Chad's News

The “Intimidator” is a 125-piece metal puzzle by GarE Maxton, made from brass, stainless steel, aluminum, bronze, magnesium, and steel. As an extra bonus, some of the parts can be assembled into a functioning .45 caliber handgun. Of course, weighing in at over 40 pounds, this probably isn’t something you’d carry on an airplane in the hopes of smuggling a firearm aboard. And there’s always the possibility that the security guards would make you disassemble it, in which case you’d have to know how to put it back together again. The linked article has several pages of detailed information and pictures. Pricing is not available on the website, but I’m guessing it’s in the $15,000 to $20,000 range based on his other stuff.

Link: http://www.maxton.com/…
(via Neatorama)

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had a third partner when they first started Apple Computer. His name is Ron Wayne. And like the fifth Beatle, he left too early to get any of the benefits. The linked article gives specifics.

Link: http://www.mercurynews.com/…
(via Kim Komando)

Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, did some training and internal promotional films for IBM in the 1960s. These are great!

Link: http://technologizer.com/…
(via Slashdot)

This commercial for the Cullman Liquidation Center should be required viewing for all marketing students.

Link: http://consumerist.com/…

Here at Chad’s News, we’ve mentioned Despair, Inc. before. But they’ve outdone themselves with a new t-shirt that takes advantage of the BP oil spill. The shirt has a BP logo and says, “BP – We’re bringing oil to American shores.” This is just one parody of many.

Thanks to Josh for this topic.

Link: http://www.despair.com/…

For the geek in your life, Victorinox is releasing a Swiss Army Knife that includes a secure USB drive.

Link #1: http://www.realwire.com/…
(via engadget)

Link #2: http://www.swissarmy.com/…

Walt Disney World is hosting several Star Wars Weekends this year and has been promoting them with the ads in the linked article. The Darth Maul poster is hilarious!

Link: http://www.starwars.com/…

Here are some really neat pictures of the recent eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Brings back memories of Mount St. Helens, although I don’t remember the US shutting down its airspace like Europe has done.

Thanks to Josh for the link.

Link: http://www.boston.com/…

I’ve never put much thought into what it take to repossess commercial airplanes. The linked article is about Nick Popovich and his repo company, Sage-Popovich, Inc. Some of the repossessions require significant planning and a large team of people.

Link: http://www.airspacemag.com/…
(via Neatorama)

Can’t figure out what to buy for the geek in your life? Consider this wall hanger that looks like an 8-bit pointer.

Link: http://www.meninos.us/…
(via engadget)

Here’s an interesting trick. Many web browsers support the entry of IP addresses as hexadecimal or octal numbers with or without the dots. For instance, the cloman.com server (normally 75.127.110.43) can be entered as 0x4B7F6E2B, and Google is 0x4A7D9B6A in hex or 011237315552 in octal.

Link: http://www.securelist.com/…
(via Slashdot)

I really don’t think you can get URLs much smaller than with the TO./ URL Shortener. I had to do some research to understand how it was even possible. Note that the period after the “to” is vital.

Link: http://to./
(via Lifehacker)