Check It Out

Links to cool places or things.

There are 1,530 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 110 of 153).

Watch Lent Carr tell whoppers

I’ve been watching the raw video of Carr’s interview and my bullshit detectors have flat out exploded. Watch about 8:38 into the interview when he discusses his current job as a “Business Development Specialist” at Allstate Insurance and spends the next few seconds mumbling phrases about policies. Carr tap-danced around that question like Miss Teen South Carolina Caitlin Upton did. Nowhere on his LinkedIn profile (which is mostly fiction, granted) does he mention working for Allstate. Nor do any Google searches turn up any hits linking him with Allstate.

The guy isn’t simply a liar, he’s a pathological liar. It makes me feel sorry for him.

To My Third Grade Class

It’s posts like this that make me wonder what it would be like to be a teacher:

To My Third Grade Class
We have 30 days left together. You don’t realize this yet – You are just eight years old and the only thing you count down to is Christmas. You are living for Soccer at recess, Spelling games, and Art on Fridays. You live for computer class free time and the moment you can multiply 6×7. That’s one one of my favorite things about you- you are too busy filling up today to worry about tomorrow.

This was written by an online acquaintance whom I’ve never really met but I read her blog because I love her writing. The post also reminds me of how quickly our own kids are growing, and how fleeting childhood (and life) really is.

Javascript-based PC emulator

Fabrice Bellard, the author of the open source, VMware-like QEMU emulator I use every day, has written a virtual PC that runs entirely in Javascript called JSLinux. Geeky? Yes. Practical? No, but give the man points for being a world-class hacker!

Fabrice Bellard has written a 32 bit x86 emulator in Javascript — in plain English, he’s created a virtual PC that runs inside your browser, using Javascript. And then of course, he created a GNU/Linux variant that can run inside it — so you can run a full-featured PC inside your browser.

via Javascript-based PC emulator, running GNU/Linux – Boing Boing.

That old neighborhood feeling

The neighborhood near mine (which I sometimes claim), Belevidere Park, was mentioned in today’s paper as being a friendly one. It’s great to see stories like these!

When author Peter Lovenheim came through town two weeks ago, he informed a rapt audience of 200 that interactions between neighbors are down 50 percent since the 1950s. But in a city with an entire department that devotes much of its resources to neighborhood connection, some in Lovenheim’s audience felt that Raleigh largely bucks that trend. After all, last month’s tornado gave evidence that Raleigh’s neighborhoods are plenty strong as neighbor turned out to support neighbor.

via That old neighborhood feeling – News – MidtownRaleighNews.com.

Kegbot

I was talking to another geek in the neighborhood last night who was telling me about this interesting idea that appeals to geek beer fans: the Kegbot. He had been at a friend’s party where the Kegbot was used to track who had been drinking what, with charts generated on the web for bragging rights purposes.

According to the project website:

Kegbot is a free, open-source project to turn your beer kegerator into a computerized drink tracker. With Kegbot and our Arduino firmware, you can:

* Monitor exactly how much beer is left in your kegs and track the temperature;
* Record the volume of each and every pour;
* Set up user accounts to track who is drinking, how much, and all sorts of other nutty statistics;
* Use special keys (tokens, RFID tags, barcodes) to authenticate your kegerator users;
* Control access to your taps (with special valve hardware) to prevent unauthorized pours;

Many of my computer-geek friends are also beer geeks, so this scratches two itches for them. I look forward to encountering my first Kegbot and trying this for myself!

Crackdown reins in Bahrain activists

Nowhere will America’s commitment to democracy be tested more than in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s Central Command.

The once massive pro-democracy protests in Bahrain have been reduced to small clashes between youth and police in predominantly Shia Muslim areas.

Security forces have launched a crackdown on protesters marked by beatings and sweeping arrests. Nearly 1,000 demonstrators have been imprisoned, among them doctors, artists and lawyers.

via Crackdown reins in Bahrain activists – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.

Stealth helo

I remember being on base in Pensacola during my Navy training in 1988 and being astonished when two helicopters in the distance suddenly went completely silent. Now I wonder if I was watching some of these stealth helicopters.

The May 2 raid on Osama bin Laden’s luxury compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, had it all: painstaking intelligence-gathering, a heroic Navy SEAL assault team, satellite and drone surveillance, and biometric forensics.

And now this: a possible super-secret, stealthy helicopter, unknown to the wider world before one crashed during the assault.

via Aviation Geeks Scramble to ID bin Laden Raid’s Mystery Copter | Danger Room | Wired.com.

Bin Laden dead

Osama Bin Laden was reportedly killed early Sunday morning in Pakistan by a team of Navy Seals. I am not one to lust for blood but I can’t say I’ll miss this murdering terrorist.

One of the fears I have about Bin Laden’s death: that by making him a martyr is that we risk reviving the waning influence of Al Qaeda. The recent Arab Spring has shown that it is ordinary people who have the power to change governments, not terrorists like Bin Laden.

Analysts said Bin Laden’s death amounted to a double blow for Al Qaeda, after its sermons of anti-Western violence seemed to be rendered irrelevant by the wave of political upheaval rolling through the Arab world.

via Bin Laden Is Dead, Obama Says – NYTimes.com.