News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
The new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been making the news over concerns it will spawn a black hole and destroy the world. Some enterprising individuals have even created websites to let us know whether or not Earth has been destroyed. But this is all tangential stuff. For those interested, the linked video contains a concise and clear explanation of how the LHC works.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/…
(via digg)
Windows Vista users may want to hold off before updating to iTunes version 8. For some users, it’s crashing their systems whenever they plug in an iPod. See the linked article for details.
Link: http://www.computerworld.com/…
(via Kim Komando)
Update: If you are experiencing this problem, here’s how to fix it.
Ten days ago Google released a new browser named Chrome. Despite the fact that the browser market is saturated, Chrome has already gained a market share of about 0.80%. One of Chrome’s best features is its ability to take advantage of multiple processors/cores, thus boosting its performance on multi-processor systems.
Thanks to Josh for this topic.
Link: http://www.google.com/…
We’re all familiar with CAPTCHAs, those weird pictures with distorted numbers and letters that you have to copy when submitting an online form. They’re designed to ensure that a human, rather than a computer, is the one doing the submitting. So what’s honest spammer to do? Simple, just hire cheap labor.
Link: http://blogs.zdnet.com/…
(via Slashdot)
Back when I was in college and first learned about blue boxes, the phone company was in the process of changing out their switching systems—and the new equipment wasn’t vulnerable to the 2600 Hz tone. But I managed to get my share of free calls via other means, especially in the chaotic years immediately following the breakup of AT&T. The linked article is about the man who started it all, John Draper (also known as Captain Crunch).
This is interesting. Apparently cows have a tendency to align themselves with magnetic North, either facing it or facing 180° away from it. The study shows the power of Google Earth.
Link #1: http://www.newscientist.com/…
Link #2: http://www.latimes.com/…
Update: Researchers have determined that the cows are definitely aligning with the magnetic field (versus pointing North or South).
An iPhone commercial has been banned in England because it falsely claims that “all the parts of the internet are on the iPhone”. The problem is that the iPhone can’t handle pages with Flash or Java, which make up a non-trivial percentage of the ‘net.
Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/…
The linked article just reinforces the fact that there is no privacy on the internet. Should you want to transfer sensitive information over an internet connection, make sure it’s encrypted. (Although if you live in the UK, that may not be sufficient. Even here in the USA, with the 5th amendment, the government is trying to force a criminal defendant to disclose his encryption passphrase.)
Link: http://blog.wired.com/…
(via Slashdot)
Ever wondered how a dog uses its tongue to drink? The reality is certainly different from what I expected—the dog curls his tongue down instead of up.
Astute Chad’s News readers already know that colors correspond to various wavelengths of light, as shown when white light is run through a prism or when it forms a rainbow. But the reality is that colors only exist in our minds—the brain takes the output from the eye and interprets it as color. This becomes obvious when we take a closer look at the color magenta (also known as pink). Magenta/pink does not have a related wavelength and does not appear in a rainbow or prism. Yet we still “see” it. The linked article explains why.
Link: http://www.null-hypothesis.co.uk/…
(via digg)
Update: Ars Technica has an article that clarifies some of the internet hysteria over this topic.
