Wanted to make a site-wide change to my blog.

Fixed two templates; republished…and all is good.

NOTE: It took a bit of hunting on my system to find template (room for improvement).

But – overall – YES! Update X years of stuff with a few changes!

OK – in honor of the summer solstice – I’ve finally coded a Summer theme for the blog. (Had a placeholder, just a copy of the spring theme….)

Not perfect, but OK and … done.

Happy summer.

…House lawmakers Tuesday accepted a $3,300 pay raise that will increase their salaries to $168,500.

The 2 percent cost-of-living raise would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate.

— Associated Press, June 14, 2006

A bid to boost the U.S. minimum wage failed Tuesday as Republicans in the House of Representatives pushed back an effort by Democrats to force a vote on the measure.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, said last week that he wanted to hold off on debating minimum wage legislation until possibly after the November elections. House Majority Leader John Boehner also said he probably wouldn’t allow the legislation to reach the House floor this week.

— Bloomberg News, June 20, 2006

Remember, you elected these officials. Those representaives who – a week after their seventh straight raise – declined to debate if their minimum wage constituents deserve a raise after about a decade. Hey, it’s not like the cost of essentials, such as housing or gas, has risen over the last 10 years. What’s the rush? I’ve gotten my raise…

And don’t get me started on the whole “…until possibly after the November elections…” quotation. Too many things wrong – yet painfully realistic – about that comment to comment.

And people wonder why I don’t vote…

UPDATE: After I read this over, I think there might be an impression that I object to the salaries given to our representatives. This is not the case – for the most part, it seems low. Most are lawyers and so on who could (and, after leaving Congress) do better in the private sector. And they know this.

My issue is that these reps keep getting raises (less than COLA, really, so not out of line), but refusing to discuss those who really need – at least – that COLA raise.

And the sequence this year – yes, we’ll take a raise…[week passes]…let’s not discuss that minimum raise issue – is troubling.

Who are these representaives representing?

*sigh* Yes, this is a rhetorical question.

For reasons that I really don’t care to explain, I’m actually putting together a PowerPoint presentation.

On purpose.

Thank god I did a lot of Perl hacking this weekend; helped this effort (not!).

Attach pointy hair….

Stop the presses! – sane talk about a normally flame-war topic (I recommend reading both articles in full):

• Mark Pilgrim talks about his disenchantment with Mac (and ultimately moving to Linux). And Pilgrim is a long-time Mac user. Yet he is not dinging the product as much as he is questioning Apple’s less-than-open architecture/DRM etc. Perfectly legit complaint.
• Over at Daring Fireball, John Gruber – another Mac hardcore – analyzes Pilgrim’s switch and comes out so logical that it’s scary. There’s no room for anything but blind support of the OS of your choice.

Gruber’s main point is telling, basically, anyone upset with Pilgrim’s decision to stick a sock in it.

Gruber says people value things differently; Pilgrim likes openness so much he’s willing to take a UI hit to get that. That’s his (Pilgrim’s) choice, not a blow against the empire. It doesn’t make a Mac worse or Linux better or marginalize Windows.

However, my favorite part of Gruber’s article was the following, which spells out a hard truth:

I’m deeply suspicious of Mac users who claim to be perfectly happy with MacOS X. Real Mac users, to me, are people with much higher standards, impossibly high standards, and who use Macs not because they’re great, but because they suck less than everything else. Pilgrim, to me, is a quintessential Mac user in that regard; and what he’s doing is wondering if maybe things might suck less somewhere else.

— John Gruber, And Oranges

Yes, all OSs have deep flaws depending on their use: Linux’s UI is still weak; Windows is a security nightmare, Macs are not open (and the PowerPC to Intel port is still messy).

Operating Systems are hard; they are incredibly complicated. Witness Microsoft – the world’s largest software company – struggling with their new Vista OS.

Gruber then adds the following, which – again – is a no-no for an OS fan:

“Better” for Mark Pilgrim doesn’t mean better for you, and nowhere has Pilgrim implied that it does.

An OS choice is – as Gruber mentions – like a vehicle choice. There are trade-offs: Do you want high MPG or the ability to haul a lot of crap? Can’t – currently – have both.

Calm, logical and rational talk. Very impressive; very well written.

Note: Pigrim respond’s to Gruber’s article here.

Bill Gates announced today announced today that he will – in two years – remove himself from day-to-day operations of the company he cofounded, Microsoft. He’ll then spend more time at the foundation he formed with his wife.

Not a surprise to me, and I’m glad to see Ray Ozzie named as new Chief Software Architect. I don’t know if Ozzie has the management chops necessary to reverse the direction of the USS Titanic Microsoft, but he seems to have he visionary chops required to remake the company.

But what the hell do I know?

And – as always – kudos to Gates (and wife) for his foundation and all that it’s trying to do. Important stuff. Third world health care and other good causes.

Here we go again: Bush makes surprise visit to Iraq.

I’ve mentioned this many times before, I understand the reasons for the secrecy and the need for the visits to be surprises, but what does it say about how well things are going over in Iraq when – three years after “shock and awe,” Saddam captured and on trial, a new Iraqi government formed – that leaders of the US still have to come into the country through the back door?

Doesn’t say much good, I’m afraid.

I mean, when’s the last time you saw a headline that read “[VIP US official] Makes Surprise Visit to Aukland, New Zealand”? Pick your destination. Guess which ones will have to be “surprises.”

Robert Scoble, who is as responsible as anyone for making his current employer, Microsoft, seem more of a gentle giant (vs. monopolistic evil), is leaving the company.

Interesting, and a blow for MS, to me. He didn’t really drink the Kool-Aid, but – at the same time – was a staunch defender of MS.

Also said what was better elsewhere.

This was a good voice.

Sad to see this voice leaving MS, but best of luck to Scoble!

I just returned – about two hours ago – from a four-day trip to Seattle.

Before things get stale, mixed-up or otherwise distorted, here are some quick first impressions of Seattle and the surrounding area that we saw:

• People are polite – I come from Chicago, a pretty friendly big city, but I’m not meaning it friendly in the way of the South, for example. Just overall geniality. Still, in Chicago, there’s a lot of me first activity. In downtown Seattle, by contrast, drivers let people cross when the people have the right of way. By the same token, people hang on the curbs waiting for the walk sign, even when the street was clear.
• There is no cuisine – As a major port, and (relatively) near Alaska, I thought I’d have to fight to find something not fishy to eat. I was hoping for this (because I wanted, basically, to eat seafood the entire trip. I love seafood). Not the case, at least at the downtown restaurants. Struck me as odd.
• City in transition – Oh, there is a lot of building going on, and it’s all high-rises and not too attractive. The old part of town – Pioneer Square – still is the most architecturally interesting area, and seems to be striving to keep that character, even with change. Downtown? Fuggetaboutit…. It’ll be interesting to see how the city shapes up in a decade or so.
• Soggy city – I can’t complain: Three of the four days we were there it was, for the most part, clear and sunny. Can’t ask for more than that. The last day – and today, our travel day – Seattle showed its expected colors (grey and gray). Cool, thoroughly overcast, with spits of rain here and there. Not fun.
• Casual city – Did a lot of walking around the city, including the business areas, and past bus stops at rush hours when people were getting on/off the bus. I think I only saw a handful of suits, a dozen or so ties. These were people walking into office buildings. I’ve no problem with casual dress – I’ve more of a problem with silly policies outlawing/requiring this or that – but it seemed odd. To use the Chicago example again, stand at a bus stop at 8am in Chicago and it’s suit after suit or – at least – business causal (Dockers and a quiet sport shirt).
• Granola Culture – There were a lot of (non-homeless) folks – mainly men – who looked like they had barely survived the 60s and were still plugging away in Seattle. Lots of, for lack of a better example, Willie Nelson look-a-likes. I’ve nothing against Willie Nelson, but he’s not usually held up as a fashion/grooming role model, or am did I miss that issue of Vogue?
• Green – I mean green in two ways: Green 1 – The city/citizens put an effort into recycling, saving water and so on. There are bike lanes, bike holders on fronts of buses and garbage cans that have trash/paper/plastic slots. Can you imaging a stereotypical New Yorker doing this segregation? Green 2 – Lush, lush area. Pines and firs all over the place, bright rhododendrons, masses of ferns. We didn’t get off the beaten path as much as either of us would have liked, but that we did see was wonderful. Hill, trees, water…

That’s the quick hit, more detail (and pictures – currently processing) as the weekend continues.

IBM seems to have a lot of really smart people working for them – or, perhaps, IBM only lets the really smart folks blog.

I’ve gotten a lot from various IBM blog posts/essays, from RSS to ImageMagik.

Thanks.

In chmod 777 web, author James Snell cuts through the buzz and buzzwords (i.e. the bullshit) and outlines what Web 2.0 really is all about:

There is something more fundamental going on right now. The web is becoming more hackable.. in the good sense. People are starting to realize that the web is more than just a publishing medium. It’s a place where you can (or should be able to) actually do stuff. Web sites that let you do stuff are more important than web sites that only let you read stuff.
— James Snell

I completely agree with him, except when he later writes:

Smart companies will provide their users with something to do; something that is of value to the user; something that the user will become loyal to; something that the user will become a part of; something that the user will respect; something that the user will be willing to pay for.

I think Google has the model that works over, say, Flickr – passive payment.

Sure, do a Google Map mash up, for free. At some point, those maps will have contextual ads, that cost you NOTHING. Hey, you might even get revenue from them. This is better than paying for an upgrade to a service.

Hmm…pay for something or get something from free (possible get paid for using this free data). Tough choice…

Does this make sense?

It does to me, which scares the hell outta me…