Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - When Websites Won't Take No for an Answer (nytimes.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Harry Brignull, a user-experience consultant in Britain who helps websites and apps develop consumer-friendly features, has a professional bone to pick with sites that seem to maneuver people into signing up for services they might not actually want.

He even has a name for the exploitative techniques: “dark patterns.” To him, these are debased versions of the typical sign-up, sharing, shopping, checkout and download processes that are standard practice online.

“It’s a term for patterns that are manipulative, that you are doing on purpose to get one over on users,” Mr. Brignull said when I recently called him.

A few years ago, Mr. Brignull started a site called darkpatterns.org to call attention to the practices.

There’s the “sneak into basket” technique, where a retailer automatically adds products — like a magazine subscription or travel insurance — to consumers’ shopping carts and makes it hard for them to remove the unwanted items. There’s the “roach motel” or “walled-garden” technique, in which sites offer fast-and-easy sign-up processes but make it much more cumbersome for consumers to close accounts.

Submission + - Techies and homelessness

Submitted by ajmcello78
ajmcello78 writes: I recently read the story about Amazon and housing the homeless temporarily in one of their new facilities that is slated to open in the next year or two. I was surprised by some of the responses. Some techies have been homeless and know what it’s like, and the good news is, we can usually pull out of that rut. Once you’ve been homeless, you develop a soft spot for others who are now in that situation. While others have absolutely no idea and are ignorant to the situation and often turn a blind eye to the homeless. I’m both homeless and a tech (20 years of UNIX/network/database). So how does it happen? For me, it wasn’t drugs, alcohol, mental illness, or something along those lines (A common misconception is all homeless are mentally ill. WTF?). A war ensued between hungry family members and I over property and money. Simply put, I lost. I hadn’t worked in a few years due to a freak accident, there were no reserves or backup plan, so I headed out into the street with only the clothes on my back. 15 months later, not much has changed. People won’t hire you if they sense you’re homeless and destitute. I didn’t have the proper clothes or shoes, access to regular showers or haircuts; basic needs are not provided to all of us. To this day I live out of a bag, sleep where it’s inconspicuous, often illegal, wherever I can. It blows. After a while, you’ve essentially become trapped and there is no way out. You lose hope and wonder why God has abandoned you. So yeah, it’s a great thing what Amazon is doing (I’m from Seattle), but don’t go mistaking paradise for that home across the road.

Submission + - Microsoft Open-Sources Its JavaScript Engine Chakra

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As promised, Microsoft has open-sourced the core components of Chakra, the company’s JavaScript engine used in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer. The project, dubbed ChakraCore, has been released under the MIT License on GitHub.

Submission + - What is the ideal developer's system?

Submitted by mykepredko
mykepredko writes: After waiting through seemingly endless Chromium OS builds on a three year old system, I've decided to look at buying/building a couple of dedicated developer's systems; one for Windows (7 for now) and one for Linux. My basic requirements would be an 8 core Xeon with 4GB DDR4 per core minimum (ideally 8GB per core) with a least 512GB SSD. For I/O, I would want at least 6 USB ports, at least two DVI screen outputs and GB Ethernet with WiFi and Bluetooth. When I look for "powerful systems", I tend to find PCs designed for gamers and not software developers, who have large builds which take a long time in a basic/older system. What would you like to see in your dream development system? Are there any out there that you can recommend?

Comment The goddamned report (Score 1) 1

by Saija (#50458175) Attached to: 24 Chinese Android Smartphones Models Come With Pre-Installed Malware

Here is the report[PDF]

Here is the list of the models:

  1. Xiaomi MI3
  2. Huawei G510
  3. Lenovo S860
  4. Alps A24
  5. Alps 809T
  6. Alps H9001
  7. Alps 2206
  8. Alps PrimuxZeta
  9. Alps N3
  10. Alps ZP100
  11. Alps 709
  12. Alps GQ2002
  13. Alps N9389
  14. Andorid P8 (WTF? Never heard of this brand !)
  15. ConCorde SmartPhone6500
  16. DJC touchtalk
  17. ITOUCH
  18. NoName S806i
  19. SESONN N9500
  20. SESONN P8
  21. Xido X1111

Comment Man, thank you for the reviews (Score 1) 18

by Saija (#50445443) Attached to: systemd 10 - code structure (a random-seed example)

Thank you for the reviews about SystemD. I don't know much about init systems, as long as they let me log in on my system that's much I need to know now(I'm myself lazy).

But something that worry me about SystemD it's his premature adoption by the major players on the distro game. Everyone one of them has just adopted making the lives of users like me a little complicated.

Just this past weekend I was tinkering trying to mount an Android development environment on some virtualBox virtual machine. I have to download 4 separate distros(Fedora, CentOS, OpenSuse, Debian) to make that damn environment. Everysingle one of them had issues installing and when I went to the konsole(with k as I'm a KDE user) there's no way I could see what was happening!

do you try to see the logs? systemctl with god knows what parameters. Wanna see the network config? go kill a goat and made a ritual...
As a somewhat power user(been using Linux since 99 with intervals of Windows, knows a couple of commands, mount things by hand, download and compile software, change configuration options, etc) I feeled like that was not Linux anymore.

I feel just like when I was learning to use the OS back on '99: A complete noob who doesn't knows the system, nor the commands to make the thing works.If this trend continues I'm gonna check some BSD or stick to some older distro.

Anyway, thank you for the effort and time you've dedicated to the SystemD reviews, I'm reading and trying to make sense of the things you write and I don't know.
Keep the good work brother!

Comment Pile of Suse Cds (Score 1) 136

by Saija (#50347137) Attached to: Debian Founder: How I Came To Find Linux
On my first years of college I found this Linux thing on the computers of some lab there. I found it interesting and very different of that Windows 98 I've using on my house and on the other labs on the college.
I found a friend have the Suse cds, I think 9 of them and the Suse version was 6.1 wich came with a user manual printed on a book with a beautiful mathematical image on the cover(here it is the cover)
I took me endlesss rebootings and formatting to install it and made it usable
Ahhh! the joys of youthful !

Submission + - Massless Particle Discovery Could Radically Accelerate Electronics (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: An exotic particle theorized more than 85 years ago has finally been discovered. Dubbed the "Weyl fermion", it is a strange but stable particle that has no mass, behaves as both matter and anti-matter inside a crystal, and is claimed to be able to create completely massless electrons. Scientists believe that this new particle may result in super-fast electronics and significant inroads into novel areas of quantum computing.

Submission + - Tallying the Mistakes and Malfunctions of Robot Surgeons (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: El Reg reports on a new study that looked into malfunction and injury reports for medical procedures that used robot surgeons. From 2007 to 2013, 1.74 million such procedures were carried out, 86% of which were related to urology and gynecology. Of those, the study looked at reports of "adverse events," which were sent to the FDA. In that time period, there were 144 deaths, 1,391 patient injuries, and 8,061 device malfunctions. The malfunctions included "falling of burnt/broken pieces of instruments into the patient (14.7%), electrical arcing of instruments (10.5%), unintended operation of instruments (8.6%), system errors (5%), and video/imaging problems (2.6%)." The more complicated surgeries involving vital organs were naturally the most dangerous. Head and neck surgeries accounted for 19.7% of all adverse results, and cardiothoracic procedures accounted for 6.4%. The much more common urology and gynecology procedures had adverse event rates of 1.4% and 1.9%. The researchers are quick to note that despite the high number of malfunctions, a vastly higher number of robotic procedures went off without a hitch. They say increased adoption of these techniques will go a long way toward resolving bugs and device failures.

Submission + - How two bored 1970s housewives helped create the PC industry (fastcompany.com)

Submitted by harrymcc
harrymcc writes: One of the first significant PC companies was Vector Graphic. Founded in 1976, it was an innovator in everything from industrial design to sales and marketing, and eventually went public. And alone among early PC makers, it was founded and run by two women, Lore Harp and Carole Ely. Over at Fast Company, Benj Edwards tells the story of this fascinating, forgotten company.

Submission + - Shocking but True – 2 out of 3 Americans are Overweight (greennbrown.com)

Submitted by Naina Vaish
Naina Vaish writes: With the popularity of healthy lifestyle soaring in the past recent years, one may tend to think that American affinity towards healthy lifestyle is on the rise, nonetheless, the reality is quite shocking – American waistlines are still expanding.
In the early nineties, roughly 1 among 10 Americans was obese, however, over the next 20 years the rate of obesity climbed to a staggering 30%. Today the rate of obesity is close to 40% in most states in the US and still climbing.
Is it just the food habits that are to be blamed or is there a need of a better regulation for the food industry in terms of supply? It is very interesting to note that spending on athletic gear, yoga clothes in particular, among Americans is on the rise. This indicates that people in general are becoming more aware and are adopting preventive health measures like exercise and public health programs. However, this has clearly not had any noticeable impact on increasing obesity rate in the US.
There was a recent study conducted by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention that measured the average circumference of over 32,000 American waistlines in 2013. The study then compared this data to that was compiled in the year 2000. The results showed that average waistline circumference increased by over 3% in ten years from 95.5 cm (37.6 inches) to 98.5 cm (38.8 inches).
While obesity is common in America, people often overlook that this is serious and costly. Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer, some of the leading causes of preventable death. The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the U.S. was $147 billion in 2008 U.S. dollars; the medical costs for people who are obese were $1,429 higher than those of normal weight.
Change needs to happen bottoms up. It is the individuals who have to make incremental changes in their current lifestyles and eating habits to make a significant change towards a healthier nation.

Submission + - Evolvable Lunar Architecture: Returning Humans to the Moon for $10 Billion

Submitted by LezGoLezGo
LezGoLezGo writes: As reported from Defense Daily A recent study released by NexGen Space LLC assessed the feasibility of new approaches to human space colonization and highlights a plan to get humans on the moon and eventually to mars by leveraging commercial space flight resulting in a lower costs, less risk, and humans on the moon by 2020-2023 and Mars by 2030-2035. The plan is multi-phased, starting with a manned trip to the moon for just $10 billion followed by a lunar bases for $40 billion, and reusable space ferry ships in multiple transfer paths is a plan worth considering to return humans to the moon and eventually to Mars. The "Evolvable Lunar Architecture" (ELA) plan describes key points in the study:

"Based on the experience of recent NASA program innovations, such as the COTS
program, a human return to the Moon may not be as expensive as previously
thought.

America could lead a return of humans to the surface of the Moon within a period
of 5-7 years from authority to proceed at an estimated total cost of about $10
Billion (+/- 30%) for two independent and competing commercial service
providers, or about $5 Billion for each provider, using partnership methods.

America could lead the development of a permanent industrial base on the Moon
of 4 private-sector astronauts in about 10-12 years after setting foot on the Moon
that could provide 200 MT of propellant per year in lunar orbit for NASA for a
total cost of about $40 Billion (+/- 30%).

Assuming NASA receives a flat budget, these results could potentially be
achieved within NASA’s existing deep space human spaceflight budget.

A commercial lunar base providing propellant in lunar orbit might substantially
reduce the cost and risk NASA of sending humans to Mars. The ELA would
reduce the number of required Space Launch System (SLS) launches from as
many as 12 to a total of only 3, thereby reducing SLS operational risks, and
increasing its affordability.

An International Lunar Authority, modeled after CERN and traditional public
infrastructure authorities, may be the most advantageous mechanism for
managing the combined business and technical risks associated with affordable
and sustainable lunar development and operations.

A permanent commercial lunar base might substantially pay for its operations by
exporting propellant to lunar orbit for sale to NASA and others to send humans to
Mars, thus enabling the economic development of the Moon at a small marginal
cost.

To the extent that national decision-makers value the possibility of economical
production of propellant at the lunar poles, it needs to be a priority to send robotic
prospectors to the lunar poles to confirm that water (or hydrogen) is economically
accessible near the surface inside the lunar craters at the poles.

The public benefits of building an affordable commercial industrial base on the
Moon include economic growth, national security, advances in select areas of
technology and innovation, public inspiration, and a message to the world about American leadership and the long-term future of democracy and free markets."

Submission + - This is what Brazil's startup ecosystem looks like: An open source guide (geektime.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Brazil is one of the fastest rising economies in the world. With around 200 million people, a growing middle class, and the 7th largest economy by nominal GDP, Brazil has a lot to offer.

Here, you can see Brazil’s exciting startup scene with our data aggregated map and open source spreadsheet, which provides information on startups, investors, events, and more. With your help, this spreadsheet will encompass a real insider’s perspective of Brazil’s startup ecosystem.

Slashdot Top Deals

Work without a vision is slavery, Vision without work is a pipe dream, But vision with work is the hope of the world.

Close