Chad's News

This is a neat idea. For a fairly reasonable price, you can drive a real tank, shoot machine guns, and even crush cars under the treads. What man wouldn’t enjoy this?

Link: http://www.driveatank.com/
(via Neatorama)

Here at Chad’s News, we really like 3D printers and think they have the ability to transform the world. Now one has been used to create a custom lower jaw that was subsequently transplanted into an 83-year-old woman. From the article: “The implant was made out of titanium powder – heated and fused together by a laser, one layer at a time.”

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/…
(via Kim Komando)

The linked article debunks three common economic misconceptions made by Americans. I believed all three and was surprised to find out they were wrong. Normally I take this type of article with a grain of salt, but the source is solid. Here are the misconceptions:

1. Most of what Americans spend their money on is made in China.
2. We owe most of our debt to China.
3. We get most of our oil from the Middle East.

Thanks to John LaRoche for this link.

Link: http://www.dailyfinance.com/…

I guess we’ve reached the twilight of the paper resume, seeing that so many are now submitted electronically. Which brings up the question of which format to use: MS Word or PDF. The linked article addresses the pros and cons of each and says the answer is neither. Instead, the author recommends using Rich Text Format (RTF). Note that all versions of MS Word have the ability to read and write RTF files.

Link: http://www.techrepublic.com/…

In the linked article, Wired has done some research into the beginnings of the computer password. It turns out that even back then they weren’t very secure.

Link: http://www.wired.com/…
(via Kim Komando)

Global warming has moved from the realm of science into that of politics. There appear to be two main issues of contention. First, is global warming actually happening? Second, if temperatures are rising, is humanity the cause (is it anthropogenic)? The first question seems to be debated less and less and was covered in a recent Chad’s News post. The second question has transformed into a matter of opinion, becoming dogmatic and removing itself somewhat from hard science. The linked article discusses a recent study that comes down on the side of anthropogenic global warming. One interesting note in the study’s simulation is that the release of aerosols has lessened the impact of global warming.

Here at Chad’s News we think that global warming is real and is probably anthropogenic, but we shrug our shoulders and say, “So what. Climate change happens and the world adapts.”

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

This one’s got me stumped. If any Chad’s News reader knows the answer, please post it in the comments. Here’s the question:

Thanks to Josh for this topic.

Link: http://i.imgur.com/…

Tomorrow, May 20th, we will have an annular solar eclipse. An annular eclipse is one where the moon isn’t quite big enough to block out the entire sun, so the maximum eclipse has a ring of sun showing around the moon. The tail end of the eclipse will be visible in the Southwestern United States at around 7:30pm Mountain Time. Unfortunately for those of us in Colorado, it appears that we’re going to just miss it. The maximum eclipse is at 5:53pm MDT, when the eclipse shadow will be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. The linked article has pictures showing where and when the eclipse will be visible—the times are in UTC, which is 6 hours ahead of Mountain Daylight Time.

Thanks to Josh for this topic.

Update: The path shown in the linked article is where the ring eclipse will be visible. A partial eclipse can be seen from a much larger area. So if you know how to safely view an eclipse, you should be able to see the partial eclipse from much of the Western United States.

Update #2: Josh writes: “I was doing some online research and apparently http://events.slooh.com/ is doing some sort of broadcast of the eclipse from various locations along the line of annularity (via Huffington Post)”.

Link: http://www.hermit.org/…

We’ve all seen it in The Matrix, where Neo is able to download fighting skills. Well now researchers have found that this is actually possible, in a limited sense. They were able to transfer a skill by using neurofeedback on an unskilled brain so that the brain activity matched that of the skilled person.

Thanks to O.Roy for this link.

Link #1: http://www.fellowgeek.com/…

Link #2: http://www.popsci.com/…

Mining asteroids has long been a staple of science fiction. Now an effort is underway to make it a reality, by a company named Planetary Resources. Admittedly, the mining will take some years to actually occur, and the first asteroid will be smaller than 50 meters. And the asteroid won’t actually be from the asteroid field that’s between Mars and Jupiter. But still…. What I find interesting is that this is another example of technology solving our sustainability problems—asteroid mining has the potential to bolster the limited resources we have here on the planet Earth.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Many modern computer monitors have such a high resolution that things like icons and text are getting too small to read without reducing the overall resolution. And what’s the point of having a high-resolution monitor if you can’t use it at its maximum resolution? The situation is further complicated by the fact that today’s LCD monitors have a native resolution at which they look the best, and if you lower the resolution to make things larger, you may degrade the quality of what you see. Microsoft is aware of this issue and has created the DPI Scaling tool to fix it. The tool allows you to tell Windows to increase the size of text and graphical elements. The linked article explains it in more detail and gives instructions on how to use it under Windows 7, but DPI scaling is available as far back as Windows XP (it’s part of the advanced display settings).

Link: http://www.techrepublic.com/…

Global warming skeptics have brought up concerns about the rigor of studies showing a significant increase in global temperatures. Some critics have even accused researchers of purposely skewing the results. To set the record straight, Berkeley Earth set out to redo the various studies, this time with full scientific rigor and verifiability. Their conclusion is that the previous studies are accurate. I’m assuming this means that the “hockey stick” graph of global temperatures is correct.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…