Yes, they have Greece :)

Empire Strikes Back was considered by many to be the best of the first three, due much to Irvin's abilities as a director. Shame that he's no longer with us to pick up the megaphone and bring some decency back to the franchise.

I'm a build and configuration manager (and a LONG long time software developer), and I completely agree.

If developers want to employ new (as in industry-wide, or new as in company-wide) technology, they are free to install, configure, test, and prove out the functionality and feasibility of the software on their own machine. But that should be the limit of their reach.

Any shared / integrated environment from QA on up to Pre-Prod and Prod, should be off-limits from a developers' sticky fingers. If there is an installation and / or configuration problem that arises with the application, AND a developer is needed for support, then they should absolutely be called in, but from a CONSULTATIVE role only. I.e., their fingers never touch a mouse or keyboard.

It's common (if not expected) for developers to build an intimate working relationship with the technology they're using. In the world of "familiarity breeds contempt", it means that a developer can overlook something that occurs "obvious" to them, but not to everyone else. How many times has a developer been "called in" to fix an installation problem, and the fix wasn't documented or proved out? (not to say that integrators are saints in this area, but they damn well SHOULD be). Or a developer has access to a test region, and just "hops onto the machine" to tweak a parameter that caused a test suite to fail?

QA (and QC Testers) need to count on the stability of a machine, it's known state. If a test is failing 100% of the time, it should keep failing. Or if it's passing 100% of the time, it should keep passing. Having the parameters of an integration machine change without the knowledge of the QA team (e.g. so that changes can be scheduled in, and updates to the testing suites can happen), then the validity of test runs is nullified, testing costs go through the roof, thus adding to the pressure to "skip the tests" and ship / deploy. Ick.

The instructions / script for installing a package on a machine should be EASILY understood by an installer who is skilled in the practice of software installation, and no more. (ie, not written for a senior engineer, not written for the janitor). Enough information to have it properly installed and configured, some basic troubleshooting, and a clear escalation path should issues not get resolved. Skip the 65 pages of configurable parameters if all the installer needs to alter are 12 parameters on the target machines. but don't skip ANY of those 12. If one is missed, find out why. If 10 extra are there, see which ones are needed for the different regions and skip the rest.

My personal line in the sand is the Developer integration area; that stays with the code monkeys. It's important to be able to test out package installs, and this is the type of machine upon which to do it (which is not to say there is a single DIT - have multiple, including one just to test out package installs if need be). QA regions and beyond are under tight control. I work in banks a lot, so Pre-prod and Prod are under a metaphorical armed guard.

Once the installation and config documentation is tested by the developers, the docs get thrown over the wall to the integration team (optimally, QA should be involved in a doc review to make sure that what's in the Doc is what is required, no more and no less). For a Waterfall / SDLC methodology, this documentation review and handover is one of the gating steps. For an Agile / Scrum / XP methology, this can be considered a single story, where the success condition of the task (story, etc) is working installation (works) and usable documentation (has been tested).

The key is not to go bat-crap crazy on it, but to ensure repeatability and workability. It would be GREAT if the install could be automated (or run unattended, or have little or no intermediate steps requiring human intervention) so as to reduce integration errors, but that is dependent on the requirements of those managing the QA regions and above.

From the "Company Profile" page:

"UnXis, Inc., a new company formed by Stephen Norris Capital Partners and MerchantBridge Group created to acquire all the operating assets and intellectual property rights of The SCO Group, Inc."

However, I like this line:

"Led by a team of visionary and accomplished technology and businesses executives"

*chuckle*

Really? I can't really get that jacked up about surfing the web on my XBox. However, given that it's tied into my home stereo, why not ditch the silly Windows Media Player set up required now (tethered to a PC in the home) and run the entire app right on the XBox? the xbox can already see my music library; I would love to control it, maybe add some tracks, from WMP.

OR (and this wouldn't be bad), how about iTunes on the XBox? That would be kinda cool

Dear Oracle,

Please turn off the default installation of the Yahoo Toolbar. I don't know why you have it checked on, but I am happy to decide for MYSELF what I Want to install on my machine.

Good idea. It would allow energy to be stored up from 'off peak', one would hope, to charge the car up when needed.

I'm just thinking out loud here; no complaints, just some observations. The risk here that I see would be that every house has this battery "tank" of potential energy. I wonder how safe that would be? Granted, 50-80 years ago the houses where I lived all had oil tanks outside, and I can't see them being all that safe either.

As for the gas stations, their current potential energy is stored in gas tanks underground. Still a risk there, but I imagine it's been mitigated by safety designs of some sort. And they would be less likely to be impact-related safety concerns. Do you imagine they'd have a flywheel above ground, or below? Would heat buildup / dissipation be a concern?

And someone else (a post below here, I think) made a good point; if you're at home with your car, odds are you're not in need of a quick charge, or a 440Volt power pull from every house. Leave 110/220v at home, and the 440 stuff at gas (energy?) stations.

I think that long term, the shorter lifespan will be in the mosquitos' favour, as strong genetic mutations will show up faster, since they're burning through generations much faster.

It could in fact have the opposite effect of what the producers hoped for, long term. Time will tell.

I wonder, since they're not changing their security, if they'll stick with a 64Meg application memory limit