Links to cool places or things.
There are 1,530 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 126 of 153).
A Duke University researcher has captured an image of a rare case of upwards lightning, or a “gigantic jet” in the parlance of lightning researchers. Steve Cummer caught a photograph of lightning that stretches above a storm to the upper atmosphere in a distance of over 40 miles.
Check here for more photos and a video.
Check out this unbelievable pipe organ built in the house across the street of my friend and fellow Wikipedia contributor Ken Thomas.
Says Ken:
Apparently the guy was a dentist and a fairly high-ranking officer in the Army. He retired after 30 years, and moved to Lenoir. I gather he had both money and time on his hands, and according to my tour guide “He just really liked pipe organs.” She didn’t come right out and say it, but I could tell from her responses that he may have been a little bit eccentric too. Considering what I was looking at, that little data nugget wasn’t exactly a shocking revelation.
I’ve seen pipe organs before, such as the one at the Rosario Resort on Orcas Island and this one appears to have homemade pipes.
I’d consider patching those hoses myself just to hear it play!
Canadian scientists conclude that zombies could concievably destroy civilization. That is, if they actually existed:
If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.
That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada.
They say only frequent counter-attacks with increasing force would eradicate the fictional creatures.
The scientific paper is published in a book – Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress.
Hrmf. If they actually existed. They don’t … right?
Article 4.
Telephone Solicitations.
§ 75-100. Findings.
The General Assembly finds all of the following:
(1) The use of the telephone to market goods and services to the home is now pervasive due to the increased use of cost?effective telephone solicitation technologies and techniques.
(2) While some consumers enjoy and benefit from telephone solicitations from legitimate telephone solicitors, many others object to these telephone solicitations as an intrusive invasion of their privacy in the home.
(3) In addition, the proliferation of telephone solicitations, especially during the evening hours, creates a nuisance and a disturbance upon the home and family life of telephone subscribers during a time of day used by many families for traditional family activities.
(4) North Carolina residents should have the freedom to choose whether or not to permit telephone solicitors to contact them.
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Yesterday the Hacking Netflix website featured a publicly-posted set of presentation slides that describes Netflix’s corporate culture. It is a smart, eye-opening way to run a business: eschewing rules in favor of empowering people to do the right thing. This large, publicly-traded company can be nimble as the startup it once was because it doesn’t have bureaucracy tying everyone down.
If only other companies did this.
There is now an answer to Jill and Kevin’s Big Day video I mentioned earlier: Jill and Kevin’s Last Day.
It’s an awesome parody, put on by New York City’s Indigo Productions. They even copped the dance moves of the original.
Man, I would be leery of flying out of Rio right now. First, Air France 477 disintegrates over the Atlantic in May and now a Continental flight hits turbulence so strong it injures 26 passengers, four of them seriously.
When the NC Turnpike Authority cashed its $1B in loans yesterday, it also set the clock ticking for turning the section of NC-540 between I-40 and NC-55 into a toll road.
From http://www.ncturnpike.org/projects/Triangle_Expressway/
“Northern Wake Expressway (NC 540) is the portion of the Outer Wake Expressway that extends from NC 54 to NC 55. This 2.8 mile long segment, which recently opened to traffic and was constructed by the DOT with
STIP funds, is being transferred to NCTA in support of the project. This section will enable Triangle Parkway and Western Wake Freeway to function as a contiguous toll facility.”
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Looks like things aren’t settled between Alberto Contador and his Astana teammates. Contador has amazing legs and an ego to match. He has thumbed his nose at his team throughout the race.
Says Lance Armstrong on Twitter just now:
Seeing these comments from AC. If I were him I’d drop this drivel and start thanking his team. w/o them, he doesn’t win.
hey pistolero, there is no “i” in “team”. what did i say in March? Lots to learn. Restated.
Lance then quoted Axel Merckx, who said:
A champion is also measured on how much he respect his teammates and opponents. You can win a race on your own not a grand tour.
This week, The Onion (formerly “America’s Finest News Source”) was “sold” to the Chinese. Since then, The Onion has been running articles as if they were written by the Chinese Communist Party. Some bits miss the mark but some are quite clever.
In that theme, The Onion posted this status update on Facebook and made me laugh out loud:
The Onion NEWSWIRE: Disgusting U.S. Citizen Allows Saliva To Collect In Mouth.
As one person commented:
Chris Ross
Whoever is writing this I think has been to China – yes, that’s right, saliva (with the various “additives” they can add to it) belongs on the sidewalk and if that isn’t possible – indoor potted plants.
Any Westerner who has visited China nods knowingly at this fake headline. I saw it myself when I visited China. Thanks, Onion, for the memory and the laugh!
