Chad's News

With all the stuff going on in Georgia, one may wonder how a US state and an Asian/European country ended up with the same name. The linked article explains all…

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

The linked article has a nice list of add-ons for Windows Explorer. I really like the one that adds tabs.

Link: http://lifehacker.com/…

The linked article has a first-person account of what it’s like to compete on Jeopardy (by Joshua Fruhlinger). Surprisingly enough, his biggest problem was that the buzzers didn’t always work.

Link: http://joshreads.com/…
(via Mental Floss)

In an update to this Chad’s News post, the exploit is now “in the wild”. There is a “DNS Checker” test to determine whether or not your DNS servers are vulnerable. If so, complain loudly and frequently to your ISP. Since this exploit also requires a client-side update (e.g., your personal PC, Mac, etc.), it would also be a good idea to make sure you’ve installed the appropriate update.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Update #1: According to this article, Apple has not created patches for its operating systems. The article also briefly explains how the exploit works. I don’t think the lack of patches for OS X is that big of a deal—there can’t be that many people/companies that use Macs as DNS servers.

Update #2: Apple has released patches.

Update #3: Turns out that even with the patches, this problem can still be exploited. This is bad, because if your ISP’s DNS servers are hacked, there is nothing you can do about it and you most likely won’t even know it’s happened.

A company named D-Wave Systems has produced a working 28-qubit quantum computer and plans to sell time on it. This is a big deal. Quantum computers can solve problems that are too complex or time-consuming for conventional computers, and they have the potential to change the world.

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

While it’s still theoretically possible to get an exact 10.0 in Olympic gymnastic competitions, that score would be pretty low for this year’s summer games in China (which start today). Look for the medalists to reach 16 or 17 points. This will be the first Olympics using a new scoring system that was first implemented two years ago.

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

Regular Chad’s News readers are now familiar with the various HDTV modes (e.g., 720p, 1080i, etc.). And I’ve always associated larger picture sizes with higher quality. I was surprised, therefore, to read the linked article which contends that this is not necessarily the case—that the quality of the signal has little to do with the number of pixels. It turns out that broadcasters compress the digital signal to conserve bandwidth, and the compression algorithm is lossy. The compression reduces the quality of the picture regardless of the number of pixels, and if used “overzealously,” it will make a visible difference.

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

Thinking about purchasing one of those monster-sized LCD/plasma TVs for thousands of dollars? Well you may want to hold off for a couple years and get an OLED TV instead.

Link: http://news.smh.com.au/…
(via Kim Komando)

In Microsoft Windows, the Control Panel has an entry for “Internet Options.” Many of these settings apply exclusively to Internet Explorer, even though it’s obvious that Microsoft wants them to be Windows-specific and not IE-specific. Firefox 3 is helping to make this desire into a reality, as it “now honors your Windows security settings for downloading applications and other potentially unsafe files from the Internet.” The author of the linked article hypothesizes this was done so that corporations, which are usually quite concerned about computer security policies, may find Firefox more palatable.

Link: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/…
(via digg)

The linked article has a three-part video tour of the inside of a Lego factory. The vast majority of the manufacturing is automated.

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

All that time in medical school wasted…

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

Want to make people look twice? Then just use this USB drive in a public place—although it’s probably not something you’d want to show off in an airport.

Link: http://gizmodo.com/…
(via digg)