In a newsletter for Bloomberg, Ashley Carman discusses the rising trend of long podcasts and their surprising popularity among listeners. "By today's standards of interminable podcast discussions, a nearly three-hour recording isn't even particularly notable," she writes, highlighting recent episodes from Joe Rogan (2 hours; 16 minutes with Adam Sandler), Lex Fridman (8 hours; 37 minutes with Elon Musk), and the Acquired podcast (3 hours; 38 minutes with Lockheed Martin). "Increasingly, podcasters are pushing the outer limits of episode length while stress testing the endurance of their audiences. Popular podcast gabfests can now run on for half a workday or longer." From the report: One might assume such marathon episodes must be the result of a hands-off approach to editing. But this is not the case, said Ben Gilbert, co-host of the Acquired podcast. Every month, he and his co-host David Rosenthal release a three- to four-hour podcast, detailing the story of a specific company. The in-depth histories, he said, are the result of nine-hour recording sessions and a month of research.

"It's not important to ship every good minute," Gilbert said. "It's important to ship only great minutes. If you're actually intellectually honest with yourself, that's how to release a really good product." Even with the longer runtimes, he said, their audience listens to the vast majority of each episode. Consider their deep dive on Lockheed Martin, which runs for three hours and 38 minutes. On Apple Podcasts, the average listener consumed 70% of the show, he said. An episode on Nike, which clocks in at upwards of four hours, had an average consumption rate of 68%. "Every time we made something longer... people only seemed to love it more," he said. On the show's website, the hosts describe the episodes as "conversational audiobooks." [...]

[Jack Sylvester, executive director at Flight Studio, the Bartlett-founded podcast company behind Diary of a CEO] said the team can view data around how much of the audience consumes episodes on YouTube's TV app versus on a phone, tablet or computer. TV usage, he said, is ticking up. To give viewers a reason to keep the show on as their primary viewing experience, they're now making sure the videos have a top-quality polish. Still, in a world in which people scoff at the prospect of a three-hour movie -- and short-form video is the dominant consumption trend in entertainment -- these podcasters are eagerly meandering in the opposite direction. "The short-form obsession ended up creating white space for us," said Gilbert of Acquired. "Whenever you have a trend, that means there's people who feel left behind and want to flock to something new. This sets us apart."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: A new campaign tracked as "Dev Popper" is targeting software developers with fake job interviews in an attempt to trick them into installing a Python remote access trojan (RAT). The developers are asked to perform tasks supposedly related to the interview, like downloading and running code from GitHub, in an effort to make the entire process appear legitimate. However, the threat actor's goal is make their targets download malicious software that gathers system information and enables remote access to the host. According to Securonix analysts, the campaign is likely orchestrated by North Korean threat actors based on the observed tactics. The connections are not strong enough for attribution, though. [...]

Although the perpetrators of the Dev Popper attack aren't known, the tactic of using job lures as bait to infect people with malware is still prevalent, so people should remain vigilant of the risks. The researchers note that the method "exploits the developer's professional engagement and trust in the job application process, where refusal to perform the interviewer's actions could compromise the job opportunity," which makes it very effective.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Every jobseeker welcomes an invitation to a second interview, because it signals a company's interest. A third interview might feel even more positive, or even be the precursor to an offer. But what happens when the process drags on to a fourth, fifth or sixth round -- and it's not even clear how close you are to the 'final' interview? That's a question Mike Conley, 49, grappled with earlier this year. The software engineering manager, based in Indiana, US, had been seeking a new role after losing his job during the pandemic. Five companies told him they had to delay hiring because of Covid-19 -- but only after he'd done the final round of interviews. Another three invited him for several rounds of interviews until it was time to make an offer, at which point they decided to promote internally. Then, he made it through three rounds of interviews for a director-level position at a company he really liked, only to receive an email to co-ordinate six more rounds. "When I responded to the internal HR, I even asked, 'Are these the final rounds?,'" he says. "The answer I got back was: 'We don't know yet.'"

That's when Conley made the tough decision to pull out. He shared his experience in a LinkedIn post that's touched a nerve with fellow job-seekers, who've viewed it 2.6 million times as of this writing. Conley says he's received about 4,000 public comments of support, and "four times that in private comments" from those who feared being tracked by current or prospective employers. [...] In fact, the internet is awash with similar stories jobseekers who've become frustrated with companies -- particularly in the tech, finance and energy sectors -- turning the interview process into a marathon. That poses the question: how many rounds of interviews should it take for an employer to reasonably assess a candidate before the process veers into excess? And how long should candidates stick it out if there's no clear information on exactly how many hoops they'll have to jump through to stay in the running for a role? Google recently determined that four interviews was enough to make a hiring decision with 86% confidence, noting that there was a diminishing return on interviewer feedback thereafter.

"John Sullivan, a Silicon Valley-based HR thought leader, says companies should nail down a hire-by date from the start of the recruitment process, because the best candidates only transition the job market briefly," reports the BBC. "According to a survey from global staffing firm Robert Half, 62% of US professionals say they lose interest in a job if they don't hear back from the employer within two weeks -- or 10 business days -- after the initial interview. That number jumps to 77% if there is no status update within three weeks. "

Google Hire is the latest Google service on the chopping block. The job application tracking system was launched two years ago "in an effort to simplify the hiring process, with a workflow that integrated things like searching for applicants, scheduling interviews, and providing feedback about potential hires into Google's G Suite," reports TechCrunch. "It was built mostly for small to medium sized businesses, with a price that ranged from $200 to $400 a month depending on how many G Suite licenses you needed." From the report: In an email to customers, Google says: "While Hire has been successful, we're focusing our resources on other products in the Google Cloud portfolio. We are deeply grateful to our customers, as well as the champions and advocates who have joined and supported us along the way."

On the upside: it's not getting the axe immediately. In fact, you can keep using it for over a full year; Google says it won't actually be shutdown until September 1st of 2020. Just don't expect any new features to be added. Google also notes that it intends to stop taking payment for the product in the meantime, saying in a support FAQ that customers will see no additional charges for Google Hire after their next billing cycle.

In honor of FreeDOS's 25th birthday, project founder and coordinator Jim Hall agreed to answer the 10 best questions submitted by Slashdot readers. You asked and he answered! Read on for Jim's interview.

FreeDOS was originally created in response to Microsoft's announcement that after Windows 95, DOS would no longer be developed as a standalone operating system, according to Computerworld's 2016 interview with FreeDOS's founder and project coordinator, Jim Hall. "I packaged my own extended DOS utilities, as did others," he explains on the FreeDOS web site, "and we found other public domain or open source programs that replaced other DOS commands."

But that was back in 1994, when Jim Hall was still a college student. He went on to spend 11 years as a CIO in local government and the public sector, and served a year on the GNOME Foundation's board of directors. Now it's been 25 years, and as a prominent free software advocate, Hall contacted Slashdot to remind us that the FreeDOS Project "will turn 25 years old on June 29, 2019. This is a huge milestone for any open source software project, and especially for an open source DOS project."

So in honor of FreeDOS's 25th birthday, he's agreed to answer the 10 best questions submitted by Slashdot readers. Leave your questions in the comments. (Ask as many questions as you'd like, but please, one per comment.) We'll pick the very best questions and forward them along for answers.

What else has Jim been up to? "I've decided I want to focus on coaching, advising, and mentoring IT Leaders," explains his page on the FreeDOS site. "I am starting an IT Executive Consulting practice, IT Mentor Group LLC, to help IT Leaders with strategic planning and organizational turnarounds. I am really excited for this new opportunity. It's not every day that you start your own business!"

Jim Hall is also Slashdot reader #2,985...

"Jim isn't rich or famous," wrote RobLimo back in 2000, "just an old-fashioned open source contributor who helped start a humble but useful project back in 1994 and still works on it as much as he can." At this URL you can read the questions he was asked by Slashdot users in 2000 -- and the answers he gave, just six years into the FreeDOS project.

Then leave your own best questions in the comments below -- one question per comment -- and we'll send them along to Jim to answer for the 25th anniversary of FreeDOS.

You asked, he answered!

Bill Ottman, founder and CEO of social networking site Minds.com, has answered more than a dozen questions that Slashdot readers sent his way. Ottman has addressed a wide-range of queries surrounding how Minds.com makes use of tokens; how many users the platform has; and, who is Minds.com aimed for. You can read his answers below. For those of you who are going to give Minds.com a try, you can find Slashdot there.

As you may have noticed, Facebook is not cool anymore. The social juggernaut has been mired in controversies -- infamous privacy scandals or the company's ruthless "grow fast and break things" approach to gain users, to name a few. Luckily enough, some people are trying to build new social networks and are coming up with interesting original ideas. Minds.com is one such social network.

The open source social network, which has been operational since 2012, works on a point-earning/exchange system to give users full control over the reach of their posts. One of the complaints people have with Facebook and Twitter is that they feel their posts are not being seen by all of their friends. Minds.com lets users earn points and then trade those points to boost their posts on the platform. Users earn tokens by being active on the platform and engaging in uploading, voting, commenting and other similar activities. They can then use these tokens, which can be exchanged within the platform, to boost the reach of their posts. The company last year launched a cryptocurrency reward program based on the ethereum blockchain for all users on the platform. Minds says it does not determine what should be censored. Users are free to post whatever they want. (You can follow us on Minds.)

We are excited to announced that Minds founder and chief executive Bill Ottman has agreed to do an interview with us. If you have a question about Minds.com for him or his take on the current social networking space, feel free to ask it in the comments section below.

Swapnil Bhartiya, who runs the blog TFIR, had a chance to interview Linus Torvalds at Open Source Summit in the second half of August this year. (Some context: The interview, which was published this week, took place before Mr. Torvalds said he needs to take a step back to reflect on how he has dealt with the community over the years. Since then, we have learned that Mr. Torvalds is returning to his position.) In the wide-ranging interview, Mr. Torvalds has touched a wide-range of subjects, including formulating workarounds for the problematic hardware bugs (Meltdown, Spectre), and Chromebooks gaining traction (though it is still not a machine that he could use for his work yet). He also talked about companies gleaning a lot of data about their users, regulations, (a tad bit of politics), Linux community.

Greg Kroah-Hartman (aka Greg K-H) joined Mr. Bhartiya and Mr. Torvalds for the second half of the interview. On Sunday, Mr. Bhartiya published an additional interview of Mr. Kroah-Hartman.

You asked questions, we've got the answers!

Christine Peterson is a long-time futurist who co-founded the nanotech advocacy group the Foresight Institute in 1986. One of her favorite tasks has been contacting the winners of the institute's annual Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, but she also coined the term "Open Source software" for that famous promotion strategy meeting in 1998.

Christine took some time to answer questions from Slashdot readers.

Christine Peterson is a long-time futurist who co-founded the nanotech advocacy group the Foresight Institute in 1986. One of her favorite tasks has been contacting the winners of the institute's annual Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, but she also coined the term "Open Source software" for that famous promotion strategy meeting in 1998. Now Christine's agreed to answer questions from Slashdot readers. We'll pick the very best questions and forward them along for answers.

Interestingly, Christine was also on the Editorial Advisory Board of NASA's Nanotech Briefs, and on the state of California's nanotechnology task force. Her tech talks at conferences include "Life Extension for Geeks" at Gnomedex and "Preparing for Bizarreness: Open Source Physical Security" at the 2007 Singularity Summit. Another talk argues that the nanotech revolution will be like the information revolution, except that "Instead of with bits, we should do it with atoms," allowing molecule-sized machines that can kill cancer and repair DNA. Her most recent publication is "Cyber, Nano, and AGI RIsks: Decentralized Approaches to Reducing Risks." Christine graduated from MIT with a bachelors in chemistry.

So leave your best questions in the comments. (Ask as many questions as you'd like, but please, one per comment.) We'll pick the very best questions and forward them along for answers.

You asked, he answered!

For Slashdot's 20th anniversary -- and the 23rd anniversary of the first release of Red Hat Linux -- here's a special treat.

Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst has responded to questions submitted by Slashdot readers. Read on for his answers...

You asked, he answered!

Lithium-ion battery inventor John B. Goodenough has responded to questions submitted by Slashdot readers. Read on for his answers.

John B. Goodenough is a solid-state physicist and professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at The University of Texas at Austin. While he is most famous for identifying and developing the lithium-ion battery, which can be found in just about every portable electronic device on the market, he has recently created a new fast charging solid-state battery that looks to revolutionize the industry. We sent him an email about doing an interview and he has responded. Now is your chance to ask Goodenough a question!

We'll pick the very best questions and forward them to John Goodenough himself. (Feel free to leave your suggestions for who Slashdot should interview next.) Go on, don't be shy!

You asked, he answered! The creator of Apple's Swift programming language (and a self-described "long-time reader/fan of Slashdot") stopped by on his way to a new job at Tesla just to field questions from Slashdot readers. Read on for Chris's answers...