Here's what we talked about at last weeks weeks Architecture chat...

• Black fibre (sparked off by this story in the US)
• Unmarked helicopters.
• Open XML SDK 2.0 April Refresh.
• Need for XML Tidy / Reformatting / Code clean of word xml before parsing/processing it with automated tools to simplify/combine runs etc.
• Writing your own mini-DNS server, and approaches to programmatically balancing load and geographic distribution via DNS.
• Legacy codebases, and the true cost of "small updates" to legacy apps.
• Outsourcing horror stories.
• Encrypted stored procedures.
• Wolfram Alpha, Google squared and Google wave and the joys of tabular data.
• Data centre location/latency issues (especially for parts of Europe and the pacific/Oceania regions).
• Project Natal for XBox 360

Next meeting is Thursday, 18th June 2009 - see you all there!