Chad's News

Apostrophes For Dummies

Chad Cloman — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:37:02 +0000

Aside from confusion between “their,” “they’re,” and “there,” the apostrophe is one of the most misused grammar/spelling items on the internet (and elsewhere). We even have problems with it here at Chad’s News, despite all those English courses taken in high school and college. The linked article explains the correct usage in a simple and straightforward way.

Link: http://apostrophe.me/
(via Neatorama)

Amazon Adds MySQL Interface To The Cloud

Chad Cloman — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:16:55 +0000

Amazon has added MySQL database functionality to its growing list of cloud-based web services. This could be useful, as you wouldn’t have to migrate your database when you move to a new web hosting company, and upgrading database servers would be a thing of the past. I’m not sure how well it works performance-wise, and there are potential security issues if you’re storing sensitive information. Also, there’s always the possibility that the service will suffer outages that could bring down your operations. So I’m not sure this service will be heavily utilized.

Link: http://aws.amazon.com/…
(via Slashdot)

When the Cloud Evaporates

GPS Puzzle Box

Chad Cloman — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:44:16 +0000

Here’s an interesting concept: a GPS-aware box that will only unlock when it’s at a specific location. It includes a button that, when pressed, tells you the distance to that location. Even though it would only take three readings to get a rough estimate of the location, I still think it’s a neat idea.

Link: http://arduiniana.org/…
(via engadget)

California State Gov’t Devises Method To Get Blood From Turnips

Chad Cloman — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:09:27 +0000

Astute Chad’s News readers already know that the State of California has severe financial problems, and that its politicians are desperately looking for ways to make ends meet. Their latest idea is to increase tax withholding by about 10 percent. Note that they’re not actually increasing the tax rate, just the amount that is withheld by employers. In essence, this forces California citizens to give short-term, interest-free loans to the state.

Here in Colorado, our finances, while a bit strained, are not even close to being as bad as California’s—primarily because of the TABOR amendment which put serious curbs on the expansion of government spending.

Thanks to Ciro for this link.

Link: http://www.latimes.com/business/…

The “Evil Maid” Attack

Chad Cloman — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:23:17 +0000

So you’ve protected your laptop by encrypting the hard drive. Are you safe? Not if you leave it in your hotel room where an “evil maid” can access it. All the maid has to do is boot the machine from an external drive (or even a CD), then overwrite your boot loader. This is yet another example of why physical security is so important.

Link: http://it.slashdot.org/story/…

Having Two Computer Monitors Is So Last Week

Chad Cloman — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:06:27 +0000

I remember when having 8MB of RAM on a graphics card was a big deal. But Matrox has just announced the M1988 PCIe x16, which supports eight monitors and has 2GB of memory. Not for the faint of heart, but imagine what you could do with such a system.

Link: http://hothardware.com/…
(via engadget)

Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup Put To The Test

Chad Cloman — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:00:06 +0000

Campbell’s has embarked upon an advertising campaign that claims each can of its chicken noodle soup has 32 feet of noodles. A Seattle TV reporter put it to the test, on a football field no less! The linked video shows the result.

Link: http://www.king5.com/…
(via The Consumerist)

Placebo Effect Isn’t Just In The Head

Chad Cloman — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:40:36 +0000

Researchers have shown that there is a physical basis to the placebo effect. They measured pain-related nerve activity in the spinal cord and found that it vanished when a placebo was used.

Link: http://www.newscientist.com/…

Security Vulnerability in Adobe Shockwave Player

Chad Cloman — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:06:42 +0000

A critical security issue has been identified in the free Adobe Shockwave Player used by many web browsers. Adobe recommends installing the latest version (11.5.2.602). Since the Shockwave Player is not something that’s automatically updated or even checked for the need to update, you’ll have to do it manually. Note also that it may be necessary to perform the install multiple times, as there are different installers depending on which browser you use to download the software. Yes, really. But I think you only need to do it twice, once for Internet Explorer and once for everything else (on a Windows system).

Link: http://it.slashdot.org/…

A Thermite Weld in Action

Chad Cloman — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:34:51 +0000

The linked videos are parts 1 and 2 of a pseudo-documentary where rail workers perform a “complete thermite weld” to connect train tracks. I was a bit surprised by the lack of safety equipment—the workers were manipulating molten metal in short-sleeve shirts. And the guy was pretty nonplussed when the handle of his sledgehammer caught on fire.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/…
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/…
(via Neatorama)

Perceptual Blindness

You Can Disable JavaScript?

Chad Cloman — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:14:37 +0000

Long-term Chad’s News readers may recall this article, where a website was destroyed during a Google scan because the Google crawler doesn’t process JavaScript. And Firefox power users may be aware of the NoScript extension, which disables JavaScript for all websites by default (and which frequently shows up on “Top 10 Essential Add-ons” lists).

With all this in mind, you’d think web developers would know better than to design security measures that rely on JavaScript being enabled. But apparently not. Time Warner Cable distributed 65,000 cable modems that allow users to perform simple administrative functions via a web page interface. Advanced controls are hidden from the user, but they’re hidden via JavaScript. Disable scripting and poof! it’s a few easy steps to get the modem’s login credentials. To make matters worse, all 65,000 modems have the same username and password. Thus, a malicious hacker can reconfigure people’s modems from anywhere on the internet. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

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

Daylight Saving Time Tonight

Chad Cloman — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:55:59 +0000

For the United States, tonight is when we “fall back” one hour and end daylight saving time.