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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 20 declined, 39 accepted (59 total, 66.10% accepted)

Submission + - SPAM: I Built a Dogecoin-Powered Pinball Machine

Submitted by chromatic
chromatic writes: It started as a joke—what if I could use cryptocurrency to power a Lord of the Rings pinball machine? From there, things snowballed into figuring out how to hack the coin mechanism, set up a relay board, get addresses starting with the word "Balrog", and connect it all to the Dogecoin blockchain. The result? My pinball machine now takes Dogecoin instead of quarters.
Link to Original Source
Perl

Submission + - Perl 5.14 Released (perlfoundation.org)

Submitted by
chromatic
chromatic writes: "Pumpking Jesse Vincent has just released Perl 5.14, the latest stable version of the venerable Perl 5 programming language. The list of changes in Perl 5.14 includes several enhancements, including performance tuning, Unicode improvements, and updates to the core libraries and documentation. Perl 5.16 is on track for a release next April."
Programming

Submission + - Why Teach Programming with BASIC (kickstarter.com) 3

Submitted by
chromatic
chromatic writes: "To answer the perennial question "How can we teach kids how to program?", we created a web-based programming environment. As we began to write lessons and examples, we surprised ourselves. Modern languages may be powerful and useful for writing real programs, but BASIC and Logo are great languages for demonstrating the joy of programming."

Submission + - A Real World HTML 5 Benchmark (clubcompy.com) 1

Submitted by
KidCompy
KidCompy writes: "The newest browsers boast huge performance improvements, but how much do you trust benchmarks trotted out to prove those claims? Do they reflect the real uses to which developers will put HTML 5 and JavaScript? We've extracted several benchmarks from our existing programs to measure actual versus theoretical performance."
Programming

Submission + - The Evolution of Python 3 (oreilly.com)

Submitted by
chromatic
chromatic writes: "In December 2008, the Python developers released Python 3.0, a new version of the popular dynamic programming language. The process included concurrent revisions of Python 2.6, intended in part as a migration between existing Python programs and the new version. O'Reilly News recently spoke to Python creator Guido van Rossum for a retrospective on the language and its development, as well for his views on uptake and migration to Python 3.0. For the futurists, expect Python 3.1 sometime in the next year, and at least five years of backwards compatibility for the 3.x family."
Government

Submission + - How Social Software Can Improve Democracy (oreilly.com)

Submitted by
Geek Satire
Geek Satire writes: "Politics breeds cynicism; politicians seem pander to contradictory focus groups to get elected, then break their promises to everyone. Mass mailings and faxings overwhelm their staffs, and who knows if you can tell your representatives what you really think? Experienced techie and political consultant Silona Bonewald (creator of the fabulous Transparent Federal Budget) believes that simple software solutions can fix these problems and more. O'Reilly News recently discussed with her how social software can improve democracy and leadership."
United States

Submission + - The State of Electronic Voting in the US (oreilly.com)

Submitted by
Geek Satire
Geek Satire writes: "Voting works only if you believe your vote gets counted accurately. The 2008 US elections have avoided many well-known problems of 2004 and 2000 elections, but many problems remain. O'Reilly News interviewed Dr. Barbara Simons, advisor to the Federal Election Assistance Commission, to review electronic voting in the 2008 US elections, discussing the physical security of storing and maintaining election machines, the move from from electronic back to paper ballots, and why open source voting machines in and of themselves don't solve problems of bugs, backdoors, and audits."
Operating Systems

Submission + - How Kernel Hackers Fixed Desktop Linux (oreilly.com)

Submitted by
chromatic
chromatic writes: "Kernel hackers Arjan van de Ven and Auke Kok showed off Linux booting in five seconds at last month's Linux Plumbers Conference. Arjan and other hackers have already improved the Linux user experience by reducing power consumption and latency. O'Reilly News interviewed him about his work on improving the Linux experience with PowerTOP, LatencyTOP, and Five-Second Boot."
Programming

Submission + - The Software Behind the Mars Phoenix Lander (oreilly.com)

Submitted by
chromatic
chromatic writes: "Imagine managing a million lines of code to send over seven hundred pounds of equipment millions of miles through space to land safely on Mars and perform dozens of experiments. You have C, 128 MB of RAM, and very few opportunities to retry if you get it wrong. O'Reilly News interviewed Peter Gluck, project software engineer for NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander, about the process of writing software and managing these constraints — and why you're unlikely to see the source code to the project any time soon."
Software

Submission + - Call For Open Source Awards 2008 Nominations (oreilly.com)

Submitted by
chromatic
chromatic writes: "Google and O'Reilly have published the Call For Open Source Awards 2008 Nominations. These awards, given at OSCON 2008. The awards recognize individual contributors who have demonstrated exceptional leadership, creativity, and collaboration in the development of Open Source Software. The nomination process is open to the entire open source community, and they close on May 15. Here's your chance to sing the praises of previously unsung hackers."
Perl

Submission + - State of the Onion 11 (perl.com)

Submitted by
chromatic
chromatic writes: "Larry Wall's State of the Onion 11 address is now online. Every year, he describes the state of Perl and its community through metaphor and analogy. This year, Larry explored the history of scripting languages, from their dimly-lit beginnings to their glorious future. Along the way, he also describes several of the design principles invoked in the design of Perl 6."
Perl

Submission + - State of the Onion 10

Submitted by
chromatic
chromatic writes: "Larry Wall's annual State of the Onion addresses cover subjects such chemistry, science, music, lingustics, and screensavers. They occasionally discuss Perl too. This year's, State of the Onion 10 compares raising children into productive adults to guiding the development and design of a programming language. Perl turns 19 soon; Larry says that she'll truly grow up with Perl 6."

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