Humor columnist Dave Barry won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for commentary — and answered questions from Slashdot's readers in 2003. That same year he convinced thousands of people to call a telemarketing company (which had filed a lawsuit protesting America's "Do Not Call" registry). He's criticized electronic voting machines, wrote Dave Barry in Cyberspace, and even helped popularize "Talk Like a Pirate Day."

But this week the 78-year-old humor columnist announced he's shutting his blog down. ("Actually, technically, TypePad is shutting it down, by going out of business September 30.") Dave Barry will be moving to Substack, where he'll write new humor columns — and where paying subscribers will also be able to comment and participate in chats.

On his TypePad blog, Barry wrote "GOODBYE, YOU CRAZY, WONDERFUL PEOPLE..." After [September 30th] this site will disappear, and I've made the decision not to attempt to migrate it to another platform. Everything, except Keith Richards, eventually comes to an end, and it just feels like it's time, after all these years, to let the Blog go to that Big Archive in the Sky.

It has been a fun couple of decades, hanging out here with you very funny folks — discussing the International Squirrel Conspiracy, and what WBAGNFARB, and all the entities, human and otherwise, that qualify for Florida drivers' licenses, and the many, many other random topics that made up whatever this weird thing has been. Thanks to all of you — the people who sent me all those news items; the excellent commenters; the lurkers — for being part of this. Really: Thank you. You made it work.
Dave Barry reminds readers that he'll continue blogging on TypePad until the end of September — and that after that they can still reach him at his new Substack blog (where "you don't have to subscribe to read my posts").

And his Substack blog already has a humorous "About" page... When people hear that I'm starting a Substack, the question they always ask is: "Dave Barry? Isn't he dead?"

I'm delighted to report that the answer is: Not yet! I'm still alive, and along with an estimated 85 percent of the Earth's population, I have a Substack, which I invite you to subscribe to...

In 2005 I stopped writing a weekly column, after which the newspaper industry — draw your own conclusions from this — collapsed. I've continued to write books, and every year I write a massive Year in Review, which is wildly popular with everyone except the people who hate it. But I've missed writing columns, which is why I started this Substack. I will use it to comment on the major issues of the day, ranging all the way from stories about snakes showing up in people's toilets to stories about completely different scary things showing up in people's toilets. I will sometimes even write about issues that are totally unrelated to toilets. That is how wide-ranging this Substack will be. I plan to occasionally do chats, and I may even do podcasts or interviews with my famous minor-celebrity friends if I can get them to return my phone calls. Also I'll publish the Year in Review here.

So that's the plan. I'm hoping to build a community of civic-minded people with a sincere interest in reading about and discussing useless and often wildly inaccurate things instead of doing something productive. Kind of like Congress, but without a dress code.
A frequently-asked questions list then promises the Substrack will "have much more writing from me, and more interaction between me and subscribers. The blog has always been something I did in my spare time, when I wasn't working on something else, usually a book. The Substack will be my main focus, essentially my day job." Q: [H]ow much does a paid subscription to your Substack cost?

A. Eleven million dollars.

Q. Whoa. That's expensive!

A. You drive a hard bargain! But OK, for you let's make it $5 a month, or $50 a year....

Q. What if I don't want to pay?

A. Burly men will barge into your home and confiscate your major appliances. [Barry then crosses this out using HTML strikethrough characters.] Nothing bad will happen to you. You can still see my Substack posts, though you won't be able to comment on posts or participate in chats.
Thanks to wiredog (Slashdot reader #43,288) for sharing the news.

New submitter Peppercopia writes: CTV News is reporting that Meta will begin testing the blocking of news sites in Canada. If the argument is that the social media giants are unfairly benefitting from content from Canadian news organizations, this move should be moot as the 'stealing' would now be stopping. Unfortunately the opposite is likely the case, and the news organizations will find out how important the free traffic and promotion they are getting from social media giants really is. It feels a bit like killing the golden goose to get the eggs. The move is designed to "work out the kinks" before permanently blocking news on its platforms when the Canadian government passes the Online News Act. According to CTV News, the test "will affect up to five percent of its 24 million Canadian users."

"The company says the randomly selected users won't be able to see some content including news links as well as reels, which are short-form videos, and stories, which are photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours." Media organizations will be chosen at random.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo, written by Jody Serrano: In the early aughts, my wheezing dialup connection often operated as if it were perpetually out of breath. Thus, unlike my childhood friends, it was near to impossible for me to watch videos, TV shows, or listen to music. Far from feeling limited, I felt like I was lucky, for I had access to an encyclopedia of lovingly curated pages about anything I wanted to know -- which in those days was anime -- the majority of which was conveniently located on GeoCities. For all the zoomers scrunching up their brows, here's a primer. Back in the 1990s, before the birth of modern web hosting household names like GoDaddy and WP Engine, it wasn't exactly easy or cheap to publish a personal website. This all changed when GeoCities came on the scene in 1994.

The company gave anyone their own little space of the web if they wanted it, providing users with roughly 2 MB of space for free to create a website on any topic they wished. Millions took GeoCities up on its offer, creating their own homemade websites with web counters, flashing text, floating banners, auto-playing sound files, and Comic Sans. Unlike today's Wild Wild Internet, websites on GeoCities were organized into virtual neighborhoods, or communities, built around themes. "HotSprings" was dedicated to health and fitness, while "Area 51" was for sci-fi and fantasy nerds. There was a bottom-up focus on users and the content they created, a mirror of what the public internet was like in its infancy. Overall, at least 38 million webpages were built on GeoCities. At one point, it was the third most-visited domain online. Yahoo acquired GeoCities in 1999 for $3.6 billion. The company lived on for a decade more until Yahoo shut it down in 2009, deleting millions of sites.

Nearly two decades have passed since GeoCities, founded by David Bohnett, made its debut, and there is no doubt that the internet is a very different place than it was then. No longer filled with webpages on random subjects made by passionate folks, it now feels like we live in a cyberspace dominated by skyscrapers -- named Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter, and so on -- instead of neighborhoods. [...] We can, however, ask GeoCities' founder what he thinks of the internet of today, subsumed by social media networks, hate speech, and more corporate than ever. Bohnett now focuses on funding entrepreneurs through Baroda Ventures, an early-stage tech fund he founded, and on philanthropy with the David Bohnett Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to social justice and social activism that he chairs. Right off the bat, Bohnett says something that strikes me. It may, in fact, be the sentence that summarizes the key distinction between the internet of the '90s-early 2000s and the internet we have today. "GeoCities was not about self-promotion," Bohnett told Gizmodo in an interview. "It was about sharing your interest and your knowledge." When asked to share his thoughts on the internet of today, Bohnett said: "... The heart of GeoCities was sharing your knowledge and passions about subjects with other people. It really wasn't about what you had to eat and where you've traveled. [...] It wasn't anything about your face." He added: "So, what has surprised me is how far away we've gotten from that original intent and how difficult it is [now]. It's so fractured these days for people to find individual communities. [...] I've been surprised at sort of the evolution away from self-generated content and more toward centralized programing and more toward sort of the self-promotion that we've seen on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok."

Bohnett went on to say that he thinks it's important to remember that "the pace of innovation on the internet continues to accelerate, meaning we're not near done. In the early days when you had dial up and it was the desktop, how could you possibly envision an Uber?"

"We're still in that trajectory where there's going to be various technologies and ways of communicating with each other, [as well as] wearable devices, blockchain technology, virtual reality, that will be as astounding as Uber seemed in the early days of GeoCities," added Bohnett. "I'm very, very excited about the future, which is why I continue to invest in early-stage startups because as I say, the pace of innovation accelerates and builds on top of itself. It's so exciting to see where we might go."

Last week came the news that Dan Kaminsky, security researcher (and popular speaker at security conferences), had passed away at the age of 42. In a half hour the DEF CON security convention will hold a special online memorial for Dan Kaminsky on Discord.

But interestingly, Kaminsky was also one of ICANN's "Trusted Community Representatives," part of a small community involved in a ceremonial root key generation, backup and signing process. (Since 2010 Kaminsky was one of the seven "Recovery Key Share Holders" entrusted with a fragment of a cryptographic key and reporting in for its annual inventory.)

So who will take Dan's place? Slashdot contacted ICANN's vice president of IANA Services, Kim Davies. His response? We maintain an open invitation for volunteers who believe they are qualified, and review those volunteers when a vacancy arises. The selection process is documented, but in essence means we try to maintain a balance of skills and geographic location so that in the aggregate the TCRs are diverse.

The selection is not in chronological order, and will not necessarily result in selecting someone who most matches Dan's attributes. Ultimately the replacement will be a volunteer that the evaluation panel feels best contrasts and complements the attributes of the remaining TCRs.
Davies also shared this remembrance of Dan Kaminsky: He played a critical role in the evolution of the DNS by bringing attention to the practical cache poisoning vulnerability he discovered. He was a greater collaborator who worked closely with us to rapidly address the issue in critical infrastructure, and then worked to promote technologies like DNSSEC that can mitigate it effectively in the long term. He really provided a significant catalyst that resulted in DNSSEC being put into widespread production in 2010.

His service as a Trusted Community Representative was just a part of his commitment to these issues, and while his work on the DNS is perhaps his most famous contribution, he has an amazing resume of accomplishments throughout his career.

Personally I found him a delight to work with and we are deeply mourning the loss.
Of course, there's another way to follow in Dan's footsteps. Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: Jeff Moss, founder of DEF CON and Black Hat, has proposed nominating Kaminsky for the Internet Hall of Fame, or even creating a Kaminsky award to honor "the core ideals" of the security researcher. But there's another complementary direction to go in... Black Hat board member Matt Devost tweeted last weekend that, "No one that knew Dan Kaminsky well is talking about DNS today. They are talking about kindness, boundless energy and positivity, spontaneous adventures, and how hard he worked to lift others up. Want to emulate one of the greatest hackers of all time? Let that be your guide."

And last week a self-described hacker named Dr. Russ even tweeted, "In an effort to honor Dan Kaminsky's character and legacy, we should all make a random act of Kaminsky weekly. Make it a point to be kind and helpful to someone, friend or stranger. Legit helpful and kind, take it over the finish line. Be the persistent guide he was. Then do it again."

I propose we call that "pulling a Kaminsky."
Presumably in the way later generations in William Gibson's Count Zero talked of "pulling a Wilson...."

When Amazon made a unilateral decision in early February to stop accepting documentaries and short films via Prime Video Direct (a policy that also covers "slide shows, vlogs, podcasts, tutorials, filmed conferences, monologues, toy play, music videos, and voiceover gameplay"), the announcement also served as a quiet purge. Amazon also has been dropping long-running documentary titles from the service, with stakeholders receiving no warning or context for the decisions. From a report: Filmmakers and distributors are aghast, but Amazon Prime Video Direct seems to be egalitarian in how it treats its partners. Whether you're an individual filmmaker or an established specialty distributor, no one can ask an Amazon Prime Video Direct representative for more information; there's no one to ask. All inquiries are submitted via trouble tickets, and everyone receives the same boilerplate response via their Amazon Prime Video direct dashboards: "Unless otherwise indicated," the message says, "removed titles (or titles not selected for licensing) may not be resubmitted or appealed."

"The selections are so random, it feels like a machine is doing this and not humans," said one executive working on films impacted by the decision. "The lack of any human response adds to the frustration. It reminds me of when politicians want to cut PBS funding." Despite Amazon's dystopian approach to customer service, Prime Video Direct has been in a process of evolution from the start. When it launched in May 2016, it was positioned to lure content creators away from YouTube with bonuses and a more premium experience. Anyone could upload content to Amazon either as titles included free with Prime subscriptions (and earn a royalty) or as digital purchases or rentals. Given Amazon's massive reach, and multiple ways to make money, it was positioned as a fierce competitor in the battle for video ad dollars.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Michael Leggett is even more annoyed with Gmail than you are. "It's like Lucky Charms got spewed all over the screen," he says to me, as he scrolls through his inbox. It's true. Folders, contacts, Google apps like Docs and Drive -- and at least half a dozen notifications -- all clutter Gmail at any given moment. And of course, there's that massive Gmail logo that sits in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. Just in case you forgot that you just typed "gmail.com" into your browser bar three seconds ago. "Go look at any desktop app and tell me how many have a huge fucking logo in the top left," rants Leggett. "C'mon. It's pure ego, pure bullshit. Drop the logo. Give me a break."

Rather than sit there and stew, Leggett decided to do something about it: He created a free Chrome extension called Simplify, where all the extraneous folders and functions overloading Gmail seem to melt away, leaving you with a calm screen and nothing but your messages. It's understatedly beautiful, and every button just seems like it's in the right place. In fact, it feels a little too good for some random free Chrome extension made by some random developer. Let's just say that Leggett was highly qualified for the job. You see, Leggett was actually the lead designer for Gmail from 2008 to 2012. He also cofounded the since-discontinued Inbox, which attempted to reimagine Gmail for the modern era.

A few weeks ago you had a chance to ask author, entrepreneur, and software developer Jeff Atwood about founding Stack Overflow and the Stack Exchange Network, as well as his new endeavor, the Discourse open-source discussion platform. Below you will find his answers to your questions.

Penguinisto writes: According to Ars Technica, Windows 10 will still send telemetry and other data to Microsoft-owned domains — no matter how tightly you crank down the privacy settings. Even with everything buttoned down, Cortana, OneDrive, and Web Search from the Start Menu disabled, the OS still phones home, using a random system ID that persists across reboots. It apparently also tries to bypass proxies to do it. "Some of the traffic looks harmless but feels like it shouldn't be happening. For example, even with no Live tiles pinned to Start (and hence no obvious need to poll for new tile data), Windows 10 seems to download new tile info from MSN's network from time to time, using unencrypted HTTP to do so. ... Other traffic looks a little more troublesome. Windows 10 will periodically send data to a Microsoft server named ssw.live.com. ... The exact nature of the information being sent isn't clear—it appears to be referencing telemetry settings—and again, it's not clear why any data is being sent at all. We disabled telemetry on our test machine using group policies."

An anonymous reader writes: Eric Griffith at Phoronix has provided a fresh perspective on the KDE vs. GNOME desktop debate after exclusively using GNOME for the past week while being a longtime KDE user. He concluded his five-page editorial (which raises some valid points throughout) by saying, "Gnome feels like a product. It feels like a singular experience. When you use it, it feels like it is complete and that everything you need is at your fingertips. It feels like the Linux desktop. ... In KDE, it's just some random-looking window popup that any application could have created. ... KDE doesn't feel like cohesive experience. KDE doesn't feel like it has a direction its moving in, it doesn't feel like a full experience. KDE feels like its a bunch of pieces that are moving in a bunch of different directions, that just happen to have a shared toolkit beneath them." However, with the week over and despite his criticism, he's back to using KDE.

As the science consultant for The Big Bang Theory for the past seven seasons, Dr. David Saltzberg makes sure the show gets its science right. A few weeks ago, you had the chance to ask him about his work on the show and his personal scientific endeavors. Below you'll find his answers to those questions.

Bennett Haselton writes: "If you watch a movie or TV show (legally) on your mobile device while away from your home network, it's usually by streaming it on a data plan. This consumes an enormous amount of a scarce resource (data bundled with your cell phone provider's data plan), most of it unnecessarily, since many of those users could have downloaded the movie in advance on their home broadband connection — if it weren't for pointless DRM restrictions." Read on for the rest of Bennett's thoughts.

A while ago you had a chance to ask composer George Sanger about making music and sound effects for games, television, and film. Below you'll find "The Fat Man's" answers to those questions.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Nate Silver feels a little odd about his fame. That's not to say that he hasn't worked to get to his enviable position. Thanks to his savvy with predictive models, and the huge readership platform provided by The New York Times hosting his FiveThirtyEight blog, he managed to forecast the most recent presidential election results in all 50 states. His accuracy transformed him into a rare breed: a statistician with a household name. But onstage at this year's SXSW conference, Silver termed his fame 'strange' and 'out of proportion,' and described his model as little more than averaging the state and national polls, spiced a bit with his algorithms. "It bothered me that this was such a big deal," he told the audience. In politics, he added, most of the statistical analysis being conducted simply isn't good, which lets someone like him stand out; same as in baseball, where he made his start in predictive modeling. In fields with better analytics, the competition for someone like him would be much fiercer. He also talked about, despite a flood of data (and the tools to analyze it) in the modern world, we still face huge problems when it comes to actually understanding and using that data. 'You have a gap between what we think we know and what we really know,' he said. 'We tend to be oversensitive to random fluctuations in the data and mistake the fluctuations for real relationships.'"

eldavojohn writes "I kickstarted a project undertaken by Daniel Shiffman to write a book on what (at the time) seemed to be a very large knowledge space. What resulted is a good book (amazing by CC-BY-NC standards) available in both PDF and HTML versions. In addition to the book he maintains the source code for creating the book and of course the book examples. The Nature of Code starts off swimmingly but remains front heavy with a mere thirty five pages devoted to the final chapter on neural networks. This is an excellent book for Java and Processing developers that want to break into simulation and modeling of well, anything. It probably isn't a must-have title for very seasoned developers (unless you've never done simulation and modeling) but at zero cost why not?" Read below for the rest of eldavojohn's review.

Earlier this month you asked Principal Scientist at the BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre, Dr. Ramsey Faragher, about his NAVSOP navigation system and the future of positioning systems in general. Below you'll find his answers.

Last week, you asked questions of Vermont Senate candidate Jeremy Hansen, running on an unusual platform: Hansen pledges to take advantage of modern communications if elected, and (with exceptions he outlines in his answers) vote based on the opinion of his district's voters on a per-issue basis. Read below Hansen's answers about such a system could work; he addresses concerns about security, practicality, morality, and more. "Before I start with the answers," he writes in introduction, "I want to clear a few things up. I am running as an independent for a Vermont Senate seat, not the U.S. Senate, so questions about classified and similar material do not (for the most part) apply. Also, for everyone's reference, there are 44,000 registered voters in Vermont's Washington County Senate district. Many of the concerns about managing input from very large populations are not as applicable here." Read on for more.

A few weeks back, you asked gaming-world academic and game designer Ian Bogost questions from the business, philosophical, and aesthetic sides of gaming; below, find his responses. Thanks, Ian!

eldavojohn writes "The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick has a rather nebulous title and the subtitle doesn't really help one understand what this book hopes to be about. The extensive citations are welcomed as the author barely scratches the surface of any theory of information. It also cherry picks odd and interesting facets of the history of information but presents them in a chronologically challenged order. This book is, however, a flood and as a result it could best be described as a rambling, romantic love note to Information — eloquently written and at times wondrously inspiring but at the same time imparting very little actual knowledge or tools to the reader. If I were half my age, this book would be the perfect fit for me (just like Chaos was) but knowing all the punchlines and how the story ends ahead of time rather ruined it for me. While wandering through interesting anecdotes, Gleick masks the reader from most of the gory details." Read on for the rest of eldavojohn's review.

An anonymous reader writes "Agile Development & Business Goals: The Six Week Solution has scrum-like elements, fairly rapid iterations, automated testing, and some other things that you have come to rely on to make your Agile methodology work. But the Six Week Solution agile process has some other things, too, that make it a very interesting take on the classic Agile approach." Read below for the rest of the AC's review.

Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton changes things up today by reviewing The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics and Physics. Questions that big need a big review and you can learn what Bennett has to say about it all by reading below.