WTF? Swearing at Work Inspires Teamwork

A study last Fall in the UK found that swearing at work can inspire teamwork. According to the study:

"apparent misbehavior can serve an organization well." Taboo language, they said, can manifest itself in solidarity that helps create a much more pleasurable and productive place to work

I'll need to remember to point this out to the next manager who becomes offended by my recurrent use of the one magical, multipurpose word, fuck.

Apache ServiceMix 4.0 Kernel Milestone Released

The third milestone release of the Apache ServiceMix 4.0 Kernel was pushed just this week. Check out the release notes to see all the new features that have been added.

ServiceMix 4.0 a new container architecture for Apache ServiceMix and it is progressing nicely. The ServiceMix 4.0 runtime is an OSGi based container that supports many core services and the ability to easily add additional services. See the diagram below for a high level view of the architecture:



Based on conversations I had with folks at JavaOne, the interest in ServiceMix 4.0 is really building. If you'd like to ask questions or discuss it, please join the ServiceMix mailing lists.

Apache ActiveMQ 5.1 Released

Apache ActiveMQ 5.1 has been released! For more info, check out the changelog and the raw release notes. The stability of ActiveMQ was a high priority in this release so the reliability has been improved quite a lot.

Congratulations to all those involved!

Sun's Current Financial Status - Ouch!

Yow that smarts! Looks like the financial sector is not the only one affected by the current overall state of the economy.

Electric Apricot - The Quest For Festeroo

Last night my buddy Matt and I saw Electric Apricot - The Quest For Festeroo, at the Boulder Theatre and it was over the top cheesy and hilarious. In the vein similar to Spinal Tap, Les Claypool and his bandmates in the fictional band Electric Apricot are part of a mock documentary that pokes fun of the jam band scene. With their theme song titled 'Hey are you going to Burning Man,' the band gets a slot to play the Festeroo music festival on a some side stage called 'The Remnants.'

Everything about this movie was ridiculous, hence the release by National Lampoon's. The trailer gives you a good taste of what the movie is about. Pretty damn funny.

New Google Docs Features (Online Presentations)

I find myself using Google Docs more and more all the time, so when there are new features, I'm quite interested. The latest features available are a presentation application and a Google-specific context menu.

I'm certainly not a fan of Powerpoint (I call it Powerpooper) as I tend to use Keynote anytime I can. But the ability to share a presentation with others, online, and have the capabilities of GoogleTalk is pretty powerful. This is clearly a shot across the bow of companies like Cisco's WebEx and ReadyTalk (though I've used ReadyTalk and it's much, much better than WebEx). You can even use the Presentations offline via Google Gears, nice!

At Long Last - Java 1.6 for MacOS X Leopard

It seems that Apple has released Java 1.6 for Leopard. Although the update is for Intel based computers only, it is still a step in the right direction... finally!

Update: Unfortunately this update is for 64-bit MacBooks only (i.e., Core 2 Duo). If you don't have a Core 2 Duo, just grab Soy Latte - it works wonderfully.