Chad's News

I’ve heard various reports about this, from the initial creation of a device that disperses crowds of young people, to the actual use of ring tones in class with teachers who couldn’t hear it, but this article has a sound file to download. When I played it on my computer, I could hear a very slight hum and that was it. The creator had to ask his kids (or grandkids) whether or not the sound was bad enough to chase people away. The New York Times says you have to be over 40 or so in order not to hear it, but other articles give the cutoff age as 20.

http://www.nytimes.com/…
(via Digg)

UPDATE: One person wondered just how degraded his hearing was, and he generated some test tones to find out. They are available for download here. My hearing is fine through 13,000 Hz then drops off sharply to the point where I can just barely hear 15,000 Hz.

UPDATE #2: Here’s a more recent link with tones at various frequencies. A friend of mine knows a lot about speakers, and he says part of the problem could be with my cheap computer speakers and not necessarily my hearing.

Back in my Usenet days, the Star Wars vs. Star Trek debate became so heated that it got its own forum, just to keep it from clogging up the actual Star Wars and Star Trek discussion forums. Someone has taken this to a whole new level, as shown in this video.

I am convinced that, just based on sheer size, the Star Wars fleets would easily be able to demolish anything from Star Trek. The regular, Imperial-class Star Destroyers are about a mile long, while the Super Star Destroyers (think Darth Vader’s flagship) are nearly 12 miles long. The late-model Enterprise ships were only 750 yards long, with much less destructive power. A single Death Star could probably take out the entire Borg collective.

http://www.youtube.com/…
(via Digg)

This appears to be an actual game of ping pong. All I can say is, I don’t know how they do it.

http://www.neatorama.com/…

This site has some really nice images of fractals, which are available to download. They can be used as wallpaper for computer desktops.

http://exoteric.roach.org/…

Internet Explorer has a feature where you can open desktop shortcuts from within the browser by typing the shortcut name. Interestingly enough, IE doesn’t differentiate between the various types of shortcuts (internet, executable, directory). So if you have a desktop shortcut named “Word” that runs MS Word, typing “Word” in IE’s address bar will bring up MS Word. This opens up some interesting possibilities.

http://www.infoworld.com/…
(via F-Secure via Digg)

Many successful hackers rely on social engineering. Here’s an example that reminds me of the movie Sneakers.

http://www.darkreading.com/…
(via Digg)

The state of Washington has made it a felony to gamble online. Maybe I’m the only one who thinks this way, but doesn’t this seem like a massive case of overkill? I mean, a felony? They say this law won’t be applied to individual gamblers, but I’ve found that the police have a knack of using laws in ways for which they were not intended.

http://yro.slashdot.org/…

When I first saw these images, I thought they were fake. When they say giant crystals, they mean GIANT crystals. What I found most interesting, however, were the conditions inside the cave: 150 degrees farenheit and 100% humidity. The photography team could only stay in the cave for a few minutes at a time before having to leave.

http://www.canyonsworldwide.com/… (via Neatorama)

Anyone who watches sports news on TV has probably seen this video clip already, but this has got to be the luckiest hole in one in history. After a shot like that, the first thing I would’ve done was go buy a lottery ticket.

http://www.youtube.com/…
(via digg)

It’s pretty bad when top Microsoft engineers can’t remove malware from a Windows computer. My favorite part of the article, though, is where a Microsoft vice president says “This really opened our eyes to what goes on in the real world.”

http://australianit.news.com.au/…
(via digg)

This is a great resource for web developers: a comprehensive internet browser archive. Need to test that web site on IE 4.0 but don’t have a copy available? Just go download it.

http://browsers.evolt.org/
(via digg)

I guess this type of thinking comes more easily to a society with roots in central planning, but China has an official government agency whose job is to control the weather.

http://msnbc.msn.com/…