To clarify, the above post refers to the ads on Slashdot when browsing on mobile, not necessarily interstitials.

In some cases

For instance here on Slashdot. On Safari (for iPhone) it tries (and fails miserably) to occupy the whole bottom of the page, all over over the comments. If you zoom in it grows and occupies an even bigger slice of the screen, and on landscape mode it overflows outside the screen, to the right, preventing you from clicking the close button.

The close button is very very small and the hitbox is ridiculous, if you hit anything outside it doesn't count. If you hit anything below it it opens the ad. I can only hit it touching with the very very very tip of the finger, almost with the nail.

Every once in a while an auto playing video comes up. I didn't even knew it was possible, first time it ever came to me in an ad, many years, several iterations of IOS and slashdot was the first site to show me an auto playing video ad on mobile. On a limited plan 3G connection!

But the more annoying feature: it shows even with Ads Disabled.

Thanks again for helping make Slashdot great!

Yeah, right! Who needs enemies with friends like these. The fact it shows even with Ads Disabled (on Safari for IOS but not on Safari for Mac) implies it is an attempt to cash in on the mobile revenue, "user experience" be damned.

My IDE commits code changes automatically

TFA doesn't mention this and, if the summary writer meant "commit" as in version control commit, this would be a killer bug in the whole process.

Version control is not meant to be used as a backup, every commit should be deliberate, reviewed and well explained in the comments. Vide the post mortem of the heartbleed bug (or many other similar ones).

Dupe from a couple of months ago: Apple's Messages Offers Free Texting With a Side of iPhone Lock-In Posted by timothy on Saturday March 01, 2014

Time to copy all high moderated posts from the older article. Actually, there is no need: given that the purpose of posting this article is to bring the echo chamber rambling that this is why apple suck, simply posting "that's why I don't have an iPhone" is enough for +5 insightful.

And to cleanse yourself of the ads with autoplaying sound, you can visit the GitHub page itself.

Implying Slashdot isn't equally guilty of the same damn charge. About a week ago, while indulging myself in my daily fix while on my cellphone, I'll be damned if an ad on this very site (Slashdot) not only showed a video ad but the damn thing even autoplayed. I was not logged in at that moment so I can't confirm if it would have affected me while logged in.

This kind of behaviour is not only damn annoying but also use my precious (expensive and limited) 3G limit.

Damn Slashdot, for sure that's not the way to monetize the site. Mobile users surely get abused these days, and then when someone figures how to make an effective and pervasise ad blocker for all mobile OS the industry will come crying "we have no way to monetize the site now".

Behave now or suffer later.

Creating draconian laws to supress the right to peaceful assemble and protest is an increasing (and worrying) trend.

It happens all across the globe and it is mostly as a reactive mechanism from the governments against the number of massive popular protests facilitated (but not created or organized) by the social media.

Some examples of these protests (there are others, these are from the top of my head):

February 15, 2003 anti-war protest: The February 15, 2003 anti-war protest was a coordinated day of protests across the world in which people in more than 600 cities expressing opposition to the imminent Iraq War. (...) According to BBC News, between six and ten million people took part in protests in up to sixty countries over the weekend of the 15th and 16th; other estimates range from eight million to thirty million.

The 2011 Egyptian protests (better known by the "Tahrir Square" protests): In February 1st alone "[t]he BBC reported the number of protesters in Tahrir Square ranged from "more than 100,000 to some 250,000-the square's maximum capacity." Egyptian security forces stated that 500,000 people participated in the protests in Cairo alone."

2011-12 Spanish protests (The "indignados"): According to statistics published by RTVE, the Spanish public broadcasting company, between 6.5 and 8 million Spaniards have participated in these protests:

2013 protests in Brazil: In June 20 alone "Protests in over 100 cities around the country rallied over 2 million people."

2013 protests in Turkey: 3.5 million of Turkey's 80 million people are estimated to have taken part in almost 5000 demonstrations across Turkey connected with the original Gezi Park protest.

Some governments like the Syrian, the Bahraini and the new (same as old) Egyptian did not tolerate and supressed with enormous amount of brutality in the very beggining their (then) peaceful protests that were organized in a similar fashion than the ones mentioned above.

The rest of the world governments watched and understood that they cannot afford the risk to let some small local matter (like increasing the bus fare in some cities in Brasil, or cutting down some trees in Turkey) to become the catalyst to mass protests.

Measures like these in Ukraine will happen more and more and won't be limited to countries with nascent democracies (like Ukraine) or repressive dictactorships (like Syria). In Spain proposals were already made to criminalize and regulate forms of protest. Thailand invoked "security laws" to curb theirs.

And without a doubt most other countries, eastern and western alike, will change their legislations, enact new laws and enforce old ones to ensure one thing: that the massive indignation and lack of confidence in the democratic process won't become a full blown revolution.

IIRC it already does.

Despite of that I believe there are plenty of dependencies and assumptions by the other software running in the machine that explorer.exe is the installed shell that it is not realistic that the replacement would be without issues.

That would be the least of the concerns. Just imagine if they accidentally train it to the /b/ images.

"Oh God, what have I done!"