Chad's News

Scientists can now make a drop of oil traverse a complex maze by itself. Be sure to watch the video.

Link: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/…
(via Neatorama)

Nearly everyone is familiar with the Y2K problem, and technically-minded Chad’s News readers know of the looming Y2038 issue, but the Y2010 bug (also Y2K+10 or Y2.01K) seems to have caught everyone unaware.

Starting on January 1^st, 2010, some computer systems thought the year was 2016. The Bank of Queensland’s EFTPOS system (in Australia) had this problem, and customers were unable to use their credit cards because the cards had “expired.” Many Germans had a similar problem.

Most computer scientists will figure this one out at first glance (although that didn’t happen here at Chad’s News). Just looking at the last two digits of the years, 10 and 16, should make the problem obvious. The bug was caused by the use of a fairly obscure numbering system known as binary coded decimal (BCD), where each digit of a base-10 decimal number is represented in base-16 (hexadecimal). So a hexadecimal 10, which is normally a decimal 16, is considered to be a decimal 10 instead. The code that failed did not understand this fact and treated the hex 10 as a decimal 16—thus the change from 2010 to 2016.

Link: https://www.networkworld.com/…
(via Slashdot)

According to the linked article, it’s estimated that 1.5 billion Coca-Colas are served daily. When you figure in the other brands owned by the company, the number of daily servings rises to 50 billion. I find that to be mind-boggling.

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

Here’s an interesting article about fulgurites (glass structures created by lightning strikes). And if you like those, you may also like the Lichtenberg figures in the second article.

Link #1: http://webecoist.com/…
(via digg)

Link #2: http://www.capturedlightning.com/…
(via The Presurfer)

It seems like copyright holders go ballistic every time a new medium is developed, then that medium ends up becoming a major revenue source. Ars Technica did some research and has determined this is not a new phenomenon.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Ever wondered why human babies take so long to become functional, while many animals are able to walk and take care of themselves shortly after birth? It comes down to brain and pelvis size. If the baby’s brain was large enough for it to be self-sufficient, both the mother and the baby would die during birth.

When our ancestors started walking on two legs, it reduced the size of the human pelvis, thus making the birth canal smaller. In addition, the human brain got bigger, requiring a larger birth canal. Obviously something had to give. What happens is that the baby is born with an immature brain that’s small enough to allow passage through the birth canal. Then the brain continues to develop afterward.

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

Here at the Chad’s News network command center, we have long been aware of the difference between the hard disk capacity reported in decimal bytes by the manufacturer and the the same capacity reported in binary bytes by Windows. In fact, I was once published in a print magazine after the editors incorrectly answered a question on the subject.

Most computer programmers and system engineers already know why one kilobyte (KB) can either be 1000 or 1024 bytes, and the more experienced ones know that a kibibyte (KiB) is always 1024. For others, the linked article explains all. I found the most useful part of the article to be Tables E and F, which list the measurement type used for various protocols and computer components.

Link: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/…

The linked article has some real gems that come from actual job interviews, like “What is your company’s policy on Monday absences?” and “I was fired from my last job because they were forcing me to attend anger management classes.”

Link: http://jobs.aol.com/…
(via The Consumerist)

The linked article has ten extreme locations in the United States. (Actually a couple of them are the exact opposite of “extreme,” but it’s still a neat list.)

Link: http://www.mentalfloss.com/…

In Indonesia, an active volcano emits vapors with high sulfur content. The fumaroles are capped, causing the sulfur to condense into the familiar yellow rock. Once a laborer has collected enough raw sulfur (up to 200 pounds), he carries it in baskets for several kilometers—up the side of the crater and down to a weighing station. The daily pay for this is about $5.00.

Link: http://www.boston.com/…
(via The Presurfer)

By one measure, the English language recently broke the one million words mark. And which word, you may be asking yourself, was the lucky number 1,000,000? Why “Web 2.0” of course.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Need some extra time to write that term paper? At the linked site, you can purchase a corrupted file to email to your professor. By the time he/she notices, you’ll have finished writing the -real- paper and can “re-send” it. This is so bizarre—I wonder if it’s actually worked for anyone.

Link: http://www.corrupted-files.com/
(via The Presurfer)