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We put all our databases on a mapped /data drive that is larger and allocated in the san for this reason. I'm not the sysadmin and the policy isn't mine, but it seems to work....

Chef Scripts. But now that I have Vagrant the fire is out. Seriously. Vagrant is amazing to the point of being nearly a silver bullet like Rails was. Funny thing was, when I first looked at it, I couldn't even figure out why I would want to use it, but now I can't live without it.

some of my parts :)

I have. That is where I order parts for my 3d printer. Interestingly, you are making op's point because I frequently have to order from other places because as long a tail as Mcmaster-Carr can cover, it doesn't come close to being all that I need. It is essentially a comparison of a long, but finite tail vs. a practicaly infinite one (ie, anything I can create in a cad file).

Interesting theory, but the productivity is almost entirely due to not having to write large blocks of code. For example, in our last project, I didn't have to write an admin interface, users, roles, authentication, tagging, forms and more. The messiness was tangential, not useful.

To be clear, I don't want it in Rails core. I want someone to make a framework that can run in Rails where I can pull in giant duplo-blocks of functionality.

Because Drupal is a mess. It is like a naturally evolved organism with vestigial organisms and the difficulty in refactoring that comes along with it. The hooks are all global in scope. It all works, but it is all over the place. Using Drupal makes me feel productive, but dirty. And to develop any new functionality the Ruby/Rails stack is much faster. So the reason to want something that marries both is to get fast development for new parts, and giant reusable Duplo's for the repetitive common app parts. If I was religious about these things, I would not be developing in Drupal in the first place... :-)

Decades from relevance is still terrifying. I will be alive for decades. My kids will be alive for at least any value not better measured in centuries.

Having used both Drupal and Rails fairly extensively, I yearn for a Rails CMS with the community and variety of modules in Drupal. I hate doing Drupal development, but from a return on investment prospective, in many use cases, Rails actually loses to Drupal.

In Drupal we can often get 2/3rds of our app for free, which productivity-wise has let us accomplish things in timeframes that would be impossible in Rails.

If something with Drupal's advantages were available within Rails (as an engine or what have you) it would be a clear game-over for other stacks vs. Rails.

The brain itself is equipment enough: http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox

I think this type of progress is actually extraordinarily bad for humans 1.0. A brain in hardware can grow so much faster and outpace wetware by orders of magnitude. Think of forking subminds to think on decisions research possibilities, and report back.

Should brains like this have any desires that conflict with our needs, we will be in an extraordinary amount of trouble.

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer

It depends what you are doing. Agreed, tuning does add work and makes repeatability more of a challenge, but that comes with tradeoffs--the ability to print in more mediums (chocolate!).

I'd be uncomfortable using formlabs type resin parts for anything with load or wear, using them within machines, joints for a table, replacements for dishwasher parts, etc. I can't print anything of size with formlabs type printers. If I want to make a quadcopter body, or a modern-art lamp, I'm SOL. You have valid points--just are valuing use-cases differently than I do.

I disagree. The proprietary resins used in printers like formlabs are expensive. The plastic items produced in this manner often lack structural integrity, and they are always small in the lower printer price ranges. So if you want figurines, formlabs is maybe the way to go, but that's about it.

Most of the fused deposition printers (like the MendelMax, AO-100, reprap Prusa (2 and 3) can print in more materials (ABS, PLA, even Polycarbonate), and produce larger functional parts than things like FormLabs. The main issue is the striping, which is less "pretty."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZwjvZ79iYo

Would the reduced chance of success of a single founder startup be compensated for by the reduction in investment, time required and increased number of companies that could be funded? Even if you think single founders succeed only half as often, having twice as many with no founder breakup issues could put YC ahead.

Very generous. I especially like the mit-ish license. I have this theory that permissive licensing will produce more goodwill and credibility. Hope I'm right!