I just recently joined the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech).  They are a part of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), which itself is a part of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

I had been toying around with the idea of joining a union for a long time.  I knew there were a lot of things happening in the technology world that only organized labor could properly deal with.  For example, outsourcing our jobs to countries where labor is cheaper and the stagnant wages we've seen since the tech bubble burst of 2001.  However, it just didn't seem like there was any option for me as a high tech worker.  I was actually quite envious of my blue collar brethren.

Then I discovered WashTech.  I thought it was awesome that Microsoft workers formed this union, but I just didn't see how that would directly benefit me, living in North Carolina, other than the national advocacy and lobbying they do.

Well, I finally bit the bullet and decided to try it on for a year.  So I plopped down my union dues and today received my membership packet.  The benefits I'm receiving are much more than I expected.  Since WashTech is a part of CWA, which is a part of the AFL-CIO, I receive every benefit that every other AFL-CIO member receives.  This includes discounts on tons of stores and items through their "Union Plus" discount program.  I also receive free life insurance.  Not a huge amount, but it's free just for being a member.

They may not be able to help me negotiate contracts or directly local high tech communicate workers' needs to businesses in my area, but the fringe benefits plus the national advocacy is a fantastic start!

It feels good to know I'm now a member of an organization whose mission is to protect my job.  And the discounts I'm receiving I feel will nearly pay for the union dues.  I'm a pretty proud union member right now.

If you are an American tech worker, I highly recommend joining.  It doesn't matter if you don't live in the northwest, you'll enjoy some great benefits and also know that somebody is watching your back in this crappy economy.

The more tech workers that join, the more powerful the union will become, and the more our voices will be heard.

Thanks, Media Matters, for this piece.  I never thought the administration was calling all right-wingers terrorists.  I also never thought that the report on left-wing terrorists (released around the same time) was unnecessary.

Thanks, Washington Punditry, for your silliness in this serious matter that has led to the deaths of innocent lives, simply due to political views.

h/t Atrios

P.S., the guy in the still shot looks so much like Colbert, it's frightening.

Maybe, says D. Aristophanes from Sadly, No!

You know, I never thought about it from that angle, but it kinda makes sense.  It doesn't make it right, but it does make sense.

Regarding Judge Sotomayor.  Excellent read.  Read it!

Would somebody please explain to reporters that just because they buy everything Apple makes without question, that doesn't mean iPhone is dominant in business mobile communications?  The common refrain I'm seeing in online and print articles is that the new Palm Pre is taking the iPhone on!  No, it's not.  It's taking RIM's Blackberry on.  RIM owns the business sphere.  And the Palm Pre is very much a business phone, like its "in spirit" predecessor, the Treo.  Sure, the iPhone has business users and the Pre non-business users, but that's not the target market.

Apples and oranges, people.  The shocking conclusion will be: some people prefer the iPhone and some people prefer the Pre.  Shocking!!

I can't wait until a Windows Mobile phone has a portrait-oriented slide out keyboard like the Palm Pre.  I love the Blackberry/Treo keyboard, but not the small square screens.  The landscape keyboard that HTC keeps giving us are nice, but the screen orientation switching is a bit annoying.  The Palm Pre fixes this, but I'm too much of a Windows Mobile guy to defect for that small feature.  ;-)

This is so freaking cool.  I hope they can adapt this technique to ears so I can I get super hearing!  http://gizmodo.com/5277456/stem-cell-contact-lenses-cure-blindness-in-less-than-a-month

A coworker just turned me onto the Google Wave presentation.  I must say it looks like the coolest IM client I've ever seen.  But I am skeptical about it replacing email.  I'm old enough to remember when ICQ was going to replace email.  Uhm, not so much.

I'm not a technological luddite – I love new technology.  I just can't see this replacing SMTP email because it is so vastly different.  We haven't even replaced IP4 yet on the internet.  What makes Google think they seriously stand a chance replacing SMTP? 

In my humble opinion, the only way SMTP email will be replaced is if there is a multi-company standardized platform that's agreed on by all the big corporate players, the myriad of Open Source projects, as well as being completely backward compatible in some fashion for older systems that cannot or will not be upgraded for whatever reason.

Web standards, as bumpy as the road has been, is an example of this.  Finally, after years of fighting, all the major players are working very hard to find common ground and commit to it.  You will notice that HTML was never thrown out the window.  All current browsers will still render the oldest websites out there.  Plus, the oldest browsers can still render a lot of new sites, just without all the whiz-bang Flash/Silverlight or JavaScript stuff (but you can still usually at least get static text content and simple images). 

Wave wasn't designed this way.  It's a clean break.  IT standards adoption trends just don't seem to like clean breaks!

All that said, Wave is really cool looking and I'm sure it will be an excellent competitor to other collaborative technologies out there now, like SharePoint.  In fact, as it stands it looks like it is way ahead of Redmond in collaborative and communications aspects (especially if Grand Central is integrated into Wave), so it will be an interesting competitive fight to come!

Maybe it will inspire the replacement of SMTP, but it won't be the replacement itself.  Let's see if I'm right about this.  Bury this post in a time capsule somewhere. ;-)

Also, if you are a tinfoil hat type (not a bad thing when you work in IT security), this article is for you.

Not that I ever really spent much time watching and listening to the Sunday Bobblehead political shows, but this new blog I was turned onto absolutely pwns them.  Not only is it funny in a satirical way, it's also disturbingly accurate.  Now you don't need to waste any more time listening to pundits talk on Sundays!

I'm getting pretty tired of the BP Concern Troll commercials.  In amongst the very reasonable alternate energy solutions presented there is always, without fail, one Average AmericanTM absolutely insisting that offshore drilling must be a part of any future energy solution.

Just say NO to Sock Puppets.

I blog because I care.

Sadly, No! has a fantastic article contrasting the UK's conservatives with our own.  The article is light on snark, which is unusual for SN!, but the article is really really important to read.  So go read it!  GOGOGO!  The Shorter: Britain's conservative party's attitude on torture makes America's newest mostest ultra liberalest prezdent evah look like a torture appeaser in contrast.