Check It Out

Links to cool places or things.

There are 1,524 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 89 of 153).

Outlawed by Amazon DRM « Martin Bekkelund

This is one of many reasons why I won’t buy an Amazon Kindle.

A couple of days a go, my friend Linn sent me an e-mail, being very frustrated: Amazon just closed her account and wiped her Kindle. Without notice. Without explanation. This is DRM at it’s worst.

Linn travels a lot and therefore has, or should I say had, a lot of books on her Kindle, purchased from Amazon. Suddenly, her Kindle was wiped and her account was closed. Being convinced that something wrong had happened, she sent an e-mail to Amazon, asking for help. This was the answer:

via Outlawed by Amazon DRM « Martin Bekkelund.

Armed Forces Show Overwhelming Support for Obama

The military strongly supports the President, it seems. So much for that myth that servicemembers and veterans always vote Republican.

Foreign policy, military funding and plans for U.S. troops abroad are providing plenty of chewy campaign fodder for President Barack Obama and his GOP rival, Mitt Romney. But fundraising reports shed light on what the armed forces think about the the candidates.

Former Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul received significant support from the military for his strong stance on bringing troops home, and that briefly continued even after Romney pulled ahead as the clear GOP candidate.

Now, though, the military’s support has shifted toward Obama. Romney has consistently received little financial backing from military donors.

via Update: Armed Forces Show Overwhelming Support for Obama – OpenSecrets Blog | OpenSecrets.

Bloomberg/Businessweek.com ranks Raleigh 18th

Bloomberg and Businessweek.com came out with their latest 50 Best Cities list and ranked Raleigh 18th.

In its description of the city, Bloomberg and Businessweek.com had this to say about Raleigh:

Raleigh wins the Carolinas, with strong median household income, low crime, and five universities. As one-third of the Research Triangle region, Raleigh is just minutes from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Duke University. The city features a major historical tradition with such properties as the Mordecai House and Tucker House. Residents who aren’t so interested in uninhabited old houses—especially younger residents—might prefer the sights at BugFest, the event at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

See that? Raleigh is “just minutes” away from UNC and Duke, but the reporter apparently failed to notice the 35,000-student North Carolina State University located squarely in the middle of Raleigh.

While I’m fond of Mordecai Historic Park and Tucker House, I wouldn’t exactly say these properties are worthy of national attention. There’s no mention, for instance, that Raleigh is the state’s capital, either. It’s as if all the reporter’s research on Raleigh came from Wikipedia or something (though Wikipedia would be more accurate).

Amtrak through NC hits highest percentage of growth in nation

Rail travel is hugely popular in North Carolina!

Raleigh, N.C. — Amtrak’s Piedmont route, which runs from Raleigh to Charlotte, grew by a higher percentage of riders than any other route in the nation during the last fiscal year, according to the latest data from the rail service.

The route set a new record of more than 162,000 riders and had the best percentage increase of all Amtrak routes, with a jump of 16.2 percent over the previous year, Amtrak said. The 2012 fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

It sure makes me wish the USDOT had awarded our state something more than the paltry $1.5 million from the billions in stimulus rail funding that were awarded two years ago:
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Raleigh’s System Plan project

The City of Raleigh just created a video encouraging citizens to get involved with the upcoming System Planning project, where the Parks department will be creating a vision for our city’s parks for the next decades. It’s another one of the city’s dazzling videos about our wonderful parks. You can also catch a glimpse of me around the 56 second mark.

Find out more about the System Plan effort at the Your Parks Your Future website.

Costco marketing email has fake unsubscribe link

I signed up for Costco’s emailed specials a while back and decided today that I didn’t need them anymore. Mousing over the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the email didn’t seem to do anything so I decided to look at the message’s HTML to find out why.

It turns out Costco’s unsubscribe link isn’t a link at all, but is just made to look like one. Here is the code:

< p > In the past you provided Costco with your email address=C2=A0 [EMAIL REDACTED]. Occasionally, you will receive brief advertising ann=
ouncements regarding special items and services. If you no longer want to r=
eceive these advertisements, please click < a > < span style=3D"text-decoratio= n:underline;color:#069" >unsubscribe< /span >< /a >.=20

It’s a span, not a link. Here’s how it renders in Thunderbird:

There’s an “update email preferences” choice also in the email but, like the unsubscribe “link,” it isn’t real and doesn’t go anywhere, either.

I think Costco is a great company and I trust them. Still, I’m curious about why Costco felt the need to include fake links in their marketing email.

Sprinkler head cameras

Sprinkler head cameras from UNC-Charlotte


Yesterday I checked the State Surplus Property Office’s auction site, looking for audio equipment for Little Raleigh Radio. I didn’t find any audio gear but I did find something unusual up for bid: a lot of sprinkler head cameras put on the block by UNC Charlotte.

There’s no telling what these hidden cameras were used for. Were they used to catch employee embezzlement? Damage to property? Academic fraud taking place? Oh, sorry. Wrong UNC.

It’s my opinion that spy stuff like this usually gets sold when something better has been acquired. I wonder what form the newest generation of secret cameras takes at UNC-Charlotte.

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Australian PM’s epic speech calls out opposition leader for ‘misogyny and sexism’ | The Raw Story

This, my friends, is an old-fashioned beatdown. After explaining to my kids tonight about the indefensible shooting of Malala Yousefzai I am feeling more protective than ever of women’s rights.

Don’t ever, ever, tell my daughter she isn’t as good as anyone else. Or my son, for that matter.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard fearlessly scolded Opposition Leader Tony Abbott on Tuesday as he sat just six feet away over his record of “misogynistic and sexist” attacks on her.

Though Abbott pushed to have House Speaker Peter Slipper resign over crude text messages about female genitalia, Gillard still lashed out at Abbott during question time in the legislature, saying she would “not be lectured on sexism and misogyny by this man. … Not now, not ever.”

“If he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia he doesn’t need a motion in the House of Representatives, he needs a mirror,” the prime minister charged.

via Australian PM’s epic speech calls out opposition leader for ‘misogyny and sexism’ | The Raw Story.

Groups Call for Scientists to Engage the Body Politic – NYTimes.com

Great article in the NY Times about an effort to get more geeks in Congress.

Ahem.

In American public life, researchers are largely absent. Trained to stick to the purity of the laboratory, they tend to avoid the sometimes irrational hurly-burly of politics.

For example, according to the Congressional Research Service, the technically trained among the 435 members of the House include one physicist, 22 people with medical training (including 2 psychologists and a veterinarian), a chemist, a microbiologist and 6 engineers.

via Groups Call for Scientists to Engage the Body Politic – NYTimes.com.

Romney cheats at presidential debate?

Here’s a video showing Mitt Romney apparently pulling something out of his pocket that looks for all the world like pre-written notes. Pre-written notes are not allowed by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which means that if this is what it appears Mitt Romney has been caught cheating.

Some have said that what he is pulling out is a handkerchief but if so it’s such a well-starched handkerchief that it bounces when it hits the podium.
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