Isn't that an argument for MORE suveillance, rather than less?
Yes it is. We should outfit all cops with these cameras this guy wears, and secure their data. *poof* problem of corrupt cops addressed, *poof* lots of great court evidence. It's hard to see a downside, except for expense.
Actually, after replacing the midplane, the computer wouldn't even turn on.
Ouch. Sounds like another call to Apple is in order. Since it's a new machine, they'll likely be very interested in helping you out, but that still isn't fun.
Sorry for the second reply. Gonna ask Apple if I can get a free Tiger update if I buy now.
Not sure which post to reply too... heh.
Anyway, in the past they have given folks who bought within a certain time period a slight discount on an upgrade, but it's not a sure thing. I mean, they haven't even announced yet, these are 'just rumors'. The only reason they might be able to give you an answer is they've actually announced a ship date for OS X 10.4.
If you can live without a new machine, it's always good to wait, and if Tiger feels like a big deal to you, then by all means wait anyway, just for Tiger if not for new models.
Er, jus curious, what's the big feature you're looking for in Tiger ? As a programmer, I'm all excited about Core Data, Core Image and JDK 1.5, but for end-users, I'm not sure I see the big Tiger must-have feature. Spotlight sounds cool, but 'Find' already works pretty well, and Dashboard just doesn't excite me ( or I'd be using Konfabulator ). Of course, knowing you'll eventually get 10.4 anyway and deciding to wait two more weeks to get it *included* is fairly reasonable...
Re:best thing about this.... RAM
on
New Mac System Specs
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· Score: 2, Informative
Think Secret is reporting that the entire iMac line will start with 512... i can only hope it is one dimm
If this is true, it's the best business decision at Apple since the iPod. I sincerely hope it's true, and if it is, I won't care how they do it. Making a G5 look slow due to disk swapping is just pathetic, and they can't be saving that much money by going with 256MB anymore. Two 256MB would be fine with me, though it probably won't be how they do it. I mean, what's the price difference between one 256MB stick and two 512MB sticks, even at retail?
They probably want to throw down 512MB default configuration machines at this point anyway, since everyone has been giving them a hard time about the 256MB configuration. Just check out any Mac mini review you care to find, or any other Apple hardware review- they almost all say "256MB is not really enough" at some point.
If I buy a powermac now, will I be able to return it , and purchase one of the newer models in two weeks?
Yea, because every company works that way. Har. I'm sure you're in agony because you realize how ridiculous that would be.
On the other hand, it depends on what the supply in the pipeline is like. You might just get lucky. It happens.
We ordered a couple of single-processor G5s a while ago. After about a week, we noticed that the ship date had been extended by two weeks. Then we were contacted and told that they weren't shipping the model we'd ordered. Instead, we were getting dual G5 machines, the single ones had been discontinued. Bummer, huh?
You sure can't count on that, though.
Really, though, what's the ship time on a machine _right_now_ ? You need to go to a physical store and walk out with a machine? Will it be good enough to do the job? You need it right now?
Just get it. This isn't some stupendous amazing upgrade or anything. Your machine will still be fantastic. In your position, I might briefly consider trying to rent a machine, but that might not be possible, and might just be too expensive anyway. You shouldn't stress over a less than 10% performance bump. These machines will be _announced_ at NAB anyway, they may not ship for some time.
I'm really torn between deciding to get a Mac Mini and an iMac.
If you can afford an iMac, but are happy with the monitor you have, why not get a PowerMac ? The price difference isn't huge, you're talking about a couple hundred bucks between the base iMac and base PowerMac.
The reasons for getting the mini would be space and cost. If those aren't critical factors, or aren't as important as performance you should be looking at the G5 machines.
Or would you just backup all your data on separate, external mediums anyways?
This is the typical way to go.
Think "Firewire standard".
The PowerMacs are the only models that have more than one internal drive bay anyway, so multiple internal drives are only possible in those models. At least in theory, you should store your backup drive offsite or in a firesafe, anyway, right? No, I don't do that, but I could and should. In the long run, multiple small drives don't do you any good unless you back them up or put them in an apropriate RAID array anyway. One large internal drive and one large external drive is the way to go.
The PowerMacs are easy to open up, and the clever little drive bays are easy to take a drive in and out of ( no screws! ), so using one of the SATA drive slots to host a second backup drive would only present one downside vs. and external firewire drive: you'd have to power down the machine. For me, though, that'd be enough... using a Firewire drive for backup, or for a portable media storage drive, works very well, and actually presents a few advantages over internal drives.
So, do you think they fixed the midplane capacitor issue? I've had to replace one already, and the replacement didn't work..
How did it not work? Our first G5 iMac had this problem ( but not our second ) and the replacement board ( which we recieved literally the next day after calling Apple ) worked like a charm. It should be a snap... at least, it was for us.
Since our second one didn't have the problem, and this is actually the first I'd heard of it happening on any other than that one, I'm going to guess it was fixed a while ago, and may have not been that wide-spread.
Am I the only one excited about the core data technology?... Maybe its just the geek in me but I think its cool.
You're *far* from the only one, but it is the geek in you. Someone who has never written a data-driven app has no idea how cool Core Data concepts are. Someone who's worked with Enterprise Object Frameworks in WebObjects wonders why it took so long ( though to be fair Core Data is a complete redesign that fixes/avoids some issues EOF had ).
Yea. Core Data. Solving problems common to application development. I'm not sure if it's cooler than Cocoa Bindings, but it might be more useful in the long run. Undo and Redo are just the begining ( honestly, they weren't that hard in Cocoa already ), it's the built-in document data serialization stuff that gets my attention. Yummy useful objects. mmmm.
I often wonder why Rhapsody seems to be effectively invisible in the great online music debate; it seems to solve so many problems so well.
First, it's ten bucks a month. For radio. That you need your computer to listen to. I'd get XM or Sirius first.
Second, the deal-killer for me:
Windows XP, Me, 2000, 98 SE or NT 4.0 Service Pack 6
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later
Seriously, they can't do it without IE5 ?
You know what I find amusing? The "burn to CD" feature. Why do record companies have no problem with a "burn to CD" feature, but don't want you to "burn to HD" ? What's the difference between one unencumbered AIFF file and another ? Putting it on a CD makes it less likely to be copied ? What's the thinking there? And hey, how many of those can you really 'burn to CD' ?
I don't use any online music service, but it seems like the music industry needs to face facts- the vast majority of consumers have said they don't want to 'rent' music. The industry needs to deal with that. We don't mind our music being files, but we want to own those files, and take them with us when we leave our computers.
Uh huh, are you SURE you don't fit into that "14-40 year-old bored people with disposable income and lots of free time" demographic?
Oh, I fit the demographic, all right, though the income and time aspects are debatable. I just don't like the show, I'd rather play video games or oh, I don't know, watch actual music videos.
I know about the show because someone I live with watches it.
did you ever notice how some of the same people keep showing up for "Real World/Road Rules Challenge X" year after year after year?
Clearly, there's some mix of the producers thinking "let's get this dynamic/bitchy/interesting character" and the people thinking "I've nothing better going on". The current "Good Guys vs. Bad Asses" puts that right out there.
It's like shooting fish in a barrel, though. I mean, these are people who were clearly dying to get on TV for a few seconds in the first place, of course they're going to go back if given a chance, right?
Ugh, I don't believe I'm talking about this. I feel all dirty now. I swear, I don't watch the show. Really. Until there's a good fight and someone calls me away from my video game to check it out, at least...
How long before someone figures out how to get OS X running on one of these? Or, if it's easier to get a PPC Linux distro installed, then it's just a matter of
If we're taking bets, I'm going to guess ( for no good reason, without justification ) there's nothing like a Northbridge on this thing, so PPC Linux first.
Besides, you're not breaking a software EULA to get Linux working on your Xbox, doesn't that mean anything to you people ?
Damn, I need a sarcasm key for that last line.
And no, not a 'G5'. Something like it, but likely not actually a G5. A 64-bit PowerPC chip. Not a G5. Though the difference might be slight... it could be significant. The "Cell" for the PS3 is a PowerPC chip, too, but it's quite different from the PowerPC 970.
I'm not trying to back Subversion here, it's just that I'm slightly familiar with it and am interested in knowing what limitations it might impose that these other systems might not.
What features are needed/why BK is so great is a long topic, but being fully decentralized and being able to run over email are some of the major features.
Being able to run over email is an interesting feature... one I'm not sure I understand the need for, if you have to have a fully-featured client to do merges and the like anyway. I guess it's so you don't need to assume network availability ? What does that mean, 'run over email'... it sounds a bit like a method of 'client-independant server API', why provide that functionality over mail and not in some other manner as well?
Is there a forum or something somewhere that this whole 'What features are needed and why" discussion can be examined ? What Linux kernel development list(s) should I be looking at if I'm interested ?
Wasn't the original xbox supposed to be aimed at a more mature market? Instead here microsoft is targeting the Britany Spears/reality tv fans.
You either overestimate the sophistication of Xbox users, or underestimate the age of folks watching Real World/Road Rules Challenge XXXTREME or whatever they're showing on MTV these days. In either event, there probably is a good amount of overlap in the target audience. They're trying to hook eyes of 14-40 year-old bored people with disposable income and lots of free time. MTV is as good a place for that as you'll find, these days.
Does anyone know the 'short list' of SCM tools being considered ?
What are the limitations with the various obvious candidates ? Is support for merging binaries the killer feature ?
What made BitKeeper so special in the first place ? Shouldn't a really good SCM server system have a standardized, controlled interface that can allow simple, third-party clients, anyway ? If Tridge had limited his client to doing check-outs, and had avoided modifying the source tree with it, would the BitKeeper folks have been OK with _that_ amount of reverse engineering ? And who works with the leaders in open-source software while being so against reverse engineering ?? That seems odd.
But ignore that last set of questions. Really, I just want everyone in this thread to tell me what the really, really good open source SCM system I'm not using is. Unless it's Subversion, in which case I want you all to tell me what to look out for.
It's pretty impressive the extent to which the movie industry is following the music industry's lead in ignoring technological advances in non-physical distribution channels. Of course, it's all about percieved control of properties, and a little caution seems prudent, but at the risk of turning down a potentially lucrative distribution deal ?
I think their profit models are assuming I'm going to buy their DVD myself, when really, I'm going to rent it from NetFlix ( or, if it's on satellite, TiVo it ).
Sure, they have a deal with the satellite provider, too... but I'm not sure I see the reason why, as a provider, you wouldn't have distribution deals with Comcast, DirecTV, *and* Verizon. Even if they all have pipes to the same doors, you're still making more money from several deals than you would with one, right? Where's the business logic on the content provider's part? Are they afraid of on-demand eating the margins of their less popular content? I'm not sure I understand the studio's thinking.
The most important thing they're missing is that withholding content does nothing but promote file-sharing. If I can't buy a copy of Sleeping Beauty, nobody but Disney loses when I borrow a copy, rent a copy, or download a copy. Having a product people want and not offering it for sale makes no sense, especially when reproducable copies exist outside your control.
PS, they're not under my browser. They're not anywhere. Drudge gives me no popups.
They use Flash to open. Do you have a Flash plugin? Is it enabled ? If you answered no to either question, you'll avoid those 'pop-under' ads.
arguing with unreasonable people a waste of time?!
on
Jon Johansen Interviewed
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· Score: 2, Funny
I can't believe someone in an article linked to from slashdot actually stated that arguing with unreasonable people who hide behind anonymity is a waste of time.
I mean, sure, we knew that to be true... but to put it right out there like that kinda hurts when you realize it's probably the main activity going on around here...
The real kicker is when the full MPEG4 transition occurs-- this is where you're going to lose all your non-HD channels.
It's likely that they will offer you a replacement box (although this is just me speculating) for free or at a steep discount, since those of you with the HD-Tivo are highend customers. Unfortunately for the Tivo faithful, it won't be a Tivo.
That's a bit of a drag, to say the least. I wonder if there's still time for them to change their minds if I point out to them that this policy will likely send me back into the arms of Comcast, who, oddly enough, will likely have a digital TV Tivo out at about the time they're talking about doing all of this.
What might be almost a bigger question in my mind is... wouldn't such a change also make non-DVR decoder boxes obsolete as well? Isn't that a huge risk/cost for DirecTV ? Who exactly is saying they're changing their non-HD feed from MPEG2 to MPEG4 ? I'd understand the reasons for wanting to use MPEG4, but the cost seems high enough for a deployed system that I'd be stunned to hear that they're actually doing it. That's a *lot* of DirecTV tuners becoming useless or needing to be replaced, and a huge opportunity for the competition... I can't see how that's something stockholders would like to hear about.
I just had to look up some basic demographics on the place. While the average income is about a third of what I'm currently making the average value of a house is maybe a ninth of what it is around here ( hint: it's stupid the prices here ), so... no! NO! I don't want to live in Ohio! Please, god, why?!?
I think that the Java version is just as capable, and could be just as performant, as the Rails app. To me, the eye-opening revelation isn't "Rails is faster than Java/Spring/Hibernate". It's "Rails can be very fast". I think that there is a lot to be said for Rails, and it deserves much of the press it is getting. However, I don't think its a Java-killer. I think there are plenty of applications, and development teams, that are better suited to Java and its immense universe of available support libraries. I certainly am not going to stop developing in and learning about Java just because I've discovered Rails.
This whole thing is easily blown out of proportion, in the opinion of the author. Pay attention, people! Use the right tool for the job- all this guy is saying is that in his one instance, he found he was working on a simple project in which the caching of Ruby on Rails worked very well.
Measurable slowness of individual functions in Ruby were overcome by an agressive caching scheme. It's entirely possible that similar or better results could be had in Java, but it would take effort. YMMV. More than a few more comparisons might be needed before you decide to dump Java for Ruby. Think and test. He's just relating a positive experience with a new tool- one which contradicts many people's assumptions about the speed of Ruby as a deployment solution. It's one interesting datapoint, and a fairlly anecdotal one at that... nothing more. I'm definitely not saying it's not significant, but it is what it is, folks shouldn't make it out to be anything more.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes it is. We should outfit all cops with these cameras this guy wears, and secure their data. *poof* problem of corrupt cops addressed, *poof* lots of great court evidence. It's hard to see a downside, except for expense.
Ouch. Sounds like another call to Apple is in order. Since it's a new machine, they'll likely be very interested in helping you out, but that still isn't fun.
Not sure which post to reply too... heh.
Anyway, in the past they have given folks who bought within a certain time period a slight discount on an upgrade, but it's not a sure thing. I mean, they haven't even announced yet, these are 'just rumors'. The only reason they might be able to give you an answer is they've actually announced a ship date for OS X 10.4.
If you can live without a new machine, it's always good to wait, and if Tiger feels like a big deal to you, then by all means wait anyway, just for Tiger if not for new models.
Er, jus curious, what's the big feature you're looking for in Tiger ? As a programmer, I'm all excited about Core Data, Core Image and JDK 1.5, but for end-users, I'm not sure I see the big Tiger must-have feature. Spotlight sounds cool, but 'Find' already works pretty well, and Dashboard just doesn't excite me ( or I'd be using Konfabulator ). Of course, knowing you'll eventually get 10.4 anyway and deciding to wait two more weeks to get it *included* is fairly reasonable...
If this is true, it's the best business decision at Apple since the iPod. I sincerely hope it's true, and if it is, I won't care how they do it. Making a G5 look slow due to disk swapping is just pathetic, and they can't be saving that much money by going with 256MB anymore. Two 256MB would be fine with me, though it probably won't be how they do it. I mean, what's the price difference between one 256MB stick and two 512MB sticks, even at retail?
They probably want to throw down 512MB default configuration machines at this point anyway, since everyone has been giving them a hard time about the 256MB configuration. Just check out any Mac mini review you care to find, or any other Apple hardware review- they almost all say "256MB is not really enough" at some point.
Yea, because every company works that way. Har. I'm sure you're in agony because you realize how ridiculous that would be.
On the other hand, it depends on what the supply in the pipeline is like. You might just get lucky. It happens.
We ordered a couple of single-processor G5s a while ago. After about a week, we noticed that the ship date had been extended by two weeks. Then we were contacted and told that they weren't shipping the model we'd ordered. Instead, we were getting dual G5 machines, the single ones had been discontinued. Bummer, huh?
You sure can't count on that, though.
Really, though, what's the ship time on a machine _right_now_ ? You need to go to a physical store and walk out with a machine? Will it be good enough to do the job? You need it right now?
Just get it. This isn't some stupendous amazing upgrade or anything. Your machine will still be fantastic. In your position, I might briefly consider trying to rent a machine, but that might not be possible, and might just be too expensive anyway. You shouldn't stress over a less than 10% performance bump. These machines will be _announced_ at NAB anyway, they may not ship for some time.
If you can afford an iMac, but are happy with the monitor you have, why not get a PowerMac ? The price difference isn't huge, you're talking about a couple hundred bucks between the base iMac and base PowerMac.
The reasons for getting the mini would be space and cost. If those aren't critical factors, or aren't as important as performance you should be looking at the G5 machines.
This is the typical way to go.
Think "Firewire standard".
The PowerMacs are the only models that have more than one internal drive bay anyway, so multiple internal drives are only possible in those models. At least in theory, you should store your backup drive offsite or in a firesafe, anyway, right? No, I don't do that, but I could and should. In the long run, multiple small drives don't do you any good unless you back them up or put them in an apropriate RAID array anyway. One large internal drive and one large external drive is the way to go.
The PowerMacs are easy to open up, and the clever little drive bays are easy to take a drive in and out of ( no screws! ), so using one of the SATA drive slots to host a second backup drive would only present one downside vs. and external firewire drive: you'd have to power down the machine. For me, though, that'd be enough... using a Firewire drive for backup, or for a portable media storage drive, works very well, and actually presents a few advantages over internal drives.
How did it not work? Our first G5 iMac had this problem ( but not our second ) and the replacement board ( which we recieved literally the next day after calling Apple ) worked like a charm. It should be a snap... at least, it was for us.
Since our second one didn't have the problem, and this is actually the first I'd heard of it happening on any other than that one, I'm going to guess it was fixed a while ago, and may have not been that wide-spread.
You're *far* from the only one, but it is the geek in you. Someone who has never written a data-driven app has no idea how cool Core Data concepts are. Someone who's worked with Enterprise Object Frameworks in WebObjects wonders why it took so long ( though to be fair Core Data is a complete redesign that fixes/avoids some issues EOF had ).
Yea. Core Data. Solving problems common to application development. I'm not sure if it's cooler than Cocoa Bindings, but it might be more useful in the long run. Undo and Redo are just the begining ( honestly, they weren't that hard in Cocoa already ), it's the built-in document data serialization stuff that gets my attention. Yummy useful objects. mmmm.
When you do, do yourself a favor and get ( or put ) at least 512MB RAM in that puppy.
They are nice, quiet tiny little machines... but I love my dual G5, baby!
First, it's ten bucks a month. For radio. That you need your computer to listen to. I'd get XM or Sirius first.
Second, the deal-killer for me :
Seriously, they can't do it without IE5 ?
You know what I find amusing? The "burn to CD" feature. Why do record companies have no problem with a "burn to CD" feature, but don't want you to "burn to HD" ? What's the difference between one unencumbered AIFF file and another ? Putting it on a CD makes it less likely to be copied ? What's the thinking there? And hey, how many of those can you really 'burn to CD' ?
I don't use any online music service, but it seems like the music industry needs to face facts- the vast majority of consumers have said they don't want to 'rent' music. The industry needs to deal with that. We don't mind our music being files, but we want to own those files, and take them with us when we leave our computers.
Oh, I fit the demographic, all right, though the income and time aspects are debatable. I just don't like the show, I'd rather play video games or oh, I don't know, watch actual music videos.
I know about the show because someone I live with watches it.
Clearly, there's some mix of the producers thinking "let's get this dynamic/bitchy/interesting character" and the people thinking "I've nothing better going on". The current "Good Guys vs. Bad Asses" puts that right out there.
It's like shooting fish in a barrel, though. I mean, these are people who were clearly dying to get on TV for a few seconds in the first place, of course they're going to go back if given a chance, right?
Ugh, I don't believe I'm talking about this. I feel all dirty now. I swear, I don't watch the show. Really. Until there's a good fight and someone calls me away from my video game to check it out, at least...
If we're taking bets, I'm going to guess ( for no good reason, without justification ) there's nothing like a Northbridge on this thing, so PPC Linux first.
Besides, you're not breaking a software EULA to get Linux working on your Xbox, doesn't that mean anything to you people ?
Damn, I need a sarcasm key for that last line.
And no, not a 'G5'. Something like it, but likely not actually a G5. A 64-bit PowerPC chip. Not a G5. Though the difference might be slight... it could be significant. The "Cell" for the PS3 is a PowerPC chip, too, but it's quite different from the PowerPC 970.
That was soo much better than my response. I salute you, Guppy06
What would put Monotone and Bazaar in a class above Subversion?
I'm not trying to back Subversion here, it's just that I'm slightly familiar with it and am interested in knowing what limitations it might impose that these other systems might not.
What features are needed/why BK is so great is a long topic, but being fully decentralized and being able to run over email are some of the major features.
Being able to run over email is an interesting feature... one I'm not sure I understand the need for, if you have to have a fully-featured client to do merges and the like anyway. I guess it's so you don't need to assume network availability ? What does that mean, 'run over email'... it sounds a bit like a method of 'client-independant server API', why provide that functionality over mail and not in some other manner as well?
Is there a forum or something somewhere that this whole 'What features are needed and why" discussion can be examined ? What Linux kernel development list(s) should I be looking at if I'm interested ?
You either overestimate the sophistication of Xbox users, or underestimate the age of folks watching Real World/Road Rules Challenge XXXTREME or whatever they're showing on MTV these days. In either event, there probably is a good amount of overlap in the target audience. They're trying to hook eyes of 14-40 year-old bored people with disposable income and lots of free time. MTV is as good a place for that as you'll find, these days.
What are the limitations with the various obvious candidates ? Is support for merging binaries the killer feature ?
What made BitKeeper so special in the first place ? Shouldn't a really good SCM server system have a standardized, controlled interface that can allow simple, third-party clients, anyway ? If Tridge had limited his client to doing check-outs, and had avoided modifying the source tree with it, would the BitKeeper folks have been OK with _that_ amount of reverse engineering ? And who works with the leaders in open-source software while being so against reverse engineering ?? That seems odd.
But ignore that last set of questions. Really, I just want everyone in this thread to tell me what the really, really good open source SCM system I'm not using is. Unless it's Subversion, in which case I want you all to tell me what to look out for.
I think their profit models are assuming I'm going to buy their DVD myself, when really, I'm going to rent it from NetFlix ( or, if it's on satellite, TiVo it ).
Sure, they have a deal with the satellite provider, too... but I'm not sure I see the reason why, as a provider, you wouldn't have distribution deals with Comcast, DirecTV, *and* Verizon. Even if they all have pipes to the same doors, you're still making more money from several deals than you would with one, right? Where's the business logic on the content provider's part? Are they afraid of on-demand eating the margins of their less popular content? I'm not sure I understand the studio's thinking.
The most important thing they're missing is that withholding content does nothing but promote file-sharing. If I can't buy a copy of Sleeping Beauty, nobody but Disney loses when I borrow a copy, rent a copy, or download a copy. Having a product people want and not offering it for sale makes no sense, especially when reproducable copies exist outside your control.
They use Flash to open. Do you have a Flash plugin? Is it enabled ? If you answered no to either question, you'll avoid those 'pop-under' ads.
I mean, sure, we knew that to be true... but to put it right out there like that kinda hurts when you realize it's probably the main activity going on around here...
The prospect of living in Ohio. Yes, I know there are a lot of positives. There's also the weather, and the 50.2% of folks who voted for G.W...
That's a bit of a drag, to say the least. I wonder if there's still time for them to change their minds if I point out to them that this policy will likely send me back into the arms of Comcast, who, oddly enough, will likely have a digital TV Tivo out at about the time they're talking about doing all of this.
What might be almost a bigger question in my mind is... wouldn't such a change also make non-DVR decoder boxes obsolete as well? Isn't that a huge risk/cost for DirecTV ? Who exactly is saying they're changing their non-HD feed from MPEG2 to MPEG4 ? I'd understand the reasons for wanting to use MPEG4, but the cost seems high enough for a deployed system that I'd be stunned to hear that they're actually doing it. That's a *lot* of DirecTV tuners becoming useless or needing to be replaced, and a huge opportunity for the competition... I can't see how that's something stockholders would like to hear about.
I just had to look up some basic demographics on the place. While the average income is about a third of what I'm currently making the average value of a house is maybe a ninth of what it is around here ( hint: it's stupid the prices here ), so... no! NO! I don't want to live in Ohio! Please, god, why?!?
This whole thing is easily blown out of proportion, in the opinion of the author. Pay attention, people! Use the right tool for the job- all this guy is saying is that in his one instance, he found he was working on a simple project in which the caching of Ruby on Rails worked very well.
Measurable slowness of individual functions in Ruby were overcome by an agressive caching scheme. It's entirely possible that similar or better results could be had in Java, but it would take effort. YMMV. More than a few more comparisons might be needed before you decide to dump Java for Ruby. Think and test. He's just relating a positive experience with a new tool- one which contradicts many people's assumptions about the speed of Ruby as a deployment solution. It's one interesting datapoint, and a fairlly anecdotal one at that... nothing more. I'm definitely not saying it's not significant, but it is what it is, folks shouldn't make it out to be anything more.