Check It Out

Links to cool places or things.

There are 1,515 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 52 of 152).

Offensive lineman John Urschel starting PhD at MIT – Business Insider

John Urschel

John Urschel

I am in absolute awe of this.

Continuing to show he is one of the more unusual (and impressive) players in the NFL, Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman John Urschel announced via Twitter his plan to start his Ph.D. in mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this year, ESPN reported.

Put another way, the 24-year-old, 305-pound lineman got into the No. 1 ranked graduate school for mathematics, all while having a full-time job in a field other than math.

Source: Offensive lineman John Urschel starting PhD at MIT – Business Insider

What to do During an Electrical Outage

After an extended power outage during a winter storm, your heat pump refrigerant will be sluggish when the power finally returns. To avoid damage, you should run your unit on supplementary (or emergency) heat for the first few hours. Not doing so could damage your heat pump.

Also note that in older neighborhoods, the sudden demand for electric power might cause power quality issues that might also damage your heat pump.

Read more:

If your home is equipped with an electric heat pump, special care is needed when turning the unit on after an extended outage. It takes a period of time for the lubricant in the refrigerant to warm-up. This is approximately one and one-half hours per ton of cooling capacity. This could vary from brand to brand and a call to your dealer could prevent problems. During this compressor warm up time you should use the supplemental or emergency resistance heating elements of the heat pump to heat the home.

Source: What to do During an Electrical Outage

When the Boss Says, ‘Don’t Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid’ – The Atlantic

If your boss tells you you cannot discuss your salary, your boss is breaking the law.

When you make minimum wage and have to fight for more than 30 hours per week, tips are pretty important, so I sat down with my managers to discuss the controversy. That’s when they told me not to talk about it with the other baristas. The owner “hates it when people talk about money,” my manager added, and “would fire people for it if he could.” I sulked back to the espresso machine, making my lattes at half speed and failing to do side work.

In both workplaces, my bosses were breaking the law.

Under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA), all workers have the right to engage “concerted activity for mutual aid or protection” and “organize a union to negotiate with [their] employer concerning [their] wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.” In six states, including my home state of Illinois, the law even more explicitly protects the rights of workers to discuss their pay.

Source: When the Boss Says, ‘Don’t Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid’ – The Atlantic

More from NPR.

Both Hillary and Bernie Will Struggle to Push Their Agendas as President if Republicans Hold the House

And I don’t necessarily disagree with any of these arguments. It would be a long pull up a dirt road for Sanders to get anything done along the lines he proposes in his campaign. This is why, at every stop, he reminds people that he can’t do it alone. That is what his whole “political revolution” riff is about.

And here’s the thing he doesn’t mention: It is unlikely that President Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to get much of what she wants, either.

Source: Both Hillary and Bernie Will Struggle to Push Their Agendas as President if Republicans Hold the House

What does it take to drive an electric car in Canadian winters?

Good tips for wintertime EV driving.

So how on earth do you use an electric car in places that consistently get many feet of snow every winter?

Short answer: snow tires.
Long answer: plan ahead.

Being based in Vancouver — what passes for the Canadian tropics*, where snow had to be helicoptered onto local ski hills during the 2010 Olympics — your correspondent had no idea how well electric cars actually stack up until he started making inquiries.

But with winter approaching, a recent discussion on the Canada Nissan Leaf Owners Facebook group seemed apropos, all about driving plug-in electric vehicles in the northern winter.The overarching advice we got was to purchase snow tires, because low-rolling-resistance tires and ice don’t mix. Well-stocked winter survival kits were next.

Third place went to pre-heating the cabin while the car was still plugged in so the battery could maintain its maximum propulsion range and grid electricity could be used for the heat.

Source: What does it take to drive an electric car in Canadian winters? | VentureBeat | Enterprise | by J. O’Dell

This is why you probably shouldn’t wear shoes in your house | Clark Howard

Yuck.

Unless you have a special circumstance, you probably wear shoes inside your house.

But several scientific studies suggest why that’s a bad idea — and the reasons are pretty gross.

Why you probably shouldn’t wear shoes inside your houseThough some bacteria is good for us, if you’ve ever gotten a stomach virus, you’ll know that other kinds of bacteria are not. A study done by the University of Arizona found an average of 421,000 different bacteria on shoes. Coliforms, a bacterial indicator of the level of sanitation of foods and water (and universally present in feces), were detected on the bottoms of 96% of shoes. In addition, E. coli was detected on 27% fn the shoes, along with seven other kinds of bacteria, including Klebsiella pneumoniae, which can cause urinary tract infection, and Serratia ficaria, which can cause respiratory infections. 

Source: This is why you probably shouldn’t wear shoes in your house | Clark Howard

Al Jazeera America to shut down

Sorry to hear that Al Jazeera America is shutting down. I liked the kind of journalism they did. Perhaps they were too truthful?

On the bright side, perhaps Al Jazeera will become available again on the FTA satellites.

Al Jazeera America, the American cable news outlet owned by Qatar-based Al Jazeera, plans to shut down less than three years after its much-ballyhooed launch, unable to overcome low ratings, operational problems and a lack of advertisers.The cable news network will be phased out by April 30, according to a memo that was emailed to staffers Wednesday.

Source: Al Jazeera America to shut down

Can changing your mealtimes make you healthier? – BBC News

Fascinating experiment on how fasting longer at night might make you healthier. The only issue is that a pool of 16 subjects does not make for a definitive, scientific result.

Many people want to eat more healthily but find it difficult to change their diet. So what happened when Michael Mosley altered not what he ate, but when he ate?

We’ve known for some time that altering the time at which you eat can affect your weight and metabolism. At least if you are a mouse.

Based on mice studies, it seems the secret to improving your health is to restrict the time window within which you eat, and by doing so extend the amount of time you go without food.

Source: Can changing your mealtimes make you healthier? – BBC News

Planting flags around Dix Park is so 17th century

Raleigh Planning Commission member Matt Tomasulo recently planted thousands of survey flags to lead people around the Dix Park property.

Dude, planting flags is sooooo 17th century. There are apps for this. Create a Google Map with landmarks at the sites worth seeing. Include links to photographs and, more importantly, open up comments for others to say why these sites are meaningful. I’m all for bringing people out to Dix but they should be out there seeing the beauty of the park and not thousands of plastic flags.

With help from thousands of pink survey flags, one city planning commission member is hoping to bring more people to the former Dix hospital site near downtown.

On Tuesday afternoon, Matt Tomasulo and five volunteers planted 4,399 pink survey flags throughout Dorothea Dix Park, creating small trails that will lead visitors around city-owned portions of the property. Tomasulo called it a simple gesture to say thanks to Mayor Nancy McFarlane and Gov. Pat McCrory for making possible Raleigh’s purchase of the former psychiatric hospital campus.

Source: Raleigh Planning Commission member installs hundreds of flags at Dix Park | News & Observer

Bowie bonds: Ziggy Stardust’s adventures on Wall Street

Sure, David Bowie was the most inventive rock star of his era. And yes, he matured gracefully (more or less) into an elder statesman of pop, working with younger independent acts and capping his late career with a pair of moving, reflective LPs.But did you know he also left his mark on the world of asset-backed securities? OK, so the achievement doesn’t quite rank up there with albums like Low and Ziggy Stardust. But in 1997, Bowie, who passed away from cancer Sunday at 69, did manage to kick off a brief financial craze after becoming the first musician to sell bonds backed by the royalties on his catalog.

Source: Bowie bonds: Ziggy Stardust’s adventures on Wall Street