’s a great thing to hear that the San Diego Comic Con has expanded so much, many people are left in the lurch by poor control over the ticket sale process. So who’s to blame for the debacle that has left frustrated geeks “conned” out of tickets? Personally, I feel TicketLeap, the start up company that Comic-Con brought in to help them out after EPIC botched it up last time, has no fault in this. I lay the blame on the management team of San Diego Comic Con, for not keeping pace with the growth in demand. If anything, this is a sign that the management for the event needs to modernize, open up better communication with the people who keep it in business and, God forbid, have someone else that’s used to running a convention this size (NAMM comes to mind) take over. In the meantime, geeks who were not fortunate enough to navigate the confusing ticket raffle process will have to stoically take announcements of guest panelists on the chin, or try these 6 other ways to get into SDCC, which surprisingly don’t include selling your soul to Satan.

Any GAS fans out there got lucky and got tickets, or were you also frustrated and defeated by the ticket catastrophe?

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Hamster-Powered Walker [Video]

Remember Theo Jensen’s AMAZING kinetic walkers? Well geeks, some people got the brilliant idea of building a similar machine, but instead of powering it by wind, they used a hamster ball to make it go forward. Check it out:

Brilliant concept, isn’t it?

[Source]

Addict’s AMAZING Star Wars T-Shirts

I just ordered one of these ridiculously awesome (and overpriced) star wars t-shirts from Addict.co.uk’s X Star Wars collection, and I’m feeling a bit guilty right now. £20 + £11.85 in shipping for a simple t-shirt? That’s about $51 USD dammit! Anyways, you guys should really check ’em out, they’re totally awesome.

[Addict.co.uk]