Galactic Road Map
Sunday, June 29th, 2008
It’s a situation I’ve read about in at least two science fiction books. You’re kidnapped by aliens and transported away from Earth. You heroically manage to win your freedom but then tragically realize you have no idea where Earth is. (Given a map of the Milky Way Galaxy, I defy you to point out the general location of Earth. Can’t do it, can you?) And it gets worse—for all you know they may have taken you to a totally different galaxy. Well fear not, intrepid Chad’s News reader. Should this happen, all you’ll have to do is whip out your “Location Earth Dog Tag” and you’ll be back home before you know it. There’s even a guarantee: “Should you ever be abducted by aliens while wearing Location Earth Dog Tags and not returned safely to Earth you will be entitled to a full refund of the purchase price.”
Link: http://www.earthbounddog.com/
(via Daily Illuminator)
Update: After doing some investigating, it turns out the dog tag is missing some crucial information. There is supposed to be binary information along the pulsar lines, indicating the periods of the pulsars. Looking at the picture of the dog tag, I don’t see that data. Additionally, even if the binary numbers existed, they specify the period as a multiple of the hyperfine transition period of hydrogen (the spin-flip frequency). That fact isn’t included on the dog tag either. Sigh…
This weapon is capable of identifying and destroying multiple ground targets. The first link is a video explaining how the weapon works, including real film footage. The second link has an embedded video showing a reconstruction of an Iraq war event where the BLU-108 played a major part. It’s just amazing how far weapons technology has come.
Here are some nice posters for the geek in your life. My 
Researchers from SRI International have created a robot that can climb walls made of common building materials. From the article: “The as-yet-unnamed robot uses electro-adhesion to cling to the wall, generating electrostatic charges between the wall substrate and itself to keep from falling.” The linked article has a video of the robot in action.
This Flash video is hilarious. The song is for real. It’s “Cows With Guns” by Dana Lyons. It can be purchased from iTunes or via the artist’s 
The recent Transformers movie rated about a 5.5 (out of 10) on the Chad’s News movie review list, but this USB hub modeled after the All Spark Cube is just way too cool to pass up. Unfortunately it won’t be available until late August.
System administrators, as well as anyone who understands how email works, will appreciate the linked story where a network admin had to figure out why emails would bounce if the recipient was more than 500 miles away. And in this case, statisticians turned out to be quite useful. (Note that he has taken some literary license with the story, as described in the 
The linked video is a walk up the 
A precise and difficult sniper shot, caught on video.
Here’s a short story that combines time travel with chat room etiquette.
I’m not sure how useful this would be in an emergency, except for perhaps the matches. But you’ve got to admit that it’s light and completely waterproof.
