Having brewed several batches of beer is one of my favorite accomplishments of being a grown up geek. :) I'm a major hop-head, so an IPA is probably what I'll brew next. For what it's worth, I've just started using this site and posted the recipes for my last two batches here: http://hopville.com/brewer/recipes/lmorchard I heart social brewing.

I've worked from my home in MI for Mozilla in CA for a little over 2 years now, and it's been great. The main things I've found useful are basically what you call out here: synchronous constant communication over many channels (eg. IM, IRC, VoIP, email to some degree); asynchronous comm with lots of recordkeeping and documentation; and a lot of self-motivation and initiative. That last point is really the crucial thing for a newbie or a junior developer - some can do it, while some need lots of guidance and mentoring up front. If you have a history of getting things done without a lot of micromanagement, you might be ready for remote work. If you don't have such a history, you *could* be ready but it would take a lot of faith from an employer to rely on you. This is where things like writing a book or contributing to an OSS project in your free time can help prove your ability to work remotely. Also, getting the team physically together about once a quarter is worth the travel for the value of the in-person touch-points. Try to make it a mini-conference, give lightning talks to each other and leave time for hallway conversations. Have a bar night or drive go-carts. One more thing: I'd be curious to see how coders with World of Warcraft raiding experience would do. When you need to huddle around a project sprint occasionally, it can have a lot in common with a TeamSpeak / Ventrilo session to take down a boss. The main thing would be whether a WoW player could get away from the game and transfer the habits to billable work. I'm sure Joi Ito would have something to say about this. :)