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Comment Baby and the Bathwater (Score 2, Informative) 713

I think it's important not to throw the baby out with the bath water. I come from a vegan family (health reasons) and I have to say, chiropractors, and alternative medicine does work. Sure some of it is just a crock, but not all of it.

Two examples: my mother was told by the doctors that her thyroid deficiency was untreatable and that she would need supplements for the rest of her life. A local alternative medicine doctor claimed otherwise, he explained that back in the 60's chickens were fed with chemicals that were not safe for humans. Humans ate these chickens and that was what had caused her thyroid to start malfunctioning. He treated her, and she hasn't needed the supplements for several years now.

More recently, I have had serious eye/head pain. The eye doctors didn't know what it was. Out of a whim I visited a chiropractor, and a day later I was totally fine. And that was after living off of pain killers for an entire week.

So yes, this stuff works. Nothing is a cure all, and there's just as much snake oil as there ever was. But I have been cured more times by alternative medicine than I ever have been by doctors.

Comment Re:These people deserved to be crushed by WoW (Score 1) 173

I had a character at 34 before starting back at 1 with my wife via recruit-a-friend. It really doesn't change allot of the gameplay. You don't have to quest as much...that's about it. Infact you level so much that most of the time you're flat broke just from the cost of skills/armor. But it all goes away at lvl 60, so you still have 20 levels at the normal pace to go.
Graphics

Submission + - Blender 2.48 Released (blender.org)

tbcpp writes: Blender 2.48 includes all the work done on the Blender Game Engine and the Apricot Open Game "Yo Frankie!", with much better functioning game logic editing, character animation, and Blender Material based real-time shaders. And as last minute surprise a Bullet physics update with Softbody support. Also included ia a lot of new development in this release; Windows 64 bits support, Grease Pencil for sketching annotations, Sun/Sky/Atmosphere rendering, new modifiers, and an improved text editor with Python API support. And last but not least, an enormous list of open bug reports were handled. A feature list is available here.
Cellphones

Exploding Cell Phone Battery Kills 287

LingNoi writes "A man in Korea was found dead at his workplace Wednesday morning and his mobile phone battery was melted in his shirt pocket. No one knows for sure yet but a doctor who examined the body said, "He sustained an injury that is similar to a burn in the left chest and his ribs and spine were broken" We have heard of other dangerous battery products here on Slashdot." Update: 11/30 17:34 GMT by Z : Turns out the melted battery was the least of his worries; he was actually hit by a truck.

Will Wright Opines That Wii Is the Only Next-Gen Console 381

PhoenixOne writes "In an article that will probably tick off a lot of PS3 owners, Will Wright calls the PS3 and 360 'incremental improvement(s)'. 'The Wii feels like a major jump - not that the graphics are more powerful, but that it hits a completely different demographic. In some sense I see the Wii as the most significant thing that's happened, at least on the console side, in quite a while ... I still, for the most part, prefer playing games on the computer - to me the mouse is the best input device ever. Every generation it's like 'the PC's dead! The PC's dead!'. But it carries on growing when consoles are flat for five years. At the moment I can get better graphics on my PC than I can on the PS3.'"
Data Storage

Samsung Unveils 64-Gbit Flash Memory Chip 150

Lucas123 writes "The chips can be combined to create a 128-GB flash storage device capable of holding up to 80 DVD movies or 32,000 MP3 music files. The chip was created using 30-nanometer processing technology that was developed with Samsung's self-aligned double patterning technology. Manufacturing will start in 2009; but the article quotes a Gartner analyst who reminds us, 'Samsung has had a difficult time adhering to its timelines for mass production due to the complexity of MLC architectures and ever shrinking process geometries.'"
Space

Antarctic Ozone Hole Shrinks 30 Percent 436

polar red sends us news of a story that many outlets have picked up from a European Space Agency press release: the Antarctic ozone hole is 30% smaller than it was during the previous record year. It's still about the size of North America. "Scientists say this year's smaller hole... is due to natural variations in temperature and atmospheric dynamics... and is not indicative of a long-term trend. 'Although the hole is somewhat smaller than usual, we cannot conclude from this that the ozone layer is recovering already,' [one researcher said]."
AMD

Submission + - AMD to Open R500 Specs 1

tbcpp writes: "A quick report from the kernel summit: AMD's representative at the summit has announced that the company has made a decision to enable the development of open source drivers for all of its (ATI) graphics processors from the R500 going forward. There will be specifications available and a skeleton driver as well; a free 2D driver is anticipated by the end of the year. The rest will have to be written; freeing of the existing binary-only driver is not in the cards, and "that is better for everybody." Things are looking good on this front. More in the kernel summit report to come."
Biotech

Another Way To Erase Memories 232

amigoro writes "Neuroscientists have discovered that long-term memories are not etched in a stable form, like a 'clay tablet,' as once thought. The process is much more dynamic, involving a miniature molecular machine that must run constantly to keep memories going. Jamming the machine briefly can erase long-term memories." A few months back we discussed a similar removal of rat memories by a different method.
AMD

Submission + - AMD 690 Chipset Updated, Performance Boost (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: "Earlier this year, AMD launched its 690 series motherboard chipset and it was relatively well accepted for its affordability, power efficiency, and performance versus competitive chipsets. AMD has since taken the 690 series chipset and optimized it further through BIOS and software level enhancements that result in marked performance gains in a number of situations and also introduces new features. This article showcases a motherboard from Gigabyte that features the latest updates and compares its performance to the unaltered board from when the chipset was first introduced, to see just how much the platform's performance has matured. The majority of the performance enhancements were targeted toward better HD DVD and Blu-ray playback at 1080p."
Editorial

Submission + - But Mom! The other 61-year-olds get an allowance! (reuters.com)

deweycheetham writes: "ROME (Reuters) — A Sicilian mother took away her 61-year-old son's house keys, cut off his allowance and hauled him to the police station because he stayed out late. http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idU SL0288587220070802 The article goes on to say "Most Italian men still live at home late into their 30s, enjoying their "mamma's" cooking, washing and ironing.". Well Pack my bags, I am moving to Italy."
Communications

France Bans BlackBerries In Govt. On Fears of Spying 268

DesertBlade writes "French government officials are no longer allowed to use BlackBerries for official correspondence. The reason? Fear that the US government will snoop out French national secrets via RIM's network. From the article: '"The risks of interception are real. It is economic war," daily Le Monde quoted Alain Juillet, in charge of economic intelligence for the government, as saying. With BlackBerries, there is "a problem with the protection of information," he said. Juillet's office confirmed that he spoke to Le Monde but said he would not talk to other reporters. Officials at the presidential Elysee Palace and the prime minister's office were not immediately available for comment. Le Monde said information sent from BlackBerries goes through servers in the United States and Britain, and that France fears that the U.S. National Security Agency can snoop.'"
Music

Puretracks Music Store Drops DRM 236

khendron writes "The Canadian online music store Puretracks (a store I have generally avoided because of their Microsoft-specific solutions) has announced that it will immediately start selling part of its catalog as DRM-free MP3 files. The site's unprotected catalog, which includes artists such as The Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan, will initially feature only 50,000 of its 1.3 million tracks, but their number will grow weekly. The Globe and Mail says the move will likely profit Puretracks because its DRM-free-music will be playable on iPods. It quotes one industry watcher saying 'We're seeing the death of DRM.'" Essentially Puretracks is relaxing the major-label mandated DRM rules that it had initially applied to all labels, even the indies that wanted no part of DRM.

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