Cheney's still-undisclosed location

An irresistible grace note about the satellite view in Google Maps, from James Fallows' current "Techno Files" column in the New York Times:

Last month, I mentioned that one small part of the American land mass was obscured in an unusual way. It's not the headquarters of the C.I.A., which is there in such detail you that can tell the color of cars in the parking lots. Nor is the mystery zone a dam or a power plant. Some are clearer than others, but the differences result from varying quality of satellite photographs from place to place.

True, the roofs of the White House and two neighboring buildings have been Photoshopped, to conceal whatever protective systems may be up there. And the view of the United States Capitol grounds is blurry, though the contours of the main buildings are distinct. But to see what real camouflage looks like, zoom in on the satellite view of 1 Observatory Circle in Washington. That's where Dick Cheney lives.

Fallows is the rare, genuine article: a truly tech-savvy journalist who doesn't work for the tech industry press. Well over ten years ago, I was exchanging message board posts with him in the then-nascent online forums of The Atlantic, and over the years I have often read his observations about one aspect of personal computing technology or another and nodded to myself... "that's right, he gets it."