News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
Regular Chad’s New readers already know about the upcoming broadcast television switch from analog to digital. The linked article has a handy flowchart that you can send to friends or family members, telling them what they need to do. Note: if you need to purchase a converter box then you should probably order the discount coupons now, or you may not get them in time for the switch.
Link: http://consumerist.com/…
Church tax? Politicians specifying who can attend mass? Thank God for the Bill of Rights.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/…
The linked article covers several theories on the astronomical basis of the Star of Bethlehem. The conjunction of Venus and Jupiter was just recently announced and is my favorite, especially since the period between the major conjunctions was 9 months.
Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/…
I’ve read about organized copper theft in third-world countries, but now it’s made it’s way to the United States. Fortunately there is some amount of natural selection going on.
Link: http://www.networkworld.com/…
(via Slashdot)
The linked video footage shows the path of the airplane that veered off the runway and burst into flames on Saturday. Note the building that it narrowly missed—which happens to be a fire station. Apparently the quick fire response was a significant factor in everyone safely exiting the burning plane.
Link: http://www.truveo.com/…
Chad’s News previously mentioned the DNS security hole now known as the Kaminsky Bug. The linked article has more information about the discovery and revelation of the bug.
Link: http://www.wired.com/…
(via Slashdot)
We’ve all seen it, that iconic picture of a migrant worker and her children facing the reality of the Great Depression. The linked article has an interview with one of the children, who is still alive today.
Link: http://www.cnn.com/…
(via digg)
The ultimate gift for the geek in your life.
Link: http://dsc.discovery.com/…
(via Bureau 42)
First colony collapse disorder and now this.
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
(via Slashdot)
The internet was designed to be decentralized, error-tolerant, and highly variable in how it could route packets from one computer to another. According to Wikipedia, the “internet backbone” is “made up of a large collection of interconnected commercial, government, academic and other high-capacity data routes and core routers that carry data across the countries, continents and oceans of the world.” The internet doesn’t have a backbone in the traditional sense; rather, it’s more like a spider web. Many of the connections referenced in the Wikipedia definition are between major service providers who have cooperative agreements (I’ll carry your traffic if you’ll carry mine). The linked article explains what happens when one of those agreements breaks down, and gives insight into just how fragile the internet can be.
Link: http://www.forbes.com/…
(via digg)
Kim Komando explains why you probably don’t need more than 3GB of RAM for a standard 32-bit Windows machine. In the old days, video cards had to manage with the 384KB of memory space between 640KB and 1MB. Now some use half of the 4GB space defined in 32-bit systems. She also predicts that we’re going to see 64-bit computers become more popular—especially for gamers with cutting-edge video cards.
Link: http://komando.com/…
At the level of quantum vacuum (or quantum foam), elementary particles just pop into and out of existence from nothing. But it turns out that these “virtual” particles comprise the majority of what we know as matter. Note also that some theorists believe the Big Bang, and the existence of space and time, came from a similar sort of quantum fluctuation.
Link: http://www.newscientist.com/…
(via naacal)
