Comment Re:domains (Score 1) 293
i'm surprised it's not called "faithbook.com"
It would get flooded by people with a lisp* looking for Facebook.
* The speech feature, not the language.
i'm surprised it's not called "faithbook.com"
It would get flooded by people with a lisp* looking for Facebook.
* The speech feature, not the language.
UI work is often like interior decorating: people shuffle stuff all around until they are happy, and THEN change their mind again, sometimes out of whim or sometimes because they asked for something impractical and had to learn the hard way because they don't like receiving advice from the experienced.
"As you can see in my PowerPoint slide, the...ah, ah, Aaachoooo!... Hey, where's my laptop?"
If you work from home, you are competing with inexpensive overseas labor at "3rd-world" rates, and have to price yourself as such.
It's unfortunate it's come to that, and is largely why commute traffic exists. Imagine all the fuel saved and reduced pollution if most could work from home. It's a shame.
Why is it taking people "years" to "learn to code"? That's the part that seems wasteful. You don't need to be a "computer scientist" to write useful code.
Slashdot should take a cue
I still click the bottom "Share" link out of habit because that's where the "Read" link used to be. Get off my lawn, Dice! I ain't sharing it.
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
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,
(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!
Belgian Flatcoated Retriever Club?
Sticking with the idea that "Pluto" is a dog, eh?
fortune: No such file or directory