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Submission + - Microsoft lays off 2,100, axes Silicon Valley research (reuters.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: Microsoft Corp will close its Silicon Valley research-and-development operation as part of 2,100 layoffs announced on Thursday, as it moves toward its new CEO's goal of cutting 18,000 staff, or about 14 percent of its workforce.

Submission + - Elixir 1.0.0 Released (elixir-lang.org)

Submitted by mothlos
mothlos writes:

Elixir is a dynamic, functional language designed for building scalable and maintainable applications.

Where languages like Scala and Clojure implement concurrent, functional languages on a VM designed for imperative code, Elixir, instead, is a re-imagining Erlang on Erlang's own VM with a proven record running extremely high-availability, distributed systems. With a Ruby-inspired syntax, Lisp-inspired metaprogramming, and no-overhead compatibility with Erlang's libraries, Elixir makes a decades-honed toolset for concurrent programming more accessible than ever.

Submission + - Face it, Tesla's going to win in every state 1

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: Unless you've been in a coma for a while you're aware that many dealer associations have been causing headaches for Tesla in multiple states. The reason? They are scared. Tesla's new, different, and shaking up the ridiculously old way of doing things. But the thing is, Tesla keeps winning. Now Ward's commenter Jim Ziegler, president of Ziegler Supersystems in Atlanta, wrote an opinion piece that basically says Tesla's going to prevail in every state against dealer lawsuits. He says Tesla's basically busy defending what are nuisance suits. This leads to the question of whether there will be some sort of sweeping federal action in Tesla's favor.

Submission + - Study Finds Link Between Artificial Sweeteners and Glucose Intolerance

Submitted by onproton
onproton writes: The journal Nature released a study today that reveals a link between the consumption of artificial sweeteners and the development of glucose intolerance, a leading risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes, citing a critical alteration of intestinal bacteria. Paradoxically, these non-caloric sweeteners, which can be up to 20,000 times sweeter than natural sugars, are often recommended to diabetes patients to control blood glucose levels. Sugar substitutes have come under additional fire lately from studies showing that eating artificially sweetened foods can lead to greater overall calorie consumption and even weight gain. While some, especially food industry officials, remain highly skeptical of such studies, more research still needs to be done to determine the actual risks these substances may pose to health.

Submission + - Snowden's Leaks Didn't Help Terrorists 1

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: The Interecept reports that contrary to lurid claims made by U.S. officials, a new independent analysis of Edward Snowden’s revelations on NSA surveillance that examined the frequency of releases and updates of encryption software by jihadi groups has found no correlation in either measure to Snowden’s leaks about the NSA’s surveillance techniques. According to the report "well prior to Edward Snowden, online jihadists were already aware that law enforcement and intelligence agencies were attempting to monitor them (PDF).” In fact, concerns about terrorists' use of sophisticated encryption technology predates even 9/11.

Earlier this month former NSA head Michael Hayden stated, “The changed communications practices and patterns of terrorist groups following the Snowden revelations have impacted our ability to track and monitor these groups”, while Matthew Olsen of the National Counterterrorism Centre would add “Following the disclosure of the stolen NSA documents, terrorists are changing how they communicate to avoid surveillance.” Snowden’s critics have previously accused his actions of contributing from everything from the rise of ISIS to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. "This most recent study is the most comprehensive repudiation of these charges to date," says Murtaza Hussain. "Contrary to lurid claims to the contrary, the facts demonstrate that terrorist organizations have not benefited from the NSA revelations, nor have they substantially altered their behavior in response to them."

Comment UI still looks like shit (Score 1) 216

by UnknownSoldier (#47931207) Attached to: iOS 8 Review

It's not just me. One of my best friends really hates that the lines no longer show in "Notes" in iOS 7 on her iPad.

http://iosguides.net/wp-conten...

I can grudgly accept that Apple wants to move away from skeuomorphism, but when Functionality suffers because of some idiotic dogma about Form someone needs a clue stick:

    Give people UI _options_.

Does anyone have the new nVidia Shield Tablet? How is for reading and developing games for?

--
"Apple: Pretending they know what is best for you since 1984. The problem is their lost their class in style. Now they are not even tacky."

Comment Re:Simple set of pipelined utilties! (Score 1) 385

by UnknownSoldier (#47929347) Attached to: Torvalds: No Opinion On Systemd

Methinks you're throwing the baby out with the bath water.

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."
    -- Albert Einstein

Sometimes complexity IS the right solution. Look at ZFS's beautiful design. Instead of having 3 separate API layers, by combining them you can do even more holistically that simply wasn't possible before.

The Unix philosophy is not a religion -- it is a guiding principle. Like all principles there are times to violate the heuristic. Sometimes complexity solves certain problems extremely well.

What we are against is:

* Over-Engineering
* Things are TOO simple which means you need needless complexity to get anything done

This isn't the first time the Unix Philosophy has been discussed:

* Arch Linux to migrate to Systemd
https://news.ycombinator.com/i...

* Linux Future
http://www.pappp.net/?p=969

* "Worse is Better"
http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-i...
https://www.dreamsongs.com/Wor...

* Follow up -- Back to the Future: Is Worse (Still) Better?
http://www.dreamsongs.com/NewF...

Comment Re:Same as humans ... (Score 1) 165

by UnknownSoldier (#47921653) Attached to: Developing the First Law of Robotics

This is a classic example of "Paralysis by Analysis"

Also, the programmer was an idiot. Either use a priority queue or at the very least a timer to force a decision.

while( 1 ) {
    if( people_in_danger ) {
        queryWhoToSave( people_in_danger );
        if( time_to_make_choice++ > CANT_DECIDE_WHO_TO_SAVE )
            savePerson( rand() );
    }
    else
        people_in_danger = ScanEnvironment();
}

Submission + - What to Expect With Windows 9

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: Two weeks before the its official unveiling, Woody Leonhard provides a roundup of what to expect and the open questions around Windows 9, given Build 9834 leaks and confirmations springing up all over the Web. The desktop's Start Menu, Metro apps running in resizable windows on the desktop, virtual desktops, Notification Center, and Storage Sense, are among the presumed features in store for Windows 9. Chief among the open questions are the fates of Internet Explorer, Cortana, and the Metro Start Screen. Changes to Windows 9 will provide an inkling of where Nadella will lead Microsoft in the years ahead. What's your litmus test on Windows 9?

Submission + - Ask slashdot: Remote support for disconnected, computer-illiterate relatives.

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I use email to communicate with my folks overseas. Their "ISP" only allows dial-up access to their email account (there is no option of chaning ISP), that can receive messages no larger than 1MB nor hold more than 15MB (no hope of changing that either). They are computer-illiterate, click on everything they receive, and take delight on sending their information to any nigerian prince that contacts them, "just in case this one is true". Needless to say, thir PC is always full of viruses and spyware. In my next yearly visit, instead of just cleaning it up, I'd like to gift them with some "hardened" PC to use for email only that would hopefully last the year before someone has to fix it. So far, these are the things I have in mind:
  • Some kind of linux distro, or maybe even mac. Most viruses over there are windows only and propagate via Autorun.inf or by email attachments, not having Windows could prevent both.
  • Some desktop environment that hides anything unrelated to connecting to the net and accessing their account (dial-up software, email client, web browser, exchanging files between their hard disk/email attachments and USB drives). By "hide", I just want the rest to be out of the way, but not entirely removed, so that if necessary, I can guide them over the phone. For this, Ubuntu's Unity seems like a particularily bad solution, but a Gnome desktop with non-removable desktop shortcuts (is this possible?) for the file manager, browser, email client and dial-up program could work. An android system is unlikely to work (they have no wifi, and they were utterly confused with Android's UI).
  • This could be a life saver: some kind of extension to the email client that executes commands on specially formated emails (e.g., signed with my private key), so that I can do some basic diagnostics or install extra software if I have to. This las point is important: they currently rely on aquaintances who may not be competent (they can't evaluate that) if something happens between my visits. They, most likely, wont know how to deal with anything non-windows, so all tech support would fall on me. (This is the reason I haven't moved them from windows yet.)
  • Another very useful extension would be something to automatically re-assemble attachments split into several emails, to overcome the 1MB message limit.

Does any of that exist? If I have to build that system myself (or parts of it), do you have other suggestions? For the inevitable and completely reasonable suggestion of getting someone competent for tech support: I've tried that too. The competent ones don't last beyond the third visit.

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