Hasta la Vista, baybee

There's a suprising number of people who get their tech news from this blog, so I feel obliged to let them know that Longhorn, the next OS from Microsoft, is now named Windows Vista. I tried to care about this and failed completely, and found that Chuqui summed up my feelings exactly:

It's not like Vista is late to market or anything. nope. Someone wake me up when it really ships, then we'll see if it matters. But I guess Microsoft feels the need to stay in the headlines somehow. But to me, it's a big non-event.

Scoble's getting defensive about Mac users' comments, but all he does as a response is sum up the reasons why, in his opinion, XP is all you need. If that's the case, why should I care about Longhorn Vista? So once again: snore.

ADHOC's a coming

The Advanced Developer's Hands-On Conference (aka ADHOC) is coming up in just a few days. Here's a few links that I want to keep track of, plus a few more for those of you wondering what on earth this thing's about:

• The ten day weather forecast for Detroit. Hot. Humid. Whee.
  
  
• The ADHOC site.
  
  
• The ADHOC Schedule. Note that I'm scheduled to talk at 11 am. Note also that that's the equivalent of 8 am California time. Come to my session and giggle at me trying to pretend that really, I'm awake, honest.
  
  
• There's also an ADHOC Wiki.
  
  
• Brian Geiger recently wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to ADHOC.
  
  
• Wolf Rentzsch recently wrote The Conference At The End of the Universe: ADHOC 2005.
  
  
• Scott Knaster wrote ADHOC/MacHack 20.
  
  
• And finally, I am dearly hoping to see the iUke. I suspect that other people are dearly hoping that we do not.

Teaching the teacher

Molly blogged here about how Microsoft and The Web Standards Project are working together well these days:

The bottom line? We're talking, Microsoft is listening.

I might not have blogged about this, except that a company went out of their way (imo) to piss me off today: Waggener Edstrom (aka WaggEd). Maybe they could get a few tips from Microsoft on public relations…

R U Ready to Rock?!?!?

Someday soon, it will totally rock your world as it has never been rocked before: Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny: Official Teaser Site.

How to Fold Napkins

When we are Needed

I'm busy, so go read When we are Needed over at Burningbird. Shelley says what I would say if I had more time and was a better writer.

Are you using the right blogging tool?

Useful for future reference, Time to check: Are you using the right blogging tool? from USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review. Especially good: their big blog software comparison chart, covering Blogger, TypePad Basic, TypePad Plus, TypePad Pro, Blogware, WordPress, Movable Type, and Expression Engine.

DOM Scripting Task Force

If you've been paying attention (and if you work on the Web, you should be), you'll have noticed that The Web Standards Project has announced some great group projects lately, namely, the Accessibility Task Force and the Microsoft Task Force.

Today, we're happy to announce another, the DOM Scripting Task Force. If you're interested in JavaScript, ECMAScript, JScript, DHTML, AJAX, or any of the multitude of other names for the technology properly known as DOM scripting, go check it out, especially the About, Definitions, and Manifesto. And of course, there's an RSS feed. Good stuff, and I'm looking forward to a lot of useful information coming out of this.

The Rotten Elephant

I had begun a post that says what Kos says, but hadn't gotten around to finishing it. But he's said pretty much what I had intended to say:

It is quite instructive and shocking, even with this administration, that the outing of a CIA agent, her front company, and god knows how many other agents and operations, is met with a collective shrug from wingnut circles. While a blow job gave them the vapors, a genuine breach of national security gives them no pause, gives them no reason to abandon "the architect" [Karl Rove]. Political power trumps everything -- even the safety of our nation.

Given what we know of the case, we know that Rove violated his non-disclose agreement. We know that Rove acted unethically, without regard to the consequences of his actions. Whether a crime has been committed remains to be seen, but shouldn't matter a whit.

The technical letter of the law isn't a shield from accountability, an antidote to endangering national security, an amnesiac from the lies [White House Press Secretary] McClellan -- and by extension Bush and Co -- spewed to the American people two years ago.

Right-thinking people -- even Republicans -- should look at these unfolding events with horror. I would certainly feel betrayed and angry if a Democratic administration thusly endangered national security and undermined our non-proliferation efforts. I wouldn't make apologies for it. I wouldn't rationalize it, attempt to distract with irrelevant, tangential points. I would demand accountability.

But to modern-day Republicans and their apologists, they can do no wrong. No Republican's action is worthy of scorn or censure. They are perfect. Flawless. Immune to error. Godlike.

How someone could be reduced to that level is beyond me. Republicans have now sent notice that they place allegiance to party and power above their allegiance to the United States of America. To them, the elephant flies above the Stars and Stripes.

There's more, and it's worth reading.

College matters

Over at her blog, Kathy Sierra starts with something I wrote and goes off on her own tangent: Does college matter? and College matters... sometimes. In the latter, she ends with:

I'm just glad that Dori's going to be posting what her son is up to, though, so I can still get a little vicarious parent-of-the-college-kid experience. Dori, would you ask Sean if he'd like one of those pink faux velvet bean bag chairs?

I couldn't find the pink beanbag chair she's referring to (is it one of these?), so I asked him. His response? "Pink? Pink??? You've gotta be joking." He's a (nearly) 17-year-old boy; pink isn't his thing. This chair or this chair are more his style.

And a bonus link for Kathy, and she'll know why: check out the Nissan Airstream BaseCamp Trailer.