Links to cool places or things.
There are 1,530 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 119 of 153).
Here are some handy tips for making QEMU work much better with your Linux desktop. You can now park QEMU on an unused workspace and not have to click in your QEMU window to use your mouse in a QEMU guest.
Integrating QEMU a bit with your desktop
Presently you have to run QEMU with a slightly lower resolution than your real desktop or run it in full-screen mode to get a decent experience out of it. With a patch I have written and a few tricks it can work a bit better.
A friend forwarded this FailBlog picture of an RPD police car that inadvertently got parked vertically. It looks like a new model car, so I’m thinking this happened somewhat recently.
Anyone know any details, like when/where this took place?
Update: My brother Jeff thinks this is the area near Six Forks Rd. and Millbrook Rd. I think it might be somewhere along Six Forks Rd., or maybe Lead Mine Rd. near Glenwood Ave. It could also be Six Forks close to Strickland, near
Look at the light pole in the top of the picture: it seems close enough to make this a narrow road, perhaps two-lane. On the other hand, the retaining wall looks new, too, so perhaps this road has gone through some widening recently. The close telephone pole could simply be an illusion caused by a telephoto lens.
The large bundles of copper telephone wires seem to point to a location close to downtown. I’m trying to identify that building in the background, too.
I’ve been intrigued by my new Samsung phone’s apparent ability to stream music to my laptop via Bluetooth. Ubuntu doesn’t appear to be able to do this out of the box and I had no idea where to search for this.
Today, I found the secret, thanks to this page:
After a few people asking me how to use the A2DP Sink with BlueZ, I’ve decided to write this mini-tutorial with a step-by-step on how to establish a A2DP stream from any device to a BlueZ-enabled host.
Before we start the hands-on, let’s see a little bit of nomenclature. In our use-case we have an stream being transmitted between two devices through a pipeline. Our pipeline is constructed of the remote host, BlueZ and PulseAudio. Each element of this pipeline has a Source (SRC) and a Sink (SNK) interface. The stream is handled between different elements by being sent from one element’s source to another element’s sink. So, the big picture of our pipeline is something like this (with the stream being represented by an arrow):
It’s still wonky out the wazoo but it looks like it can be done. I will wrestle with this more this evening.
Here’s a snippet of the Raleigh Recycling ad where my photograph appeared. Looking closely, you can see that the crane and the light poles have been airbrushed out. I looked without luck for an online version of this ad but haven’t found it yet.
My public domain picture of Raleigh I uploaded to Wikipedia continues to make the rounds. Flipping through the newspaper this morning, I spotted a small ad on page 2B of the Triangle section. The ad, placed by the City of Raleigh Recycling, featured the picture in the header, with a “swoosh” ribbon thing coming out of it. There’s no doubt that it’s my picture as the cars line up perfectly.
Some photographers get upset when their work gets used without their permission. I suppose there might be a time in the future when I work professionally as a photog. Even then, though, there will be shots I take that I’ll be happy to pass around, either because it’s the right thing to do or because it’s a great way to advertise my skills.
Hallie checked out a book from the library which was bound incorrectly, getting the chapters out of order. Not one to let a problem go unreported (she takes after her dad), Hallie write the library a note to bring this to their attention.
The note reads:
To: Library
The Book Young Cam Jansen And the substitute Mystery is totally MIXED UP! The chapters should go like this 1,2,3,4,5. In the book, they go 1,2,4,5,3. No wonder it doesn’t make sense! It was bound out-of-order! Somebody already wrote the correct Page numbers in the book. I know it isn’t good to write in books, but What Are You Supposed To DO When You Find A mystery in a mystery?
-Hallie Turner,
age 8
The N&O ran my letter to the editor today.
I don’t understand why some people (including certain reporters) don’t like Meeker. While there are lots of things I wish he would do differently, I think Meeker is an honest, hardworking mayor who cares about the city. Unlike many politicians, he doesn’t appear to be in it for ego or to treat it as a stepping stone to higher office. I think some people forget what a thankless job being mayor is; that it’s essentially an unpaid job. We’re lucky that people still choose to do it.
That being said, I see nothing wrong with disagreeing with a politician’s choices or decisions. In fast, that’s healthy. But I do not agree with hating someone personally for the decisions they make.
There are a lot of misguided political leaders out there and many have raised my hackles. Even so, I like knowing I could sit down with them and calmly discuss our differences without it becoming personal.
I’m taking the train up to Virginia over the Fourth of July weekend to meet Kelly and the kids. Booking my travel on Amtrak provided an interesting choice in fares.
I’ve got two choices for travel: one leaves Raleigh at 10:56 AM and arrives at Fredericksburg at 3:39 PM. The other choice leaves Raleigh at 8:54 AM and arrives at Fredericksburg at 3:39 PM, but provides a convenient extra two hours to wander around the Richmond train station. So with an extra four hours of travel time you’d think they’d offer a cheaper fare, right? So what does Amtrak charge? An extra fifteen bucks!
I’m still not sure what makes doubling the travel time worth extra money. Bizarre. Maybe this is just a sign of how far rail travel in America has yet to go.
Bonus link: Check out RailServe for promotional codes and good tips about traveling by train.
WakeMed visited Monday’s East CAC meeting and came away impressed. WakeMed is Wake County’s largest private employer and is located in East Raleigh.
Yesterday evening, I had the distinct pleasure of attending the East Community Advisory Council (CAC) meeting at Lions Park Community Center off Dennis Drive in Raleigh. At WakeMed, we are more committed than ever to being involved with the communities we serve and want to understand community issues from citizens’ perspectives so we can be even better neighbors. This commitment led me to the East CAC meeting to represent our WakeMed Raleigh Campus, which is located in the district.
One thing that Ms. Monackey didn’t mention is that Raleigh’s CACs are chaired and organized solely by community volunteers.
Lawrence Lessig will be speaking at several events in Raleigh on Tuesday, June 22.
Lessig is a Professor of Law at Harvard and a frequent national commentator on the influence of money in politics. He is currently the Director of Harvard’s Edward J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics where he does work on institutional corruption. Previously, Lessig was a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of its Center for Internet and Society, where he helped pioneer the free culture movement. He will be in Raleigh to promote several campaign finance reform initiatives, including the Fair Elections Now Act and an . For a glimpse of Lessig’s current work, read his recent article, “How to Get Our Democracy Back,” published in the Nation, or view one of his rapid-fire power point presentations.
Event Details:
• June 22, 11am, Raleigh: Presentation at Voter-Owned Elections Lobby Day at the NC General Assembly view map).
• June 22, 12pm, Raleigh: Luncheon at Campbell Law School (view map). (Email jglasser at commoncause dot org to register for lunch).
• June 22, 5-6:30pm, Raleigh: Reception to Benefit NC Voters for Clean Elections Busy Bee Cafe (view map)(RSVP to chase at ncvce dot org).
