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Submission + - Open Hardware Team successfully replicating Tesla inventions (fixtheworldproject.net)

Submitted by lkcl
lkcl writes: A small team has successfully overcome the usual barrier to replicating one of Tesla's inventions (death threats and intimidation) by following Open Hardware development practices, encouraging other teams world-wide to replicate their work. Their FAQ and several other reports help explain that the key is Schumann resonance: "tuning" the device to the earth's own EM field and harvesting it as useful electricity. Whilst it looks like it's going mainstream, the real question is: why has it taken this long, and why has an Open Hardware approach succeeded where other efforts have not?

Submission + - The real price of Windows 10 is your privacy (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson writes: Windows 10 is a free upgrade, right? Well, surely you know by now that there's no such thing as a free lunch. We're only 48 hours on from the launch of Windows 10 and already the complaining and criticism is underway. One thing that has been brought under the spotlight is privacy under the latest version of Microsoft's operating system.

Some people have been surprised to learn that Microsoft is utilizing the internet connections of Windows 10 users to deliver Windows Updates to others. But this is far from being the end of it. Cortana also gives cause for concern, and then there is the issue of Microsoft Edge, and ads in apps. Is this a price you're willing to pay?

Windows 10 is more closely tied to a Microsoft account than any previous version of the OS. This allows Microsoft to assign an ID number to users that can then be used to track them across different devices, services, and apps. This in turn can be used to deliver closely targeted ads to people. Microsoft has been pushing the mobile first, cloud first philosophy for some time now, and it becomes clear with Windows 10 that the love of the cloud is as much to do with the ability it gives Microsoft to gather useful data as it is about convenience for users.

Submission + - Morrissey claims sex assault by security at US airport

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: British singer Morrissey has claimed he was sexually assaulted by a security officer at San Francisco International Airport, who he says "groped" him. "I went through the usual airport security procedure including the stand-up 'scanner', and all was well — no bleeps and nothing unusual," wrote Morrissey. "Before I could gather my belongings from the usual array of trays I was approached by an 'airport security officer' who stopped me, crouched before me and groped my penis and testicles." The singer — who has now filed a sexual assault complaint — also detailed an exchange with the security officer who he said was challenged over "sexually groping" him. Morrissey said he replied to each statement with "that's just your opinion." An official spokesman for the Transport Security Administration (TSA) said security camera footage confirmed that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. "TSA takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and strives to treat every passenger with dignity and respect," said TSA spokesman Mike England. "Upon review of closed circuit TV footage, TSA determined that the supervised officer followed standard operating procedures in the screening of this individual." He added that the arrival of a second person to screen Morrissey was normal, and helped "to ensure the passenger does not have threat items, such as explosives concealed under clothing."

Comment Re:So much stupid (Score 4, Interesting) 111

by bill_mcgonigle (#50220963) Attached to: Germany Won't Prosecute NSA, But Bloggers

How do these writers make it to mainstream media.

Uh, that's a skill required in mainstream media. "The Officer's pistol discharged." Obfuscate and decline to the passive voice. Don't rock the boat and always demur to power. Keep the corporation highly profitable.

It's indy media that says, "yet another cop shot an innocent fucking black man in the head," not establishment.

Comment Recognize and don't accept abuse. (Score 1) 317

by Futurepower(R) (#50220569) Attached to: Windows 10 Launches
It amazes me how much people accept and excuse abuse.

In fact, Mozilla Foundation lost its $300,000,000 yearly income from Google. Now most, or almost all of Mozilla Foundation's money comes from Microsoft, through Yahoo.

Ballmer was the CEO of Microsoft until recently. As I mentioned, Forbes magazine said he was the WORST CEO of a big company in the United States. Slashdot called Bill Gates "The Borg" until he was no longer CEO. Then people called the next CEO, Ballmer, "Monkey Boy". None of those were adequate responses to abuse. Forbes could have documented Ballmer's shortcomings.

My response to this: "You're stretching with the Yahoo thing. Are you feeling okay?" Instead of recognizing abuse, you are letting yourself become an abuser by agreeing with a dominant abuser.

That is common throughout the history of humans. Read the history of Britain's King Henry the Eighth. The British gave excuses rather than fixing their poor political system.

Submission + - The first "C/C++ Coding Best Practices Repository" launched (codergears.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: There are many style guides around the web talking about the coding best practices. Some guidelines are very interesting, some others are not suitable even they are recommended by known organisations.

CoderGears just launched the C/C++ Coding Best Practices Repository http://www.codergears.com/QACe... to centralize the most known best practices.

The goal of the repository is to vote and comment the C/C++ coding best practices rules to have the most interesting ones and every C/C++ developer will focus more on the most voted rules.

Submission + - Windows 10 Service Release 1 may launch next week (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson writes: We know that Windows 10 is the last version of Windows ever — and this is really another way of saying that Windows will never be finished. Over the coming weeks, months, and years, we can expect to see a near-endless stream of updates to the operating system.

But while a trickle of updates was anticipated, few would have expected that a huge update would be just around the corner. Despite having launched just 24 hours ago, it seems as though the first big update to Windows 10 — and it's shaping up to be a huge one — is already looming on the horizon. Windows 10 Service Release 1 (SR1) could be released as early as next week!

According to The Verge, Microsoft's developers have not stopped working on Windows 10 just because the OS has been pushed out of the door. Windows 10 SR1 is a massive collection of patches, fixes, and updates that address the issues that Windows Insiders have complained about, and continue to plague non-Insiders in the RTM build.

Comment Re: Bravo (Score 4, Interesting) 184

by bill_mcgonigle (#50217285) Attached to: Samsung Finds, Fixes Bug In Linux Trim Code

Yeah, the outcome is great. I just wonder why they waited more than a year to look into it. Maybe this will set a good example for the industry that with a little bit of effort you can take care of your customers and sell more product.

If this were the 80's and a hard drive vendor had more than two reports of data loss under, say VMS, there would have been engineers on a plane to DEC by morning to get it solved by the coming weekend.

Now we have thousands of users with reports and millions of units sold, and a wealthy vendor, and it's all crickets, leaving some kernel hackers to half-ass a blacklist. It's not like this is BeOS - there are millions of servers running in the target market. I don't mean to absolve the bad troubleshooting by kernel devs, but want to know what drove the apathy at Samsung (and other vendors behaving poorly). It's obviously not profit motive.

Submission + - The Evidence Supports Artificial Sweeteners Over Sugar (nytimes.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: In the last few years, I've watched a continuing battle among my friends about which is worse for you: artificial sweeteners or sugar. Unless you want to forgo all beverages that are sweet, you're going to run into one of these. Rather than rely on anecdote or myth, we can inform this debate with research.

The available evidence points to the fact that there appears to be a correlation between sugar consumption and health problems; none can be detected with artificial sweeteners.

Submission + - Slashdot by the People

Submitted by turp182
turp182 writes: Slashdot by the People

Editors, please post to the front page if this get a response from the Firehose users. The response would help any potential buyer better understand the community, and the community could respond with insightful responses.

This is intended to be an idea generation story for how the community itself could purchase and then control Slashdot. If this happened I believe a lot of former users would at least come and take a look, and some of them would participate again.

This is not about improving the site, only about acquiring the site.

First, here's what we know:
1. DHI (Dice) paid $20 million for Slashdot, SourceForce, and Freecode, purchased from Geeknet back in 2012:
    http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/...
2. Slashdot has an Alexa Global Rank of 1,689, obtaining actual traffic numbers require money to see:
    http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/...
3. According to Quantcast, Slashdot has over 250,000 unique monthly views:
    https://www.quantcast.com/slas...
4. Per an Arstechnia article, Slashdot Media (Slashdot and Sourceforge) had 2015Q2 revenues of $1.7 million and have expected full year revenues of $15-$16 million (which doesn't make sense given the quarterly number):
    http://arstechnica.com/informa...

Next, things we don't know:
0. Is Slashdot viable without a corporate owner? (the only question that matters)
1. What would DHI (Dice) sell Slashdot for? Would they split it from Sourceforge?
2. What are the hosting and equipment costs?
3. What are the personnel costs (editors, advertising salesforce, etc.)?
4. What other expenses does the site incur (legal for example)?
5. What is Slashdot's portion of the revenue of Slashdot Media?

These questions would need to be answered in order to valuate the site. Getting that info and performing the valuation would require expensive professional services.

What are possible ways we could proceed?

In my opinion, a non-profit organization would be the best route.

Finally, the hard part: Funding. Here are some ideas.

1. Benefactor(s) — It would be very nice to have people with some wealth that could help.
2. Crowdfunding/Kickstarter — I would contribute to such an effort I think a lot of Slashdotters would contribute. I think this would need to be a part of the funding rather than all of it.
3. Grants and Corporate Donations — Slashdot has a wide and varied membership and audience. We regularly see post from people that work at Google, Apple, and Microsoft. And at universities. We are developers (like me), scientists, experts, and also ordinary (also like me). A revived Slashdot could be a corporate cause in the world of tax deductions for companies.
4. ????
5. Profit!

Oh, the last thing: Is this even a relevant conversation?

I can't say. I think timing is the problem, with generating funds and access to financial information (probably won't get this without the funds) being the most critical barriers. Someone will buy the site, we're inside the top 2,000 global sites per info above.

The best solution, I believe, is to find a large corporate "sponsor" willing to help with the initial purchase and to be the recipient of any crowd sourcing funds to help repay them. The key is the site would have to have autonomy as a separate organization. They could have prime advertising space (so we should focus on IBM...) with the goal would be to repay the sponsor in full over time (no interest please?).

The second best is seeking a combination of "legal pledges" from companies/schools/organizations combined with crowd sourcing. This could get access to the necessary financials.

Also problematic, from a time perspective, a group of people would need to be formed to handle organization (managing fundraising/crowdsourcing) and interations with DHI (Dice). All volunteer for sure.

Is this even a relevant conversation? I say it is, I actually love Slashdot; it offers fun, entertaining, and enlightening conversation (I browse above the sewer), and I find the article selection interesting (this gyrates, but I still check a lot).

And to finish, the most critical question: Is Slashdot financially viable as an independent organization?

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"Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - Zaphod Beeblebrox in "Hithiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

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