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9 days agoAbsolutely bullshit in a headline, but also potential mamas will probably use this often. The value in hearing your baby’s heartbeat is probably a huge reassurance to many.
Having said that, as a hardware professional, when could we see a consumer accessible mobile ultrasound? I don’t have a spare $2-5k for what they use in ambulances, but I am hoping something low res low quality is accessible in a few years. (Having just read about the open source phased array, I have new hope for many things).
Coupled with Russian Economic challenges (GDP shrinking, deficit increasing sharply, unemployment at historic lows, high interest rates…) I am guessing that this is now more of Ukraine War to Lose, as mitigating the windfall puts Putin in a very tight spot. Maybe he can leverage the Arctic ports to ship more oil out, but not enough to make up the deficit by winter. He still has to spend a bunch on the Free Economic Zone they have captured, but it’s entirely a white elephant.
Ukraine could still fall prey to Trump’s whims, or Putin’s influence (of other countries), or Putin could act rash an pull out the big weapons, but none of that “wins” this war. Conventional manpower is still the major constraint for both sides. I expect some sort of unconventional endgame here (armistice, long-term grey zone warfare, something other than negotiated peace), but one of those possibility is regime change… Not at 66% approval, but that rating will finish asymptotically if he doesn’t figure the money out.