Check It Out

Links to cool places or things.

There are 1,530 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 103 of 153).

U.S. Restricts Firm for Web Filter Sale to Syria – WSJ.com

I saw this story and it reminded me of an opportunity I recently turned down to help sell Internet-monitoring gear to a friendly Arab country. The folks involved were nice and the deal was said to be brokered by the Department of State. Among other things, I had reservations about my work possibly preventing an “Arab Spring”-type event, preventing a people from obtaining their rights.

The Department of Commerce is placing restrictions on a person and a company in the United Arab Emirates for supplying Syria with Internet-filtering devices made by California-based Blue Coat Systems Inc.

On Thursday, Commerce said it put Waseem Jawad and the Ras Al Khaimah-based company Info Tech, also known as Infotec, on a list of people and institutions determined to “have engaged in activities contrary to U.S. national security and/or foreign policy interests.”

The measure restricts Mr. Jawad and Info Tech from receiving or transferring items that fall under U.S. export controls.

via U.S. Restricts Firm for Web Filter Sale to Syria – WSJ.com.

Proof that good things come back to you

That looks familiar . . .


At tonight’s meeting of Raleigh’s Parks board, we were given nice Tervis plastic mugs as a token of the city’s gratitude for our service. As I was leaving tonight’s holiday meeting, I burst out laughing to discover that the picture adorning the mug is my public domain picture of Raleigh!

Out of all the unexpected places to see my photo, this one really cracked me up! I never expected to be handed my own photograph as a gift!

The mug has the North Carolina League of Municipalities’s name on it. I’m guessing the League asked cities to submit photographs of their city for their respective mugs, because the photo on the mug is apparently the one that Raleigh’s public affairs department has retouched to remove a street lamp and a crane.

It gave me a good laugh!

The Right (and Wrong) Way to Die When You Fall Into Lava

Wired examines what happens when you fall into lava. Science proves the movies wrong. Yay, science!

At first, it seemed like an easy question. Well, not so much easy as obvious: yes. However, the more I thought about it, the more I though that pretty much every scene I’ve ever noticed where somebody falls into lava and dies has got to be wrong. Some are just straight out obvious to explain — like in Volcano when the subway maintenance director jumps from the subway car that is being inundated by lava after he saved the unconscious subway driver. The guy jumps from the subway, but not far enough to miss landing in maybe 6 inches of basaltic lava and he proceeds to more or less melt away into the lava like the Wicked Witch of the West. Not likely. Maybe some very severe burns, maybe lost feet (think Darth Vader), but no wholesale melting like that.

However, the death of Gollum at the end of Return of the King got me thinking. Gollum, if you remember, dove into the lava of Mount Doom after his precious ring was thrown in — he proceeds to sink into the lava (see below) and leaves the ring floating on the lava until it melts away. Guess what? Sinking into lava just will not happen if you’re a human (or remotely human). You’d need to be a Terminator to sink into molten rock/metal … and here’s why.

via The Right (and Wrong) Way to Die When You Fall Into Lava | Wired Science | Wired.com.

What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447

Popular Mechanics published and translated a partial transcript of the cockpit voice recorders of the doomed flight Air France 447. As the flight data recorders indicated, one of the pilots was pushing the nose up the entire time the stall took place. The voice recorder does not indicate why the first officer made this simple but tragic mistake, however. It simply indicates the level of confusion in the cockpit, and the unfortunate fact that the other two pilots realized the error far too late.

We now understand that, indeed, AF447 passed into clouds associated with a large system of thunderstorms, its speed sensors became iced over, and the autopilot disengaged. In the ensuing confusion, the pilots lost control of the airplane because they reacted incorrectly to the loss of instrumentation and then seemed unable to comprehend the nature of the problems they had caused. Neither weather nor malfunction doomed AF447, nor a complex chain of error, but a simple but persistent mistake on the part of one of the pilots.

Human judgments, of course, are never made in a vacuum. Pilots are part of a complex system that can either increase or reduce the probability that they will make a mistake. After this accident, the million-dollar question is whether training, instrumentation, and cockpit procedures can be modified all around the world so that no one will ever make this mistake again—or whether the inclusion of the human element will always entail the possibility of a catastrophic outcome. After all, the men who crashed AF447 were three highly trained pilots flying for one of the most prestigious fleets in the world. If they could fly a perfectly good plane into the ocean, then what airline could plausibly say, “Our pilots would never do that”?

via Air France 447 Flight-Data Recorder Transcript – What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 – Popular Mechanics.

Congress about to undermine our basic constitutional rights

I’ve said again and again, if people like Jose Padilla, a U.S. Citizen accused of terrorism, are truly as evil as the government says they are, then put them on trial and prove it. Padilla did finally get a trial, by the way, but not until he spent years without trial in solitary confinement in a sensory-depravation situation – destroying his personality, according to psychologists.

Apparently Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and other senators believe the government can ignore the U.S. Constitution and detain U.S. citizens indefinitely without trial – for life!

So much for liberty, folks.

Should the U.S. military be given the power to arrest U.S. citizens, here on U.S. soil, and to detain those citizens indefinitely in military prisons, without access to legal counsel or due process, and without trial in civilian court?

The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights say hell no. Holding U.S. citizens in military prisons without right to trial or counsel? Really?

Centuries of American liberty also say hell no. The CIA, FBI and the entire U.S. intelligence system say no, as does the military. They do not want the power to arrest and detain U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, and any legitimate reading of our nation’s traditions, beliefs and founding documents says they should never have it. It is antithetical to a free people.

Yet a majority of the U.S. House and Senate says otherwise. Despite a stern veto threat by President Obama, Congress is about to pass such language into federal law as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. I hope and pray that Obama has the guts to carry out his veto threat, and I hope freedom-loving Americans of all ideologies rally to support him in that cause.

via Congress about to undermine our basic constitutional rights | Jay Bookman.

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.