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Comment Re:Taller hoods? (Score 1) 328

Car manufacturers should be taken to the woodshed over this awful decision.

Why not the car buyers? The manufacturers are only responding to what buyers want.

That could well be a chicken-and-egg problem. Are the buyers buying what's available because it's available, or are the manufacturers making it because the buyers actually asked for it? I'm not aware of any Equinox driver anywhere who ever complained about it not being tall enough (or it being short enough to make it unnecessarily difficult to run over small people) yet Chevy raised the hood anyways.

The other problem is that the auto manufacturers see a distorted picture of car buyers. New cars are too expensive for a large fraction of all drivers; many drivers won't ever buy a brand new car. New car dealers are selling to people with more money, and making decisions around what those more affluent people might want in their cars - or more so are telling such people what they should want.

Medicine

Non-Invasive Stimulation of the Brain Ended Opioid Addiction, Cigarette Craving (jpost.com) 37

The Jerusalem Post reports that doctors at Haifa's Rambam Health Care Campus "have successfully treated their first Israeli opioid addiction patient using an experimental noninvasive brain technology, easing him through withdrawal in just 20 minutes..." [T]he team of specialists at the Haifa medical center intervened in the electrical activity of an area of the patient's brain called the nucleus accumbens, the core of the brain system responsible for feelings of satisfaction, pleasure, and reward. The treatment, based on technology from the Israeli company Insightec, is similar to the one used to treat symptoms of essential tremor and Parkinsonian tremor, under MRI control. In this case, the treatment was carried out with the help of a new technology that performs noninvasive neuromodulation, without heating or burning tissue, and allows stimulation in the same area of the brain to increase or suppress activity...

"Tests carried out a week later produced negative results for opioids and other substances," [said Dr. Lior Lev-Tov, director of the functional neurosurgery unit in Rambam's neurosurgery division and the one leading the new study at the medical center.] "The patient himself reported a craving score of zero out of 10 for using the drug, and even another side effect, a drastic drop in the desire for cigarettes, from three packs a day to just a few cigarettes, and with no urge to use alcohol. In other words, in a treatment that lasted about 20 minutes net, our patient was completely freed from an extreme dependence that had accompanied him every day for years. This is nothing less than a medical and therapeutic revolution."

Dr. Lev-Tov added that "This experience opens doors for us to treat a wide range of very serious illnesses such as PTSD, OCD, eating disorders, other addictions, severe depression, severe pain disorders, and I hope we will also be able to reach cognitive areas and treat attention deficit disorders, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and more."

Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the article.

Comment Re:Taller hoods? (Score 4, Interesting) 328

One does not negate the other.

That said, my own current work car is a 2025 Chevy Equinox. I previously had a 2021 Equinox. The 2025 pushed the top of the hood up a good 3-4 inches compared to the previous, and changed a few other functional angles as well. The goal was evidently the "truckification" of a small crossover SUV. The result was terrible. Sight lines are dramatically worse out of the front of the vehicle. Short people can disappear in front of the hood now that it is that much taller. This is even worse on actual trucks; Chevy Silverado full-sized pickups are leaving dealer lots with hoods that are 5 feet off the ground for no functional reason.

It is fair to point out that such collisions shouldn't happen often at normal driving speed. However you're overlooking other places where collisions do happen often between vehicles and pedestrians; namely parking lots and driveways. While the new cars have far more mandatory cameras to help drivers spot obstacles, they don't prevent every situation. Car manufacturers should be taken to the woodshed over this awful decision, and it's not just the American auto makers.

Ever wonder why so many new pickups pull backwards into parking spots? I had a new Silverado recently as a rental and I believe I discovered why. Those new trucks don't have forward facing cameras, but they do have backup cameras. They sit so high the driver can't easily see the lines or obstacles in front while attempting to park but when backing up the camera shows what's coming up behind. Terrible, terrible decisions.

Comment That's minor compared to iPhone outlook (Score 1) 70

My work phone is an iPhone, and we're required to use Outlook for work email. On average outlook gets patched twice a week for iPhone. The biggest flaw in it though has been there for years and clearly won't get patched.

Namely, Outlook for iPhone always defaults to reply all for emails with multiple recipients. It doesn't matter how long the list is, it will reply all unless you go out of your way to reply only to the sender. This has catastrophic consequences at large companies.

It is not uncommon to have email threads at my employer with dozens, or even over 100, recipients. When one goes out with any ambiguity we quickly see who on the list is reading it on their iPhone (vs their laptop) as they inevitably will end up doing a reply all without meaning to.

Apparently Microsoft sees this as a feature, even though they don't force this feature upon us in Windows.

Comment Re:LOL!! (Score 1) 10

As I stated though, I fully expect that when the GOP digs themselves out of Trumpism, they will eventually deploy the "No True Scotsman" defense to claim that their cult leader was not a "true conservative" all along. But when they move the goalposts that far, will they be required to look at what they have so willingly mischaracterized in the past on the other side?
Space

Blue Origin Rocket Exploded Thursday Night During Hot-Fire Test (cbsnews.com) 73

Spaceflight Now shared their video of the explosion, which the Orlando Sentinel describes as showing Blue Origin's rocket "become engulfed in flames. The fireball expands out and covers the entire launch pad as the fuselage of the rocket can be seen crumbling into the flames."

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said on X.com "It's too early to know the root cause but we're already working to find it. Very rough day, but we'll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It's worth it." (SpaceX founder Elon Musk posted "Sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly.")

It's unclear how this will impact future launches. "The rocket was destroyed," reports CBS News, "and as the smoke cleared, there was no sign of the erector-gantry used to move the New Glenn from its hangar to the pad and to raise it from horizontal to vertical. Likewise, one of two tall lightning towers was no longer visible." It was the first such on-pad explosion at the Cape since a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blew up on nearby pad 40 on Sept. 1, 2016... Blue Origin only has one New Glenn pad, the one that was damaged in the Thursday test. The New Glenn, which has launched three times, is a heavy lift rocket designed to compete head-to-head with SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. During New Glenn's most recent flight in April, an upper stage malfunction prevented a commercial internet satellite from reaching its planned orbit...

The New Glenn destroyed Thursday was to send 48 Leo internet satellites owned by Amazon into space [which were not on board for the hot-fire test]

Blue Origin posted on X.com that "Debris from our recent hotfire anomaly may wash ashore in the coming days/weeks. If you encounter any debris, do not touch or approach it for your safety."

"Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult..." NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman posted on X.com. "âWe will provide information on any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs as it becomes available."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader symbolset for sharing the news.

Comment Re:The DNC is not socialist or communist (Score 1) 10

I've seen people make that argument before, that there is no difference. You can make that argument if you want, but if you can't provide a viable candidate then you're not helping anything.

Let me be extra direct here. I have never seen a candidate in a race I could vote in that I agreed with 100%. Frankly anytime I meet someone who tells me they agree with a politician 100% of the time I tend to want to tell them they need their head examined (unless they are themselves a politician, in which case doubly so). Even politicians like Bernie Sanders I don't agree with 100% of the time.

Complaining about the rules is not productive. We've seen what the SCOTUS will do about such arguments, we can't get help from them either. The only way to advance is to support someone who will actually do something useful. Pretending that they all do the same shit doesn't help either; there are meaningful platform differences. Just because Drumpf has held every position on every issue doesn't mean he doesn't stand for anything, either - he's actually followed through on some of his (very worst) initial promises.

Comment Re:so much money at stake (Score 1) 81

Just to make it clear - I am against governments

Your post history contradicts that. The correct statement is that you are against governments that are not run by your Lord and Savior. For you, the first rule that needs to go is the separation of church and state, you want to fuse the two forever together.

Comment Re:so much money at stake (Score 1) 81

Don't pretend you wouldn't celebrate it as a great step forward if your Lord and Savior were the one promoting it, instead of the current leader.

Though ultimately, this could be an improvement for drivers and trucking companies. The logs truckers are legally required to keep and carry are a substantial burden. If the government can track it instead that could allow the drivers to spend more time actually driving and less time doing paperwork. You should be celebrating that as it means they have more time to do actual work.

Comment Re:Artidcle? (Score 1) 154

Surely, Slashdot is allowed to take spell checkers?

Under strict supervision, yes. Unfortunately there is no supervision left as there are only two people working for slashdot and they both have real jobs in the outside world that pay the bills (Taco of course left years ago).

And don't ask about the unicode support they were working on 20 years ago...

Comment Re:The DNC is not socialist or communist (Score 1) 10

Right now the contest is between fascists and cowards. The "independents" cannot compete with the way the system is set up. I'm sorry that is the case, but we all know it's true. Yes third parties can win governor's races and other such non-federal seats but they don't exist where national policy is made. You can go vote for your favorite third party candidate or for Mickey Fucking Mouse if you want. If that makes you feel better about yourself, great. It's marginally better than not voting at all, but only marginally.

long after his cadaver is consumed.

Smart money is on a Lenin-style mausoleum for Trump with a body permanently preserved in a top-secret cocktail of preservatives. Not that he hasn't already begun that process with his diet...

Republicans

Journal Journal: A silver lining - will Trumpism bring about understanding? 10

Now of course Trump is not himself about learning or understanding; it's very much antithetical to his being.

However, Trumpist facsism can only last so long. At some point his cult will collapse. Perhaps at that point we can be thankful for just how incompetent his children are politically, as none of them are well positioned to take over when he dies.

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