Check It Out

Links to cool places or things.

There are 1,524 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 103 of 153).

How to shoot down an F-117 – lessons from the Serbian war

I had heard rumors of this before but this is the first time I’ve learned the details of how the Serbs defeated America’s stealth and cruise-missile technologies.

The myth of a push-button war grows smaller each day.

The Serbian battery commander, whose missiles downed an American F-16, and, most impressively, an F-117, in 1999, has retired, as a colonel, and revealed many of the techniques he used to achieve all this.

Colonel Dani Zoltan, in 1999, commanded the 3rd battery of the 250th Missile Brigade. He had search and control radars, as well as a TV tracking unit. The battery had four quad launchers for the 21 foot long, 880 pound SA-3 missiles.

The list of measures he took, and the results he got, should be warning to any who believe that superior technology alone will provide a decisive edge in combat. People still make a big difference. In addition to shooting down two aircraft, Zoltan’s battery caused dozens of others to abort their bombing missions to escape his unexpectedly accurate missiles. This is how he did it.

via Military Technology / Videos | How to shoot down an F-117 – lessons from the Serbian war | Military technology and military videos.

Leaders need to tap into creative thinkers

Terry Sanford

I disagree. What we need to ask ourselves is, where are our own Terry Sanfords? Where are the leaders who are willing to take risks?

It was a pattern that [Terry] Sanford repeated for the rest of his career: surround himself with people who thought differently than he did, make time to listen to their ideas and line up the resources to follow through when their suggestions seemed worth the gamble. It all sounds pretty straightforward. And yet, too many leaders and organizations today do exactly the opposite, preferring the security of familiar notions, little ambiguity and minimal risk.

Now is not the time for status-quo thinking.

As we look to infuse fresh perspective into our state, communities and organizations, we should be asking ourselves this: Where are our own John Ehles?

via Leaders need to tap into creative thinkers – Doing Better at Doing Good – NewsObserver.com.

UC Davis pepper spray gets snarky Amazon reviews

Now this is funny. I always love the snarky Amazon product reviews, this time focusing on the pepper spray used on the UC Davis kids on Friday.

Amazon sells the type of Defense Technology police-grade pepper spray reportedly used on the UC Davis protesters. Customer reviews of the product are now dominated by snarky comments about the campus incident.

“Accept no substitutes when casually repressing students,” is the title of one review posted Monday.

via UC-Davis | Pepper-Spray | Amazon | The Daily Caller.

Pullen Pike

Things got a little out of hand at Saturday’s Pullen Park Grand Opening.

Raleigh wants a startup spark

Raleigh is building a startup environment. Software company CEO Josh Whiton gets it:

But the talent is too spread out around the city, says Josh Whiton, the 31-year-old CEO of TransLoc, a software company next to downtown’s Moore Square that makes web sites and apps for mass transit systems.

“We’ve got a lot of good companies, but they’re miles apart from each other,” Whiton said. “There’s not the serendipitous running into each other when you go to the coffee shop.”

“Durham has that concentration. That’s what Raleigh needs.”

It’s not a stretch to say I’ve worked for more startup companies than just about anyone. And Whiton is right on the money. This is what Raleigh needs to focus on with its entrepreneurial efforts: creating a startup scene. It’s all about those serendipitous meetings. Foster that feeling and success will follow.

What it takes to accomplish this is essentially what it takes to make any kind of development take place in the city: it all starts with staking a flag someplace, so to speak. Find a part of town that offers the “raw materials” that might make for interesting work places. Look for a place with “good bones,” as the real estate industry calls it. Then designate this place as the startup area and sell it with PR. It helps to attract an “anchor tenant,” which for Raleigh might be Red Hat.

Then wait. And wait. Then wait some more. And commit to nurture it with whatever it needs. Listen to the companies there to see what it might need. Look around for any good ideas being implemented in other places.

Like Whiton said, there are plenty of successful startups born here in Raleigh. We’ve got a great foundation. Now we just need to focus this activity in one area and help it grow!

via Raleigh wants a startup spark – Local/State – NewsObserver.com.

Time for OWS to embrace the co-op movement?

An op-ed on Al Jazeera looks at how the Occupy Wall Street movement could revive interest in cooperative businesses.

Head into Liberty Plaza in Lower Manhattan, and one is immediately struck by the self-governing nature of the “Occupy” encampment.

A community which adheres to non-hierarchical decision making, Occupy conducts General Assembly meetings which are transparent and open to the public. Meals too are prepared communally, and there’s even a public library. On the other hand, it’s not as if Occupy is putting novel ideas into practice, since the encampment harks back historically to the co-operative movement.

via Time for OWS to embrace the co-op movement? – Opinion – Al Jazeera English.

The other side of town: Southeast Raleigh’s problems and promise

The Independent’s Bob Geary takes a good, in-depth look at Southeast Raleigh.

It’s Sunday morning and I’m on my way to Martin Street Baptist Church in Southeast Raleigh. For two years, it’s been the high ground in the political fight for control of the Wake County school system: the church, as a gathering place for the defenders of diversity; and Southeast Raleigh, the historically black area of the city and the county with all its problems and its promise.

via The other side of town: Southeast Raleigh’s problems and promise | News Feature | Independent Weekly.

Americans Work Too Much for Their Own Good

This is a compelling op-ed on Bloomburg.com. American companies are way too stingy with vacation time! I’ve worked at a few companies that offered three weeks of vacation and it was heavenly. I’ve worked at others where you feel lucky to get two weeks.

Sooner or later, more American companies will learn that they don’t get more productive workers by keeping their noses to the grindstone.

By the mid-1970s, and especially after 1980, median wages weren’t keeping pace with increases in our capacity to produce. But flattening incomes didn’t derail the consumption train. Americans continued to buy more, in part by going deeper into debt, by having more members of the family enter the workforce and by working additional overtime. By the boom times of the late 1990s, Americans worked more than the notoriously workaholic Japanese.

The Europeans took a different path. In the second half of the 20th century, prodded by strong and active labor movements and social-democratic political parties, Europeans took a large chunk of their productivity gains in the form of more leisure. They now work only 80 to 85 percent as many hours as Americans, and when you consider that fewer people in Europe work and that they retire earlier, the difference is even greater.

via Americans Work Too Much for Their Own Good: de Graaf and Batker – Bloomberg.

The 100 Up Exercise

Here’s more on the 100 Up running exercise that the New York Times Magazine discussed. The video below is helpful to see what the proper technique is.

The 100 Up exercise, which McDougall is touting as a surefire technique for training away these bad habits, is actually an incredibly old invention of a long dead English chemist apprentice. Since he was English, in this case being a chemist probably refers to a pharmacist. W.S. George developed his exercise pattern so that he could train for running even while busy at work all day. The technique was apparently quite successful, as George went on to achieve world record times in several short and middle distance races.

via The 100 Up Exercise: Method for Training Barefoot Running Form | Naturally Engineered.