So I'll go into my cult-ish experience the other night later. For now, as I digest some tasty chinese food, I'd like to focus on a random event happening this morning: namely, some scanning.

Boring, right?

Well, in and of itself, yes. A co-worker asked another co-worker of mine to scan a small invitation. She had some trouble doing so, and asked me to help. I did, but afterwards, the first co-worker said that she wanted the result "in a pdf file...not in word, so that she could e-mail it to people".

Okay, a reasonable request, and one somewhat easily fulfilled. However, examining the statement reveals some internet ideas that deserve greater attention. It's clear that Adobe has succeeded in their attempt to make a single document standard somewhat ubiqitous on the web. I would argue that this is not a good thing, despite the relative open-ness of the pdf standard. Why? Well, fist of all, pdf documents are only tied to Adobe. Although other programs can allow you to edit pdf documents, if Adobe wants to change the standard, only they can do so. Sort of a "my door is open until I close it" level of openness. Of course, given that Microsoft Word is equally proprietary, it's not a solution either.

So the item in question is scanned again, and in doing so, the co-worker asks me to help her with it. After examining it, I tell her that rather than scan it as text and images, she should just scan it as one large image. This, of course, defeats the entire purpose of pdf documents, but it is quicker and looks nice. The item is sent out then as a pdf...

So, instead of doing the correct method, we ended up sending an image, wrapped as a pdf, to several people. Compatible? Sure. But so would an e-mail with the image embedded in it...or a link to a website instead. Too often with web design and technology in general, users want a quick solution at the expense of long-term goals. The real problem is that a universal standard (like those endorsed by the w3c) isn't around for documents. And xhtml just hasn't reached the saturation point where most editing programs edit in xml instead of something that's less open. The solution, as I've discovered, is not to educate voters. It's to fight dirty, the microsoft way. What do I mean? Well, Adobe and Macromedia both have some of the highest download rates for their two browser plug-ins, namely Acrobat and Flash. Neither Acrobat or Flash has ever been integrated into the browser, leading both companies to continue to market products which let users author content in pdf and flash formats for loads of cash. Microsoft has implicitly helped both companies by allowing IE to easily upgrade to include the latest plug-ins, which in turn help IE gain more market share.

The solution, then, is to simply place content of a different nature on websites and demand users install plugins to support it. Rather than offer the tired "we can't expect users to install plugins to visit our page" web developer should help boost important technologies by including them in their sites and placing the blame squarely where it belongs: on the backs of browsr developers. If every site began to use the open-standard SVG format instead of Flash, Microsoft engineers might think about embedding svg support into IE. If every site began to use png files instead of gif files, IE might include proper png transparency options.

To that end, I've decided to stop coddling Internet Explorer users. I'll code the site for firefox. If the css/javascript doesn't work in IE, so be it. Developers need to take a stand, and now is the time.

Armstrong is about to win L'Alpe d'Huez, I've got tons of stories from last night, and more coding for the backend to attend to. Perhaps during lunch I can catch up...

Congratulations to Helena, who scored the sweetest gig ever!

Head over here to throw Ginny Schrader some money. Jim Greenwood, a moderate GOP from the 8th district in PA, just cashed in his chips yesterday, making this seat a perfect pickup in a district that went for Gore by 5%. Schrader already raised $14K in a few hours yesterday after the announcement. So help keep it up!

Armstrong won the stage convincingly today, by enough time to snag the yellow jersey before tomorrow's time trial up Alpe d'Huez. He gets to start last, so be sure to watch the fireworks if you can tomorrow morning.

I want this. Today.

I don't normally like the New Yorker. But this account of the Cheney/Leahy smackdown is priceless.

Clarifying a discussion I had with Brad over the weekend, there are now 920 US military casualties in Iraq. Not including other coalition partners or contractors, etc.

John Edward's brother is wanted in Colorado. Read the article, then see if this is a better headline:

10 Year-old Charges On Relative of Democrat Mentioned Again For No Reason!

There. Perspective is nice, isn't it?

Went ape today. Busted out over two minutes over Ullrich. Armstrong and Basso won the stage after blowing everyone off. Tomorrow the fun in the mountains continues...

This is hilarious. Quite possibly one of the funniest flash animations I've ever seen. Go check it out!

Somewhere, Woodie Guthrie is smiling.

Sometimes, someone comes up with a concept so blindingly obvious one wonders why it wasn't thought of earlier. Ruben Bolling's latest is a great example:

Well put, Ruben.