Friday, September 30, 2011

New Maps Already

The board decided to ignore the Judge created districts I drew up for my last post. According to the Press-Gannette, Zima and the Brown County Board are taking another crack at growing the board by three.

Here's what this new map looks like in Green Bay.

This map appears to be almost totally about maintaining the status quo. It does put perpetual County Board and City Council candidates Rob Miller and Bernie Ericson who both serve on the board in the same district as Ned Dorff who currently serves on the council. Other than that, the incumbents-- including all of the double-dipping aldervisors-- appear get their districts to themselves.

Will the Executive veto this again? Will the city council adopt it unchanged?

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Judge Drawn Districts and Incumbents

Here's a map I threw together of what the judge proposed with the city and county incumbents marked. Note that the double dipping aldvervisors are brown circles with green star points.

Aside: I'm really enjoying this GIS stuff. It's a new direction in computing for me. Though, I would very much like to have a conversation with whoever designed the automatic label placement algorithm.

Here's the rundown:

* Theisen against Dorff
* Wery against Danzinger
* Ericson-- who was beat by Dorff last cycle-- is again handed an open district in this map

It's also worth noting that former Aldervisor and current Supervisor Vanderleest is put in the same district as Brunette and Danzinger. If Johnny wants back on the council it could be an doubly interesting race in the Judge proposed fighting 10th.

It may cleanly break the city up in to East vs West but it accomplishes the political goals favored by the naysayer too. In my view, it's a step back.

But the story is not yet over. The county board can still modify this. It'll be interesting to see if the county push for 29 districts resurfaces. If that doesn't happen, it'll be interesting to see if anyone on the council pushes for 12 districts after promising to do so for so long.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Voter ID Fallout, Upcoming Elections, or something else?

I never understood how they could get along. I know one to be a sane, fact-based conservative who is motivated by helping others and knows how to build coalitions to get stuff done, my opinion of the other is an inflexible religious zealot motivated by pushing the party line with a very spotty employment record. I have always wondered what outside influence put them in the same office. Surely neither would be the other's first choice.

The representative who was once in charge of elections in Green Bay calls for public hearings about requiring ID for voters at the polls.

A few days later, a story about the staffer who quit his elected position to go to Madison who has publicly strongly supported the voter ID law has quit the aforementioned representative's office.

Related? Were the voter ID hearings the straw that broke the camels back? Maybe. Or it could just be what that the rumors mill says, the staffer's wife was really unhappy with Madison. Whatever the reason, it will be interesting to see what district the staffer and his family move to. The spring election season is right around the corner, after all.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Google Plus

They launched G+ without releasing an API meaning developers couldn't build third party applications on top of the platform.

Look out FB, it may be that the game changed today. It will be interesting to see how many third parties build applications and extensions for G+. Of course, it'll also mean that we're due for a bunch of crappy horoscopes and bogus surveys.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Criticism and Reaction...

...will it lead to face to face criticism?

It could be a coincidence or it could be that a little bit of pants on fire criticism has gone a long way.

It's good, of course, that Rep. Ribble is interacting with the public in open forums in public places without an entry fee. It'll be interesting to see if the obnoxious from the left frenzy on him like the obnoxious from the right TEA partiers did on Rep. Kagen during the health care insanity. If the nutty left gets as loud as the nutty right did, there will be city halls across the district where no work is getting done.

Will there be questions about where he lived and lives? I hope not, it didn't get traction in the election last time when he rented a college kid apartment in DePere and frequently changed his stated home city at events based on the audience. It seems like a stupid place for the Dems to waste energy this time.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Message Coherency

Maybe the person whose job it is to check message coordination was hungover. Who knows why it happened but the following two headlines appeared in the same day:

* Quad/Graphics completes acquisition of Mexican assets

* Quad cuts 20 jobs in engineering division

Seriously?

It doesn't matter that they are totally different kinds jobs. What matters is the perception that you are growing in Mexico and firing in WI. It looks heartless and un-American.

One does wonder why they had permanent employees doing short term work. Were these workers leftover from when times were better, has Quad gradually off-shored the new work like so many other companies or did management really hire full time for limited term roles?

Friday, September 9, 2011

Work Computer Use Appropriateness

Once upon a time while sitting in a server room without a phone I sent a pop up stating, "Hey man, how's it going?" to every workstation in two very large geographic sites for a very, very large chip making company. Trust me, you know their name. The headquarters was in one of those geographies. Odds are at least some of the executive staff got it. The message was supposed to go to fellow contractor rpetrix who belonged to domain02. Unfortunately when I sent it to domain02\rpetrix it went to everyone logged in to domain02. Rpetrix later told me he saw and heard it popping up on screen after screen on his floor. I was very lucky I wasn't fired. I know it was discussed. I don't know why it never happened. I just kept working and felt grateful when the ax never came.

I was reminded of that when I came across a story that stated in part that, "A low-level state employee was fired Thursday after he sent an email to...all employees at the agency’s headquarters..." The story went on to say the employee was terminated within hours. I understand why some people think of their work email is theirs. It's simply not. Nor is it ever appropriate for a junior employee to send an unrequested email to the entire organization. Email is an employer resource and I think it's appropriate when management disciplines someone sending spam using work resources.

On the other hand, the sanction does seem rash and heavy handed due to the message. Especially since this guy undoubtedly thinks he was trying to do something good for his fellow citizens. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the spin doctors failed to mention that the agency HQ is five people or some other relevant point that makes the government provided talking points half true. Better to wait three weeks and can him for being late or some other civil service violation... why make a martyr? Or better yet, why couldn't someone sit down with this guy and have a chat about use expectations?

Regarding the government wanting people to pay for their IDs, is anyone surprised? That's revenue DMV collected in the past. Of course they want to keep collecting it.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Thinking of those we've lost

One, the mother of a friend. Goodbye LoRita my thoughts are with your family.

Another, a hero of geeks and non-conforming idealists everywhere. He understood the social change of networking computers and invented eBooks before the word for them existed:

"For the first time in the entire history of the Earth, we have the ability for EVERYONE to get copies of EVERYTHING as long as it can be digitized and communicated to all of the people on the Earth, via computers [and the devices a person might need to make a PHYSICAL, rather than VIRTUAL copy of whatever it might be. . .

Think about what you have just read for a moment, please, EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE..." - Michael S. Hart. Thank you sir for your contributions making the world a better place.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Discussion Guidelines

Robert's Rules are effective but a PITA and, as I and others have proven multiple times, them that know the rules best control the outcome of the discussion.

My friend Richard just posted this pointed discussion guide graphic. Probably more useful in a one on one discussion. I love the intent of filtering out folks who are disingenuously seeking discussion and intending to persuade instead. There are too many of those these days.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Sons of Anarchy

The season 4 premiere episode of Sons of Anarchy is tonight. Each episode airs multiple times through the week.

There was a gathering during season at a local bar to watch it. Was fun to do. Unfortunately that bar changed hands and when I stopped in today the bartender had no idea what I was talking about.

I can't wait to see how SAMCRO gets along with Stahl and Jimmy O out of the picture.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Harold Greene Benefit

It's a sad reality in our country that those who end up in the hospital too often also end up in bankruptcy. We're used to it at this point but other developed countries think it's unbelievably absurd that American families that have to hold fund-raisers to help with massive medical bills. In this country many folks with insurance are surprised when the bills pile up uncontrollably.

Unfortunately, this brushes up against nearly all of us from time to time and this time it's a stones throw from me and and my kin. Please consider coming to the party! The cause is good and it looks like it'll be a good time!