Chad's News

Here’s an interesting article about fulgurites (glass structures created by lightning strikes). And if you like those, you may also like the Lichtenberg figures in the second article.

Link #1: http://webecoist.com/…
(via digg)

Link #2: http://www.capturedlightning.com/…
(via The Presurfer)

Here’s an interesting concept: a GPS-aware box that will only unlock when it’s at a specific location. It includes a button that, when pressed, tells you the distance to that location. Even though it would only take three readings to get a rough estimate of the location, I still think it’s a neat idea.

Link: http://arduiniana.org/…
(via engadget)

I remember when having 8MB of RAM on a graphics card was a big deal. But Matrox has just announced the M1988 PCIe x16, which supports eight monitors and has 2GB of memory. Not for the faint of heart, but imagine what you could do with such a system.

Link: http://hothardware.com/…
(via engadget)

Campbell’s has embarked upon an advertising campaign that claims each can of its chicken noodle soup has 32 feet of noodles. A Seattle TV reporter put it to the test, on a football field no less! The linked video shows the result.

Link: http://www.king5.com/…
(via The Consumerist)

The linked videos are parts 1 and 2 of a pseudo-documentary where rail workers perform a “complete thermite weld” to connect train tracks. I was a bit surprised by the lack of safety equipment—the workers were manipulating molten metal in short-sleeve shirts. And the guy was pretty nonplussed when the handle of his sledgehammer caught on fire.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/…
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/…
(via Neatorama)

Over at UserFriendly, artist J.D. “Illiad” Fraser lists five movie concepts that will terrorize your inner geek. My favorite is “Windows Me: The Rebirth.”

Link: http://ars.userfriendly.org/…

The linked article has some really neat jack-o-lanterns. The Spider-man one is good, but I think the Predator is the best by far.

Link: http://www.scifisquad.com/…

This photographer’s work is being shown at the most exclusive gallery of all: the Moon. Astronaut Charles Moss Duke left a family photo on the Moon during the Apollo 16 mission in 1972.

Link: http://gizmodo.com/…
(via digg)

This year’s Ig Nobel prizes were awarded on October 1st. It was a fairly weak field, but here are some of the better ones (see the linked article for the full list):

• Medicine: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years.
• Veterinary Medicine: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
• Peace Prize: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.
• Chemistry: Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, for creating diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.

Link: http://improbable.com/…
(via Neatorama)

Here’s a neat chess set you can make from nuts and bolts. The instructions are in a flickr photo stream.

Link: http://www.flickr.com/…
(via Lifehacker)

The linked article lists 10 different ways to demolish a hard drive. Unfortunately, several of the methods don’t actually destroy the data, but they do incapacitate the drive and necessitate the use of special equipment to read what is left. For those that do wipe the data, item #3 (using a grinder) is probably the simplest, and item #10 (Thermite) is definitely the most satisfying. Also, I’m not sure that any magnet, no matter how powerful, is able to completely wipe a disk. Back in my military days, the only approved method for disposing of classified hard drives was to physically break the platters into pieces.

Link: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/…
(via Slashdot)

Long-time Chad’s News readers will recall this article about the extended quest to create viable colored soap bubbles. The product has finally been released and is known as Zubbles.

Link: http://dsc.discovery.com/…
(via naacal)