What happened is that people who used the system very day, day in and day out, became so fast at entering the machine settings the rate of UI events exceeded the ability of the custom monitor software written for the machine to respond correctly to them.

Which is still to some extent a UI issue.

But the literal "killer" is what happened next:
  1) The machine detected that it had screwed up.
  2) But the UI reported this by a cryptic error message: "MALFUNCTION nn" - where the 1 = nn = 64 error codes not only weren't explanatory, but weren't even included in the manual.
  3) And if the operator hit "P" (for "proceed") the machine would GO AHEAD AND OPERATE in the known-to-be-broken mode, giving the patient a fatal (high-power, not-swept-around) electrons rather than a 100x weaker flood of x-rays, with NO FURTHER INDICATION that something is still wrong (unless you count the patient sometimes screaming and running out of the room.)

If 2) and 3) aren't user interface problems, what is?

According to wikipedia, that had software problems that ended up killing people What's that got to do with UI changes and user experience?

The original post was about bad user interfaces causing harm to people. Changes breaking the user experience was only one of the issues.

In Therac's case the bug WAS primarily in the user interface:
  - Due to a race condition, if a button happened to be pressed at the wrong moment and the menu filled out in a particular order, the device would configure the electron beam for x-ray generation rather than electron beam generation (high electron beam current, no scanning) but not position the target, flattening filter, collimator, or ion-chamber x-ray sensor in the beamway, resulting in a configuration that irradiated the patient with beta radiation, rather than x-rays, at 100x a normal dose.)
  - The machine DID detect that there was a problem. But it reported it as "MALFUNCTION nn" - where nn was a number from 1 to 64 and not explained in the manual. If the operator entered "P" (proceed), it would then go ahead and operate in the improper mode anyhow.

Both the second part and most of the first part sound like user interface problem to me.

Someone started uploading all the HackingTeam source code to GitHub ... There are also some signing keys for kernel drivers in here.

IMHO:

Anyone with a project hosted on git hub should pull a backup copy NOW!

Hosting this leak on git hub could lead to moves by authorities to contain it - which could have the side effect of making GitHub and/or some projects on it unavailable - temporarily or permanently.

Better safe than sorry.

... will this help bona fide security researchers with their work on fighting exploits on all platforms ... ?

I wonder if this will also help people trying to write open software for closed devices? Signing keys, driver sources with spyware installed, ... Not only does it expose the malware bypassing the user's security, it may also expose the internal details of how the devices are driven and/or how to compromise the malware's and devices' anti-user "security".

(I have often wondered how many of the closed-driver devices have the code closed just for business reasons and how many are closed because that's where the spyware has been installed and they can't let the source out - even sanitized - because that would lead to the spyware's exposure.)

The goal is to intimidate the makers of such designs. Arrest first and ask questions later, when such designs get out.

It's also to make it harder for "the common man" to arm himself - in case a Schelling Point is reached and a LOT of people suddenly decide that they need to arm themselves against the government or its puppeteers. By slowing them down, and reducing the number and quality of designs available, the powers that be have more time to react and try to divide and reconquer.

Of course intimidating designers is a big part of that.

This is not the first time they did this. In fact it has quite an interesting history in cryptography that was classified as a munition for just this reason.

Which is why OpenBSD is hosted from outside the US. (It's NOT just that Theo happens to live in Canada.)

OMG, it's full of stars!

Gundams are coming!

They don't look that scary to me.

Belgian Flatcoated Retriever Club?

Sticking with the idea that "Pluto" is a dog, eh?

If you can't beat visa and "offshore" workers, become one.

Regarding that particular war. The real "problem" is that war can be inherently really ugly and dirty. If we really wanted to "play to win", we'd have have to give up the idea of dignity and good public relations. The other side had the advantage of filtering the media for their constituents (at least the constituents they cared about). We didn't really have that option.

If we got down and dirty, we'd end up looking down and dirty to the whole world and ourselves. I won't make a value judgement either way here, only point out the very difficult PR side of choosing that path.

The cold war was as much of a PR game as it was a territory game. Both sides were trying to sell their system to the world. Both factors, territory and PR had to be accounted for, and in this case both factors were in conflict, giving us no easy choice. One or the other would likely have to take a hit.

In general, the study trends are pointing to rotating positions periodically. Standing sometimes, sitting others, and shifting positions in general throughout the day. There is no ONE right work position.

How to implement that furniture-wise is another story. I'm envisioning something like a dental chair where the height and position can be controlled via a set of buttons or levers. The desk would be higher up so that one can sit, stand, or do something in-between without having to move the desk (thus simplifying the system).

However, there could be downsides to such:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

They are not used to a time zone change to Pluto Local Time. The Plutonians* were not willing to help.

* "Plutocrats"? "Plutoids"? Reminds me of a joke about Hillary allegedly selling nuke mines to Putie. She's the "Plutonium Plutocrat".

Come on NASA, was it a "fault", "snafu", "glitch", or "bug". Come clean now!

Personally, I suspect it was a snag.

Once Obama finally becomes President, that will be solved and the racial healing can begin.