This is where it's at:

85% is for pansies; real men eat 99%!

Got it for Christmas...I'm about to give it a go.

Update: If I had to describe the taste, I would go with "solid black coffee", if there were such a thing (not like a coffee bean, but brewed coffee).  The texture is a bit chalky/pasty as it melts in your mouth, but not unpleasant.  Definitely a unique experience for real chocolate lovers.

Verizon FiOS is like:

Wow...

Screencap from FileZilla server...

Austin is just an awesome city.  There's just something about it that attracts me to it.  I can't really say why I like it there so much.  I'm not really a clubber or a bar hopper, so the 6th Street Entertainment District really doesn't do it for me (although it was definitely fun to stroll through there with all of the live music and partygoers).  I enjoy live music, but I'm not fanatical about it (although it was awesome hearing live music all around the 6th Street area after sunset - from bands on the street to bands in open bars).  I like window shopping about as much as any guy does (but it was definitely cool hitting up the row of quirky shops on Congress Ave.).  I'm not really a food snob nor am I really picky about what's "good" and what's "bad" (but I must say, the TexMex in Austin simply trumps anything we get here in NJ).

But I leave you with a badass video from the Austin Zoo during Tiger feeding time:

While small and a bit run down, the Austin Zoo is otherwise awesome in that the crowds are small, the commercialization is low, the peacocks are just free roaming...very awesome, and they have a huge collection of large cats (not to mention a black bear display that is practically asking for a lawsuit because you can literally reach your hand in there and pet the cuddly guy).

I am definitely in a funk of some sort.

I've just been completely out of it ever since I pulled a 110+ hour week at the beginning of November working towards the release of the project I'm working on: FCG's FirstPoint.

Now that we're nearing the end of the year, we're getting ready to prepare a release.

I think what I've learned from this process is, surprisingly, the importance of process in software development.  That's something I thought I'd never hear myself say (or see myself type).  Having gotten my start during the tail end of the startup era in 2000, I've been used to small teams with light processes to promote speed and efficiency.  But I think often times, people who don't have experience putting together large projects are all too willing to sacrifice "doing it right" for "doing it fast".

I've always been an advocate, but this go round, I think I might have been too soft and let off of it too soon.

One has to insist on some level of process that defines an overall workflow from conceptualization to realization, even more so for remote teams.  Certainly, these processes and workflows should not be set in stone, but they must be considered and they must be documented for the better of the team and progress.

Cooking a meal for 2 is easy enough; most recipes are written this way and most cookware is designed for preparing such meals.  But how about preparing a meal for 200?  All of a sudden, the scale of it all changes dramatically.  One needs larger infrastructure to support the ingredients, larger cookware, larger utensils, more manpower, and most importantly, there must be a process and a "glue" to hold all of these components (cooks, prep stations, servers, dishwashers, etc.) together now and ensure that the components work in unison.

Without process, planning, and infrastructure to support it, such an undertaking will surely be painful and the dishes will likely be served slightly late and a bit cold.

In writing software, the boundary between cooking for 2 and cooking for 200 is a very fine line.  It's not so much as how many concurrent users the software will support (although that does increase complexity), but how many features must be included in the software package.  When preparing a dinner for 4, preparing a two course meal will be significantly easier than preparing a 7 course meal simply due to the lesser number of ingredients to prep, store, and cook. 

With software engineering, all too often, it is simply too easy to go from preparing a 3 course meal to a 7 course meal if scope and feature creep isn't controlled.  I think process can help this by ensuring that the introduction of new features isn't simply "hey, I need this new feature, can you add it?" but more involved and includes a thorough evaluation of how the feature fits with the existing feature set, whether it is a "must have" feature (of course the boss always says yes :), and planning to consider whether it is part of a larger featureset that can be slated for a later release.

Process defines milestones and encourages visibility to the timeline of the project.  It makes the future more tangible.  If you know you have milestone 1 in three weeks and milestone 2 in 5 weeks, it makes it easy to schedule a task estimated at 4 weeks of work for milestone 2 instead of trying to shove everything into one giant release.  Process defines the workflow for introducing new features in a controlled manner such that features are not introduced in one module that breaks another module since, with the right process, those involved will have long since had a chance to review a rough design specs and will know ahead of time, the changes needed to adjust.  Process ensures that code that is commited is well written and written to a common standard.  This is done through mandatory peer reviews and knowledge exchanges on regular schedules.

But in any case, 'tis a lesson learned.

Blogger demonbaby has an excellent post on the music industry spurred by the recent demise (and resurrection) of OiNK.

I myself have been having an ongoing debate with my veep regarding all things P2P taking various angles on the subject including legality, piracy, missed opportunities, and the general failure of the music industry to adapt to the digital revolution.

Rob emphasizes a point that I continually come back to in our discussions:

They had a chance to move forward, to evolve with technology and address the changing needs of consumers - and they didn't. Instead, they panicked - they showed their hand as power-hungry dinosaurs, and they started to demonize their own customers, the people whose love of music had given them massive profits for decades. They used their unfair record contracts - the ones that allowed them to own all the music - and went after children, grandparents, single moms, even deceased great grandmothers - alongside many other common people who did nothing more than download some songs and leave them in a shared folder - something that has become the cultural norm to the iPod generation.

They didn't jump in when the new technologies were emerging and think, "how can we capitalize on this to ensure that we're able to stay afloat while providing the customer what they've come to expect?" They didn't band together and create a flat monthly fee for downloading all the music you want. They didn't respond by drastically lowering the prices of CDs (which have been ludicrously overpriced since day one, and actually increased in price during the '90's), or by offering low-cost DRM-free legal MP3 purchases. Their entry into the digital marketplace was too little too late - a precedent of free, high-quality, DRM-free music had already been set.

Of course, this is no excuse for stealing or not rewarding the artists for their work, but it's clear that it is partially their own error in not creating the market conditions which would have prevented the massive outbreak of illicit P2P file sharing. 

I like to think it all comes back to Rodgers' and Jobs' assertion that a large part of the P2P network is enabled and driven by the music industry's reluctance to adopt "convenience" over "hubris" as the modus operandi.

Rob seems to agree:

Trying to innovate with a major label is like trying to teach your Grandmother how to play Halo 3: frustrating and ultimately futile. The easiest example of this is how much of a fight it's been to get record companies to sell MP3s DRM-free. You're trying to explain a new technology to an old guy who made his fortune in the hair metal days. You're trying to tell him that when someone buys a CD, it has no DRM - people can encode it into their computer as DRM-free MP3s within seconds, and send it to all their friends. So why insult the consumer by making them pay the same price for copy-protected MP3s? It doesn't make any sense! It just frustrates people and drives them to piracy! They don't get it: "It's an MP3, you have to protect it or they'll copy it." But they can do the same thing with the CDs you already sell!!

If intellectual property laws didn't make Oink illegal, the site's creator would be the new Steve Jobs right now. He would have revolutionized music distribution. Instead, he's a criminal, simply for finding the best way to fill rising consumer demand. I would have gladly paid a large monthly fee for a legal service as good as Oink - but none existed, because the music industry could never set aside their own greed and corporate bullshit to make it happen.

It's always puzzling to me when this discussion comes up because my veep is the ultimate entrepenuer.  I tend to believe that a large majority of people obtaining music via P2P networks would gladly pay for music if it were the case that the music came DRM free.  I see the legal assaults by the music labels as a missed opportunity to reinvigorate sales and reinvent the industry instead of waging a righteous battle for capitalism by suing small time thieves.

In the end, what good will the industry have gained by alienating customers and offering an inferior product (DRM'd MP3s)?  Surely, they will have gained the allegiance of a generation of lawyers whose pockets are being lined by an industry too foolhardy to recognize an opportunity when they see one.

http://www.autoblog.com/photos/2008-nissan-gt-r-live-reveal/454772/full/

I actually had a dream that I was driving one of these the other day.

This beast is sexy...damn sexy.

Update: See my NYIAS 2008 gallery for more pictures from the show.

I've come across a small number of AJAX animation progress generators and a few pages with a fixed listing of generators, but Ajaxload is by far the best one I've found so far:

Very well designed (and useful) little utility.

On a recent late spring trip, my wife and I visited Hyannis, Massachusetts.  During some free time, we had a chance to walk down to the beach and take a stroll.  We were greeted at the beach by a thick mist and an unbelieveable wind blowing off of the ocean.

About a week or so later, I was reading some articles regarding how Edward Kennedy pulled the NIMBY card regarding the erection of a massive array of wind turbines off of the coast of Hyannis as a source of alternative energy.

The benefits for the region seems clear:

Environmentalists say the $770 million wind farm -- enough to power 3 out of every 4 homes in New England's most coveted vacation region -- would be a crucial step toward clean, renewable power, without burning a single barrel of Middle Eastern oil, and at a time when scientists are issuing increasingly urgent warnings about the effects of global warming.

But the opposition from the politicos seems to be avid.

Massachusetts' Republican Gov. Mitt Romney and Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, whose family compound in Hyannis would look out at the wind farm -- have warned that the unsightly turbines would depress property values and damage the local economy, which relies heavily on tourism.

I guess some would consider an array of wind turbines to be "unsightly".  But to me, it is a stunning view of progress and scientific achievement of the highest order; it is a beacon into the future in which we learn to live with nature and not in spite of it.

So the question is, how can we effectively tap the awesome power of wind in a cost effective manner without touching a nerve with the NIMBY crowd?

Enter Shawn Frayne's windbelt concept.  It is an idea so simple in its execution and so elegant in its design, that it's nearly indistinguishable from magic (of course, there's solid science behind it as well).

Frayne’s device, which he calls a Windbelt, is a taut membrane fitted with a pair of magnets that oscillate between metal coils. Prototypes have generated 40 milliwatts in 10-mph slivers of wind, making his device 10 to 30 times as efficient as the best microturbines.

Science: It Works, Bitches!

With the release of .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft will also release selected bits of the .NET Framework source code!  With comments intact no less!

To me, this is good news; very good news I mean, there are a variety of reasons, but mostly because I know that most people don't have the time, motivation, or energy to work through a book like Framework Design Guidelines.

My hope is that the Microsoft team, in doing so, will spur a movement within development teams to adopt better programming standards which are more aligned with the Base Class Libraries in naming, design, and architecture.  It should, hopefully, serve as a model to how things should be done in the post VBScript/VB6 days.

I just cringe sometimes when I dig into our codebase and find crazy things like methods not named as verb phrases, partial classes because a single file was getting too big (total abuse of partial classes instead of considering an object oriented approach to break down a large class), weird class names, catch blocks which have no code, and so on.

So for me, this is certainly good news and I hope to continue to form better practices as I get the opportunity to dive into the code.

This time, coming from a Yahoo! exec (with a spine), Ian Rodgers.

If the licensing labels offer their content to Yahoo! put more barriers in front of the users, I'm not interested.  I won't let Yahoo! invest any more money in consumer inconvenience. I will tell Yahoo! to give the money they were going to give me to build awesome media applications to Yahoo! Mail or Answers or some other deserving endeavor. I personally don't have any more time to give and can't bear to see any more money spent on pathetic attempts for control instead of building consumer value.

Ian highlights perhaps what is the most compelling force behind the proliferation of MP3s:

History tells us: convenience wins, hubris loses. “Who is going to want a shitty quality LP when these 78s sound so good? Who wants a hissy cassette when they have an awesome quadrophonic system? Who wants digitized music on discs now that we have Dolby on our cassettes? Who wants to listen to compressed audio on their computers?” ANSWER: EVERYONE. Convenience wins, hubris loses.

So, when will the industry finally get it?  Meanwhile, it may just be time to dump iTunes for Amazon's DRM free offerings instead (by the way, I'm in love with Amazon Prime).

Check for additional commentary at TechCrunch.

The most puzzling aspect of this whole MP3 revolution has been why the industry has been slow to adopt and embrace it. 

For one, it reduces the physical limitations of distribution and shelf space.  No trucking of boxes of CDs, no need to hire a bunch of teenagers to stock your store shelves, no worries about running out of stock...it seems like it would be a media company's dream come true. 

On a second point, as countless others have pointed out, CDs inherently contain no copy protection scheme in place.  In addition to this fact, the CD is typically a much higher quality source than most MP3s...why haven't we seen the RIAA crack down on the likes of Sony, Teac, Maxell, and the various resellers and manufacturers of CD-R media? 

A third point to consider is that the media companies are absolutely silly in ignoring the potential marketing data that can be mined.  Embracing digital distribution, with the right agreements and systems in place, allows them to track and profile every paying customer!  Make a deal with Apple, Amazon, Yahoo!, other distributors and consumers: we'll go DRM and lower prices, but you must provide aggregate data about the customers that we can slice and dice to repackage for marketing purposes. 

The irony is that the P2P paradigm that started the MP3 revolution that is driving the music and movie industry nuts is likely to also be the same paradigm that will allow them to thrive in the current world of digital distribution.