Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Your mechanic (Score 1) 160

Had my car die (water pump broke off) and I limped it a mile to my driveway. What were my options? Call an expensive tow to the nearest repair shop? I found your mechanic and they had a guy out there the next day and he fixed my car right there in the driveway. The guy was awesome, very honest and cheaper than the shop and no towing needed.

I will use them again for changing my sparkplugs (stupid modern cars make this hard..). I've used it a second time for replacing my alternator.

Great service. This is not a paid advertisement. Just a really happy customer.

Submission + - (Ask Slashdot) Why is comp history necessary for a tech job application? 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: During the interview process for a tech job, I was asked to fill out an application, which included questions about my compensation history. When I asked why this info was needed, I was told that it was part of the background check process, and would not be used to determine the size of the offer. Even if that's true, does anyone know any legit reasons why my comp history should be part of a background check? What is the risk for the employer of not knowing that info? Is this standard procedure or part of a trend at tech companies? Is it anything more than an attempt to gain negotiating leverage?
Medicine

RIP Dr. Henry Heimlich, Inventor of the Heimlich Maneuver (bbc.com) 51

Posted by EditorDavid from the 96-years-young dept.
tomhath quotes the BBC: Dr Heimlich died at the age of 96. He invented the lifesaving technique, which uses abdominal thrusts to clear a person's airway, in 1974. In May he used the technique himself to save a woman at his retirement home. He dislodged a piece of meat with a bone in it from the airway of an 87-year-old woman, telling the BBC: "I didn't know I really could do it until the other day."
Medicine

Religious Experiences Have Similar Effect On Brain As Taking Drugs, Study Finds (cnn.com) 228

Posted by BeauHD from the sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll dept.
A new study published in the journal Social Neuroscience finds through functional MRI scans that religious and spiritual experiences can trigger reward systems like love and drugs. "These are areas of the brain that seem like they should be involved in religious and spiritual experience. But yet, religious neuroscience is such a young field -- and there are very few studies -- and ours was the first study that showed activation of the nucleus accumbens, an area of the brain that processes reward," said Dr. Jeffrey Anderson, a neuroradiologist at the University of Utah and lead author of the study. CNN reports: For the study, 19 devout young adult Mormons had their brains scanned in fMRI machines while they completed various tasks. The tasks included resting for six minutes, watching a six-minute church announcement about membership and financial reports, reading quotations from religious leaders for eight minutes, engaging in prayer for six minutes, reading scripture for eight minutes, and watching videos of religious speeches, renderings of biblical scenes and church member testimonials. During the tasks, participants were asked to indicate when they were experiencing spiritual feelings. As the researchers analyzed the fMRI scans taken of the participants, they took a close look at the degree of spiritual feelings each person reported and then which brain regions were simultaneously activated. The researchers found that certain brain regions consistently lit up when the participants reported spiritual feelings. The brain regions included the nucleus accumbens, which is associated with reward; frontal attentional, which is associated with focused attention; and ventromedial prefrontal cortical loci, associated with moral reasoning, Anderson said. Since the study results were seen only in Mormons, Anderson said, more research is needed to determine whether similar findings could be replicated in people of other faiths, such as Catholics or Muslims.
Mars

An Underground Ice Deposit On Mars Is Bigger Than New Mexico (popularmechanics.com) 113

Posted by BeauHD from the bigger-than-expected dept.
schwit1 quotes a report from Popular Mechanics: A single underground deposit of ice on Mars contains about as much water as there is in Michigan's Lake Superior, according to new research from NASA. The deposit rests in the mid-northern latitudes of the Red Planet, specifically in the Utopia Planitia region. Discovered by the Shallow Subsurface Radar (SHARD) instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the deposit is "more extensive in area than the state of New Mexico," according to a NASA press release. It ranges in thickness from about 260 feet to about 560 feet, and has a composition that's 50 to 85 percent water ice, with what appears to be dust or larger rocky particles mixed in as well. None of the ice is exposed to the surface. At various points the dirt covering it is in between 3 and 33 feet thick.

Comment Side project... (Score 0) 351

I've never met a software developer, musician, or artist who didn't have a side project of some sort in addition to their "day job". Unless, of course, they didn't even have the day job. Those of us who accept the practical need to have a day job to pay the bills, but still feel unfulfilled, need the side project. Thats most of us creative people.

Not sure how this is a "millennial" thing.

Oh, I see. Millennials think everything is about them, that they're experiencing it for the first time, etc. That's the real story.

Meanwhile the rest of us are thinking WTF is wrong with kids these days? Get off my lawn, etc...
Robotics

Robotic Exoskeletons May Become Skintight Suits (robohub.org) 33

Posted by EditorDavid from the bend-it-like-Beckham dept.
Slashdot reader Kassandra Perlongo shares an article about "soft robotics and exoskeletons" at the University of Salford, writing "those bulky, mechanical suits could eventually be a thing of the past." Children with a rare neurological disease were recently given the chance to walk for the first time thanks to a new robotic exoskeleton... But while today's exoskeletons are mostly clumsy, heavy devices, new technology could make them much easier and more natural to use by creating a robotic skin... [Soft robotic devices] are particularly well suited to interaction with humans as they are typically lightweight which means if they collide with a person they are unlikely to cause injury.

We recently developed a new "soft continuum actuator", a joint that bends like an elephant's trunk...if it encounters resistance in one part of its body it will still bend but at a different location elsewhere along its length. By equipping a skintight material suit with these actuators, we can create a soft exoskeleton that bends at the precise location of the wearer's joints. This means the suit will fit a range of users comfortably without needing mechanical adjustment or calibration. Plus, the system is lightweight and can be worn like clothing rather than a bulky mechanical frame.
Youtube

YouTube To Roll Out 6-Second Ads That You Can't Skip (theverge.com) 279

Posted by msmash from the ads,-ads-everywhere dept.
An anonymous reader writes: YouTube announced on Tuesday that it will be introducing an unskippable, 6-second bumper ads before certain videos. The video juggernaut says that these ads are largely aimed at mobile users. "We like to think of Bumper ads as little haikus of video ads -- and we're excited to see what the creative community will do with them," YouTube's Zach Lupei wrote in a blog post. The Verge reports, "The company justifies the short ads (which cannot be skipped, unlike longer spots) by pointing to research showing that 50 percent of 18 to 49-year-olds turn to mobile as their first option for consuming video -- and keep in mind a ton of that is music."
Earth

More People On Earth Now Obese Than Underweight, Says Study (statnews.com) 369

Posted by BeauHD from the fourth-meal dept.
An anonymous reader writes: According to a new study published in the Lancet, obese people now outnumber the underweight population for perhaps the first time in global history. Majid Ezzati, an environmental health researcher at Imperial College London who led the study, analyzed data from 1975 to 2014 across 19.2 million adults from 186 countries. They found that over the 40-year-span, the proportion of obese men worldwide more than tripled, to roughly 11 percent, and the proportion of obese woman more than doubled, to about 15 percent. Researchers estimate 18 percent of men and 21 percent of women worldwide will be obese by 2025. What some may consider more surprising is that more than 25 percent of the world's severely obese men and almost 20 percent of the world's severely obese women are American. However, the rapid rise of obesity in developing nations is most concerning as it's more difficult for obese people to modify their diet and have access to medication.

Submission + - New PHP framework trumps all others (purephp.tk)

Submitted by greywire
greywire writes: This "new" PHP framework has risen to unheard of popularity. Available today on every server that currently runs PHP, its popularity dwarfs all other frameworks combined.

(submission for April Fools Day)

Comment Cloud 9, AWS/Bitnami (Score 1) 168

I've been dabbling with this myself lately, for multiple reasons.

I'm currently using Cloud9 and frankly I can't tell much difference performance or feature wise (but I don't extensively use all the bells and whistles in any IDE anyway).

Cloud9 is cool because while you can use their servers to really quickly bring up dev environments, you can also just as easily SSH into your own box (I'm using AWS with Bitnami distros) for flexibility and security. You get convenient access to the files in the IDE just like it was local, plus any number of shells. And you get unlimited access for $20 a month.

Also, bringing a new developer online is super easy, and it makes for easy live collaboration.

The only disadvantages are that you need a decent internet access all the time, which can be a problem if you are a road warrior, and for me when I'm doing mobile app development with ionic framework the live update feature doesn't work, as well as launching the mobile app on the device from the shell (since its not directly connected). But that's pretty minor.

Being able to get good performance out of a lower specced machine is also nice, because it means I can custom build something and still do the same dev...
Space

Growing Flowers In Space (nasa.gov) 44

Posted by Soulskill from the just-don't-try-any-trifids dept.
An anonymous reader writes: This weekend, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly posted a picture of the first flower to bloom in space. The International Space Station has been home to the Veggie plant growth facility for almost two years, and scientists have been working hard to figure out how to keep crops alive in microgravity. It's a challenge to keep plants properly heated and hydrated, and their current specimens been attacked by mold as well. "More crops for Veggie are heading to the orbiting laboratory aboard SpaceX-8. The Veg-03 run will include two sets of Chinese cabbage, and one set of red romaine lettuce. In 2018, there are plans to launch dwarf tomato seeds to the space station. Smith said the lessons learned from growing zinnia flowers will be critical in the process of growing tomatoes, a fellow flowering plant. Studies are also in progress to see how adjusting the lighting in the Veggie plant growth facility can affect plan mineral composition. There will be preflight testing to determine what 'light recipe' to use aboard the station."
Businesses

Vivendi Takes Over Radionomy, Winamp Relaunch Now Possible (windowsreport.com) 117

Posted by samzenpus from the back-from-the-ashes dept.
SmartAboutThings writes: Winamp could once again be brought back to life after Vivendi Group took over the majority stake in Radionomy, the previous owner of the app who purchased it from AOL in early 2014. AOL originally planned to discontinue both Winamp and Shoutcast, but instead the company decided to sell the software to Belgian online radio service, Radionomy. The new owners initially promised that they'll keep Winamp alive, but no updates have been released since the takeover, which made most people think that Winamp era has ended for good. Vivendi Group, which owns or is involved in famous companies such as Dailymotion, Ubisoft, and Deezer, could help relaunch Winamp, although the press release announcing the acquisition offers no suggestion in this regard. The company, however, does mention Winamp and Shoutcast as two of the most important assets that will join its portfolio following the takeover.

Comment Please make it stop... (Score 1) 227

by greywire (#49624777) Attached to: Want 30 Job Offers a Month? It's Not As Great As You Think

This is a big problem, but one which I often get dirty looks from people when I complain about it. Because they think I should be grateful to have job offers..

I'm at the point where I just have to turn off my phone sometimes.

Once in a while I will answer just to explain to them, hey, you might want to check a map of the United States and see that this job is a thousand miles from my home. And not to sound racist, but, I swear, the moment I hear an accent of any kind, I know its BS and I hang up.

But even the valid jobs, in my area, for skills I actually have, are sometimes so excessive I cannot conduct normal business on the phone. I've had to literally delete my accounts on job boards after landing a job to slow them down.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller than the both put together."

Close