Chad's News

The linked article has some interesting facts about the US penny. Personally, I’m all for getting rid of them, especially since each penny costs 1.4¢ to create. Pennies account for half of all coins minted in the US, with a total yearly cost of about $75 million. Seems like a practical method of cutting the budget. And it’s not that difficult to implement—prices are simply rounded to the nearest multiple of five. The US military already does this overseas in its AAFES stores.

Link: http://www.time.com/…
(via digg)

While much attention has been going to quantum computers as the replacement for today’s silicon-based computer systems, some research has shown that bacteria and DNA could instead be the future. Chad’s News has previously discussed the possibility of using DNA for encryption—so why not go all the way and have a full-fledged DNA-based computer? Note that both bacterial and DNA computers are in the research phase, however, and we won’t be seeing them in common use any time soon.

Link #1 (DNA): http://news.bbc.co.uk/…

Link #2 (Bacteria): http://www.guardian.co.uk/…

Here at the Chad’s News network command center, we adopted gmail as a central repository for the multitude of email accounts that we use (currently nine of them). The switch was made several years ago, primarily for gmail’s superior spam filtering and the fact that the cloman.com server kept appearing on spam blacklists (one of the downsides of shared hosting). When using gmail to send a message from a non-gmail account, however, it puts your gmail address in the “Sender:” field of the message header. Certain email clients do not handle this well. Some versions of Outlook, for example, will say that the message is from “xyz@gmail.com On Behalf Of xyz@cloman.com”. Even worse some clients use the gmail address as the reply address, which is something I do not want and which defeats the purpose of using the cloman.com account in the first place. Simply put, this feature is annoying.

Google will not remove the “Sender:” field because its use is in accordance with email standards, but they now provide a workaround where you can use gmail to send messages from a different server. Thus I could, for example, use my cloman.com SMTP server from within gmail. In this case the “Sender:” field is omitted, and the problem is solved.

Astute readers will have immediately recognized that this doesn’t solve my core issue, which is that the cloman.com SMTP server appears on some spam blacklists. So I continue to use gmail’s server to send my cloman.com mail. But I have email accounts in other domains for which I am using this new feature.

Link: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/…
(via Lifehacker)

The Amazon Kindle is picky about which e-book formats it accepts. So what do you do with an e-book in an unsupported format? The linked article tells how to convert it. The article also lists a couple non-Amazon sources of Kindle-compatible e-books, and explains how to prevent Amazon from deleting books retroactively.

Link: http://consumerist.com/…

It started out in the mid-1700s with the discovery of the five Lagrange points, relatively stable areas in a rotational system with two bodies (e.g., Earth/Moon or Earth/Sun). But the solar system, with its multitude of planets and moons, is much more complex. The forces exerted by gravity are changing all the time, sometimes stronger or weaker, sometimes in one direction then in another.

These dynamic forces can be modeled, and it’s possible to generate a low-energy flight path for a spacecraft, where it could (theoretically) use no fuel but instead be propelled through the solar system by these changing gravitational forces. In the real world, of course, some fuel is necessary, but it’s a minimal amount.

This type of spaceflight would not be suitable for human beings, as the path meanders significantly, taking much, much longer to reach a destination than a direct flight. But the interplanetary superhighway is ideal for certain types of unmanned probes. And kudos to the people who first came up with the idea—this is definitely thinking outside the box.

Thanks to Josh for the Lagrange point link.

Link: http://www.nasa.gov/…

Update: Here is some more recent information on this topic.

Amazon was recently notified that two of the books in its Kindle catalog were pirated. The company responded by removing the books from the catalog and also deleting every purchased copy. The uproar was significant, with many people being surprised that retroactive deletion was even possible. Amazon has since apologized and promised it will never do this again. To Amazon’s credit, they did refund the purchase price. But this being the United States of America, there has to be a lawsuit involved.

Link: http://apnews.myway.com/…
(via Kim Komando)

Update: The lawsuit has been settled, and Amazon has agreed to legally binding terms on which it can retroactively delete content.

A nice Wendy’s coupon is making the rounds via email, but it’s a fake.

Link: http://consumerist.com/…

The Ford Motor Company has created a viable system that replaces spark plugs with lasers. According to the linked article, this technology is “more reliable and efficient than current spark plug technology and will enable cars to start more easily in cold and damp conditions.” As an added bonus, fuel usage is reduced because of the increased stability of the combustion. Expect to see this “in the wild” within a couple years.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/…
(via Engadget)