Check It Out

Links to cool places or things.

There are 1,530 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 45 of 153).

How Sony, Microsoft, and Other Gadget Makers Violate Federal Warranty Law | Motherboard

There are big “no trespassing” signs affixed to most of our electronics.

If you own a gaming console, laptop, or computer, it’s likely you’ve seen one of these warnings in the form of a sticker placed over a screw or a seam: “Warranty void if removed.

”In addition, big manufacturers such as Sony, Microsoft, and Apple explicitly note or imply in their official agreements that their year-long manufacturer warranties—which entitle you to a replacement or repair if your device is defective—are void if consumers attempt to repair their gadgets or take them to a third party repair professional.

What almost no one knows is that these stickers and clauses are illegal under a federal law passed in 1975 called the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act.

Source: How Sony, Microsoft, and Other Gadget Makers Violate Federal Warranty Law | Motherboard

FamilyTreeNow and privacy

Many people are concerned about how a so-called genealogy site called FamilyTreeNow.com makes anyone’s name, current and former addresses, and age available online. What’s important to note, however, is that this information has always been out there, available to just about anyone. As the Fortune article below points out, the United States has piss-poor privacy protections. If any good can come from stalker-friendly sites like FamilyTreeNow, it’s that they might spur citizen outrage and greater regulation on who can know what.

The cynic in me bets it will never happen. The nosiness of governments and the corporate plutocracy knows no bounds.

People began scrambling this week to erase their name from an obscure website called Family Tree Now after discovering a remarkable amount of personal information on the site—including age, home addresses (current and past) and names of family members and loved ones.

A friend called my attention to the site earlier this week after finding it contained detailed and accurate records about both her and mother. All you have to do is put in your name and state. I tried it out too and it immediately showed places I lived as well the name of a former partner. It’s pretty unsettling.

Source: Family Tree Now Discloses Personal Data That’s Hard to Remove | Fortune.com

Madrid bans half of cars from roads to fight air pollution | World news | The Guardian

Madrid’s city council has implemented restrictions on cars in an effort to combat persistent smog. While battling smog is a good thing, the measure does not restrict mopeds and motorcycles, which cause more smog than cars do and seem to me to be far more prevalent in the city.

Madrid has ordered half of most private cars off the roads on Thursday to tackle worsening air pollution, a first in Spain.

The restrictions will operate between 6.30am and 9pm. The city council said in a statement: “vehicles with even-number registration plates will be allowed to drive around on even-number days and cars with odd-number registration plates on odd-number days.”

The measure is activated when levels of harmful nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere go above 200 microgrammes per cubic metre in at least two measuring stations for two days running, and if the air is unlikely to clear imminently.

Source: Madrid bans half of cars from roads to fight air pollution | World news | The Guardian

Need Photos of Raleigh? Mark Turner Says Use His for Free, Please. – Raleigh Agenda

Raleigh Agenda wrote about my public domain photos of Raleigh today.

I first met Mark Turner on the corner of McDowell and Hargett streets for a mysterious “field trip,” as he had called it.

“C’mon, there’s something I want to show you,” he told me, motioning up the street toward DECO. He seemed eager to push past the handshakes and how-do-you-dos, so the adventure could begin. Inside the gift shop, he directed me toward a little basket filled with postcards.

“See that?” he asked, holding up a pack of cards that featured a colorful, sketch-like rendering of the Raleigh skyline. “These are based on the picture of Raleigh that I uploaded to Wikipedia. All the streets line up.”

Sure enough, the skyline sketch—captured from the Western Boulevard overpass, looking northeast in 2008—employed the same angle and details as the picture that accompanies the Raleigh, North Carolina Wikipedia entry. Even a red minivan was echoed on the postcard, eternally stuck in traffic. That’s Turner’s shot, free to anyone who wants to use it.

Source: Need Photos of Raleigh? Mark Turner Says Use His for Free, Please. – Raleigh Agenda

NASA Team Claims ‘Impossible’ Space Engine Works—Get the Facts

A paper describing NASA’s spooky new EMDrive microwave propulsion engine has survived peer review. Scientists are still scratching their heads over how this seemingly impossible engine appears to work. Cool!

After years of speculation, a maverick research team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center has reached a milestone that many experts thought was impossible. This week, the team formally published their experimental evidence for an electromagnetic propulsion system that could power a spacecraft through the void—without using any kind of propellant.

According to the team, the electromagnetic drive, or EmDrive, converts electricity into thrust simply by bouncing around microwaves in a closed cavity. In theory, such a lightweight engine could one day send a spacecraft to Mars in just 70 days.

Source: NASA Team Claims ‘Impossible’ Space Engine Works—Get the Facts

Autocracy: Rules for Survival | by Masha Gessen | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books

However well-intentioned, this talk assumes that Trump is prepared to find common ground with his many opponents, respect the institutions of government, and repudiate almost everything he has stood for during the campaign. In short, it is treating him as a “normal” politician. There has until now been little evidence that he can be one.

More dangerously, Clinton’s and Obama’s very civil passages, which ended in applause lines, seemed to close off alternative responses to his minority victory. (It was hard not to be reminded of Neville Chamberlain’s statement, that “We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analyzing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will.”) Both Clinton’s and Obama’s phrases about the peaceful transfer of power concealed the omission of a call to action. The protesters who took to the streets of New York, Los Angeles, and other American cities on Wednesday night did so not because of Clinton’s speech but in spite of it. One of the falsehoods in the Clinton speech was the implied equivalency between civil resistance and insurgency. This is an autocrat’s favorite con, the explanation for the violent suppression of peaceful protests the world over.

Source: Autocracy: Rules for Survival | by Masha Gessen | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books

The Right Way to Resist Trump – NYTimes.com

Five years ago, I warned about the risk of a Donald J. Trump presidency. Most people laughed. They thought it inconceivable.

I was not particularly prescient; I come from Italy, and I had already seen this movie, starring Silvio Berlusconi, who led the Italian government as prime minister for a total of nine years between 1994 and 2011. I knew how it could unfold.

Now that Mr. Trump has been elected president, the Berlusconi parallel could offer an important lesson in how to avoid transforming a razor-thin victory into a two-decade affair. If you think presidential term limits and Mr. Trump’s age could save the country from that fate, think again. His tenure could easily turn into a Trump dynasty.

Source: The Right Way to Resist Trump – NYTimes.com

Obama Is Warning America About Trump’s Presidency. Are You Listening? | New Republic

President Barack Obama’s remarks about Donald Trump in his Monday press conference contained some of the most ominous words I’ve heard since news networks began calling the election for Trump early last Wednesday morning. But you may not have heard them.

It is an understatement to say that Obama’s departure from the White House is occurring under unusual circumstances. He is managing a transition to the presidency of someone he believes is unfit for that office, who has empowered racist hate groups, wants to undo the Obama presidency, and shouldn’t be entrusted with nuclear weapons.
[…]
In a tense environment where reporters, government workers, world leaders, and anxious citizens and immigrants understandably are scrutinizing every Donald Trump tweet and utterance and leak, Obama’s closing thoughts on the presidency and his successor will be given short shrift. But the things he says about the transition contain critical information about its progress and his confidence that, on the other side of it, things will run smoothly.

His Monday comments suggests he has very little confidence that they will.

Source: Obama Is Warning America About Trump’s Presidency. Are You Listening? | New Republic

The Role of Rural Resentment in Trump’s Victory – CityLab

Donald Trump’s victory in Wisconsin last week marked the first time a Republican presidential candidate has won there since 1984. The seemingly massive political shift that took place in this Midwestern U.S. state on Election Day, particularly in its rural counties, has since been thrust into the national spotlight.

In trying to better understand what happened in Wisconsin, and for that matter in the outcome of the election nationwide, one of the first people I wanted to speak with was Kathy Cramer. For almost a decade, the political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been inserting herself into the casual political conversations of smaller rural communities in her state—listening, asking questions, and ultimately identifying the common threads she’s been able to uncover.

Source: The Role of Rural Resentment in Trump’s Victory – CityLab