6 browser tabs and 7 apps open…. ugh I’m all over the place!
April 10, 2009
April 1, 2009
March 25, 2009
Centrino Headphones Test
I just got my new centrino headphones today and have been testing them for a few hours now… Really comfortable and great sound quality…. Full review coming sometime next week as I test in different environments.
-Chad
March 20, 2009
What I Hope to Get for My Birthday
As you might know, my birthday is coming up in just a little more than a month. A few days ago I decided to come up with a little wish list full of tech things that I would like to review and/or use on an everyday basis. This is what I asked for:
- The New iPod Shuffle 4GB Model (Preferably Black). As soon as this was announced a few days ago I was dying to get my hands on it for a review. I also want it as sort of a backup iPod when my touch dies because of it’s low battery life. This is pretty high up on the priority list because of that.
- The New iMac 24″. I would love to have a mac for so many reasons. The iMac is perfect for me and it would make a great main machine..
- Logitech Illuminated Keyboard. For me, keyboards are a main tech item. I have to have a good keyboard that looks good on my desk, fits comfortably for hours of typing, and will stand up to the test of time. The Logitech Illuminated keyboard fits all these category’s perfectly. My 2 year old Dell keyboard is, I will admit, a very good keyboard. But I think that it’s time to put it into retirement.
- Logitech MX Laser Mouse. My current mouse is a 2001 Dell wired laser mouse and it has served me somewhat well. The scroll wheel constantly slips up and the laser isn’t as precise as it used to be. I also find that the ergonomics could be better. The $100 Logitech MX Mouse solves this. It is perfectly sculpted to fit the hands of pretty much anyone, and the laser stays perfectly tuned 8 years from now, as if it was straight out of the box. Love it.
- Logitech USB Desktop Microphone. As you might have seen from my videos, I use an old headset mic that’s missing it’s pop filter and with degrading quality. I think it’s time that I get something that has better quality and that I can sit on my desk. The Logitech USB Desktop Microphone seems like the perfect choice for me at a low price of $30.
- Mario Kart Wii. I am a casua gamer. Usually the only times I play games are when I have my friends/ family over where we play multiplayer games. So I have a lot of those kind of games. I think Mario Kart Wii would be a perfect addition to my collection and also a cool single-player game.
March 17, 2009
March 5, 2009
January 28, 2009
$77,000 Spent On HDTV’s For Prisoners
The Bay State’s hard-core killers, rapists and thieves will get to watch this Sunday’s Super Bowl on 117 brand-new high-definition flatscreen TVs purchased with the OK of state prison honchos, the Herald has learned.
The cash-strapped and over-crowded prison system spent a mind-boggling $76,958 for the swanky sets this month even as Gov. Deval Patrick moves to lay off state workers and slash local aid in the face of the worst financial meltdown in a generation.
Paid for with prisoner “canteen” funds, the state-of-the-art TVs are being installed in the common areas of all Department of Correction prisons this month in anticipation of the national digital TV transition, said DOC spokeswoman Diane Wiffin.
Worcester County Sheriff Guy Glodis was baffled by the lavish spending.
“It sends the wrong message when they’re asking sheriff offices throughout the state to cut at least a million out of our budget,” said Glodis, who recently removed TVs from the Worcester County House of Correction. “I would argue there are other things you can spend the money on that are more conducive to rehabilitation.”
The new TVs outraged even inmate advocates.
“What are they thinking?” asked Leslie Walker, director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, noting that many inmates already have TVs in their cells.
Walker said the massive purchase exemplifies the need for greater oversight of the DOC. Rep. Kay Khan (D-Newton) has proposed a commission to monitor spending and other DOC matters.
The DOC convened a committee in December 2007 to study the transition from analog to digital TV, Wiffin said. That committee, which included prison officials, decided to purchase new TVs in lieu of digital converter boxes, Wiffin said. A DOC source said converter boxes, which run fom $40 to $80 a piece, were made available to inmates for their in-cell televisions.
The DOC purchased two types of flat-screens – a 32-inch LG brand plasma and a 26-inch Sharp LCD. While the price of each model was unclear, the total cost put the average at $649.
Wiffin, however, called the TVs “modest” and stressed they were not bought on the taxpayers’ dime.
Canteen money is raised by prisoner purchases of items such as toiletries and food, the proceeds of which go into a fund to benefit inmates. At any given time the account can contain up to $800,000, Wiffin said. Purchases of more than $1,000 require approval by top DOC officials.
The state, meanwhile, is struggling to close a whopping $2.5 billion shortfall in this year’s budget – and could face a seismic $4 billion gap in next year’s spending plan.
Said Steve Kenneway, president of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union, “I think you can find a better use for $77,000 than to go out and buy TVs for guys who are used to stealing them.”
January 25, 2009
Writer’s Block
hey everyone, I just wanted to let all my blog folowers out there know that I’m taking sort of a break from blogging and just doing videos for a bit.
New episodes come out every Sunday.
January 15, 2009
Saturn: The Big Ringed Planet (School Essay)
Here’s an essay I did for school.
Saturn: The Big Ringed Planet
By Chad Thompson
You all probably know of Saturn, the big ringed planet. But there is a lot more about Saturn then what meets the eye…
Saturn is a really big planet, and I mean a REALLY big planet. It is the second biggest planet of them all (The first one being Jupiter) with a huge diameter of 60 268 kilometers. That’s nine times the diameter of Earth! Also, Saturn has a volume of 8.2713×1014 which means that if Saturn was hollow, you could put over 750 Earths inside it!
To the left is a rough comparison of Saturn and Earth. (Picture is created by NASA, not me)
Although Saturn is big, it is composed of entirely gas and has no stable (solid) surfaces Inside. So that means that if you tried to land a spacecraft on it, you would sink right through! Saturn also is the least dense planet in the solar system, less dense than water! (Water has a density of 0.997 g/cm3 and Saturn has a density of just 0.687 g/cm³) So that means that if you had a body of water big enough, Saturn would float on it!
Another NASA image not owned by me. This has nothing to do with science by the way.
Because of Saturn’s immense size, it has a stronger gravitational pull than most other planets do. Gravitational pull is an invisible force that attracts all nearby objects towards it. Think of it as a huge magnet out in space, pulling objects towards it. An example of this would be Earth’s moon; a long time ago, the Earth’s gravity snagged the Moon as it made a flyby of our planet and kept it rotating there for the past couple billion years or so. Now in Saturn’s case, instead of one lonely moon being trapped there, there are about 31 moon’s orbiting Saturn that we know of.
Or maybe this will explain more…..
Now, Saturn is no tropical paradise. If you were to live in the outer atmosphere of Saturn, you’d freeze! This is because Saturn is so far away from the sun (1.3 billion kilometers) that the sun’s rays aren’t as strong, so there’s less heat. However, if you lived inside the thick atmosphere, you would find it scorching hot! The temperature at the core can reach up to 11732 degree Celsius (21150 degree Fahrenheit)! This is because Saturn’s dense atmosphere acts like a blanket; trapping the Sun’s heat and building it up.
Now, of course you can’t have a good essay on Saturn without a few paragraphs dedicated to the famous rings of Saturn. So, most people have no idea what Saturn’s rings are made up of or how they came to be. Well, the rings appear to be solid when viewed from a distance but actually if you get closer you start to see that instead of one big chunk of…something making up the rings, it is actually made up of millions of asteroids and other space debris floating around in a continuous circle. How did this come to be, though? Well, back billions of years ago when the solar system was still young there was a lot of rocks and other junk floating around; some became part of the asteroid belt which is stationed between Mars and Jupiter, some floated off into deep space, some became moons and some, or should I say a lot, became part of Saturn’s rings.
Did you know that Saturn has more than one ring? It looks like it, but actually Saturn’s “ring” has multiple layers of rings, each layer a couple thousand km from each other. The layer that has distanced itself the most from the rest of the pack is called the Cassini division. This layer is almost 5 thousand kilometers from it’s neighbors.
Now I have no idea how much you know about Saturn or any other planet in the solar system. But I hope that you found this article interesting and learned something neat. So now you can go tell your friends that Saturn can float on water even though it is the second biggest planet in the solar system. Or you can tell them about Saturn’s rings and how they are made up of millions of pieces of space junk. Or you can write an article about Saturn yourself! Just make sure to give me credit J
January 10, 2009
Join the Forums!
Hey everyone,
I would like to invite everyone here to come on and join the forums on our site! I am the only user so far and I would like to have some more. Some things you should know before I post the link. After you sign up, the confirmation email may take up to a day to come and might end up in your spam or junk filter. So check those often.
Now, heres the link:
http://www.techtalkwithchad.co.nr/forums.htm
