The hot topic these days is the January 25th revolution in Egypt: the people rose up and demanded that their president (who is known for, among other things, having bloggers raided, torture, censorship, and general repression of the people of an entire country) step down and do whatever it is that retired dictators do (which is usually not what the people wish he or she would do). For the record, the United States was well aware that this was happening, and in fact aided the government of Egypt to the tune of 1.5 billion US dollars a year because …

About four years ago, a retired professor emeritus from the University of Pittsburgh named Bernhardt Lieberman was doing research on the hacker subculture. He interviewed a number of people in Pittsburgh (myself included at the time), and in 2004 attended the HOPE conference to interview another group of attendees about their lives, practices, education, and interests (computers and hacking aside).

I kept in touch with Bernhardt up until I left Pittsburgh in 2005, at which time I didn't have a net.connection for a couple of months. Life being what it is, I didn't actually get around to contacting him …