Well... not yet. It spun out as a humor piece late last night and built rather quickly. Even I was excited, but delayed the mass email until I knew it for sure.

The UT Dallas breach is not the first breach of data the University of Texas System has seen even this year. In October, the UT System appointed a chief information security officer to build and oversee a system-wide plan to protect UT's information after some recent exposures. What I find so frustrating is that unlike businesses whose public opinion rating can result in the loss of millions of dollars in profit, Universities seem to depend on the fact that the ID's being stolen are merely students who lack the maturity, financing and time to actually force these institutions of learning to act with even the slightest sense of liability. The University of Texas treats ID theft like a common burglary, where the store owner is the victim and everyone should be saddened that the University has been a target of hacking. As an Alumni, I feel for the students of a school that has repeatedly put our information at risk.

The Washington Post just ran an article that Virgina has a proposed law that would require sex offenders to register their email and IM screen names in an attempt to monitor and control their presence on social networking sites like MySpace.com

CNN Business recently ran a couple of stories regarding new business trends on the internet. While some of is not really 'new' to tech savy people, I do appreciate the fact that these forms of businesses are getting more main stream attention. Why? Because I believe that it is a very good thing for our economy that the internet allows more and more people to either supplement their income or find a more lucrative means of gaining income. Economics is the study of limited resources and after all time is the most limited of all resources. Giving people an alternative means to make additional revenue is fantastic as it will ultimately increase the economy as a whole. While some of these trends do require some technical know-how, this first article requires mostly the skill of a good researcher/writer as there are plenty of hosting services that would allow a beginner to create a basic site (and therefore a business) for less than $10 a month.

I recently stayed at a Hilton Hotel. The stay was very nice with no major complaints (larger selection of cable channels would be nice). Service and people were very professional. And then I get this email asking for a feedback from my experience:

An article appeared on the Seattle Post-Intellegencer regarding a website that displayed the Seattle Live 911 website feed on a Google map. The city's response? Change the text to images in an attempt to prevent the map display for security reasons.

I was watching the 2006 F1 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway from ITV1 , a UK station, and they had a great side story about this school program called "F1 in Schools" which gives kids a chance to learn about engineering and project management. "It's a competition for teams of 3-6 school children to design and manufacture miniature CO2-powered racing cars and then race them at regional, national and international level." Ferrari’s Ross Brawn, Sam Michael of Williams and Toyota’s Mike Gascoyne are all supporting the F1 in Schools racing projects.

The Ames Research Center, at Moffat Field, has over $3.0 billion in capital equipment, 4,000 research personnel and a $775 million annual budget. Ames plays a critical role in virtually all of NASA missions in support of America's space and aeronautics programs.

eWeek's Lisa Vaas had a brief column in the May 29, 2006 issue concerning the increasing threat of avian bird flu reaching a global economic impact. I recalled an article in Baseline regarding the same subject. The 11/2005 article, "Are you playing chicken?" (online here) has some critical questions on whether companies and IT teams are prepared for a US outbreak. "In the U.S., the CDC estimates that a “medium-level” pandemic would result in 89,000 to 207,000 deaths in the first six months and between 314,000 and 734,000 hospitalizations. Another 18 million to 42 million outpatient visits to hospitals would likely ensue. The U.S. economic impact: between $71.3 billion and $116.5 billion."

It was announced today by WiredFire that Thepiratebay.org website was shutdown by the Swedish authorities....

Earlier this month a study by the MPAA announced that the movie industry lost $6.1 billion in revenues in 2005 to illegal videos, DVDs and Internet downloads. So there is no denying the effect of stolen material and I do not wish to promote this type of behavior.

But I do wish to analyze business practices and inefficiencies. According to the Motion Picture Association of America....