Released GNU texinfo 4.12 after too long.

Put the new release into TeX Live, too. On the compiled-sources front, only dvipdfmx is really left to update. LuaTeX is in, with lots of fun Web2C work by me and Taco. Should be pretty easy to drop in from now on, though.

Next regular TUGboat issue is getting closer, with articles on DTX files, Zapf's Euler font update, Asymptote, and lots more. Hopefully it'll go to the printer in May.

Gotten some submissions for TUG'08 in Cork, Ireland, but lots more are welcome.

Did Google Summer of Code org admin for both GNU (third time) and TUG (first time) this year. The proposals might be a bit more solid than in the past. At least the process is pretty familiar by now.

A new Texinfo pretest is available at http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/texinfo/texinfo-4.11.90.tar.gz. Please try it if you can. Standalone Info has some smallish UI changes to try to make it friendlier, and install-info has many new features to try to be compatible with Debian install-info.

Peter Breitenlohner has installed lots of changes in the TeX Live autoconf infrastructure, so we can finally switch to the standard release and not be stuck with the autoconf 2.13 that I hacked so many years ago for our include needs. Yay. Zillions of other updates continue on our way toward starting the release cycle next month sometime.

Some favorite books for 2007, since I wrote this up already to send to a friend:

Landscapes, Mary Randlett -- collection of her amazing nature photographs. (I'd never heard of her before accidentally running into a show of hers at a museum.)

Obligatory latest Stephen King -- Lisey's Story; a departure for him, but still him.

Crashing Through, Robert Kurson -- nonfiction, an extraordinary man blinded at an early age who has his sight restored.

The Best Day The Worst Day, Donald Hall -- an elder poet and his experience losing his younger wife (Jane Kenyon, also a poet) to cancer.

Run, Ann Patchett -- much as I liked all her previous books, I thought this was a quantum leap in readability and drive. (I also got to see her give a short reading in person, very cool.)

Bonus older entry: Neither Wolf Nor Dog, Kent Nerburn -- a book about (American) Indians (by a white), unlike any other I've read.

By the way, if anyone happens to have a lead on a C/GNU/Linux/Unix (or TeX :) job in the Portland, Oregon area, please email me at karl@freefriends.org. My friend Oleg Katsitadze (Eplain maintainer, Texinfo contributor, ...) is immigrating here from Ukraine in just a couple weeks and so is looking for work. Thanks.

Thanks to Norbert doing many TeX Live package updates and other filtering, now around 300 msgs left.

EuroBachoTeX proceedings (210+ pages) getting close to going to some printer, somewhere.

Installed CentOS 5 on my machines; all went fine, except I chose (more or less randomly) to install the xen/virtualization kernel, and eventually discovered that xen takes over ttyS0. How bizarre. Have to boot with xencons=ttyS4 (for example) to get my serial ports back.

Laurie Anderson's acceptance speech for the Gish prize.