Chad's News

Here’s a trillion dollars put into perspective. And keep in mind these are $100 bills they’re using.

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

The linked article has some interesting facts about Dr. Seuss. For instance, he’s credited as the first person to use the word “nerd” in an English-language publication.

Link: http://www.mentalfloss.com/…

When Google released Chrome into an already saturated browser market, I seriously questioned their decision. Turns out one of the reasons was to speed up JavaScript, the language behind many of today’s most popular websites. By making their JavaScript engine so much faster, Google essentially forced other browser companies to follow suit.

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

From the article: “Printing the [New York Times] costs twice as much as sending every subscriber a free Kindle.” This sounds great, but I’ve heard there are problems with the pricing of books—specifically that the Kindle version sometimes costs more than the paperback version. Does anyone have any experience with a Kindle? If so, let us know in the comments.

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

The linked article details the story of Phillipe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the World Trade Center towers in New York. It took quite a bit of planning and deception. Among other things, he smuggled a 450-pound steel cable to the top of one tower. To string the wire, they used a bow and arrow with fishing line attached, then sent across progressively larger ropes. One witness said Petit was jumping up and down—that his feet were actually leaving the wire. That’s pretty impressive considering a fall would have been fatal.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/…

Here’s an interesting theory that goes against modern conventional wisdom. Boys are naturally inclined towards a certain amount of aggressive behavior, and violent video games are good outlets for it. Moreover this natural aggression is normal and healthy, and if suppressed, can hinder a boy’s development.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Why go to all the hassle of a dual- or triple-boot system when you can mechanically switch between hard drives? The linked article explains how to build the switch—or you can purchase one from the article’s author. One caveat: do not swap drives while the computer is powered on. Ever.

Link: http://www.thesataswitch.com/
(via Lifehacker)

This was discussed on a local radio station. As part of the annexation of Texas into the United States, Texas was allowed the option of dividing itself into smaller states at an unspecified future date. As the linked article notes, however, any state can split up, provided it follows proper procedures.

Link: http://www.snopes.com/…

Here at the Chad’s News network command center, we’re always exploiting new technology in our never-ending quest to serve up interesting content. So we now have a version of the site formatted for mobile devices. Mobile users are automatically detected and redirected to the alternate site (via mofuse).

Try it out and let me know how it works.

Microsoft is working on technology where your fingers do the walking on the back of the device, thus leaving more space on the front for actually displaying stuff. It sounds promising.

Link: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/…
(via Kim Komando)

Just a reminder that this weekend is Daylight Saving Time in the US. Turn your clocks forward one hour on Saturday night/Sunday morning.

The folks at D-Wave Systems have done it again, this time with a 128-qubit quantum computer. The chip still needs testing to verify that it works as intended, but this is a big deal. Forget about securing your super-sensitive data with public key encryption—in another few years it’ll be trivial to crack.

Link: http://www.newscientist.com/…