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Comment Re:Damn I'm old... (Score 4, Funny) 126

I kept thinking "I am the very model of a modern Major Perl Framework..."

I am the very model of a modern Major Perl Framework,
But here I am on Slashdot, trying harder from my job to shirk,
From HackerNews to 4chan there's no forum in which I won't lurk,
I am the very model of a modern Major Perl Framework!

Submission + - Wichita Lineman 2.0: Bill Gates Wants Accelerometers on Power Lines

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: GeekWire reports that Bill Gates is listed as an inventor on a newly surfaced patent filing that proposes putting accelerometers on power lines to understand how far they move in wind and other conditions, and monitor how close they come to trees and other nearby objects. The idea is to detect issues with power lines before they cause serious problems. Gates and power go way back — a legacy system BillG worked on as a teen that helped manage the electrical grid for the Bonneville Power Administration was just retired after keeping the lights on for 38 years.

Submission + - Firefox 29 is a Flop; UI Design Trends Getting Worse 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Firefox 29 marked the release of the UI overhaul codenamed "Australis" and the jury is back with a verdict: the vast majority of feedback on Firefox Input is negative and traffic to the Classic Theme Restorer add-on has aggressively spiked since Firefox 29 came out on April 29. Considering this is a year and a half after the backlash against the new Windows 8 user interface, it seems that even though the "dumbing down" trends in UI design are infuriating users, they continue to happen. Chrome will soon be hiding URLs, OS X has hidden scroll bars by default, iOS 7 flattened everything, and Windows 8 made scroll bars hard to see. If most users hate these changes, why are they so ubiquitous?

Submission + - Jury Finds Apple and Samsung Infringed Each Other's Patents 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A U.S. jury concluded Friday that Samsung had infringed on two of Apple's patents and that Apple had infringed on one of Samsung's patents. Prior to the trial, the judge had ruled that Samsung had infringed on one other Apple patent. Samsung will receive $158,400 in damages, although they had requested just over $6 million. Apple will receive $119.6 million in damages, although they had requested just over $2 billion and a ban on certain Samsung phones. Some say that a sales ban is unlikely to be approved by the judge. The jury is scheduled to return on Monday to resolve what appears to be a technical mistake in their verdict on one of the patents, and Apple may gain a few hundred thousand dollars in their damages award as a result.
Chrome

Could Google's Test of Hiding Complete URLs In Chrome Become a Standard? 327

Posted by timothy from the dumbed-down-or-neatened-up? dept.
MojoKid (1002251) writes "The address bar in a Web browser has been a standard feature for as long as Web browsers have been around — and that's not going to be changing. What could be, though, is exactly what sort of information is displayed in them. In December, Google began rolling-out a limited test of a feature in Chrome called "Origin Chip", a UI element situated to the left of the address bar. What this "chip" does is show the name of the website you're currently on, while also showing the base URL. To the right, the actual address bar shows nothing, except a prompt to "Search Google or type URL". With this implementation, a descriptive URL would not be seen in the URL bar. Instead, only the root domain would be seen, but to the left of the actual address bar. This effectively means that no matter which page you're on in a given website, all you'll ever see when looking at the address bar is the base URL in the origin chip. What helps here is that the URL is never going to be completely hidden. You'll still be able to hit Ctrl + L to select it, and hopefully be able to click on the origin chip in order to reveal the entire URL. Google could never get rid of the URL entirely, because it's required in order to link someone to a direct location, obviously."

Submission + - British Spy Chiefs Secretly Begged to Play in NSA's Data Pools (firstlook.org)

Submitted by Advocatus Diaboli
Advocatus Diaboli writes: Britain’s electronic surveillance agency, Government Communications Headquarters, has long presented its collaboration with the National Security Agency’s massive electronic spying efforts as proportionate, carefully monitored, and well within the bounds of privacy laws. But according to a top-secret document in the archive of material provided to The Intercept by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, GCHQ secretly coveted the NSA’s vast troves of private communications and sought “unsupervised access” to its data as recently as last year – essentially begging to feast at the NSA’s table while insisting that it only nibbles on the occasional crumb.

Comment Re:Works as Designed (Score 1) 798

Ah! But the Jocks uphold the system!

Those who support, always get special treatment, the only sin being to challenge established "Truths".

So, if the Jocks beat on the weak, the marginal, the dissenters, then they will be either ignored
or discretely applauded and supported.

And by Jocks, I mean Police, LEO, Spooks, and the various pillars of society.

I really wish that I was wrong.
I wish that things were not, what they have become.

Comment Works as Designed (Score 1) 798

Precisely!

Were you not listening, reading or watching for the past decade?

What did you not understand?
This. Is. Corporatism! (Not Sparta! 8-))

An under-educated class, born to be in debt, endlessly conditioned to obey, bred under pain of punishment, to Serve.

In this model, Authority is there to Rule, not to Adjudicate, so any attempt, no matter how trivial, to resist, to dissent, or,
as in this case, to provide any alternative to the Authority defined and controlled processes, will *always* be harshly punished.
As subversive.

Appeals for protection justify further exploitation, since the weak deserve to be hurt, and the system serves only the strong.
Might is Right, and don't bleed on the floor.

The only element missing is religion: "If Jaysus loved you, you wouldn't be picked on".

This school has a board.
This municipality has elected officials.
The Majority of the people in this area voted for this.
Your neighbours, colleagues and fellow-parents?
They want this.

This is what modern Western society has become.

Submission + - Apple buys iFixit, declares repairable devices "antiquated". (ifixit.com) 2

Submitted by ErichTheRed
ErichTheRed writes: Apparently, Apple is buying iFixit. iFixit is (was?) a website that posted teardown photos of gadgets and offered repair advice. According to the website: "Apple is working hard to make devices last long enough to be upgraded or irrelevant, making repairability an antiquated notion." It's all clear now — I can't replace the batteries, hard drives or RAM in new Macs because I'm expected to throw them in the landfill every 2 years!

It made it to CNN, so it has to be true, right?

Submission + - Experience with Free To Air

Submitted by Dishwasha
Dishwasha writes: Just a few days ago I incidentally discovered a little known secret called free-to-air. Amazingly enough even in the depths of /., there appears to have been no postings or discussions about it. Just like over-the-air programming, there is free programming available via various satellite systems that only requires a one-time cost of getting a dish and receiver. Both Amazon and Ebay appear to have a plethora of hardware out there. I personally settled on the Geosatpro MicroHD system with a 90cm 26lbs light-weight dish (queue lots of comments about my describing 26 lbs as being light-weight) and I should be receiving that in just a few days.

I'm curious, who else is using satellite FTA on /.? What are your setups? Has anyone hacked on any of the DVR/PVR devices available? Besides greater access to international programming, what are your channel experiences?

Submission + - Subversion project migrates to Git (apache.org)

Submitted by gitficionado
gitficionado writes: The Apache Subversion project has begun migrating its source code from the ASF Subversion repo to git. Last week, the Subversion PMC (project management committee) voted to to migrate, and the migration has already begun.

Although there was strong opposition to the move from the older and more conservative SVN devs, and reportedly a lot of grumbling and ranting when the vote was tallied, a member of the PMC (who asked to remain anonymous) told the author that "this [migration] will finally let us get rid of the current broken design to a decentralized source control model [and we'll get] merge and rename done right after all this time."

Submission + - Google+ Introduces Auto Awesome

Submitted by Nashirak
Nashirak writes: Google+ Auto Awesome is all about fun surprises that bring your photos to life. And whether it’s Benedict Cumberbatch at the Oscars or Michelle Obama at the White House, a celebrity photobomb is the ultimate surprise, turning an ordinary photo into something extraordinary.

Now with Auto Awesome Photobombs, you too can get a celebrity photobomb—no red carpet required. We’re starting with surprise appearances by +David Hasselhoff, everyone’s favorite crime-fighting rockstar lifeguard.

Submission + - Slashdot Design Changes for Wider Appeal (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Our marketing department has done extensive research over the last 8 years and discovered that our audience is strangely disproportionately skewed towards males. Like, 98.3% males to be precise. To correct this oversight, we have decided to subtly tweak Slashdot's design and content to widen our appeal to these less active demographics. Don't worry! We'll still continue to serve our core audience, but we hope you'll work with us as we try to find a balance that will work for all.

Submission + - Vaadin switches to C# overnight (vaadin.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The popular Java UI Framework Vaadin (using GWT under the hood) switches to C# over night in a bold move. All the tools go commercial through Microsoft and MSWTF framework is used underneath.

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