Comment Re:Version control: You're doing it wrong! (Score 4, Informative) 105
I've been talking with the developer in question this morning, and he'll be putting the code into Git this evening or this weekend, as he has time.
Submission + - Raven Software releases Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy on SourceForge (polygon.com)
rbowen writes: In the wake of Disney's announcement that it is closing game design studio LucasArts, Raven Software has released the single player source code for the two Star Wars titles it developed for LucasArts, Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, according to Kotaku.
Submission + - Apache OpenOffice - $21 Million per Day (apache.org)
rbowen writes: "Apache OpenOffice 3.4.1 has averaged 138,928 downloads per day. That is an average value to the public of $21 million per day, as calculated by savings over buying the competing product. Or $7.61 billion (7.61 thousand million) per year."
Submission + - North Dakota Proposes Ban on Natural Gas Flaring after One Year (bismarcktribune.com)
eldavojohn writes: A North Dakota lawmaker has proposed a bill that would ban flaring at oil and natural gas sites after one year of that site's operation. ISS footage has revealed that now large swaths of North Dakota are illuminated at night due simply to flaring from Bakken oil and natural gas drilling. Democratic Sen. Tim Mathern, proposer of the bill, said "It’s bringing a higher quality of life to western North Dakota, it’s putting an end to waste (and) it’s addressing the issue of climate change" and "This is taking a, what I’d call, a step-wise approach in addressing health and waste." In 2011, waste from global flaring equivocated to a fourth of the United State's natural gas consumption. The major difference between this bill and current law is that no exemptions whatsoever will be made. Mathern claimed that 30 percent of natural gas is flared in western North Dakota compared to the national average which is in single digits.
Submission + - Can You Do The Regular Expression Crossword? (i-programmer.info)
mikejuk writes: Programmers often say that regular expressions are fun ... but now they can be a whole lot of fun in a completely new way. Want to try your hand at a regular expression crossword?
The idea is simple enough — create a crossword style puzzle with regular expressions are the "clues". In case you don't know what a regular expression is — it is a way of specifying what characters are allowed using wild-card characters and more. For example a dot matches any single character, an * any number of characters and so on.
The regular expression crossword is more a sort of Sudoku style puzzle than crossword however because the clues determine the pattern the the entries in a row have to satisfy. It also has to use a hexagonal grid to provide three regular expressions to control each entry.
This particular regular expression crossword was part of this year's MIT Mystery Hunt, and if you don't know anything about it then good — because it could waste a lot of time. This annual event is crammed with a collection of very difficult problems and the regular expression crossword, created by Dan Gulotta from an idea by Palmer Mebane, was just a small part of the whole — and yes there is a solution.
http://www.coinheist.com/rubik/a_regular_crossword/grid.pdf
The idea is simple enough — create a crossword style puzzle with regular expressions are the "clues". In case you don't know what a regular expression is — it is a way of specifying what characters are allowed using wild-card characters and more. For example a dot matches any single character, an * any number of characters and so on.
The regular expression crossword is more a sort of Sudoku style puzzle than crossword however because the clues determine the pattern the the entries in a row have to satisfy. It also has to use a hexagonal grid to provide three regular expressions to control each entry.
This particular regular expression crossword was part of this year's MIT Mystery Hunt, and if you don't know anything about it then good — because it could waste a lot of time. This annual event is crammed with a collection of very difficult problems and the regular expression crossword, created by Dan Gulotta from an idea by Palmer Mebane, was just a small part of the whole — and yes there is a solution.
http://www.coinheist.com/rubik/a_regular_crossword/grid.pdf
Submission + - OpenOffice is now, officially, Apache OpenOffice (globenewswire.com)
rbowen writes: Apache OpenOffice has graduated from the Incubator, and now is officially a top-level project at the Apache Software Foundation.
Submission + - Internet Success: A Study of Open-Source Software Commons (amazon.com)
rbowen writes: Based on a survey of SourceForge developers, this book discusses some of the factors that help Open Source communities succeed. Authors Charles Schweik and Bob English look at "social, technical, and institutional aspects of OSS" to try to answer the question of why some projects thrive while others are abandoned.
Comment Re:How about... (Score 1) 30
It makes sense to have the code stewarded outside of SourceForge, because it ensures that the development is completely open. We (SourceForge) value our projects' ability to own their own data, even if that means that they can move it somewhere else. By having Allura completely open, and even developed outside of SourceForge itself, we ensure that this right - the right to pack up and move - is 100% protected.
It also provides us access to innovation and ideas from outside of our own small organization, which, in turn, further benefits our projects.
Don't tell my corporate overlords, but I consider the health of these Open Source projects to be my highest goal when I go to work in the morning. I firmly believe that if those projects are more successful, then the company will be more successful. But it's the former, not the latter, that gets me to work every morning.
Taking Allura to the Apache Incubator is for the benefit of our projects. It gives us the opportunity to focus more sharply on the things that will make their developer experience better. And folks who haven't seen the new SourceForge, and are making their judgements based on old-style SourceForge projects that haven't upgraded, are selling everyone short.
Comment Re:How about... (Score 1) 30
Rob, that remark shows you to be somewhat uninformed about both SourceForge *and* Apache.
Comment Re:This Should Protect SourceForge (Score 4, Informative) 30
We've been talking about the incubator long before there was ever talk of selling.
Submission + - SourceForge Allura submitted to the Apache Software Foundation Incubator (sourceforge.net)
rbowen writes: The software that powers the SourceForge developer tools has been submitted to the Apache Software Foundation Incubator. http://sourceforge.net/blog/allura-incubator/
Comment Re:Travel! (Score 4, Funny) 99
I was talking about "walking." It was funny. Now it's not any more. Thanks a lot.
Comment Travel! (Score 5, Funny) 99
You could even use the power generated by your knees to travel from one place to another!
Comment Like an old friend (Score 2) 315
I feel like an old friend has died, and I've been near tears several times today. I grew up on his stories. I deeply identified with his characters - especially Douglas Spaulding. I read Dandelion Wine almost every year, and it's always new.
He influenced my writing style more than anyone else, as well as his encouragement to write something every day, whether I want to or not.
His stories were always about more than just the setting - science fiction was simply a vehicle for him to communicate deep truths.
I've been remembering all day a scene in Dandelion Wine in which Great Grandmother says goodbye to her family, and then settles into bed to try to find the dream that was interrupted when she was born. I hope you find your dream, Ray. Sleep well, old friend.
Comment impossible to create (Score 4, Interesting) 54
From the article:
While true Bessel beams are impossible to create, as they would require an infinite amount of energy,
This would seem like a good reason not to use them, even in a government project.
