Another pure maintenance release of the random package for truly (hardware-based) random numbers as provided by random.org is now on CRAN. The random package provides true (physical) random number from sampling atmospheric noise. One possible use case is to seed an (algorithmic) quasi-random number generator for genuine unpredictability.

This release, the first in nine years, updates the package files, URLs, and continuous integration setup. We also ensure all posted URLs in the two vignettes (and other documentation) are reachable.

Courtesy of my CRANberries, there is also a diffstat report for this release.

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. If you like this or other open-source work I do, you can sponsor me at GitHub.

Here’s my monthly but brief update about the activities I’ve done in the FOSS world.

Debian

I barely did anything this month as I was mostly on vacation - summer break. Went to Iceland for 2 weeks and then watched the Dutch GP the following weekend - it was fab!

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Ubuntu

I joined Canonical to work on Ubuntu full-time back in February 2021.

• Vacations mostly.
• Attended and drove a few sessions in the mid-cycle sprints.

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Debian (E)LTS

This month I have worked 0 hours on Debian Long Term Support (LTS) and on its sister Extended LTS project as I was on vacation the whole month.

I’ll follow up with the two packages in September.

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Until next time.
:wq for today.

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