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Comment Re:Still not mature (Score 1) 236

by Dekonega (#60683304) Attached to: Slashdot Asks: How Do You Feel About Btrfs?

This thing needs a few years more of actual development and stabilizing before you can depend on it.

The btrfs community and developers have been saying this for at least the past 10 years and sending out mixed signals about btrfs' production-readiness. I've suffered from data loss almost every time I've used btrfs.

Most common issues I encounter are disk being full even thought the files on the disk cannot possibly take so much space as to fill the entire disk and performance especially with games and databases. Also sometimes regardless if I'm using SSD or mechanical HDD, sometimes system just freezes when using btrfs and this has been an on-going issue for me past 5 years with btrfs test installs. And really infuriating when it starts to occur in SailfishOS. At this point I don't think it is possible to fix btrfs with more development because it clearly is defective by design.

I mainly use plain ext4 but also lvm+ext4. However I've been phasing lvm+ext4 out in favour of zfs. I'm quite disappointed about Fedora's recent decision to default to btrfs and I'm now planning to move to Ubuntu because they ship working easy zfs-on-root solution anyone can install.
Programming

Fullstack Launches Coding School For Women (sdtimes.com) 373

Posted by timothy from the hopper-under-pressure dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Fullstack is tackling technology's diversity problem in its latest venture. The coding schooling has announced a new coding school dedicated to women. Named after computer science pioneer Grace Hopper, the Grace Hopper academy aims to provide women with high-quality coding education, and won't ask for tuition until the student finds a job post-graduation. "Technology has become intrinsic in our daily routines, regardless of gender, but the tech industry remains exceedingly male-dominated," said David Yang, cofounder of Fullstack Academy. "We have always been inspired by innovation and it seems peculiar that an industry revolutionized by a pioneer like Grace Hopper would remain so divided along gender lines."

Comment Those SJWs are ridiculous (Score 1) 781

I'm tired of people kneeing in front of these SJWs and wanting to appeal them. We know that it will not help your stuff see more usage. In fact we know from the Protein World's case that doing the opposite will increase your product's sales and usage. Let the developers use .bro if they want. Completely mad political correctness is rampant in English speaking world and should be put into reins. Using "bro" isn't offensive. I will as a joke make my next file type .bro if nobody will take it. Or .cis or .sis or .fag or something like that. I'm rising my middle finger to SJWs.
Businesses

Getting More Women Coders Into Open Source 696

Posted by Soulskill from the more-viewpoints-more-solutions dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes: Diversity remains an issue in tech firms across the nation, with executives and project managers publicly upset over a lack of women in engineering and programming roles. While all that's happening on the corporate side, a handful of people and groups are trying to get more women involved in the open source community, like Women of OpenStack, Outreachy (which is geared toward people from underrepresented groups in free software), and others. How much effort should be expended to facilitate diversity among programmers? Can anything be done to shift the demographics, considering the issues that even large, coordinated companies have with altering the collective mix of their employees?
Government

North Dakota Legalizes "Less Than Lethal" Weapon-Equipped Police Drones 180

Posted by timothy from the brought-to-you-from-nellis-air-force-base dept.
According to the Daily Beast, writes reader schwit1, North Dakota police will be free to fire 'less than lethal' weapons from the air thanks to the influence of a pro-police lobbyist. That means beanbags, tear-gas, and Tasers, at the very least, can be brought to bear by remote. It's worth noting that "non-lethal" isn't purely true, even if that's the intent behind such technologies. From the article, based partly on FOIA requests made by MuckRock into drone use by government agencies: The bill’s stated intent was to require police to obtain a search warrant from a judge in order to use a drone to search for criminal evidence. In fact, the original draft of Representative Rick Becker’s bill would have banned all weapons on police drones. Then Bruce Burkett of the North Dakota Peace Officer’s Association was allowed by the state house committee to amend HB 1328 and limit the prohibition only to lethal weapons. “Less than lethal” weapons like rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, sound cannons, and Tasers are therefore permitted on police drones.
Social Networks

Are We Too Quick To Act On Social Media Outrage? 371

Posted by timothy from the have-you-stopped-beating-your-lab-assistants? dept.
RedK writes: Connie St-Louis, on June 8th, reported on apparently sexist remarks made by Sir Tim Hunt, a Nobel prize winning scientist, during an event organised for women in sciences. This led to the man's dismissal from his stations, all in such urgency that he did not even have time to present his side, nor was his side ever offered any weight. A leaked report a few days later suggests that the remarks were taken out of context. Further digging shows that the accuser has distorted the truth in many cases it seems. This is not the first time that people may have jumped the gun too soon on petty issues and ruined great events or careers.

Comment Re:Commodore Amiga or Commodore PC? (Score 1) 456

You're wrong. It's perfectly fine to use "PC" to describe "Commodore Amiga". I've lived through the personal computer revolution and PC doesn't exclusively refer to "IBM PC". I have an Amiga and it's a PC. However it is not "IBM PC". Those machines were for spreadsheet suckers.

Devices other than "IBM PCs" were marketed as PCs. For example Commodore 64c has a sticker on top of it and bottom which says that it's a "Personal Computer" aka. PC. And ads frequently referred it being a personal computer for the whole family. Furthermore HP sold a highly programmable calculator that was marketed as a PC before the PC revolution even started.

Term "PC" was in use in e.g. marketing of various microcomputers well before IBM PC Model 5051 was introduced. I believe that some of the first "modern desktop computers" to be described as "PC" are from early 1970's. Any device which, to quote Wikipedia, "is a general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities and original sale price make it useful for individuals, and is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator" can be and should be described as a "PC".

Here in Europe people often did refer various devices as PCs even if they were not from IBM. People also used to call their systems "microcomputers", "home computers" or by the name of the machine e.g. "Commodore" or "Atari" or "IBM Compatible" (because the software sold had stickers like "for IBM PC and 100% compatibles").

Around 1999 this practice died since there were no other PCs than IBM PC clones at the PC market marketed for the general public. IBM PC, like Rollerblades (with roller skates), have become so synonymous with PC, that when people talk about PCs they tend to refer to IBM PC (clones) running Microsoft Windows. Furthermore Apple's marketing has taken advantage of the whole "Generic Trademark" thing and established themselves as "Mac" even though they're exactly same hardware.

I need more beer. I cannot read these threads otherwise.
Space

Neil DeGrasse Tyson Urges America To Challenge China To a Space Race 275

Posted by timothy from the autocorrect-says-neil-degrease-tyson dept.
An anonymous reader writes: According to a Tuesday story in the UK edition of the International Business Times, Neil deGrasse Tyson, the celebrity astrophysicist and media personality, advocates a space race between the United States and China. The idea is that such a race would spur innovation and cause industry to grow. The Apollo race to the moon caused a similar explosive period of scientific research and engineering development. You might prefer the Sydney Morning Herald piece on which the IB Times article is based.
The Almighty Buck

How Comcast Bankrolls Organizations That Support TWC Merger 59

Posted by Soulskill from the money-talks-when-nobody-else-will dept.
An anonymous reader writes: When Comcast announced it was pursuing a takeover of Time Warner Cable, many activists and internet users immediately submitted objections to the deal. Support came more slowly, but steadily, from organizations like the International Center for Law and Economics, and from politicians like Governor Phil Bryant (R-MS). Now, a NY Times report reveals that much of this support for the merger came in exchange for money from Comcast. Fortunately, even after spreading money around so liberally, Comcast is still struggling to find a coherent, believable message for regulators, and the deal is far from assured.

From the article: "Letters detailing the benefits of the Comcast deal were submitted to the Federal Communications Commission by staff members from Americans for Tax Reform, the American Enterprise Institute, the Institute for Policy Innovation, Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Free State Foundation and the Center for Individual Freedom, as well as by a professor at a technology program at the University of Pennsylvania, all of which received support from Comcast or its trade association, tax documents and other disclosures reviewed by The New York Times show. A similar pattern is evident with charities like the Urban League and more than 80 other community groups that supported the media company and that also accepted collectively millions of dollars in donations from the Comcast Foundation over the last five years, documents reviewed by The Times show."

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