Jean Thompson, Author at Dual Cow

Airlines Hoping for More Boeing Jets Could Be Waiting Awhile

Jan

Airlines Hoping for More Boeing Jets Could Be Waiting Awhile

Boeing hoped 2024 would be the year it would significantly increase production of its popular Max jets. But less than a month into the year, the company is struggling to reassure airline customers that it will still be able to deliver on its promises.That’s because the Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday that it would limit the plane maker’s output until it was confident in Boeing’s quality control practices. On Jan. 5, a panel blew off a Boeing 737 Max 9 body shortly after takeoff, terrifying passengers on an Alaska Airlines flight and forcing the pilots to make an emergency…

Naomi Feil, Who Promoted Empathy as a Response to Dementia, Dies at 91

Jan

By Jean Thompson

Health

Naomi Feil, Who Promoted Empathy as a Response to Dementia, Dies at 91

Naomi Feil was only 8 years old when she moved into what was then known as a home for the aged, where her parents worked. Living there until she left for college, she learned firsthand, by trial and error, how to comfort and communicate with older adults.When she died at 91 on Dec. 24 at her home in Jasper, Ore., she had devoted her entire career to finding ways to comfort disoriented older people and their caregivers.Her daughter Vicki de Klerk-Rubin said she died of cancer.Mrs. Feil was a 24-year-old social worker, convening a group of patients diagnosed as “senile…

Deal Ends Dispute Over Records of Onetime King of Donkey Kong

Jan

By Jean Thompson

Science and Technology

Deal Ends Dispute Over Records of Onetime King of Donkey Kong

Back in the 1980s, it seemed as if everyone with a spare quarter was playing the arcade game Donkey Kong, scooting up ramps and climbing ladders while avoiding barrels hurled by a giant ape.For most players, the video game provided a few minutes of excitement before inevitable defeat. But a handful of top players had the superhuman ability to rescue Pauline, the damsel in distress, over and over again, earning one of the high scores not just in their own arcade but in the whole world.Now a settlement has been reached in a long-running disagreement over disputed world records set…

British Court Answers an Eternal Question: How Much Potato Does a Crisp Contain?

Jan

By Jean Thompson

Investments and Business

British Court Answers an Eternal Question: How Much Potato Does a Crisp Contain?

No profit grows, Shakespeare once wrote, where no pleasure is taken. And so in the tedious march of life, we find joy in small things: The rising of the sun. A fine glass of wine. The greasy snap of a well-dressed potato crisp.But soft! Not so fast. Life affords no simple pleasures, and even that delectable crunch comes with a weighty debate: How much potato doth a true crisp — chip, to the Americans — contain?This — and several other probing questions of the crisp aficionado — was immortalized by a British tax appeals court last week, which ruled that…

How Worcester Polytechnic Institute Weathered a Spate of Suicides

Jan

By Jean Thompson

Health

How Worcester Polytechnic Institute Weathered a Spate of Suicides

“Were you burned out,” I asked.Her face was flat. “I still am,” she said. “Yeah. Yes, and I still am.” Worcester is famous for the snow dumps it receives in the winter. It has something to do with where the city is in relation to the Appalachian Mountains. The clouds bear down when the temperature drops, and then the snow is relentless and the weather is brutal. All winter, it’s brutal, brutal, brutal, and then somehow, slowly, it’s not anymore. That’s kind of how the end of W.P.I.’s crisis arrived. No one I spoke to could quite explain how they…

New Hampshire Officials to Investigate A.I. Robocalls Mimicking Biden

Jan

By Jean Thompson

Science and Technology

New Hampshire Officials to Investigate A.I. Robocalls Mimicking Biden

Voters in New Hampshire received robocall messages over the weekend in a voice that was most likely artificially generated to impersonate President Biden’s, urging them not to vote in Tuesday’s primary election, according to the state attorney general’s office.The fake recordings, which told listeners that “your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday,” were manipulated to seem as if they had been sent by an officer of a Democratic committee, the office said.The attorney general’s office stressed that voting in the primary would not rule out voters from also casting ballots in the general election in November.“These messages…