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Submission + - LinkedIn Testing 1970's-Style No-CS-Degree-Required Software Apprenticeships

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The Mercury News reports on REACH, a new software apprenticeship program that LinkedIn’s engineering team started piloting this month, which offers people without Computer Science degrees an opportunity to get a foot in the door, as Microsoft-owned LinkedIn searches for ways to help diversify its workforce. For now, the 29 REACH participants are paid, but are only short-term LinkedIn employees (for the duration of the 6-month program). LinkedIn indicated it hopes to learn if tech internships could eventually be made part of the regular hiring process, perhaps unaware that no-CS-degree-required hiring for entry-level permanent positions in software development was standard practice in the 70's and 80's, back when women made up almost 40% of those working as programmers and in software-related fields, nearly double the percentage of women in LinkedIn's global 2016 tech workforce. Hey, even in tech hiring, everything old is new again!

Comment Bulletin board of drivers (Score 1) 145

by Jayson (#54230347) Attached to: Uber's 'Hell' Program Tracked and Targeted Lyft Drivers

Any legal action might be a tough sell. Both Uber and Lyft try to say that they are simply a bulletin board (a very modern one) that pairs riders and drivers. If you are a bulletin board, you cannot get angry at anybody coming over to look at your board and see what's going on, even if they are a competitor. It is public information after all.

Submission + - Brian Krebs is back online, with Google Cloud Hosting (krebsonsecurity.com)

Submitted by Gumbercules!!
Gumbercules!! writes: After the massive 600mbps DDOS on http://krebsonsecurity.com/ last week that forced Akamai to withdraw the (pro-bono) DDOS protection they offered the site, krebsonsecurity.com is now back online, hosted by Google.

Following Brian Krebs breaking an article on vDOS (https://developers.slashdot.org/story/16/09/08/2050238/israeli-ddos-provider-vdos-earned-600000-in-two-years), leading to the arrest of the two founders, his site was hit with a record breaking DDOS. It will certainly be an interesting test of Google's ability to provide DDOS protection to clients.

Submission + - Hot Debate Raging on The Proposed Super Particle Collider in China (scmp.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Chinese high-energy physicists proposed four years ago to build a particle collider four times the size of the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. On Sunday, Dr Yang Chen-ning, co-winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1957 and now living on campus at Tsinghua University in Beijing, released an article on WeChat opposing the construction of the collider. He said the project would become an investment “black hole” with little scientific value or benefit to society, sucking resources away from other research sectors such as life sciences and quantum physics. Yang’s article hit nearly all social media platforms and internet news portals, drawing tens of thousands of positive comments over the last couple of days. The first stage of the project was estimated to cost 40 billion yuan (US$6 billion) by 2030, and the total cost would exceed 140 billion yuan (US$21 billion) when construction is completed in 2050, making it the most expensive research facility built in China. Yang’s main argument was that China would not succeed where the United States had failed. A similar project had been proposed in the US but was eventually cancelled in 2012 as the construction far exceeded the initial budget. Yang said existing facilities including the Large Hadron Collider contributed little to the increase of human knowledge and was irrelevant to most people’s daily lives. But Dr Wang Yifang, lead scientist of the project with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of High Energy Physics, argued research in high energy physics lead to the world wide web, mobile phone touch screens and magnetic resonance imaging in hospitals, among other technological breakthroughs.

Comment Re:Well no kidding (Score 1) 94

by Jayson (#51829903) Attached to: Free Wi-Fi Program in Los Angeles Fails to Provide Free Wi-Fi

I was about to mention NYC. I wouldn't say it works fine, but it does work better than most places. The subway stations also have a fairly restricted number of people at a time though, and that is where it works best for me. Also, not everybody business and local is trying to down on it 24/7. I wonder what the peak usage is? I guarantee it is much lower than other places.

Comment Re:"free" never fails to disapoint (Score 1) 94

by Jayson (#51829895) Attached to: Free Wi-Fi Program in Los Angeles Fails to Provide Free Wi-Fi

His point is that the government will never had enough of oversight of itself -- it shouldn't have had this bad of a failure for so long -- to fix these problems. Saying it would all be better if the government just did something it historically never been able to do well is a fool's dream. Lacking a profit motive, governments have very little natural force correcting them, especially when it comes to bureaucrats paid according to union standards and protected by them. They really don't care if anything works out at long as then can show then put forth even the smallest effort.

You asking for more regulation after giving tax money to a corporation reminds me of the Ronald Reagan quote: "If is move, tax it. It is keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it."

The problem with government run anything (from democratic socialism to Marxism) is that it never works out like its planned, and those that support it just keep up with the same hitting their head again the wall mantra, "But that wasn't what was supposed to happen; that wasn't real [insert personal economic philosophy]." They never seem to learn that there will always be a huge gulf between theory and practice when it comes to the political economy. Capitalism self corrects around it and uses our worst side -- the greed -- to make the world better.

Comment Re:Alternative headline: (Score 1) 954

Probably the most economically astute comment I've ever read on Slashdot.
more capital = more valuable labor. (See that period. It means end of statement. No exceptions.)

The guy with a shovel make more than the guy with a spoon, and the guy who can run a backhoe makes more than 10 of both of the combined.

Submission + - Facebook allows Turkish government to set the censorship rules for billions (facebook.com)

Submitted by feylikurds
feylikurds writes: Facebook has been blocking and banning users for posting Kurdish or anti-Turkish material. Many screenshots exists of Facebook notifying people for such.

You can insult any single historical figure that you like on Facebook except one = Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal "Ataturk". However, he should not receive special treatment and be protected from criticism, but rather should be treated and examined like everyone else.

In order to be accessible within Turkey, Facebook has allowed the repressive Turkish government to set the censorship rules for billions of their users all around the globe. Facebook censors Kurds on behalf of Turkey. To show the world how unjust this policy is, this group discusses Facebook's censorship policy as it relates to Kurds and discussions on how to get Facebook to change its unfair and discriminatory policy.

Submission + - Hacker's Device Can Intercept OnStar's Mobile App and Unlock, Start GM Cars (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Security researcher Samy Kamkar posted a video today demonstrating a device he created that he calls OwnStar that can intercept communications between GM's RemoteLink mobile app and the OnStar cloud service in order to unlock and start an OnStar equipped car. Kamkar said that after a user opens the OnStar Remote Link app on his or her mobile phone "near the OwnStar device," OwnStar intercepts the communication and sends "data packets to the mobile device to acquire additional credentials. The OwnStar device then notifies the attacker about the new vehicle that the hacker has access to for an indefinite period of time, including its location, make and model. And at that point, the hacker can use the Remote Link app to control the vehicle. Kamkar said GM is aware of the security hole and is working on a fix.
 

Submission + - Kentucky Man shoots drone that was hovering over sunbathing 16-year old girl (wdrb.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: Hillview, Kentucky resident William H. Merideth describes his Sunday afternoon: "Sunday afternoon, the kids – my girls – were out on the back deck, and the neighbors were out in their yard," Merideth said. "And they come in and said, 'Dad, there’s a drone out here, flying over everybody’s yard.'"

Merideth's neighbors saw it too. "It was just hovering above our house and it stayed for a few moments and then she finally waved and it took off," said neighbor Kim VanMeter. VanMeter has a 16-year-old daughter who lays out at their pool. She says a drone hovering with a camera is creepy and weird. "I just think you should have privacy in your own backyard," she said.

Merideth agrees and said he had to go see for himself. “Well, I came out and it was down by the neighbor’s house, about 10 feet off the ground, looking under their canopy that they’ve got under their back yard," Merideth said. "I went and got my shotgun and I said, ‘I’m not going to do anything unless it’s directly over my property.’"

That moment soon arrived, he said. "Within a minute or so, here it came," he said. "It was hovering over top of my property, and I shot it out of the sky. I didn't shoot across the road, I didn't shoot across my neighbor's fences, I shot directly into the air."

It wasn't long before the drone's owners appeared. "Four guys came over to confront me about it, and I happened to be armed, so that changed their minds," Merideth said. "They asked me, 'Are you the S-O-B that shot my drone?' and I said, 'Yes I am,'" he said. "I had my 40mm Glock on me and they started toward me and I told them, 'If you cross my sidewalk, there's gonna be another shooting.'"

A short time later, Merideth said the police arrived. "There were some words exchanged there about my weapon, and I was open carry – it was completely legal," he said. "Long story short, after that, they took me to jail for wanton endangerment first degree and criminal mischief...because I fired the shotgun into the air."

Submission + - Genetically modified rice makes more food, less greenhouse gas (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Applehu Akbar
Applehu Akbar writes: A team of researchers at the Swedish University of AgriculturalSciences has engineered a barley gene into rice, producing a variety that yields 50% more grain while producing 90% less of the powerful greenhouse gas methane. The new rice pulls off this trick by putting more of its energy into top growth. In countries which depend on rice as a staple, this would add up to a really large amount of increased rice and foregone methane.

Submission + - Rematch--Newegg beats patent troll over SSL and RC4 encryption (newegg.com)

Submitted by codguy
codguy writes: After a previous failed attempt (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/11/26/1927254/jury-finds-newegg-infringed-patent-owes-23-million) to fight patent troll TQP Development in late 2013, Newegg has now beaten this troll in a rematch (http://blog.newegg.com/newegg-vs-patent-trolls-when-we-win-you-win/). From the article:

"Newegg went against a company that claimed its patent covered SSL and RC4 encryption, a common encryption system used by many retailers and websites. This particular patent troll has gone against over 100 other companies, and brought in $45 million in settlements before going after Newegg."

This follows on Intuit's recent success in defending itself against this claim (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/06/26/1353216/intuit-beats-ssl-patent-troll-that-defeated-newegg).

Submission + - Smithsonian using Kickstart campaign to save Armstrong's moon suit (kickstarter.com)

Submitted by qpgmr
qpgmr writes: The Smithsonian is appealing for assistance to raise enough money to preserve Neil Armstrong's moon suit.
...This suit has lunar dust embedded in the legs... moon dust..
The goal of the campaign is to conserve the suit so it can be placed on public display — if you care about the great adventure that took us to the moon and want to honor a brave man, make a contribution. You won't ever regret it.

Submission + - Techies hire witch to protect computers from viruses and offices from spirits (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Many people have had their computer or smartphone possessed by an evil demon — or at least that's what it can feel like when some mysterious bug keeps causing an app to crash, or your phone keeps shutting off for no reason.

But if you truly think your electronics have been invaded by an evil spirit, there's someone who will take your call — Reverend Joey Talley — a Wiccan witch from the San Francisco Bay Area who claims to solve supernatural issues for techies.

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