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We at UsDemocrazy love getting our own way, so the word “compromise” has always been a hard pill to swallow. (Editor: I can vouch for that)

This week, in Washington  the dirty word “Compromise” made a surprise appearance.

The White House and Republican leaders in Congress have struck a deal extending Bush Era tax cuts, which were set to expire.

The deal keeps the tax cuts for two years (what the Republicans want) in exchange for a 13 month extension of unemployment benefits (what the President wants).

This deal was one GIANT HORSE PILL for critics on both sides to follow, especially those Democrats who feel the President is breaking a campaign promise to end the tax breaks for the wealthiest members of society. Senator Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, says

“It’s bad economic policy.”

It adds billions to the (already enormous) deficit,  but Obama strongly defends this bipartisan deal stating that

“I’m not willing to let working families across this country become collateral damage for political warfare here in Washington.”

So… should we be cheering: “Yeah! Those dueling Dudes in DC can actually WORK TOGETHER!”

or yelling: “How dare you sell out!!!!” ?

Either way compromise is certainly portrayed as the worst of the dirty words in Washington.

Google is looking for some people who “Live on the Web” to take part in a pilot program for their new Chrome-48 notebook. If you are accepted, you get a free Chrome notebook in return for providing feedback.

“We have a limited number of Chrome notebooks to distribute, and we need to ensure that they find good homes. That’s where you come in. Everything is still very much a work in progress, and it’s users, like you, that often give us our best ideas about what feels clunky or what’s missing. So if you live in the United States, are at least 18 years old, and would like to be considered for our small Pilot program, please fill this out. It should take about 15 minutes. We’ll review the requests that come in and contact you if you’ve been selected. This application will be open until 11:59:59 PM PST on December 21, 2010.”

The Cr-48′s features are said to include:

• 12-inch display
• Built-in Wi-Fi and 3G service via Verizon
• Full-sized keyboard w/o function keys
• Oversized clickable touchpad
• ~3.8 pounds
• Solid state hard drive
• Eight hours of active usage with a week of standby power

See Google Chrome OS site for details and to apply.

Dot Diva is a Web site designed to “create an exciting and positive image of computing for high school girls”. It’s a effort of the ‘New Image of Computing’ project sponsored by NSF, ACM and others. One of the project’s advisors is UMBC’s own Marie desJardins.

The project is trying to raise interest in computing majors and careers among high school students and undergraduates. One of the project themes is that studying computing doesn’t mean you have to abandon your other deep interests. You can use a strong computing background to further music, psychology, biology, medicine, linguistics, journalism or almost any pursuit.

It’s a good message that can help attract people to the computing fields.

You can now submit a Mac OS X version of your app to the Mac App Store with the identical name as your iOS app on the App Store. Having the same name for your app on both the App Store and Mac App Store allows you to maintain the consistency of your brand and makes your app easily recognizable to customers.