Lambda the Ultimate

the RepRap is a self-replicating machine (3D printer) created by Adrian Bowyer.

Look at your computer setup and imagine that you hooked up a 3D printer. Instead of printing on bits of paper this 3D printer makes real, robust, mechanical parts. To give you an idea of how robust, think Lego bricks and you're in the right area. You could make lots of useful stuff, but interestingly you could also make most of the parts to make another 3D printer. That would be a machine that could copy itself.

There are RepRap machines around the world these days. LtU readers are invited to report their experiences!

Joseph F. Miklojcik III, Phosphorous, The Popular Lisp.

We present Phosphorous; a programming language that draws on the power and elegance of traditional Lisps such as Common Lisp and Scheme, yet which brings those languages into the 21st century by ruthless application of our “popular is better” philosophy into all possible areas of programming language design.

Introduces the concept of the Gosling Tarpit, and presents a novel method for having both a broken lexical scope (needed for popularity) and maintaining one's reputation as a language designer.

(via Chris Neukirchen)

Simon Marlow:

...with ICFP and the Haskell Symposium approaching we felt it was time to
get the new process moving and hopefully produce a language revision...

In the coming weeks we'll be refining proposals in preparation for
Haskell 2010. By all means suggest more possibilities; however note
that as per the new process, a proposal must be "complete" (i.e. in the
form of an addendum) in order to be a candidate for acceptance.

More here.