Check It Out

Links to cool places or things.

There are 1,530 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 105 of 153).

Raleigh’s startup opportunity

The Atlantic Monthly takes a peek at Durham’s startup efforts:

Durham is a fascinating example of what happens when a community bands together to try to attract entrepreneurs. They’ve set up all the mechanisms and institutions to foster innovation and now they’re waiting to see if startup culture can take root. The city itself has “great bones,” as they say, with a dense downtown core filled with beautiful old-timey architecture. They even have some inspiring local business history to draw on. Durham was once known as “The Black Wall Street” because of the preponderance of successful African American-owned businesses on Parrish Street.

As I said before, Raleigh needs to get into the startup game pronto or face being forever branded as LawyerTown.

Dennis Ritchie, 1941-2011

Dennis Ritchie, legendary creator of the C programming language and co-inventor of the best operating system ever (UNIX), died earlier this week. He was 70.

Ritchie was every bit as influential as Steve Jobs in shaping our computing world. Perhaps even more influential than Jobs.

Dennis Ritchie, creator of the C programming language and co-creator of the Unix operating system, has died aged 70.

While the introduction of Intel’s 4004 microprocessor in 1971 is widely regarded as a key moment in modern computing, the contemporaneous birth of the C programming language is less well known. Yet the creation of C has as much claim, if not more, to be the true seminal moment of IT as we know it; it sits at the heart of programming — and in the hearts of programmers — as the quintessential expression of coding elegance, power, simplicity and portability.

Its inventor, Dennis Ritchie, whose death after a long illness was reported on Wednesday and confirmed on Thursday by Bell Labs, similarly embodied a unique yet admirable approach to systems design: a man with a lifelong focus on making software that satisfied the intellect while freeing programmers to create their dreams.

via Dennis Ritchie, father of Unix and C, dies

Political, not principled, stand on gay marriage

The Charlotte Observer rightfully takes Gov. Perdue to task for her mealy-mouthed stand on the marriage amendment.

Yes, jobs are important but so is taking a principled stand against constitutional bigotry.

In a press release late last Friday afternoon, Perdue said she’d vote against the amendment. No, not because she supports gay marriage but because “I cannot in good conscience look an unemployed man or woman in the eye and tell them that this amendment is more important than finding them a job.”

We agree that this ill-advised constitutional amendment could hurt the state economically, deterring good businesses and workers from locating in North Carolina. Some N.C. business leaders have begun belatedly speaking out on that issue.

But the governor missed a chance to stand up against the amendment for a bigger reason: The amendment is discriminatory. Her johnny-come-lately assertion came across as spineless and political.

via Political, not principled, stand on gay marriage | CharlotteObserver.com & The Charlotte Observer Newspaper.

Google search-by-image

Because I love to see where my public-domain photo of Raleigh will show up next, I decided to give Google’s new search-by-image service a test drive. I uploaded a small size of my pic and lo and behold, Google provided me many, many search results showing where my photo is being used.

So far that’s ABC11 (WTVD), NBC 17 (WNCN), the City of Raleigh (who Photoshopped a light pole out of it!), MSNBC, Business Week, Yahoo! Finance, several local businesses including Four Points Sheraton in Cary, Allied movers, Signs By Tomorrow, and several real estate companies and taxi companies among many, many others. Good to see how far it’s traveled!

Magic Mushrooms Can Bring About Lasting Personality Changes

Interesting.

Taking magic mushrooms (psilocybin) can have a lasting change on the individual’s personality, making them more open about their feelings and the way they perceive things, researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA, wrote in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. The authors explained that those who had mystic experiences while on psilocybin were more likely to subsequently exhibit certain personality changes, making them more forthcoming about their feelings, becoming more focused on being creative, curious, and appreciative about artistic things.

via Magic Mushrooms Can Bring About Lasting Personality Changes.

Neutrino particle traveling faster than light?

Every now and then, a scientific discovery delivers to us smug mortals a healthy kick in the head: reminding us that for all our bravado we still don’t know squat about how the universe really works!

Neutrino particle traveling faster than light? Two ways it could rewrite physics.

European scientists are shocked by an experiment that showed neutrino particles moving faster than light. The result, if confirmed, could challenge Einstein’s signature theory on relativity or point to a universe of more than four dimensions.

via Neutrino particle traveling faster than light? Two ways it could rewrite physics. – CSMonitor.com.

Raleigh #1 Best City in Businessweek.com ranking

Businessweek.com ranked Raleigh the #1 Best City in America. It’s just one more in a long list of accolades for my city.

I had to laugh when the article referenced Raleigh’s “attractive pedestrian mall” downtown, siting an obviously outdated city bio in Frommer’s. We got rid of that concrete abomination back in 2006.

Businessweek.com spent months working with data that would help us to identify the best cities in the U.S. We looked at a range of positive metrics around quality of life, counted up restaurants, evaluated school scores, and considered the number of colleges and pro sports teams. All these factors and more add up to a city that would seem to offer it all. When we began the process we had no idea which cities would come out on top. The winner? Raleigh, N.C.

via Which Is America’s Best City? – Businessweek.com.

Update 5:21 PM: Businessweek.com has since removed the reference to Raleigh’s defunct pedestrian mall. Now the only remaining questions are where are the 51 museums, 867 restaurants, and 110 bars cited in the story? Can anyone name them all? I think those stats might apply to a wider area than just Raleigh, though I’d be surprised if even the entire Triangle had 867 restaurants.

Eliza Greenough


Congratulations to my friends Erin and Scott Greenough on the birth of their beautiful daughter, Eliza!

Music to a parent’s ears

Yesterday, Kelly met with the kids’ teachers and got feedback on their performance thus far in the school year. Hallie’s teacher took note that she is “a very strong leader.” Travis’s teacher told Kelly “I love having him in my class. I wish I could clone him.”

If I get nothing else accomplished in this world, I will be happy to have helped raise two outstanding kids.

What should the White House do? Panic!

Here’s a CNN op-ed by James Carville. I think he’s on to something.

As I watch the Republican debates, I realize that we are on the brink of a crazy person running our nation. I sit in front of the television and shudder at the thought of one of these creationism-loving, global-warming-denying, immigration-bashing, Social-Security-cutting, clean-air-hating, mortality-fascinated, Wall-Street-protecting Republicans running my country.

The course we are on is not working. The hour is late, and the need is great. Fire. Indict. Fight.

via What should the White House do? Panic! – CNN.com.