This article from The Atlantic, published over 20 years ago, that does a great job of telling the story of how diamonds became expensive. It's fascinating, and it makes you really wonder what DeBeers has done all these years to prop up their cartel.
The short version is this: diamonds are not precious stones, and they are not rare. Their main value is their emotional value of the person who received the stone; it's not based on any market value whatsoever. And diamonds became "required" for engagement rings through one of the best marketing campaigns in history that leveraged the power of Hollywood in the 1940's.
I don't think I'm going to be buying any natural diamonds any time soon. Artificial? Maybe... but I'd probably prefer a real precious stone.
That's friggin' beautiful. According to whois, it's been registered since 1999 by a UK gentleman; well done! I wonder how long 'till the lawyers descend....
Anyone who did some passing research into the original posting could've seen that. As I said originally, these guys just did their demonstration on a Mac in order to get a publicity storm started. They certainly accomplished that, and probably raised the visibility of their security company as a result. Good for them, I guess.
This is a very real exploit... just not one that the Mac is vulnerable to unless you're using 3rd party wireless hardware. And how many Mac users do you know that use 3rd party wireless hardware? Yeah, me either.
I think it's interesting to note that Civilization IV comes with an in-game alarm clock. You set it as a timer, and when that time is up it produces that horrifying bzzz-bzzz noise of the generic bedside alarm clock. Simple, but effective.
Even back with the original Civilization I used to lose track of time and spend all night conquering the world. Addiction? Absolutely. Thankfully, after four revisions of the game, they've realized I might need help in knowing when to go to sleep.
Never mind that buzzing sound though; the Persians are threatening & I've got to rally my religious partners to crush him.
Note that if you research the article a bit, you'll find that the "researchers" didn't hack the MacBook through the built-in wireless adaptor, they actually used a 3rd party wireless card plugged into it. They did it on a Mac just for the publicity storm they hoped it would generate (and lookie here, they were right).
So all the crap about "Oh oh, now your Mac is just as insecure as a Windows Box" is really, well, wrong.
And researchers deserves the double-quotes in my opinion; anyone with a nickname like "Jonny Cache" seems a bit silly to me in the first place.
A great post, but as others have mentioned you seem to have made some assumptions that greatly affected the overall calculations. I almost spewed tea out my nose when I got to the point that said...
...trying to outfit any significant portion of U.S. vehicles (Let's say... 10%) with lithium ion batteries will cause a tremendous surge in demand for lithium, driving prices sky high.
If we can assume that we're operating in a free market of sorts (meaning OPEC hasn't already set up a lithium cartel), then it's reasonable to assume that a surge in demand for lithium would trigger a surge in supply as well. Plus, as a previous reply mentioned, lithium makes up a very small part of a Li-On battery.
But the real thing to remember is that this car isn't claiming to be cheaper to operate than your typical gas guzzler. Cheaper to drive day-to-day? Yes. Cheaper over the life of the car? Probably not. But horseless carriages weren't the cheapest mode of transportation 100 years ago either.
(PS. How's this for ironic: the thought of a lithium cartel makes me slightly depressed!! Thank you, thank you... I"ll be here all week.)
I think you're being too gracious there. As I understand it, WinFS was the key technology behind Microsoft attempting to do context-based searching quickly. If it isn't included in Vista, Windows searching may continue to be the same "search for a filename" slow grind. I hope they at least kill that stupid talking dog; what a miserable excuse for a UI element.
Anyway, OS X's Spotlight isn't perfect, but it does work & is being improved all the time. Let's see... is it too late to short MSFT stock? Oh, looks like it is....
Good job reading the cover page. Next time, try reading the full article, which continues on with:
Another... document... lists the circuit IDs of key Peering Links which were "cut-in" in February 2003, including ConXion, Verio, XO, Genuity, Qwest, PAIX, Allegiance, AboveNet, Global Crossing, C&W, UUNET, Level 3, Sprint, Telia, PSINet and Mae West.
MAE-West is the main interconnect for backbone providers on the west coast. Another key interconnect on the east coast (MAE-East). Klein's document provides solid information that this "secret room" setup was being duplicated at many other AT&T locations, and AT&T is (of course) a member of the MAE-East exchange as well.
So yeah, they are tapping into pretty much all of the US-based internet.
Now, you were saying something about mindlessness?
I get the feeling they've got some decent signal processing built into the controller speaker, and that it'll be used in conjunction with sound effects coming from the Wii itself. Hey, I just typed 'Wii' for the first time, and I didn't chuckle. I guess the name is growing on me....
Anyway, the interesting thing about this feature (at least to me) is that they talked about give developers the ability to add more depth to the sound effects. So, for instance, the 'twang' of the bow comes from the controller, and the sound of the arrow starts in the controller and transitions to the TV. This sort of an effect has a lot of upside in terms of making a game more immersive.
Maybe the reason people are not going into CS is because most companies in the US are farming off the stuff a comp sci major whos starting out in the field would do to these 2 dollar workers because its cheaper.
This is a common popular belief, but where are the numbers to back it up? As the article mentions, the Dept of Labor forecasts that growth in CS will be 40% between here and 2012 -- and those are domestic number, not worldwide. If you read the
"Best Jobs" article in Money Magazine from last week, you'll see that their growth prediction is similar (46% over the next 10 years).
The fact is, these jobs are not all being shipped overseas. The rate of CS/CE job production domestically is far outstripping the rate of outsourcing of these jobs. Unless you have some facts to back up your claim?
Please. For the love of all that is sane and relevant, please stop posting Dvorak articles. He isn't a journalist; he isn't an expert; even calling him a pundit probably makes other pundits roll their eyes.
So please, just let him go the way of Jon Katz -- into Slashdot Lore, where everyone vaguely remembers that they existed, but no one ever bothers to discuss their views.
I heard that many of the "fuming" early adopters (which in itself is pretty silly) simply didn't follow the instructions closely enough, and ended up repartitioning their entire drive... including the existing partition that had OS X installed on it.
Apparently the world-will-make-a-better-idiot maxim has been proven right yet again. This sort of a mistake typically isn't even possible on non-beta Apple-provided software; I bet that idiot-proofing is somewhere on the post-beta software development schedule
I wonder if anyone who actually followed the directions closely have this problem.
I'm curious if anyone has tried out the OpenOSX solution. It's basically a friendly installer wrapped around a bunch of scripts wrapped around a lot of open-source software (Qemu is the emulation layer, apparently). They say it's a Universal Binary, and it'll book XP in less than a minute on the new iMac.
Eventually I'm going to track down my old XP installation CD and give this a shot... has anyone else had any luck?
Yeah, it's an external box. But two MacMini-sized boxes still fit into most people's entertainment shelves pretty easily. You might still need external hard drives if you want to keep a whole bunch of DVR'ed stuff, but it isn't necessary.
Also, as other people have noted, Front Row automatically finds media on other Mac's over the network, so you can yank music off of other machines too. Add in the auto-iPod-playlist (which can include TV), and it sounds like a pretty desirable set up.
I know I'm being picky here (and mostly off-topic too... damn the torpedoes!), but UNIX is not a mainframe OS. The architectural tradeoffs made in a mainframe OS are starkly different than the "everybody-gets-the-processor" mentality of UNIX.
A mainframe OS is typically highly specialized to the hardware that it runs on. This allows them to get very high utilization of the hardware, and the operating system knows when to "get out of the way" of the application(s).
I guess most people think they're the same... one command prompt looks pretty much the same as any other, right? But the design goals between, say, Solaris and z/OS are on opposite ends of the spectrum in many cases.
... Microsoft says Windows is secure. ... Apple says its new machines are 4X faster than previous model. ... The US Government says the Iraqi war is about spreading freedom. ... I say my software component is almost done.
Oh yeah, and I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Its just so hard to justify $600+ MacTax for 1lb of less weight and a few minor extras.... Case in point CompUSA is selling an Acer duo... for 1299.
Some of the hardware differences:
Faster processor (1.83GHz versus 1.66GHz)
Better video card (ATI X1600 versus ATI X1400)
Faster memory (667MHz vs 533MHz)
Smaller form factor (1" x 14.1" x 9.6" versus 1.4" x 14.3" x 10.8")
Lighter (5.6 lbs versus 6.6 lbs)
To be fair, bumping up the 1.8GHz Mac to 2GB Ram & the 120GB drive puts the cost at $2699. At that point you may as well add another $200 and get the 2.0GHz chip too. But is having a laptop with the above hardware improvements that runs OS X worth twice as much cash? That's a personal decision, but I bet lots of folks will vote with their wallets on this one.
In my mind notebooks are the only sector of the personal computer market where you really do get what you pay for. Regardless of the brand, use a $3000 notebook for a month then try to go back to a $1500 one. You won't be pleased.
Now the motivation for getting a Slashdot story accepted... is a return link to the website of your choosing. Your creds. Your 'Reward' for sharing a cool URL with a half a million Slashdot readers.
Here's my take: the 'creds' noted above are probably the motivation for the 'problem' user. One of the comments above mentions that BeatlesBeatles has submitted on average 4.5 stories a day since September. Apparently the return link is important to him/her, sure.
But for your average Slashdot reader who occassionally submits stories, I doubt that link is the real motivation at all. I've had stories accepted over the years, and typically my motivation is wanting to see what other people like me (i.e Slashdot readers) think about it. In other words, my motivation for story submission is the potential for generating an interesting discussion.
So part of my solution would be, yes, get rid of the credentials link. This has its own set of problems, but it would solve the initial one we're discussing. You might then lose some of the volume of links submitted, and get stuck with a bunch of 'virgin' story submitters who just don't know how to submit a good story.
If you're really ambitious, one possible solution to solve the 'virgin submitter' problem might be to provide better submission feedback. "This link is good, but please run a friggin' spellchecker." Or "We're not posting a link directly to your blog; please try again." Possibly putting a submission into a 'Draft' state, then waiting for the user to improve it.
Yeah, this would be potentially a lot more work for the editors, but hey TANSTAAFL. The best way to solve this problem is, in my opinion, to do all that you can to help the casual Slashdot reader to submit a good story.
I can second the thought that Bruce Eckel is worth listening to. Many many moons ago, you were able to download a few of his books for free, and they were excellent. As a matter of fact, it looks like you still can. And this was way before the Pragmatic Programmer folks made software development books downloadable by default.
I think of Eckel as a software engineer who happens to be able to write well. Bruce Tate (the author that Eckel is criticizing) seems less like an engineer than, well, a cheerleader to me: lots of yelling and excitement, but not a whole lot of useful content in there.
Sorry if I offended any cheerleaders who are browsing Slashdot....
Yeah, but the headline isn't as catchy I guess. It may end up being a 3 billion yen mistake ($250 million), but that's certainly not the same thing.
And the cause of the issue was kinda a typo: instead of selling 1 share for 610,000 Yen, he entered the trade as 610,000 shares for 1 Yen. Oops. He must've been as careless as the submitter of this article!
Probably just one more symptom that the whole world is suffering from information overload. Pretty soon the "computer experts" will be the people who actually read dialog boxes before just hitting the default Contine/OK button:)
The real golden fruit for selling video content via the iTunes Music store is content that you can't really get (easily) from a TV anyway. Movies, specialized content, etc etc.
Think how easy this would be: buy a movie from the iTunes store, sync your iPod, then shove it into the top of the Mac Mini in your living room. It'd take about as much time as making the microwave popcorn (assuming a decent network connection).
This sort of possibility makes me wonder if we'll soon see "expirable" video content, so you could rent a movie the same way. Would you pay movie store rental prices to download a movie file that is only good for 5 days? I think most people would. Those expirable DVD's were worthless mainly because there wasn't a good distribution model; having the iTunes Music Store and millions of iPods really changes that story in my mind.
I don't think we'll see this sort of DRM scheme on music, but it makes a lot of sense for video....
Right now I'm more concerned about trying to set up coding standards...
Coding Standards? A good thing. Which ones? Doesn't really matter. Read Ken Arnold's Style is Substance for a good opinion. His point is that you shouldn't spend any time arguing about which style is best; just pick one of the few well-documented standards and enforce it as heavily as possible.
... so that any developer can jump into any part of a project and be able to figure out what's going on, without wasting a couple hours just to figure out the code.
Unless we're talking about really well designed, really well documented and really well commented code, this sounds like a pipe dream to me. Maybe I'm just not skillful enough, but attempting to absorb any non-trival amount of code that was written by someone else is going to take a few hours. You're better off assuming that will be the case.
As far as general software development practices, I think you have two viable choices:
Pick one of the popular Agile development methodologies; my first choice would be Scrum, but they all have common goals. Read a book or two on it so you get the idea. Then, go hire a consultant to help you run a Scrum project with one team. After you've done it all the way through once, you can probably run it yourself & expand the # of teams using it.
Read a whole bunch of books on software development process, and don't limit yourself to the Agile methodologies. Document your favorite concepts, and why you think they'd work in your environment. With the help of a small group (3 people max), come up with your own process that is loosely based on your research. There is obviously a fair amount of risk here though: lots of smart people have spent many, many years trying to solve this problem, so be careful.
The one thing you shouldn't do is quickly review a few random articles, pull out a couple of the buzzwords, then never think about it again. The number of development groups out there that say they're following a certain process when they're really just winging it is astounding....
Oh, and take all suggestions from strangers on Slashdot with a big, chunky grain of salt:)
Sun has been talking about this puppy for a while now, and it's good to seem them deliver it. It does round out their processor strategy pretty nicely: AMD on the low end, and if you want obscene performance per-CPU at the high end you get this guy. I'll be interested to see some performance numbers.
Typical Sun though: crap-tacular marketing. What's the deal with the "eco-friendly" angle? See Sun's front page. Which CTO's actually care about that again? It's just stupid; saving the planet is a great corporate goal, but hopefully Sun is a bit more concerned with their bottom line, where they haven't consistently made a profit in 5 years.
Slashdot Mirror
This article from The Atlantic, published over 20 years ago, that does a great job of telling the story of how diamonds became expensive. It's fascinating, and it makes you really wonder what DeBeers has done all these years to prop up their cartel.
The short version is this: diamonds are not precious stones, and they are not rare. Their main value is their emotional value of the person who received the stone; it's not based on any market value whatsoever. And diamonds became "required" for engagement rings through one of the best marketing campaigns in history that leveraged the power of Hollywood in the 1940's.
I don't think I'm going to be buying any natural diamonds any time soon. Artificial? Maybe... but I'd probably prefer a real precious stone.
That's friggin' beautiful. According to whois, it's been registered since 1999 by a UK gentleman; well done! I wonder how long 'till the lawyers descend....
Anyone who did some passing research into the original posting could've seen that. As I said originally, these guys just did their demonstration on a Mac in order to get a publicity storm started. They certainly accomplished that, and probably raised the visibility of their security company as a result. Good for them, I guess.
This is a very real exploit... just not one that the Mac is vulnerable to unless you're using 3rd party wireless hardware. And how many Mac users do you know that use 3rd party wireless hardware? Yeah, me either.
I think it's interesting to note that Civilization IV comes with an in-game alarm clock. You set it as a timer, and when that time is up it produces that horrifying bzzz-bzzz noise of the generic bedside alarm clock. Simple, but effective.
Even back with the original Civilization I used to lose track of time and spend all night conquering the world. Addiction? Absolutely. Thankfully, after four revisions of the game, they've realized I might need help in knowing when to go to sleep.
Never mind that buzzing sound though; the Persians are threatening & I've got to rally my religious partners to crush him.
Note that if you research the article a bit, you'll find that the "researchers" didn't hack the MacBook through the built-in wireless adaptor, they actually used a 3rd party wireless card plugged into it. They did it on a Mac just for the publicity storm they hoped it would generate (and lookie here, they were right).
So all the crap about "Oh oh, now your Mac is just as insecure as a Windows Box" is really, well, wrong.
And researchers deserves the double-quotes in my opinion; anyone with a nickname like "Jonny Cache" seems a bit silly to me in the first place.
A great post, but as others have mentioned you seem to have made some assumptions that greatly affected the overall calculations. I almost spewed tea out my nose when I got to the point that said...
If we can assume that we're operating in a free market of sorts (meaning OPEC hasn't already set up a lithium cartel), then it's reasonable to assume that a surge in demand for lithium would trigger a surge in supply as well. Plus, as a previous reply mentioned, lithium makes up a very small part of a Li-On battery.
But the real thing to remember is that this car isn't claiming to be cheaper to operate than your typical gas guzzler. Cheaper to drive day-to-day? Yes. Cheaper over the life of the car? Probably not. But horseless carriages weren't the cheapest mode of transportation 100 years ago either.
(PS. How's this for ironic: the thought of a lithium cartel makes me slightly depressed!! Thank you, thank you... I"ll be here all week.)
I think you're being too gracious there. As I understand it, WinFS was the key technology behind Microsoft attempting to do context-based searching quickly. If it isn't included in Vista, Windows searching may continue to be the same "search for a filename" slow grind. I hope they at least kill that stupid talking dog; what a miserable excuse for a UI element.
Anyway, OS X's Spotlight isn't perfect, but it does work & is being improved all the time. Let's see... is it too late to short MSFT stock? Oh, looks like it is....
Good job reading the cover page. Next time, try reading the full article, which continues on with:
... document ... lists the circuit IDs of key Peering Links which were "cut-in" in February 2003, including ConXion, Verio, XO, Genuity, Qwest, PAIX, Allegiance, AboveNet, Global Crossing, C&W, UUNET, Level 3, Sprint, Telia, PSINet and Mae West.
Another
MAE-West is the main interconnect for backbone providers on the west coast. Another key interconnect on the east coast (MAE-East). Klein's document provides solid information that this "secret room" setup was being duplicated at many other AT&T locations, and AT&T is (of course) a member of the MAE-East exchange as well.
So yeah, they are tapping into pretty much all of the US-based internet.
Now, you were saying something about mindlessness?
I get the feeling they've got some decent signal processing built into the controller speaker, and that it'll be used in conjunction with sound effects coming from the Wii itself. Hey, I just typed 'Wii' for the first time, and I didn't chuckle. I guess the name is growing on me....
Anyway, the interesting thing about this feature (at least to me) is that they talked about give developers the ability to add more depth to the sound effects. So, for instance, the 'twang' of the bow comes from the controller, and the sound of the arrow starts in the controller and transitions to the TV. This sort of an effect has a lot of upside in terms of making a game more immersive.
Maybe the reason people are not going into CS is because most companies in the US are farming off the stuff a comp sci major whos starting out in the field would do to these 2 dollar workers because its cheaper.
This is a common popular belief, but where are the numbers to back it up? As the article mentions, the Dept of Labor forecasts that growth in CS will be 40% between here and 2012 -- and those are domestic number, not worldwide. If you read the "Best Jobs" article in Money Magazine from last week, you'll see that their growth prediction is similar (46% over the next 10 years).
The fact is, these jobs are not all being shipped overseas. The rate of CS/CE job production domestically is far outstripping the rate of outsourcing of these jobs. Unless you have some facts to back up your claim?
Please. For the love of all that is sane and relevant, please stop posting Dvorak articles. He isn't a journalist; he isn't an expert; even calling him a pundit probably makes other pundits roll their eyes.
So please, just let him go the way of Jon Katz -- into Slashdot Lore, where everyone vaguely remembers that they existed, but no one ever bothers to discuss their views.
Note that I actually liked Katz though....
I heard that many of the "fuming" early adopters (which in itself is pretty silly) simply didn't follow the instructions closely enough, and ended up repartitioning their entire drive... including the existing partition that had OS X installed on it.
Apparently the world-will-make-a-better-idiot maxim has been proven right yet again. This sort of a mistake typically isn't even possible on non-beta Apple-provided software; I bet that idiot-proofing is somewhere on the post-beta software development schedule
I wonder if anyone who actually followed the directions closely have this problem.
I'm curious if anyone has tried out the OpenOSX solution. It's basically a friendly installer wrapped around a bunch of scripts wrapped around a lot of open-source software (Qemu is the emulation layer, apparently). They say it's a Universal Binary, and it'll book XP in less than a minute on the new iMac.
Eventually I'm going to track down my old XP installation CD and give this a shot... has anyone else had any luck?
--Mid
Have you heard of Elgato Systems' EyeTV line?
t v500
http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eye
Yeah, it's an external box. But two MacMini-sized boxes still fit into most people's entertainment shelves pretty easily. You might still need external hard drives if you want to keep a whole bunch of DVR'ed stuff, but it isn't necessary.
Also, as other people have noted, Front Row automatically finds media on other Mac's over the network, so you can yank music off of other machines too. Add in the auto-iPod-playlist (which can include TV), and it sounds like a pretty desirable set up.
--Mid
I know I'm being picky here (and mostly off-topic too... damn the torpedoes!), but UNIX is not a mainframe OS. The architectural tradeoffs made in a mainframe OS are starkly different than the "everybody-gets-the-processor" mentality of UNIX.
A mainframe OS is typically highly specialized to the hardware that it runs on. This allows them to get very high utilization of the hardware, and the operating system knows when to "get out of the way" of the application(s).
I guess most people think they're the same... one command prompt looks pretty much the same as any other, right? But the design goals between, say, Solaris and z/OS are on opposite ends of the spectrum in many cases.
--Mid
I don't have a pair, but it looks like they already have.
Oh yeah, and I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Its just so hard to justify $600+ MacTax for 1lb of less weight and a few minor extras.... Case in point CompUSA is selling an Acer duo... for 1299.
Some of the hardware differences:
To be fair, bumping up the 1.8GHz Mac to 2GB Ram & the 120GB drive puts the cost at $2699. At that point you may as well add another $200 and get the 2.0GHz chip too. But is having a laptop with the above hardware improvements that runs OS X worth twice as much cash? That's a personal decision, but I bet lots of folks will vote with their wallets on this one.
In my mind notebooks are the only sector of the personal computer market where you really do get what you pay for. Regardless of the brand, use a $3000 notebook for a month then try to go back to a $1500 one. You won't be pleased.
--Mid
Compare for yourself:
MacBook Pro Specs
Acer Aspire 5670 Specs
Now the motivation for getting a Slashdot story accepted ... is a return link to the website of your choosing. Your creds. Your 'Reward' for sharing a cool URL with a half a million Slashdot readers.
Here's my take: the 'creds' noted above are probably the motivation for the 'problem' user. One of the comments above mentions that BeatlesBeatles has submitted on average 4.5 stories a day since September. Apparently the return link is important to him/her, sure.
But for your average Slashdot reader who occassionally submits stories, I doubt that link is the real motivation at all. I've had stories accepted over the years, and typically my motivation is wanting to see what other people like me (i.e Slashdot readers) think about it. In other words, my motivation for story submission is the potential for generating an interesting discussion.
So part of my solution would be, yes, get rid of the credentials link. This has its own set of problems, but it would solve the initial one we're discussing. You might then lose some of the volume of links submitted, and get stuck with a bunch of 'virgin' story submitters who just don't know how to submit a good story.
If you're really ambitious, one possible solution to solve the 'virgin submitter' problem might be to provide better submission feedback. "This link is good, but please run a friggin' spellchecker." Or "We're not posting a link directly to your blog; please try again." Possibly putting a submission into a 'Draft' state, then waiting for the user to improve it.
Yeah, this would be potentially a lot more work for the editors, but hey TANSTAAFL. The best way to solve this problem is, in my opinion, to do all that you can to help the casual Slashdot reader to submit a good story.
--Mid
I can second the thought that Bruce Eckel is worth listening to. Many many moons ago, you were able to download a few of his books for free, and they were excellent. As a matter of fact, it looks like you still can. And this was way before the Pragmatic Programmer folks made software development books downloadable by default.
I think of Eckel as a software engineer who happens to be able to write well. Bruce Tate (the author that Eckel is criticizing) seems less like an engineer than, well, a cheerleader to me: lots of yelling and excitement, but not a whole lot of useful content in there.
Sorry if I offended any cheerleaders who are browsing Slashdot....
--Mid
1. Use Google.
2. ???
3. Profit!
Doesn't anyone read TFA any more?? From it you can easily deduce that your sequence of events is backwards.
Yeah, but the headline isn't as catchy I guess. It may end up being a 3 billion yen mistake ($250 million), but that's certainly not the same thing.
:)
And the cause of the issue was kinda a typo: instead of selling 1 share for 610,000 Yen, he entered the trade as 610,000 shares for 1 Yen. Oops. He must've been as careless as the submitter of this article!
Probably just one more symptom that the whole world is suffering from information overload. Pretty soon the "computer experts" will be the people who actually read dialog boxes before just hitting the default Contine/OK button
--Mid
The real golden fruit for selling video content via the iTunes Music store is content that you can't really get (easily) from a TV anyway. Movies, specialized content, etc etc.
Think how easy this would be: buy a movie from the iTunes store, sync your iPod, then shove it into the top of the Mac Mini in your living room. It'd take about as much time as making the microwave popcorn (assuming a decent network connection).
This sort of possibility makes me wonder if we'll soon see "expirable" video content, so you could rent a movie the same way. Would you pay movie store rental prices to download a movie file that is only good for 5 days? I think most people would. Those expirable DVD's were worthless mainly because there wasn't a good distribution model; having the iTunes Music Store and millions of iPods really changes that story in my mind.
I don't think we'll see this sort of DRM scheme on music, but it makes a lot of sense for video....
Right now I'm more concerned about trying to set up coding standards...
Coding Standards? A good thing. Which ones? Doesn't really matter. Read Ken Arnold's Style is Substance for a good opinion. His point is that you shouldn't spend any time arguing about which style is best; just pick one of the few well-documented standards and enforce it as heavily as possible.
Unless we're talking about really well designed, really well documented and really well commented code, this sounds like a pipe dream to me. Maybe I'm just not skillful enough, but attempting to absorb any non-trival amount of code that was written by someone else is going to take a few hours. You're better off assuming that will be the case.
As far as general software development practices, I think you have two viable choices:
The one thing you shouldn't do is quickly review a few random articles, pull out a couple of the buzzwords, then never think about it again. The number of development groups out there that say they're following a certain process when they're really just winging it is astounding....
Oh, and take all suggestions from strangers on Slashdot with a big, chunky grain of salt :)
--Mid
Sun has been talking about this puppy for a while now, and it's good to seem them deliver it. It does round out their processor strategy pretty nicely: AMD on the low end, and if you want obscene performance per-CPU at the high end you get this guy. I'll be interested to see some performance numbers.
Typical Sun though: crap-tacular marketing. What's the deal with the "eco-friendly" angle? See Sun's front page. Which CTO's actually care about that again? It's just stupid; saving the planet is a great corporate goal, but hopefully Sun is a bit more concerned with their bottom line, where they haven't consistently made a profit in 5 years.