Check It Out

Links to cool places or things.

There are 1,515 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 18 of 152).

The extraordinary life of Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen – Business Insider

Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, died yesterday at the age of 65. While I dissed him in the past for being a patent troll, Allen was very much an interesting guy and did some great things with his money. I particularly enjoy the Living Computers museum in Seattle, which Allen founded and played an active role in sustaining.

Everybody knows Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, the second-richest man in the world.But Microsoft’s other cofounder, Paul Allen, only became famous outside of Seattle once he published his memoirs in 2011.

He too was rich, and his net worth was pegged at $20 billion. With his money, he invested in a lot of tech companies, real estate, and art. But he also led an over-the-top life filled with rock and roll parties, collections, yachts, and sports teams.

Allen died on Monday aged 65 after a battle with cancer. Here is a look back at his fabulous life.

Source: The extraordinary life of Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen – Business Insider

He’s ‘One of Us’: The Undying Bond Between the Bible Belt and Trump – The New York Times

Here’s Exhibit A where the “Depolorables” comment lost Clinton’s presidential campaign. It’s also a path by which Democrats might claw their way back to respectability in the South.

Despite never having met him, Mr. Bledsoe said he felt a personal link and a sense of shared values with Mr. Trump.

“I don’t really look at him as a politician,” he said. “Even now, I look at him as just one of us. He doesn’t act like he’s above you, as a person.”

Source: He’s ‘One of Us’: The Undying Bond Between the Bible Belt and Trump – The New York Times

‘Hyperalarming’ study shows massive insect loss – The Washington Post

Insects around the world are in a crisis, according to a small but growing number of long-term studies showing dramatic declines in invertebrate populations. A new report suggests that the problem is more widespread than scientists realized. Huge numbers of bugs have been lost in a pristine national forest in Puerto Rico, the study found, and the forest’s insect-eating animals have gone missing, too.

In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that, in the past 35 years, the abundance of invertebrates such as beetles and bees had decreased by 45 percent. In places where long-term insect data are available, mainly in Europe, insect numbers are plummeting. A study last year showed a 76 percent decrease in flying insects in the past few decades in German nature preserves.

Source: ‘Hyperalarming’ study shows massive insect loss – The Washington Post

How China’s lunar relay satellite arrived in its final orbit | The Planetary Society


This is a pretty fascinating explanation of China’s lunar relay mission, Queqiao, becoming the first relay satellite to serve the far side of the moon.

After a 24-day journey, Queqiao, the relay satellite for China’s Chang’e 4 lunar mission, successfully entered its Earth-Moon L2 halo orbit. A normal mission to lunar orbit usually takes four or five days, but Queqiao took much longer due to its special orbit. Here’s a guide to the spacecraft’s long and complicated journey.

Source: How China’s lunar relay satellite arrived in its final orbit | The Planetary Society

After Soyuz Failure, Space Is Now Weirdly Inaccessible to Astronauts

All crewed launches have been suspended by Russia’s space agency following yesterday’s Soyuz rocket failure. That’s a problem, because much of the world relies on Russian rockets to get both cargo and people into space. Consequently, we’re now facing the very real possibility of having an uncrewed International Space Station—something that hasn’t happened in nearly two decades.

Source: After Soyuz Failure, Space Is Now Weirdly Inaccessible to Astronauts

Gotcha! US Air Force’s Secretive X-37B Space Plane Spotted by Satellite Tracker


I am seriously considering making space object tracking a new hobby.

The U.S. Air Force’s X-37B space plane may be secretive, but it’s not invisible.

Netherlands-based satellite tracker Marco Langbroek snapped long-exposure photos of the robotic mini-shuttle zooming over the city of Leiden yesterday (Aug. 20), capturing the spacecraft’s rapid trek across the night sky as a thin streak of light.The Air Force discloses little about X-37B missions, keeping details about the plane’s orbit and most of its payloads close to the vest. But Langbroek said he’s confident that the light trail he photographed came from the space plane, which is also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV).

“The object in question is not in the public catalogue of satellite orbits maintained by JSpOC (the U.S. military tracking network), which shows for an object this bright that it must be a ‘classified’ object,” Langbroek told Space.com via email. “We nevertheless know where ‘classified’ objects like this are, because they are routinely tracked by a small network of amateur trackers, in which I takepart.”

Source: Gotcha! US Air Force’s Secretive X-37B Space Plane Spotted by Satellite Tracker

Russian Whistleblower Assassinated After Uncovering $200 Billion Dirty-Money Scandal

LONDON—A crusading Russian official traveled to Estonia in the summer of 2006 to warn the authorities that an unprecedented money-laundering scheme had been established in the tiny Baltic financial sector. The scam he had uncovered would go on to become the biggest dirty-money operation in history: the $200 billion Danske Bank scandal.

Three months after Andrei Kozlov, the first deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank, tried to raise the alarm, he was dead.

Source: Russian Whistleblower Assassinated After Uncovering $200 Billion Dirty-Money Scandal

Saudis are said to have lain in wait for Jamal Khashoggi – The Washington Post

ISTANBUL — As Jamal Khashoggi prepared to enter the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, a squad of men from Saudi Arabia who investigators suspect played a role in his disappearance was ready and in place. They had arrived from Riyadh, the Saudi capital, early that morning and checked in at two inter­national hotels in Istanbul before driving to the consulate in the leafy Levent neighborhood, said two people with knowledge of the investigation. One of them, the Mövenpick Hotel Istanbul, is a few minutes from the consulate by car.By the end of the day, a 15-member Saudi team had conducted its business and left the country, departing on planes bound for Cairo and Dubai, according to flight records and the people familiar with the investigation.

Source: Saudis are said to have lain in wait for Jamal Khashoggi – The Washington Post

Turkey concludes Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi killed by ‘murder’ team, sources say – The Washington Post

Well, this is disturbing.

ISTANBUL — Turkey has concluded that Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent journalist from Saudi Arabia, was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last week by a Saudi team sent “specifically for the murder,” two people with knowledge of the probe said Saturday.Turkish investigators believe a 15-member team “came from Saudi Arabia. It was a preplanned murder,” said one of the people. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Source: Turkey concludes Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi killed by ‘murder’ team, sources say – The Washington Post