Check It Out

Links to cool places or things.

There are 1,524 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 144 of 153).

Comet 17P/Holmes

The family and I took a gander at Comet 17P/Holmes tonight, first through binoculars and then through my telescope. Binoculars are the best way to view it, I think.

You can spot it in the constellation Perseus in the northeast sky and you really can see it with the naked eye. Once my eyes adjusted to the dark I spotted it quickly, so anyone should see it. Hard to believe its now as big as the sun.

The best viewing is northeast of Raleigh. Horseshoe Farm Park might be an ideal viewing spot.

Definitely worth a look if you get a chance in the early evening. But hurry – the full moon is approaching!

Get AT&T/Bellsouth DSL without the voice service!

It look some major sleuthing – all of my Internets skills, actually – but I finally discovered how to order standalone DSL (that is, DSL without phone service, a.k.a. “naked DSL”) from AT&T/Bellsouth! With this deal you can get high-speed Internet access without paying for a dial tone – redundant for people like my buddy Scott whose only phone is a mobile one.
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Jet-Man!

I’ve got to show you the Jet-Man, a guy who flew a jet-powered wing for four minutes and topping 180 knots at points. Its an incredible ride!

Yves Rossy is a brave man. Yessir.

(Thanks, Mike!)

Plasma Antennas

Someone sent me this interesting news snippet:

A new antenna made of plasma (a gas heated to the point that the electrons are ripped free of atoms and molecules) works just like conventional metal antennas, except that it vanishes when you turn it off. The antenna design being presented at next week’s APS Division of Plasma Physics meeting in Orlando consists of gas-filled tubes reminiscent of neon bulbs. The physicists presenting the design propose that an array of many small plasma elements could lead to a highly versatile antenna that could be reconfigured simply by turning on or off various elements.
(EurekAlert! 12NOV07)

The announcement also made Slashdot.

A dozen years ago I was daydreaming of a “virtual” antenna, where some sort of field could be projected that would capture radio waves. I was thinking more of the magnetic variety, but plasma certainly fits the bill.

Interesting how the announcement touts its use in stealth transmissions. That’s not really an issue now with the ease of hiding transmissions made to satellites.

Children’s House of Raleigh fundraiser tonight at ComedyWorx

Raleigh’s own laugh factory, ComedyWorx, is holding a special fundraiser tonight for The Children’s House of Raleigh, a Montessori-based school MT.Net readers know is dear to my heart. ComedyWorx is an improv comedy group along the lines of Whose Line is it Anyway? but funnier because Wade is in it.

The show starts at 7 PM and the tickets are $20 (tax-deductible as they go to support the school). Come out and enjoy some industrial-strength laughs tonight. Do it for the children!

Steam double-header at the New Hope Valley Railway

It was Kelly’s “day off,” so the kids and I headed south to explore the New Hope Valley Railway’s “double-headed thunder” steam trains this weekend. For this weekend and next, the NHV has a sister steam engine to its familiar Number 17 on loan, the Flagg Coal Company Number 75. Together, they’ll be pulling the tourist trains in a double-header configuration (my kids would call it by its modern name, a “consist”).
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Woman narrowly escapes as car gets hit by train

The kids were asking to see a train video tonight, so I searched YouTube for ‘train’ and came up with a remarkable video of an incident one week ago in Greer, SC. A woman got lost driving at night and got her car stuck on the track. A policeman gets her out seconds before an Amtrak train turns her car into a fireball. Amazingly, no one was seriously hurt.

Watch the video filmed from the patrol car here.

Zoinks! Zombies to walk the streets of Raleigh!

Looks like Raleigh’s downtown is set to be invaded by the undead. The group Scientists Targeting Undead Preservation, Intelligence and Domestication reports that a gaggle of zombies will appear in Moore Square at sunset (6:26 PM) the night of Saturday, October 27th. The brain-eating zombies will make a circuit around downtown, turning willing participants into zombies along the way, then gather to wash their brains down with a tasty malt beverage or two.
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