] Heard about Detroit's best-kept secret? There's a
] spectacular neighborhood just north of downtown.
]
] You haven't seen it?
]
] That's because it doesn't exist -- yet.
]
] The area, for decades one of Detroit's most blighted
] sections, is undergoing widespread redevelopment, but its
] condition is still pretty ragged.
]
] Blight? No problem. Detroit tourism officials simply made
] the abandoned buildings disappear.

[ Ha. Incidentally, wasn't urban redevelopment in Old Detroit the plot of RoboCop? Is there an OCP? Cuz, if they work out those bugs, i want me an ED-209... -k]

Will the real Detroit skyline please stand up?

] Findings published online this week by the Proceedings of
] the National Academy of Sciences indicate that increasing
] leptin levels in the body can fundamentally change the
] nature of fat cells -- from idle storage containers to
] fat-burning machines.

[ Next month : excess leptin causes brain tumors, based on new study. -k]

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Hormone Transforms Fat Cells from Foes to Friends, Rat Study Suggests

] But it was in the second part of the interview that
] things, to my mind, unraveled. Bush offered no compelling
] rationale for reelecting him. He offered excuses on the
] economy; and, on the critical matter of the country's
] fiscal health, he seemed scarily out of touch.
] ...
] if this is the level of coherence, grasp of reality,
] and honesty that is really at work in his understanding
] of domestic fiscal policy, then we are in even worse
] trouble than we thought.

[ A strikingly similar analysis of Bush's Meet the Press interview to my own. The key difference is that this is Andrew Sullivan, a traditional Bush apologist, if not supporter. The republican base is foundering on the issue of the economy. This is our opening, unless by some magical chance, the US creates 10 million jobs and the debt mysteriously vanishes in the next 6 months. -k]

The New Republic Online: Attention Deficit

] The movement of American factory jobs and white-collar
] work to other countries is part of a positive
] transformation that will enrich the U.S. economy over
] time, even if it causes short-term pain and dislocation,
] the Bush administration said yesterday.
]
]...
]
] "Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international
] trade," said N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's
] Council of Economic Advisors, which prepared the report.
] "More things are tradable than were tradable in the past.
] And that's a good thing."

[ WHAT!?! -k]

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Bush report: Sending jobs overseas helps U.S.

] County attorney David Morris said that programming work
] for the day-care center had been outsourced to the
] locally-based Genesee Community College. The manager of
] the college's program refused to speak to a reporter, but
] Morris said Dennis was a third party consultant hired by
] Genesee. Dennis, in turn, used RentACoder to once again
] subcontract the database work, which ultimately fell to a
] New Jersey-based programmer.
]
]
] By that time, the programmer actually working on the
] day-care data was four steps removed from the county's
] social services program.

[ it's pretty amazing how easily data can make its way from places it should be, onto the internet, for all to see. i wonder just how "tricky" this formatting issue must have been for it to have required so much outsourced help. crimony. -k]

MSNBC - Government agency exposes day-care data

Home shopping follies. The mix of rednecks and swords.

[ hahahahhahahaha! What a fricking moron! Also, what quality in those "katanas"... awesome. one of the funniest things i've seen in weeks. -k]

Ten Mint Ten

] This article presents a new security system, termed port
] knocking, in which trusted users manipulate firewall
] rules by transmitting information across closed ports.

[ i'm nothing like a security professional, but i seem to recall that there are a few people on this site who are ;) Thoughts? Is this a useful extra layer of security or does the complexity it adds to your firewall negate that?
it seems pretty damn smart to me, insofar as one more level of effort required to crack something is one level more than some people will be able to put forth. but then, again, i don't make a living either securing or cracking networks or systems, so... -k]

Port Knocking

] Nextel Wireless Broadband%u2122 is a new service brought
] to you by Nextel. Using innovative technology based on
] FLASH-OFDM, the service offers secure, IP-based broadband
] access over a wireless connection.

Just starting trials, but sounds neat. Big downside, of course, they're not likely to ever support your non-windows OS of choice.

Nextel Wireless Broadband - Overview

] The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, which
] puts on the Grammy Awards, said yesterday that Jackson
] and Timberlake will appear on the show, despite their
] Super Bowl stunt, which provided Federal Communications
] Commission Chairman Michael Powell with the rocket fuel
] he needed to power his Pro-Consolidation but Anti-Smut
] Machine.

CBS Says Grammys Won't Become the Anatomy Awards (washingtonpost.com)

] So far it has largely been used by US intelligence
] agencies to analyse the huge amount of information
] collected as part of the war on terror.
]
] "The government and international security agencies have
] a desire to find, track and sometimes arrest people,"

If this quote doesn't scare the hell out of you something is wrong. A desire to find and track people.... and sometimes arrest them. Why the hell do you need to find anyone in the world and be able to track them unless you have an active and justified investigation of them? And its scary how no one is reacting to this drastic change in policy for protection of the fatherland... sorry I meant homeland.

[ yeah. this is not cool. i guess, being optimistic, at least they're *telling us* this is the plan? -k]

DARPA funding to track people on Internet