A secret of game-fu

Last night I utterly trounced three opponents at the slick new Fantasy Flight reissue of a classic interstellar trade and exploration game, Merchants of Venus. My end score was nearly three times that of the runner-up, and I had acquired so many fame points (which each become 10 victory points at game end) that we… Continue reading A secret of game-fu

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reposurgeon 2.0 announcement – the full-orchestra version

I shipped reposurgeon 2.0 a few days ago with the Subversion support feature-complete, and a 2.1 minor bugfix release this morning. My previous release announcement was somewhat rushed, so here is a more detailed one explaining why anybody contemplating moving up from Subversion should care. To go with this, there is a new version of… Continue reading reposurgeon 2.0 announcement – the full-orchestra version

The microzen: a unit of enlightenment

Earlier today one of my commenters caused me to realize that it would be entertaining to try to define a unit for the intensity of “aha!” experiences – moments of sudden insight.

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Storm warning

By now you’ve doubtless heard about Hurricane Sandy; the record-breaking superstorm hype has been pretty hard to miss. Well, I just got a look at the latest NOAA track projection, and it looks like the storm center is going to pass directly over my house sometime Tuesday night. The center track on that map couldn’t… Continue reading Storm warning

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Announcing autorevision

autorevision extracts metadata about the head version of your repository. This program is meant to be used by project build systems to extract properties that can be used in software version strings. It can create files containing variable and macro definitions suitable for C, C++, sh, Python, Perl, PHP, lua, Javascript, and header files suitable… Continue reading Announcing autorevision

Adventures in kuntao

My regulars will be aware that, since the Mixed Martial Arts program we were in folded up, my wife Cathy and I have been having an interesting learning adventure checking out various schools in our area as possibilities for our next style. We’ve had some more adventures since.

How not to engage me

Considering the extent to which I’m still a public figure, it is perhaps surprising how seldom I get email that deserves a thorough, up-one-side-and-down-the-other flaming. I got one today which I shall reproduce here as a perfect example of how not to engage me.

irker 1.0 (a functional CIA replacement) is shipped

OK, I’ve been hacking intensely for most of the last 24 hours and here’s the payoff: irker-1.0 is shipped. Code and documentation are at http://www.catb.org/esr/irker/. Out of the starting box we have a hook script with tested support for git and (rather clumsily) Subversion; hg should be a piece of cake for anyone who wants… Continue reading irker 1.0 (a functional CIA replacement) is shipped

Practical prophecy

Inspired by Dave Logan’s keynote on tribal leadership at AgileCultureCon, I did a breakout session and then an open-space followup on “Practical Prophecy 101”. Recall that in Logan’s terms a “prophet” is a person who moves the behavior of his tribe towards greater cooperation and creativity by (his words) “preaching the inevitability of values-based change”.… Continue reading Practical prophecy

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From Dave in my basement, redux

Dave Taht is crashing in my basement again. While he’s here Dave is planning to cut another release of CeroWRT (the third one to issue from this basement, actually), and he has decided it needs a name. And, well, “the release from ESR’s basement” just lacks a certain…zing.

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CC-NC considered harmful

I just left the followiing comment on a Creatice Commons blog thread debating the NonCommercial and NoDerivatives options: