Congrats to the team who made Writely for getting acquired by Google. They built it in .NET. It used to be uncool to startup a company with Microsoft technologies, but I’ve seen more and more .NET stuff being done in the Valley. Who’s next?

Ahh, I’m being asked to join a union and fight the man, Slashdot reports.

One thing. If “the man” is oppressing you, why can’t you just get another job? I know many other high tech companies that are hiring like crazy (and buying startups too). My friends at other companies say they can’t find enough good tech workers. Both people inside big companies like Yahoo/Google complain about that as well as smaller companies. There just aren’t that many geeks on the street right now.

We’re hiring at a crazy clip here. Seems that lots of people are happy with what we’re offering (we’re spending something like $1.5 billion on building new buildings in the Puget Sound area to house more people too so are planning on further future growth).

I think this competition for workers will keep unions from gaining much strength. Why? Cause there’s no better way to mess with “the man” than to walk off the job and work for the competition.

What do you think?

Yes. The hype got too big too fast.

Who was responsible? Dustin Hubbard, Group Manager over on the Mobile PC team. He explains what happened on the Origami team blog. He tells how he didn’t plan for the hype to get so out of control.

I was on several radio stations this morning pimping my book and a few of the hosts asked me about Origami. One said “I heard about it on Paul Harvey.” (Paul Harvey is probably the most respected radio voice in America).

And, with that, this will be my last Origami post until I get my hands on a production unit.

Update: long-time industry analyst Amy Wohl writes that my Channel 9 interview with Otto is a “kind of anti-hype.” Thanks Amy!

The video I shot of Otto Berkes, architect of the Ultra-Mobile PC team (now general manager) is now up on Channel 9.

Update: John Tokash, director of software development at Homestead Technologies, watched the full video already and says “Great stuff.”

Michael Gartenberg also has his first take analysis up. He’s had a pre-production Intel unit in his hands for a while.

Origami Portal already has a step-by-step analysis of my interview with Otto.

How do you keep Microsoft employees who work at headquarters at work? Close the bridges!

Seriously, the bridge is closed because of high winds (live video too!).

I love the traffic map system in Seattle that shows you real-time traffic.

I don’t live across the bridge, but my way home is affected cause of the backup.

It’s interesting, everyone is emailing each other here internally. Turns out the bridge had a broken beam and there isn’t an ETA for it to be reopened. The commute is gonna be a mess.

By the way, that bridge is the longest floating bridge in the world.