News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
Mozilla has developed a new javascript interpreter for Firefox 3.1 that’s up to 40 times faster than the one in Firefox 3.0. This will be nice, as many of today’s “Web 2.0” sites are heavily scripted.
Link: http://www.computerworld.com/…
(via Kim Komando)
Solid state hard drives (SSDs) aren’t just for laptops anymore—they’re making inroads into the server market. IT managers like them because they run faster and don’t use as much power, which compensates for the high price. And as far as capacity goes, IBM is testing a 4 TB SSD array. Before you switch out your hard drives, however, be aware that not all is perfect in SSD-land. Regular hard drives are still more cost-effective for systems that perform lots of non-sequential read operations or lots of write operations.
For those who don’t get the linked comic, more information is here and here.
Link: http://www.tailsteak.com/…
(via digg)
For those Chad’s News readers who’ve purchased makeup between 1994 and 2003, you could participate in a $175 million class action settlement. I figure this probably covers anyone who’s female, and possibly even a good number of men.
Link: http://consumerist.com/…
The linked video shows what an Imperial occupation of San Francisco might look like.
Link: http://current.com/…
(via The Presurfer)
The random number generators you find on computer systems are actually “pseudo” random number generators. The values appear to be random but are created from a deterministic algorithm. Random.org, however, has a truly random generator which uses atmospheric noise as the randomizer. And you can automatically retrieve numbers via the web using HTTP GET requests like this one.
Another such effort, the Quantum Random Bit Generator Service, uses quantum effects to achieve randomness. They don’t currently have a web service interface, however, and to access the random data you’d need to include their libraries in your code.
Thanks to Josh for this topic.
Cloud storage is “a way for enterprises to rely on a third party for their storage needs without having to build and manage their own data storage infrastructure.” Some businesses and individuals have turned to it as a cost-saving measure, or as a way to make data available from any location. The downfall of cloud storage, however, is that you’re totally reliant on someone else to protect your data. There are many ways to minimize the risk of data loss, the simplest of which is redundancy, redundancy, redundancy, but it looks like people in the linked article didn’t take those steps.
Link: http://www.networkworld.com/…
(via Slashdot)
A Japanese couple went to India and hired a surrogate mother to carry their test-tube baby. But they got divorced before the baby was born. Now neither the surrogate nor the biological mother wants the baby, and the father cannot legally adopt his daughter.
For those Chad’s News readers who’ve been watching the Olympic platform diving competitions, have you ever wondered how the camera manages to keep pace with the diver, even underwater? Turns out the answer is fairly straightforward.
Link: http://online.wsj.com/…
(via Mental Floss)
Apple has a store that sells applications for the iPhone. Anyone can submit an app, and once it’s officially approved, the app is posted to the store and can be purchased. A German man named Armin Heinrich created an app that displays a red gem . He called it “I Am Rich” and put a $999.99 price tag on it. The description was very clear that this app essentially did nothing. Surprisingly, eight people purchased it, although two of them later asked for refunds. Apple has since pulled the app from the store.
Link: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/…
(via digg)
From the article: “Vista is not optimized for flash memory solid-state disk[s].” So instead of asking Microsoft to change Windows, the SSD manufacturers are modifying their drive controllers to “compensate for Vista shortfalls.”
Link: http://news.cnet.com/…
(via Slashdot)
Update: Ars Technica has an update on this topic. Samsung is taking action to help resolve the problem.
Here at the Chad’s News network command center we’ve read lots of online articles that list various performance tweaks for Windows—and we’ve even implemented a few. Turns out that not all of them actually increase performance.
Link: http://lifehacker.com/…
