pileofcrapola

The cool, glistening waters of public pools are certainly seductive on a hot summer day. But if they’re not properly maintained and treated, these public pools spread germs that can cause unpleasant illnesses and ruin the fun. Here’s what you need to know to stay safe (and cool) in a public pool.

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Paperclips are plentiful and cheap, and useful for more than just clipping paper together. This video shows you a bunch of different ways you can use paperclips to solve everyday problems.

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When opening up to someone in person about mental health issues is tough, one alternative is to use Crisis Text Line, a 24-hour counseling service based around texting. It provides texters with a safe, anonymized, and confidential medium to talk things out with trained volunteer counselors.

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Chrome: Flatbook (formerly Facebook Flat) has been around for a while, but when the dev tipped us off to some changes he was making to it, we took another look. Sure enough, it looks great, and strips Facebook of a lot of the cruft that makes it difficult to navigate.

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Email. Can’t live with it. Can’t get your job done without it. Am I right? Last year we sent over 2.5 billion emails. And here’s the bad news. In spite of a good amount of loathing, that number is only expected to grow. The volume is an issue, as is the time you spend on it. In fact, reports say you check it about 36 times per hour. 36 times. In a single hour.

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Your food processor is a great tool for making your own, fresh-roasted nut butters, but throwing toasted almonds or peanuts in the bowl straight out of the oven can wreak havoc on your trusty appliance.

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When you go to the beach, you want a blanket that’s easy to clean off, can fit everyone, and won’t blow away in a little wind. With just a little work, you can turn an old sheet into a blanket that does all three.

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WASHINGTON — Drivers in Northern Virginia experienced significant delays Tuesday morning – the second day that Metro repairs on the Orange and Silver lines significantly reduced train service.

Trains are sharing a single track between East Falls Church and Ballston leading many commuters to hit the road and drive instead of taking Metro, adding to the region’s normally congested highways. East-west highways in Virginia including Interstate 66, U.S. 50 and the Dulles Toll Road were especially slow.

“Drivers are doing some wacky things alternatively trying to get through Virginia,” said WTOP traffic reporter Jack Taylor.

For drivers, HOV restrictions in Virginia were still in place but some drivers didn’t agree with the limits.

“We were realizing throughout the morning that people were doing inane things like driving in HOV lanes that they weren’t supposed to be in, and driving up the shoulder in Virginia in order to get by,” Taylor said. “VDOT, lift those HOV restrictions if you can. It has not been pretty, that’s for sure,” he said.

One of the reasons for the delays, Taylor said, is the construction on Kutz Bridge that started last week. The bridge carries eastbound Independence Avenue traffic over the Tidal Basin and currently has two lanes closed for construction.

“The three-lane bridge since last week has had one lane going by, which doesn’t help I-66, (Route) 110, Arlington Boulevard or the (George Washington) Parkway, which of course would be alternates for people who ride the rails,” Taylor said.

Metro General Manager Wiedefeld said that ridership on the Orange Line west of Ballston was down 26 percent during the Monday morning drive.

But overall, ridership wasn’t far off from normal numbers according to Wiedefeld, who noted that 616,000 riders took Metro on Monday compared to 620,000 on an average Monday.

“I walked from Ballston to East Falls yesterday afternoon and literally every aspect of the rail system we were touching,” Wiedefeld said of the progress so far. “The crews have been working around the clock in 12-hour shifts. It’s a very hot and grueling job,” he said.

As of 8 a.m. Tuesday, Wiedefeld said delays between the Vienna and LeEnfant Plaza Metro stations were about 35 minutes once riders boarded a train.

While the trains are sharing a track for repairs, trains are expected to run every 18 minutes west of Ballston.

Overall, WTOP reporters riding the rails to get a feel for how the repairs are impacting the commute said that ridership has been fairly light.

“On one trip there was a 4-minute hold to allow the single tracking between East Falls Church and Ballston,” said WTOP’s Neal Augenstein. “Most who’ve gotten on the trains have been able to find seats. That doesn’t usually happen, so clearly volume had been lighter than usual,” he said.

Metro riders at the East Falls Church Station told WTOP’s Nick Iannelli that they waited 15 to 20 minutes for trains to arrive. One rider, who was late for work for the second day in a row, was considering other options. “I’m contemplating, should I just go ahead and drive to work?”

One rider told Iannelli that it took her three times longer to get home Monday than her average evening commute. Another called the trip home from D.C. “horrible.”

The post Drivers see heavy delays in Virginia during Metro repairs appeared first on WTOP.

WASHINGTON — The D.C. Council has approved a $15-an-hour minimum wage bill.

Mayor Muriel Bowser has promised to sign the measure, which will raise the wage by 2020. In a ceremonial news conference, the mayor and council announced they have come to an agreement on a $15 wage. The council will vote this afternoon.

The council formally voted on the bill Tuesday afternoon.

Minimum wage workers in the District currently make $10.50. That rate will increase to $11.50 in July under legislation signed in 2014 by Bowser’s predecessor, Vincent Gray.

The debate over whether to raise the wage further centered around guaranteed compensation for workers who rely on tips.

D.C. joins numerous other cities around the country and the state of California that have approved a $15-an-hour minimum wage.

The post DC Council OKs $15-an-hour minimum wage appeared first on WTOP.

GREENBELT, Md. — The mystery surrounding the abandonment of boxes of cats and kittens in Greenbelt, Maryland on Friday, and then again on Saturday, remains unsolved.

“It is a finable offense, but I’m not as concerned with levying fines or penalties. I’m more concerned with finding where the animals came from,” said Celia Craze, director of Department of Planning and Community Development for the City of Greenbelt. The animal shelter is under her supervision.

Craze says what she wants to do is make sure that the public knows that any time an animal has to be surrendered, there are what she calls “compassionate shelters” that can help.

With many shelters nearly bursting at the seams in what is referred to by staffers as “kitten season,” shelters work with rescue groups to care for and place animals.

In this case, there is some good news. By midmorning Tuesday, Greenbelt had more than 30 calls from prospective adopters.

“Which is more than the number of cats and kittens that we have — which is a good thing,” Craze said.

And Craze is optimistic that all the abandoned cats can be placed. What she would like to see is that the animals already in the shelter’s care can find homes.

Kittens are relatively easy to place, “but older cats need homes too,” she adds.

Residents can also help the shelter by donating supplies.

“Just about anything that one would need for their own pet is something that we could use at the shelter,” Craze said.

The post Md. shelter focuses on next step for 28 abandoned cats, kittens appeared first on WTOP.

WASHINGTON —An 18-year-old is facing charges after he shot at a Stafford County deputy sheriff responding to a break-in Tuesday night.

Police initially responded to a call about a break-in on Windsor Ridge Court in Fredericksburg, Virginia around 10:15 p.m. Tuesday. The call was placed by the mother of the suspect after her son, 18-year-old Joshua Anthony Sumter broke in to the residence he was forbidden to visit.

When police arrived at the scene, they saw Sumter lying on the floor in an upstairs bedroom and when deputies told him to show his hands, he showed a gun and began shooting. The deputies returned fire.

One of the deputies was hit four times and his body armor largely protected him from potentially fatal fire, said Stafford County Sheriff’s Office. The officer’s condition is serious but stable, the sheriff’s office said.

After the shooting, Sumter fled the scene on foot. The search ended early Wednesday morning when Sumter was taken into custody in the Thomas Jefferson Place neighborhood.

Sumter is charged with attempted capital murder, aggravated malicious wounding and four counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

During Sumter’s escort to the jail, he attempted a violent escape and assaulted a deputy. The attempt to flee again added additional charges of assault on a law enforcement officer and escape with force.

Sumter is being held without bond at the Rappahannock Regional Jail.

WTOP’s Valerie Bonk contributed to this report.

The post 18-year-old in custody after shooting Stafford Co. deputy responding to break-in appeared first on WTOP.

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — A standard military honors funeral service is scheduled for Mal Whitfield, a Tuskegee airman who won Olympic track and field titles and served for decades as a sports affairs officer for the U.S. Information Agency.

Arlington National Cemetery said in a news release that the funeral will be conducted Wednesday. Whitfield, 91, died in November at the VA hospital in Washington.

Nicknamed “Marvelous Mal,” Whitfield joined the Army Air Force in 1943. He was a member of the 100th Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group at Lockbourne AFB in Ohio, and flew 27 combat missions during the Korean War.

The first service member to win a gold medal while on active duty, Whitfield also helped the U.S. win the 1,600 meter relay title in 1948. He successfully defended his 800 meter title in 1952.

The post Military funeral set for ‘Marvelous Mal’ Whitfield appeared first on WTOP.

It’s up to you whether or not you want to spend $350,000 to hunt and kill an endangered black rhinoceros, but if you do, it doesn’t mean Delta Air Lines is obligated to ship it home for you.

U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn said the plaintiffs, including a Texan who paid $350,000 to kill the endangered animal in Africa and a Dallas-based safari company, can’t sue Delta for refusing to ship his prize home. It can ship whatever it wants to, the judge ruled, as long as it applies that rule to all passengers across the board.

Lynn said the plaintiffs “misappl[y] the equal protection” common law principle that allows common carriers to refuse to ship items, Courthouse News reports.

“Delta’s policy bans its shipment of Big Five trophies. Obviously, it does not ban the hunting of Big Five game,” the judge wrote in her opinion. “Such hunters are free to ship allowed cargo with Delta, including trophies of other game. Although, because Plaintiffs are hunters or other parties who benefit from the hunting of the Big Five, Delta’s ban negatively affects them, that impact does not mean Delta’s decision is unlawful or actionable.”

The man received a permit from Namibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism to kill the rhino in January 2014. Despite an outcry from animal rights groups, he killed the rhino four months later.

He filed a lawsuit against Delta in October 2015, after Delta implemented a ban on shipping Big Five trophies in response to the controversy over a Minnesota dentist killing a beloved lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe. The “Big Five” animals include lions, leopards, elephants, rhinoceros, and buffaloes.

He accused Delta of robbing “wildlife habitat of its economic value, encouraging habitat conversion to agriculture, grazing, and industry, and undercutting range states’ tried-and-true conservation strategy.” The ban “jeopardizes the benefits of tourist hunting and its centrality to conservation” in Africa, he claimed.

Delta sought dismissal in January 2016, saying it was an absurdity” for the plaintiffs to claim it has to carry Big Five trophies if it’s carrying other trophies.

“If it were true, an airline that accepted hunting shotguns as checked baggage would also have to accept AK-47s and grenade launchers,” Delta’s dismissal motion stated. “Not surprisingly, the case law rejects this position.”

The judge dismissed the plaintiffs’ claim of tortious interference — a claim for damages against a defendant who wrongfully interferes with the plaintiff’s contractual or business relationship — on Monday, along with the rest of the case entirely.

“Although plaintiffs correctly conclude that claims arising out of defamatory conduct would not usually relate to an airline’s service, plaintiffs’ tortious interference claim in this case does relate to Delta’s services,” the opinion states. “There is, in fact, no defamatory statement alleged. Delta merely altered the scope of its services by refusing to transport a designated kind of commodity — Big Five trophies. It never said the hunting or transport of such species was unlawful.”

Delta Airlines Need Not Transport Rhino Trophy [Courthouse News]

Just like your phone or computer, your web-connected car needs to get the occasional software update. Most of these system tweaks happen quietly without too much interruption to your life, but occasionally one goes wrong and you end up with a Lexus with navigation and infotainment systems that can’t be used because they are stuck in a reboot loop.

Lexus says it is working “around the clock” to find a solution for a satellite communication issue after many owners of vehicles with Lexus’ Enform system with navigation said the head units for their systems stopped working.

In an email to vehicle owners, the car company says it is aware that many Lexus vehicles are suffering from a glitch likely related to the release of a system upgrade.

“Lexus is presently investigating this problem,” the email, shown on Twitter, states. “It is possible that the problem is being caused by satellite communications can could be remediated by remote resolution.”

Owners began posting about the issue on Twitter and other social media sites on Tuesday, noting that their dashboard screens spontaneously reset themselves, rendering the navigation and infotainment systems unusable.

Videos of the glitch show the navigation systems of several Lexus vehicles starting, changing to a blank purple screen, and then restarting the process.

A spokesperson for Lexus tells Bloomberg that the problem may have been caused by a faulty application, but that the company hasn’t determined whether the vehicle will have to be returned to dealers to be fixed.

While Lexus says it is working on finding a solution for the glitch, some owners Tweeted that they were able to fix the issue by disconnecting their battery to force a reset of the system or visiting a dealership. Some claim these fixes are just temporary.

Lexus Seeks Fix for Software Glitch in Navigation System [Bloomberg]

What is “brunchfast”? The marketers over at Jack in the Box, the company that recently trademarked the term, could probably tell us, but they aren’t talking. Is it serving typical brunch foods incredibly early in the day? Is it a second breakfast eaten later in the day, but not on the weekend so it would be weird to call it brunch? A fast-food company is trying to invent a new meal, but won’t explain what it is until its marketing campaign launches.

BurgerBusiness noticed the trademark application, which was filed a few weeks ago by the company. The trademark applies to “restaurant services,” and the company doesn’t need to provide any more details than that.

Companies sometimes trademark an idea just to make sure no one else uses it, and that could be the case here. When the specialized site Burger Business contacted the chain, their statement just created more mystery: “At this time, we are unable to share any info about Jack’s plans for use of the ‘Brunchfast’ trademark,” a spokesperson told Burger Business in what we can only assume was a self-destructing and top secret e-mail.

The company’s chairman and CEO admitted during the most recent earnings call that all-day breakfast at McDonald’s is affecting their business from 10:30 to noon, even though Jack’s breakfast business remains brisk. 10:30 to noon? Hmm, that sounds like the perfect 90 minutes to serve up some brunchfast.

Jack Trademarks New Daypart: Brunchfast [BurgerBusiness]

A second round of bids for Yahoo’s core internet business — including search, mail, and news sites — is officially underway, and Verizon is reportedly coming in hot, offering $3 billion for the assets. 

The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the case, reports that Verizon Communications planned to submit a bid of $3 billion on Monday, meeting the deadline for the second round of bids.

The sources say that a third round of bidding is expected to take place in coming weeks, and that Verizon and other companies could change their prices before a final winner is crowned.

A spokesperson for Verizon declined to provide comment on the matter. If the bid pans out, it would be the second large purchase of a ’90s Internet giant after Verizon acquired AOL for $4.4 billion last year.

Yahoo’s road to a sale began back in December when the company’s board began to weigh the option of selling its many online properties, possibly to private equity firms.

The current action process was initiated in February when Yahoo ditched plans to spin off its stake in Alibaba. The company began taking bids in April.

Since then several companies, including Verizon and private-equity firm TPG, have reportedly submitted bids. Sources say it’s unclear which companies have submitted bids for the second rounds, noting that not all of the bidders would participate in all three rounds.

Verizon’s reported $3 billion bid comes just days after it was reported that Twitter executives sat down with Yahoo executives to discuss a merger deal.

The meeting, which apparently lasted several hours, focused primarily on Yahoo’s financial and whether or not a combined company would fit in with the future of tech.

Verizon to Bid $3 Billion for Yahoo’s Web Assets [The Wall Street Journal]

General Mills has taken a few steps back from the cereal industry in the new millennium, putting its breakfast focus on other things like yogurt and meal bars. In its first cereal attempt since 2001, the company is coming back to the bowl with Tiny Toast, which is not to be confused with its new big brother, Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Tiny Toast will appear on shelves this month, featuring crunchy “toast” bits covered with little pieces of strawberry or blueberry, the company announced Monday.

It’s been awhile since General Mills’ last completely new effort in that aisle, which was “Harmony,” a cereal introduced in 2001 aimed at women that lasted two years.

General Mills had good reason to back off, as the cereal market in general has been on the decline in recent years: Euromonitor International reports a 10.7% decline for all types of cereal sales between 2003 and 2013, Christian Science Monitor points out.

As consumer preferences have trended more toward healthy choices, less sugary items, and products that use fewer preservatives, General Mills has found some success revamping old cereals and marketing others like Chex as “gluten-free.”

That, along with improving its ingredients, has led to increased sales, the company said recently.

Tiny Toasts follows that healthy trend, as it’s one of only a few products in the cereal aisle flavored with real fruit, the company says. It’s a whole grain oats and corn cereal covered in strawberry or blueberry powder, and it contains no artificial flavors or colors.

“People told us that both varieties tasted real, and not fake like they typically associate with fruit-flavored cereals” in consumer testing, Mike Evenson, product developer, said on the company’s blog.

It’s worth noting that both flavors of Tiny Toast contain 9 grams of sugar, which is the same amount as in other General Mills brands like Reese’s Puffs, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Golden Grahams, Cookie Crisp, Frosted Cheerios, and Honey Nut Cheerios, Christian Science Monitor points out. Lucky Charms and Trix have 10 grams of sugar, and Raisin Nut Bran leads the gang with 14 grams.

John Oliver made a huge splash this week when, to prove a point on his show, he purchased $15 million worth of medical debt for $60,000… and then promptly forgave it all. A lot of that debt was “zombie debt,” which, like its namesake, keeps coming back from the dead to bother people who would much rather be left alone and unbitten.

But how does a debt die? What brings it back from its unmarked grave, anyway? It’s a long and sordid process, but there are two big things that lead to all of it:

• One: Any unpaid debt can (and probably will) be sold.
• Two: there is in theory a limit on how long unpaid debt can remain in play.

Here’s how it all fits together.

How does debt normally work?

You’ve got something — a loan, a credit card, medical debt — that needs repaying. Ideally, you meet repayment deadlines with the correct payment, the person you owe processes the payments correctly, attributes them to you, and in time, the debt is paid off and everyone’s happy.

But sometimes, things go wrong. The person who owes the money misses a payment, through accident or neglect. They can’t or won’t make the payments on time, or maybe the error is on the other end and the recipient isn’t processing the funds correctly. Either way, the debt is going unpaid. The entity that lent the money or performed the service gets annoyed about this, and sends the bill(s) to someone who specializes in getting some or all of the money back: Collections.

And when that happens…

Collections may be a department inside a massive business (like a hospital chain), or it may be an outsourced third-party company. Either way, their job is to try everything they legally can to get you to send them the money you owe, up to and including lawsuits. Sometimes they go too far, but that’s another story. The point is: bugging you until you pay up is their job.

MORE ABOUT DEBT COLLECTION

For more advice about:

• what debt collectors are or aren’t allowed to do,
• how to respond if you’re being harassed by debt collectors,
• and what to do if collectors are asking you to repay a debt you do not actually owe,

have a look at CFPB’s extensive, plain language Q&A all about debt.

Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they fail. When they succeed, that should be the end of it. But when they fail, well, you know what they say…

If at first you don’t succeed…

The first-round collections may give up on you. The second-round collections may give up on you. But someone, somewhere, will keep trying.

That’s because that’s how they get paid: if you don’t pay up right away, the debt gets sold.

Let’s make up an example with completely fictitious numbers, and say that 100 people didn’t pay their bills to Company X for 90 days, and they went to collections. Those 100 people owe $1000 each for a collective total of $100,000. Company X sells the debts to Collections Company A for, let’s say, $15,000, and at least gets to pocket that much (writing off an $85,000 loss).

Now if Collections Company A can come up with more than $15k of payments out of $100,000 in debt, they make bank. So they hound every one of those 100 people with everything they can until they’ve made $25,000 total out of their $100,000 in owned debt, with half the debtors paying.

At that point, it’s not worth it to them anymore to keep chasing down the remaining 50 people, so they sell the remaining $50k in debt to Collections Company B. By now, after so many attempts, collecting on that money is a worse bet, so Company B buys $50,000 worth of 50 people’s debt for $2500. If Company B can manage to scrounge up even $3000 from these 50 people, they’ve made a profit.

This chain can go on for quite some time.

But “quite some time” isn’t “forever,” right? There are limits?

There are! Debt has a statute of limitations attached… theoretically.

The CFPB explains just what a statute of limitations is, but basically: you can only be subject to lawsuits over an unpaid debt for a certain period of time after it was incurred. After that window closes, you’re off that one particular legal hook.

Bebts that are covered are called time-barred debts, but that period of time varies widely depending on what state you’re in and what kind of debt it is, so there’s no one hard-and-fast rule.

So if I can’t be sued anymore I’m free, right?

Wrong!

Just because you can’t be sued over it anymore doesn’t mean that Company X or any collection agencies that have since purchased some or all of the debt have to stop asking you to pay, because they don’t.

In most states, they can keep at it basically however long they want, as long as they’re acting within the boundaries of the law and not threatening to sue.

The two exceptions are Wisconsin and Mississippi, where a debt does in fact expire when its statute of limitations does.

So how does that lead to zombies?

Let’s go back to Company X, and the 50 folks who never paid. Ten years have passed since those debts were incurred, and those 50 folks are no longer legally lawsuit targets in any state.

At this point, we might effectively term the debt “dead,” and it kind of is. Except Collections Company P, down at the bottom of a long, long chain of resold debts, has just acquired that list of names — and really wants to make a buck.

So they send out letters and start making phone calls to those 50 people, none of whom has thought about these bills in at least seven or eight years. All of them have completely forgotten this debt was ever incurred, let alone has gone unpaid all this time.

One day “Jane Doe” gets a call telling her she owes a wad of cash. She feels particularly conscientious, and sends $50. Or maybe she doesn’t send anything, but says, “Oh! Of course I’ll pay what I owe!”

That action resets the statute of limitations. Because she promised to pay, the debt is now reborn, fresh. No longer dead, but a brand-new debt all over again, kicking off the whole process once more. And let’s remember that this debt can be continually resold: every single time a new company gets its hands on it, they can start demanding payment all over again.

In short, at this point it will continue to shamble along perhaps indefinitely, slowly but surely, maybe muttering “braaaaaaains” from time to time for maximum effect.

Which brings us back…

…to John Oliver.

The point of his exercise was in large part to convey just how awful the debt collection industry really is. The folks way down the chain, who buy the debt the second or tenth or hundredth time it’s sold, may not have any information about it. Or the information they have may be wrong. Or it may be out of the statute of limitations. Or the debt may never have been owed to start with, or the debtor has died, or one of a hundred other things has happened that means the person being harangued should be left alone.

As Oliver put it: “It is pretty clear by now that debt-buying is a grimy business and badly needs more oversight. As it stands, any idiot can get into it, and I can prove that to you, because I’m an idiot and we started a debt-buying company… And it was disturbingly easy.”

In fact, Oliver’s crew paid a whopping $50 to found their new debt-buying business, and in return were offered that pile of data — including names, addresses, social security numbers, and amounts that may or may not actually be owed anymore — on the $15 million worth of medical debt they have now so famously acquired.

The National Consumer Law Center, armed with their own reports on zombie debt, alongside a 2013 FTC report on debt buyers, asked the CPFB in 2015 to prohibit debt collection after a statute of limitations has expired.

The CFPB is considering updates to debt collection regulation, but is not at this time taking action on any proposed rules or rule changes.

Days after the king of the modern internet — Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg — found several of his social media accounts in the hands of hackers, similar attacks have befallen the NFL and other high-profile Twitter accounts, leading the social network to investigate. 

Twitter tells Mashable that it was looking into several recent hack attacks, the most recent of which included someone taking control of the NFL Twitter handle on Tuesday afternoon.

Shortly after noon Tuesday, the NFL Twitter account posted a note announcing that commissioner Roger Goodell had died.

While the Tweet was quickly deleted, it was shared about 2,300 times prior to being taken down. The hacker also posted several follow-up Tweets, including one that chastised the organization for taking down the Goodell had died message.

The NFL Twitter hack came just a day after rapper Drake’s account was compromised. That attack included Drake supposedly Tweeting that followers should follow another account and Snapchat user.

For its part Twitter said in a Tweet last night that it will cross check its own data with data from recent password leaks to see if there are any commonalities.

While it’s unclear what data Twitter is checking, there was a recent data dump of passwords from the 2013 hacks of LinkedIn, MySpace, Tumblr, and other services, Mashable points out.

The company also noted that it’s always a good time to ensure your passwords are secure.

NFL Twitter account hacked soon after Drake’s, Twitter ‘checking’ into leaks [Mashable]

Keurig Green Mountain’s big hopes for an at-home soda machine to rival SodaStream have gone flat: the company says it’s dropping the KOLD machine after less than a year on the market, and will offer customers a full refund for the countertop appliances.

Keurig said on Tuesday that it’s discontinuing the first generation of KOLD, which sold for a suggested retail price of $369.99. Each soda pod cost more than a dollar, making the KOLD machine a lot more expensive than just buying and storing your own soda in the fridge. That also frees up a lot of counter room.

“We value the trust our consumers put in the Keurig brand and believe that offering a refund is the right thing to do,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “While KOLD pods will be available while supplies last, we are discontinuing the product and consumers will eventually exhaust their pod supply. At that point, they will be unable to use their appliance.”

Keurig says it is “proactively reaching out to consumers that either purchased directly from Keurig or subsequently registered their product” with the company.

If you’ve purchased a KOLD, visit www.DrinkmakerRefundProgram.com to submit a refund request. You’ll need a legible photo of your KOLD drinkmaker’s serial number as well as proof of purchase, the company says, and it will only process one refund per serial number. Once a request has been accepted it will take an estimated two to three weeks for a refund check to be issued.

Refund requests will be honored through Aug. 31, 2016, the company said. Customers with questions can also call (855)721-4002.

The end of the KOLD machine will come with bad news for 130 employees who will be laid off as a result, most of them in Vermont, The Associated Press reports.

Keurig didn’t explain why it was pulling the plug on KOLD but did acknowledge to the AP that it learned from the experience and would incorporate that knowledge into future beverage endeavors. It also noted that “the initial execution of our KOLD system did not meet consumer expectations.”

The company has already yanked the KOLD from its site, as the product page has a note that it is “no longer available” and “out of stock.”

The news may be a shock to the company’s blogging team, however, which just posted a recipe for a KOLD strawberry shortcake cocktail on May 20.

Copyright law — specifically, the 1998 addition known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act — is everywhere. It’s applied to everything, because everything is software-driven, and it’s frankly starting to get more than a little awkward. That’s okay; laws age. So it’s time for an update, right? Except naturally, some of the changes being mulled over right now could be terrible for everyone who isn’t a giant corporation, because of course.

Today’s warning comes from the Internet Archive, which is speaking out in no uncertain terms against proposed changes.

Here’s what’s going on: The Copyright Office is untertaking a review of the DMCA to figure out what is and isn’t working. One big aspect of that is the “notice and takedown” aspect of the law: when a site receives notice from a copyright holder that they’re hosting infringing content, they’re legally immune from being an infringing party if they pull it down. We see examples of this gone amok fairly regularly, but it’s the way the internet world works right now.

But notice and takedown is prone to abuse. On the one hand, it doesn’t stop media pirates from willfully uploading content they don’t own again, or to other platforms. And on the other hand, it’s an incredibly powerful tool that lets basically anyone request to have basically any content removed wholesale from the internet at any time, potentially without appeal.

“We see this every day at the Internet Archive when we get overbroad DMCA takedown notices, claiming material that is in the public domain, is fair use, or is critical of the content owner,” the Archive’s blog post says. “More often than not, these bad notices are just mistakes, but sometimes notices are sent intentionally to silence speech. Since this tool can be so easily abused, it is one that should be approached with extreme caution.”

MORE: 4 Ways Copyright Law Actually Controls Your Whole Digital Life

However, the proposal now before the Copyright Office is something even more stringent. It’s called “Notice and Staydown,” and would have the effect that it sounds like: not only would the site receiving the notice have to take the content down, but they would have to assure that the work never appears on the platform ever again — from any user, in any form.

The Archive runs through a list of reasons why this is a huge problem. For one, there are no user protections. If something in the public domain gets captured by one of those “staydown” requests, everyone else on the internet would have to be proactively prohibited from uploading it to the site that got the request. And the new proposal has no provision to let falsely-accused users make counterclaims.

The rule would also require internet sites to heavily and proactively monitor all user activity. If one particular 30-second video clip has to “staydown,” that means that, say, Facebook or YouTube — two huge video hosting sites — would have to proactively screen every video uploaded by every user to make sure that it wasn’t that same 30-second clip.

As there are hundreds of millions of minutes of video uploaded to the internet every day — to say nothing about still images — that also puts a heavy burden on sites themselves, the Archive points out. Filtering just doesn’t really work that well. Even Facebook, probably the world leader in this sort of thing, is only just now getting into any sort of automatic video filtering and tagging.

“The DMCA has its problems, but Notice and Staydown would be an absolute disaster,” the Archive post concludes. “Unfortunately, members of the general public were not invited to the Copyright Office proceedings last week. The many thousands of comments submitted by Internet users on this subject were not considered valuable input; rather, one panelist characterized them as a ‘DDoS attack’ on the Copyright Office website, showing how little the people who are seeking to regulate the web actually understand it.”

Copyright Office’s Proposed Notice and Staydown System Would Force the Internet Archive and Other Platforms to Censor the Web [Internet Archive, via TorrentFreak]

Houses are the most expensive items that most people purchase, and we assume that they will last a long time, remain standing, and rise in value over the time that we own them. Because of bad concrete, though, some houses in Connecticut are slowly collapsing because of materials used in their construction, and homeowners’ hopes for the future and their finances are collapsing along with them.

The New York Times reports that houses that are collapsing are in northeastern Connecticut, and the problematic concrete started to be used during a building boom in that area in the ’80s. It took a local news story last year to prompt state officials to take action, but they were able to trace the problem to material taken out of a specific stone quarry and used in concrete.

Stone from that quarry has more pyrrhotite than most of the stone used for concrete-making, and the substance can destabilize house foundations that it’s used in, swelling and cracking after coming in contact with water and oxygen.

This is a long way around getting to the core problem: there are an estimated 20,000 homes in the area with flawed foundations, which are or will become uninhabitable. Repairing the foundations is possible, but costs up to $200,000, and this is a more middle-class part of Connecticut where people don’t have that kind of money sitting around.

“You can’t eat, you can’t sleep. When you’re told your home is now worthless and your biggest investment is now worthless, it’s devastating,” one homeowner told the Times. He started a group that advocates for and unites homeowners, the Connecticut Coalition Against Crumbling Basements.

This kind of thing is why you have home insurance, right? No: insurance policies now say that only abrupt collapses of houses are covered. Preventing a slow-motion collapse isn’t covered, and until state lawmakers intervened, insurers were dropping the policies of people with pyrrhotite in their basements.

One family paid to have their basement patched a few years ago, and it didn’t help. “The company experts who patched our foundation told us the cracking would stop at some point, and they said their patching would fix the problem,” they recounted in the CCACB blog. “We paid them thousands of dollars for patching in 2013 and now the cracking has accelerated.”

Where does that leave homeowners now? Only 223 have come forward and complained to the state out of the estimated 20,000 homes that may have the pyrrhotite problem. They may not want to reveal their problem in public where their insurance company or lender could find out.

The state government will wait to take financial action until the investigation sorts out the extent of the problem. Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been called in to deal with this disaster, which is like a very slow human-made earthquake.

With Connecticut Foundations Crumbling, ‘Your Home Is Now Worthless’ [New York Times]

There’s an endless number of cleaning products out there, but you don’t need to spend a fortune to keep a home looking nice. These are the only essentials you need.

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WASHINGTON — A man was attacked by a rabid cat in the Springfield, Virginia area, Fairfax County police say.

It happened Sunday morning on the Long Branch Trail, north of the Franconia-Springfield Metro Station.

Police say the man was repeatedly scratched by the cat. He is undergoing preventive treatment.

Authorities say the car was “extremely aggressive” and died during the attack.

The cat is described as a domestic shorthair, with a black and brown tortoise shell coat and a clouded left eye. It was an adult female that weighed about 15 pounds.

The Fairfax County Health Department wants to hear from anyone else who had contact with the cat recently.

If you had direct contact with the cat between May 27 and June 5, you are urged to call the Fairfax County Health Department’s Rabies Coordinator at 571-274-2296.

The post Va. man attacked by rabid cat appeared first on WTOP.

Law enforcement has long used tattoos as a way to identify people (“The suspect has the name ‘Marge’ on his forearm”), or as an indicator of group membership (“All members of the gang had the same exact tattoo on their forearms”), but the FBI’s in-development tattoo recognition program seeks to create an algorithm to make instant inferences about a person’s behavior based on their tattoos.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that for the better part of the past two years, the FBI has been working with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to create tattoo recognition systems that police can use to learn as much as possible about people through their tattoos.

The Tattoo Recognition Technology features a database of nearly 15,000 tattoo images intended to map connections between people with similarly themed tattoos or make inferences about people from their tattoos.

For example, the NIST believes the ink can “suggest affiliation to gangs, subcultures, religious or ritualistic beliefs, or political ideology” along with “contain[ing] intelligence; messages, meaning and motivation.”

While NIST and the FBI plan to expand the current database to about 100,000 tattoo images, EFF is calling on the organizations to suspend the projects over privacy concerns.

As it stands, EFF suggests that NIST’s database is made up of images of tattoos that belong to arrestees and inmates.

Additionally, those images — which include personally identifying information, such as people’s names, faces, and birth dates — were then provided to third parties that have little restriction on how they can use the photos.

The 19 organizations — five research institutions, six universities, and eight private companies — that obtained the images performed a series of tests on the data that included identifying whether an image contained a tattoo and whether algorithms could match different images of the same tattoo taken over time.

EFF also claims that NIST is breaking its own rules by providing the images to third parties, as many of the tattoos include personally identifiable information such as a person’s religion, data of birth, or activities.

“Several of the images contained text spelling the names of family members,” the report states. “In at least two cases, these included the full names of the family members. In another tattoo, a 14-year-old child’s name was listed along with her date of birth.”

The Foundation also claims that NIST researches failed to follow protocol for ethical research of humans.

In one case the group found that researchers only sought permission from supervisors after the first set of experiments were completed.

“These same researchers have also not disclosed to their supervisors that the tattoo datasets they are using to seed the experiments came from prisoners and arrestees,” EFF’s investigation found. “Under federal research guidelines, research involving prisoners triggers enhanced scrutiny and ethical oversight to prevent their exploitation. Instead, NIST and the FBI are treating inmates as an endless supply of free data.”

In light of these potential privacy violations, EFF called on NIST and the FBI to take steps to remediate damage caused by the experiments, and suspend the program’s planned expansion.

Tattoo Recognition Research Threatens Free Speech and Privacy [Electronic Frontier Foundation]

Following the introduction of the Whopper Dog, which took all the fixings of Burger King’s iconic Whopper and put them on a hot dog, the fast food company is doing the same with a tortilla, creating the Whopperito. You know, for when the calories in a bun are just too much. 

Grub Grade, which first spotted a sign advertising the new concoction, reports that several Burger King locations in Pennsylvania are serving as test ground for the Whopperito.

As one might expect, the Whopper-burrito hybrid is just the contents of the burger — flame-grilled beef, American cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, mayo, ketchup, pickles, and white onions — shoved into a tortilla.

We’ve reached out to Burger King to see if the new menu item is the brain child of rogue franchisees or if the mash-up came from the company.

It’s unclear if the Whopperito will hit stores in other cities or states, but that hasn’t stopped potential customers from discussing the item on Twitter.

The Whopperito might be new to Burger King’s actual menu, but it appears the combination has been a favorite for some diners for a while. However, that combination actually involved going to both Burger King and Taco Bell.

New Whopperrito from Burger King [Grub Grade]

Three months ago, federal regulators and law enforcement officials warned carmakers that their vehicles were increasingly vulnerable to hackings. Today, security researchers revealed one such issue in the Mitsubishi Outlander that allows would-be hackers to turn off the car’s alarms. 

Security researchers from PenTestPartners revealed Monday that they were able to turn off the alarms, drain the battery, and mess with settings in the plug-in electric hybrid model of the Mitsubishi Outlander, ZDNet reports.

The issue lies within the Outlander’s WiFi module, the researchers say, and the way in which the car’s move application connects to the vehicle.

While most connected cars have a cellular modem for connectivity, the Outlander allows owners to access its remote functions by connecting to the car’s own distinctly named WiFi network.

PenTestPartners found that the vehicle’s WiFi module “has not been implemented securely” and that the pre-shared key easily crackable.

Once connected to the vehicle, the researchers found they could play with the lights or climate control, lock or unlock the doors remotely, and disable the alarm.

“Once unlocked, there is potential for many more attacks,” the team says. “The onboard diagnostics port is accessible once the door is unlocked.”

PenTestPartners tells ZDNet that when they first approached Mitsubishi the carmaker was “disinterested” in the issue.

However, Mitsubishi tells ZDNet that the hacking was a “first for us as no other has been reported anywhere else in the world” and the company is taking the issue seriously.

The company says that while it investigates the issue, owners should disable their onboard WiFi in the app by canceling the VIN registration.

Mitsubishi Outlander car alarm can be hacked through Wi-Fi [ZDNet]

If you’re allergic or sensitive to peanuts, exercise caution when choosing your Chocodiles, Ding-Dongs, Zingers, and Hostess Donuts. The reborn company announced the recall of 710,000 cases of packaged baked treats, which aren’t supposed to contain any peanuts. These batches, however, contain flour that may be contaminated with peanut residue.

If the words “flour recall” sound familiar, that’s because a recent recall of millions of pounds of General Mills flour has been in the news lately. This is an entirely unrelated recall, since the supplier to Hostess, Grain Craft, doesn’t sell flour to consumers.

The dedicated reporters over at Food Safety News have have learned that it’s possible that the General Mills flour may have been sold to companies that produce baked goods in bulk, or perhaps cookie or pizza dough that’s sold directly to consumers. If they discover any products like that, they’ll announce a recall.

You’re here to find out if that box of Ding Dongs in your pantry has been recalled, though, right? People who don’t have very severe peanut allergies shouldn’t have to worry, but the Food and Drug Administration knows of two people who have had allergic reactions to Hostess products linked to this recall.

If you have any of the products on this list, check them against the batch codes and best-by dates on the master list on the Hostess web site. (PDF download)

• Twinkies Chocodiles (Multi-Pack, fresh and frozen)
• Twinkies Chocodiles (Single Packages, fresh and frozen)
• Ding Dongs (Multi-Pack, fresh and frozen)
• Ding Dongs (Single Packages, fresh and frozen)
• Chocolate Zingers (Multi-Pack, fresh and frozen)
• Chocolate Zingers (Single Packages, fresh and frozen)
• Raspberry Zingers (Multi-Pack, fresh and frozen)
• Raspberry Zingers (Single Packages, fresh and frozen)
• Vanilla Zingers (Multi-Pack, fresh and frozen)
• Vanilla Zingers (Single Packages, fresh and frozen)
• Chocolate Donuts (Bag)
• Chocolate Donuts (Single Servings, fresh and frozen)
• Crunch Donuts (Bag, fresh and frozen)
• Crunch Donuts (Single Servings, fresh and frozen)
• Devils Food Donuts (Bag)
• Glazed Mini Donuts (Bag, fresh and frozen)
• Maple Donut (Bag)
• Powder Donut (Bag, fresh and frozen)
• Powder Donut (Single Servings, fresh and frozen)

Hostess Brands, LLC Issues Recall On Possible Undeclared Peanut Residue In Certain Snack Cake And Donut Products [FDA]
FDA Investigates Low Levels of Peanut Residue Found in Limited Flour and Flour Products [FDA]

A highly rated knife set, Anker oil diffusers , and Mizuno running shoes lead off Monday’s best deals.

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