The process to reorganize the standard libraries for Python 3.0 has been announced, in keeping with Guido van Rossum's dictate to remove "silly old stuff". Deprecated and platform-specific modules make up most of the ones on the chopping block; others had poorly-chosen names, have been made obsolete or just never caught on. Proposals to remove tkinter were shot down.

Reddit commenter larholm's apt description of Debian Bug #477454: Insulting source code

Admittedly, "Severity: serious" may be a bit excessive.

Here's one you don't see every day -- Passover-themed Scientology spam in Hebrew! It's mostly not displayable here except for:

© 2008 The Association for Prosperity and Security in the Middle East. All rights reserved. The Way to Happiness and the "Road & Sun" design are trademarks owned by L. Ron Hubbard Library in the USA and in other countries (trademark registration issued and other registrations pending) and is used with permission

How dumb would I have to be to go for this one?!?

FROM: - THE CHAIRMEN AND RANKING MEMBERS OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, AND THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS.

Approved and Witnessed by - Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wisconsin Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin White House and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wisconsin, Senate filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Sen. Reid of Nevada.

ATTN: Subject Matter - Request for Patriots Act on international fund transfer in your favor

After very long meetings held by the above mentioned officials and the Minister of state for finance including the Board of Directors of the World Bank, the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, to see to the release of long term debt owed to many foreigners around the globe who have been denied of their funds, the United States Senate has been authorized to handle the urgent release of all funds owed by any of the financial institutions or Government that is a member of the United Nations, this is based on the loans and disbursement agreement signed between the US Government and Governments of these debtor nations, the release of your fund will be supervised by the World Bank representatives in Nigeria to ensure immediate payment in your favor and avoid delay.

From the records of outstanding claims due for payment submitted by the United Nations, your name is next on the list of the outstanding bills to be settled, I wish to inform you that your payment is being processed and will be released to you as soon as you respond to this letter.

Kindly re-confirm the following information to SENATOR JEREMY WILLIAMS the US SENATE REPRESENTATIVE AND HEAD OF THE PAYMENT CENTER IN NIGERIA for final verification of your details so that the funds will be transferred in your favour, please contact SENATOR JEREMY WILLIAMS via email : senate_usgov@keromail.com

1) Your full name 2) Phone number ( mobile should be included) . 3) The claim amount 4) Your complete Banking details to avoid mistakes

As soon as the above information is received, your payment will be made to you without further delay. Note that the senate officials in NIGERIA have been authorised to handle this payment to keep a clean slate of foriegn debt settlement because some Government officials and individuals have tried to transfer this fund to you but failed due to dishonesty and unneccesary demand for fees,You are hereby advised to stop any further communications with any one else or any other financial institution and comply to this to avoid any further delay.

Please note that the United Nations and Government of the debtor country will not be interested in any complaint from you if you fail to receive your fund via this programme or fail to abide by this instruction.

Your urgent attention is expected

Sen. Reid of Nevada Senate Majority Leader

Trigun, on A Practical Guide to Ubuntu.

Epiphany, the web browser of the GNOME desktop, announced that future versions will be based solely around WebKit, instead of the current default use of Gecko. Concerns about the release cycle and API changes at Mozilla were blamed. Making this announcement on April 1 caused some confusion, but they seem to be sticking to the story.

Poll: What should /. have done for April Fools in 2008?

* I vote for what they actually did. Subtle.
* Reruns are cool OMGPONIES!
* Celebrate history and redirect page to mcom.com.
* Announce Microsoft/Sourceforge merger.
* Announce that yesterday was indeed December 31, 1983.
* Put up a fake ad "Cowboyneal.com is for sale. Send bids to bids@cowboyneal.com."

Religious tensions in the UK were ratcheted up a notch when the founder of the Jedi Church, which shows a considerable membership in the country's census, was assaulted by a neighbor dressed as Darth Vader. Jedi Master Jonba Hehol (aka hairdresser Barney Jones) was filming an interview in his back yard when his Sith adversary jumped the fence, wearing a helmet and a black garbage bag, and beat Hehol/Jones with a crutch. Police believe alcohol may have been involved.

Curse that declining dollar!!! Nafsika Island would be reasonably priced otherwise! (Assuming there's no Cyclops or Sirens to deal with...)

Galaga88, and ensuing thread, on photon hyper-entanglement.

valerie (also listening to: Ambrosia, Bay City Rollers, You Made Me Believe In Magic, Shaun Cassidy)

I'm not going to say what album I was looking at for which Shaun Cassidy and the Bay City Rollers are "also" but Similar Albums are:

• Pyromania by Def Leppard
• Night Songs by Cinderella
• Sign In Please by Autograph
• Back For The Attack by Dokken
• Winger by Winger

It seemed like just another Bruce Perens post, some self-promoting non-story he ginned up before graciously dropping in to post 50 mindless comments and rake in another few hundred karma points.

Fortunately, one of the fake Bruces emerged from hibernation to liven things up and antagonize him, a bunch of other old-timers joined in, and the whole thing seems like a flashback to 1998. It's gonna be the year of Linux on the desktop!

Comments of the day to .Bruce Perens and Anonymous Coward.

What are you giving up for lent?

* Red meat
* Sex/booze/cigarettes
* SCO-bashing
* Religion
* I GIVE UP NOTHING!
* Life itself
* Reading Cowboyneal's Blog

Previously archived comments: here and here

Xanga carries an account of a marriage proposal delivered via a homebrew clone of Bejeweled on the Nintendo DS. When the lucky lady hit a certain score, a ring appeared on the screen (and, yes, she did accept).

This looks both cool and useful...