Most people solve a problem by identifying a goal and then pursuing a path directly towards that ideal, but when you ask a successful entrepreneur what to do, you might get a different answer. They don't think in terms of an endpoint; they think of the process.
Even if you have cooked a dish a hundred times, something can go wrong on the 101st time, whether your food is too spicy or maybe overcooked. Don't panic. For the most common cooking disasters, there are ways to make sure your food doesn't go waste.
Nobody likes the dentist, but the only thing worse than sitting in the chair is having to pay thousands of dollars for the privilege afterwards. There are some things you can watch for, however, to avoid getting ripped off.
Whisks are one of the most notorious kitchen items to store. You can keep them in a container on the countertop, but many of us put them in drawers until we need them. Trouble is, the wide wires can get caught and stuck, making drawers catch or bending the wires. The solution? A simple rubber band.
Electrical work can be a bit intimidating, especially for someone new to construction or DIY. Understanding more about electricity can help you determine what types of electrical projects you'd be comfortable tackling on your own.
One of the easiest ways you can waste money is by wasting food you've already paid for. Instead of throwing out all the food you forgot about, use a magnetic whiteboard to keep track of what's inside your fridge and when it goes bad.
Dear Lifehacker,
I know that tea has all kinds of health benefits , and I've always had a taste for it, but I've been drinking the bagged stuff I get in paper sleeves forever. Where do I go to buy better tea? Is it just finding better bags, or should I take the plunge and go loose leaf?
Space in the kitchen can be at a premium, especially in condos and apartments. If you would rather use your worktop for food preparation than storing fruit, a hanging fruit bowl is a great option.
Timing your purchase can make a big difference in savings. We're fans of buying at the right time . In deciding when to buy an item, you might also consider the days of the week retailers change prices.
You need about seven hours of sleep to be productive . You can increase the chances of getting those by sleeping in a bedroom that is colored blue, yellow, green, silver or orange.
Fast food chains keeping trying to create bigger burgers. Home burger chefs, on the other hand, need to keep the pre-cooked weight around 7 ounces to get the proper level of flavor and juiciness.
Fondant icing is the ingredient cake artists use to create their masterpieces. Grocery stores don't always carry it, though, and it's expensive if they do. Use some marshmallows and flavored gelatin instead and make your own.
For example, they compared two Sleep number beds: the c2, which normally costs $1,000 and was on sale for $700, and the Innovation Series i8 (Pillowtop), which cost $3,000. In objective tests that they run using specialized equipment, they found that the less expensive bed, the c2, was actually more stable than the pricier one, which means that a person sleeping on one side won’t disturb their partner on the other half if they move around a lot while they sleep.
Of course, there are real differences that account for that price discrepancy. Namely, the more expensive mattress has a thicker foam layer on top. You might find that more comfortable for sleeping, or you might prefer a more stable mattress: that’s why it’s important to try them out in person instead of depending on price as a proxy for quality. You already knew that, though, didn’t you?
Sleep Number beds differ in price not performance [Consumer Reports]
The call to police in Aiken, South Carolina seemed wacky but plausible: a man who worked at a pet store called to report a burglary. He said that a 100-pound mountain lion worth $35,000 was missing from the store, and had either been stolen during a burglary or had taken advantage of the opportunity to escape. Turns out there was no missing mountain lion. There was no mountain lion at all.
Local law enforcement had never received a call before that a mountain lion wearing a dog harness might be roaming the area. They sent out animal control officers and called in state wildlife officials for help in finding the animal. They estimate that the bill for wasted staff time, including animal control officers called in on a weekend, totals more than $3,000.
A fellow employee at the pet store speculated that the colleague who made the false report may have thought that a large domestic cat in the store escaped or was stolen during the burglary, and misspoken while talking to police. If the police are correct, he told them that the escaped “mountain lion” weighed 100 pounds. That would be a very large cat.
It’s still not clear exactly what happened at the store–there are 15 screws missing from a wall, and yesterday there was a gas leak at the pet store. What we do know is that no mountain lion escaped, and the store never had a $35,000 mountain lion for sale or just hanging around. The employee who reported the burglary has been arrested, and everyone seems kind of confused about the entire situation.
Man arrested after mountain lion hoax [WRDW]
Cop car paint colors? Check. Some sort of shield with some sort of saying on the side? Done. K-9 and 9-1-1 decals in appropriate spots? Got’em. Yet somehow, police in Massachusetts realized that a Maserati isn’t likely to be a real cop car. Because hello, $100,000 (give or take a few thousand) sports car, you’ve clearly got better things to do than impersonating a police cruiser.
The Braintree, Mass. deputy police chief says a patrol officer stopped a man driving a Maserati that was “made to look like a police cruiser,” including a black-and-white paint job with a police-ish shield on the doors and the appropriate decals, reports the Patriot-Ledger.
And upon closer inspection, that shield actually read “Decepticons punish and enslave,” instead of “protect and serve.
Another telltale sign — the vehicle was missing the blue police lights on top.
A patrol officer found himself behind the Maserati and found it funny, because he “didn’t know of any (police) department that had a Maserati,” so he pulled the car over.
The driver insisted that he was actually doing police a favor by driving around, “because other drivers noticed him and slowed down, thinking it was a police vehicle.”
It’s unclear how that defense will hold up — he’s been summoned for a clerk magistrate hearing in district court.
Braintree cops say Maserati owner impersonating officer [The Patriot-Ledger]
Elsie the Cow, mascot of Borden brand products, is good at many things. She can give milk, apparently. She looks very pretty, and can smile in her official portraits, even though we’re pretty sure cows can’t actually smile. What she isn’t very good at is covering her tracks. When Borden recently Shrink Rayed their packages of cheese to seven ounces, Elsie forgot to destroy the evidence.
“Borden cheese shrank their bag from 8 ounces to 7 ounces but never fixed the barcode on the back,” explains reader Mark, who bought this presumably delicious package of shredded cheddar cheese. “It still says 8 ounces” on the back, above the barcode. Oops.
Need a zoomed-in view? of the new size on the front You got it.
Meanwhile, on the back of the package…
We get it: it’s easier to shrink quantities slightly than to ask consumers to accept higher prices. Do they have to remind us all of that extra handful of cheese that we’re missing by putting this on the back?
Job interviews are a nerve-wracking experience. And while we’re all prepared to answer, “What’s your biggest weakness?” or “Tell me about a time you made a mistake at work,” most of us aren’t expecting to hear, “Are you planning to become pregnant?” or “Where do you go to church?” or, “What country were your parents born in?” Such incredibly personal questions are often jarring and possible deal-breakers for some applicants. Many people think it’s illegal to be asked these kinds of questions, but in most cases it’s not against the to ask — it’s just illegal to use that information as the deciding factor in whether or not to hire someone. So the next time you’re hunting for a job, here’s what you need to know about what your next boss can and can’t ask you — and what you can do about it if things get weird.
• It is legal for a job interviewer to ask about your family, sexuality, age, religion, and other personal issues that aren’t related to the job.
• It is illegal for an employer to use that information to decide whether or not you get the job.
• It’s legal for an employer to discuss whether someone’s disability will prevent them from being able to do the job.
• It’s illegal for the employer to inquire about the nature of that disability.
• If an interviewer’s questions seem to personal, try to determine if they are making small talk or if they are asking a question that is really about the job.
• If it’s just small talk, try to keep your answers friendly and limited to what you’re comfortable discussing.
• If the personal question is really about a work-related issue, try answering by skipping right to the work question.
• You can always respond with “Why do you ask?”
• If an employer doesn’t respect your desire to keep certain things private, ask yourself if that is a company you want to work for.
• If you feel like you have been discriminated against based on these questions, you can file a complaint with the EEOC. You may also want to consider looking into finding a lawyer.
In a perfect universe, all of what’s discussed in a job interview would be small talk that doesn’t matter, doesn’t pry too much and doesn’t cross any personal lines. In the real world, workplace discrimination is still a pernicious problem.
Sometimes employers genuinely and unfairly want to weed out candidates who don’t fit their perceived model (like engineering firms that have been accused of automatically discounting female applicants), but sometimes they simply don’t realize their own biases, like maybe finding someone from their own religion “more trustworthy.”
And if a company chooses to not hire someone — or gives preferential treatment to an applicant — because of their answers to some of these incredibly personal questions, it’ not just rude to the qualified applicants who missed out on the job, it’s potentially super-duper illegal.
This is where the problem starts. There is no one specific law declaring that “You can’t ask questions about XYZ.” Instead, there is a a patchwork of laws and regulations enacted over time and are enforced on a federal level by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The EEOC oversees employment discrimination claims, including hiring discrimination, against protected classes.
Good question, Timmy. Individuals have legal protection against discrimination along certain categorical lines; the groups inside those lines are protected classes. At the federal level, they are race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, and genetic information.
Most of those categories are exactly what they sound like. Sex discrimination includes pregnancy discrimination, age discrimination applies to workers over age 40, and “genetic information” discrimination means a company can’t decline to hire you if, for example, you carry the so-called “breast cancer gene” and might cost them extra in medical benefits someday.
Although there is no federal law protecting LGBT employees from discrimination, the EEOC has held that discriminating against a transgender person on the basis of their gender identity qualifies as sex discrimination, as can discrimination against a lesbian, gay, or bisexual person in some circumstances.
Twenty states provide some protection for employees who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual; seventeen have non-discrimination laws protecting employees based on gender identity. In Tennessee, someone can refuse to hire a gay employee. In Colorado, they can’t.
However, as of just a few weeks ago, no business that has a contract with the federal government is permitted to discriminate against LGBT employees and candidates — and that includes religious organizations with federal contracts.
Nope!
Not even a little bit illegal at all.
With a very few specific exceptions (more about those in a moment), there are no “illegal” interview questions. It is completely, totally, 100% legal for a potential employer to ask you about your status in any protected class except for disability.
So yes, an employer can ask you if you’re married, if you have children, if you plan to have children, if you’re gay, what country you or your parents were born in, and what religion you practice — and countless other personal things that have nothing to do with the job or your possible performance in that job.
However, using any of that information as part of the hiring process is completely illegal. Hiring managers are not permitted, under the law, to decline to hire you because of your status as a member of a protected class.
Because they’re not permitted to use that information to make decisions about your candidacy, most sensible employers will avoid asking in the first place. That way, if they don’t hire you, they have a reasonable defense against accusations of many different kinds of discrimination.
Certain businesses are too small to be covered by EEOC rules. If you’re the third or fourth employee a small business has ever hired, you are completely out of luck on discrimination protection.
The other key exception is disability. Under the law, an employer is prohibited from asking job applicants if they have a disability.
They also may not ask about the nature of an “obvious” disability. For example, if a candidate comes in with a hearing aid, a guide dog, or a wheelchair, discussing the nature of that disability is a no-no. (Of course, many disabilities are invisible or hidden from sight.)
However, employers may ask job applicants if they are able to perform the job and how they would perform the job, but the nature of the disability is out of bounds.
For example, if a wheelchair-using candidate interviews for a job as a delivery driver, the employer can ask, “Are you able to drive a van and take packages from the vehicle to clients’ doorsteps?” but the employer may not specifically ask about the applicant’s disability.
Probing, seemingly irrelevant questions might not be illegal, but that doesn’t mean you’ll feel comfortable telling some interviewer personal details about your marriage, kids, religion, or sex life. So what do you do when you think a question crosses the line?
For expert advice, we asked Alison Green of Ask A Manager, who says that the way to handle the situation first depends on exactly what the situation is.
“It’s so tricky, because on the one hand you really don’t want to take an adversarial approach,” she explains. “That’s the fastest way to destroy any rapport you’ve already built up with the interviewer.”
And of course, if you’re at an interview for a job you want, you’re trying to build up a positive relationship and hopefully end up with a great new gig.
First, try not to get thrown off. Keep your cool. Then, Green suggests, tailor your approach to the feeling you’re getting from the asker. Ask yourself whether the question is something you wouldn’t normally discuss, or if it’s only jarring because it’s unexpected from a job interview.
“Are they making conversation, being warm? Then treat it as you would at any other social occasion,” Green advises. Kids and pets are nearly as common to talk about as the weather, after all.
But what if it’s not just small talk?
“If you get the sense that they’re grilling you, that the answers really matter,” Green says you can take a couple of different tactics.
“Try to figure out what it is they’re really getting at,” she suggests. You can even ask them that question directly; in a friendly, conversational, non-adversarial tone try answering their question with one of your own: a casual, “Oh, why do you ask?”
Or, says Green, you can sometimes see clearly what the employer is really concerned about and tackle that head-on instead.
For example, if you believe you’re being asked about future pregnancy plans because they want to know how you’ll handle child-care arrangements, and how it will reflect your availability and reliability, you can skip to answering those concerns instead of getting mired in the personal details of your family planning.
When your efforts to rein in the personal questions don’t succeed, the best you can do in answer politely or deflect gracefully. Unfortunately, if the interviewer gets challenging or hostile about your answers, then the interview is probably not going to end well.
Of course, you’ll have to ask yourself if you would be comfortable working for a company that insists on answers to these probing questions.
Most of the time, interviewers who ask dumb questions are making thoughtless small talk without thinking through the implications. But sometimes, hiring managers and companies really are big discriminatory jerks.
If an employer has discriminated against you due to your status as a member of a protected class, you can file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC.
In some situations, you may also wish to consult an employment lawyer, who can help you understand your particular options better.
Green suggests that employees and job-seekers looking for a reputable employment lawyer should head to the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) website, where they have a searchable directory of lawyers who specifically represent workers and employees in employment law cases.
It’s one thing to return to the scene of the crime, but to show up at an even packed with law enforcement after spending months on the run from police? That is just a behavior in its very own category.
In a strange plot twist, a man wanted under suspicion that he robbed a few local grocery stores nine months ago popped up at an anti-crime police event, where he beat police and fire fighters in a doughnut-eating competition, reports My Fox 8 in North Carolina.
The 24-year-old suspect was wanted for felony break-ins dating nine months back, when his big win devouring eight glazed doughnuts in two minutes made it to the local paper. That’s when police noticed their man was back in the public eye.
“When I came in that morning and read that article I was pissed because it’s like throwing it in our face,” a deputy with the sheriff’s office said. “We’ve been looking for you for months. I didn’t ask him if he won a trophy – he probably did.”
Though that doesn’t mean his feat isn’t impressive.
“I did congratulate him,” he said. “Good for him. He can eat a lot of doughnuts. Good for him.”
Investigators said the man broke into a grocery store last November, and a storage building at a shopping center in May, though nothing was stolen. He’s also suspected of stealing $5,000 in cash from a local home in December.
“It’s like he had the audacity to do something like that [competing in the doughnut competition] knowing that he had broken into these places,” the deputy adds.
He was arrested the day after his sweet victory and charged with two counts of felony breaking and entering and misdemeanor injury to real property.
NC man arrested after winning doughnut eating contest [MyFox8.com]
What better way to celebrate “Christmas in July” than breaking out Reese’s peanut butter cups shaped like pine trees? Yeah, we didn’t think that it was such a good idea, either, especially since it’s no longer July. However, the freezer case at Walmart disagrees.
A sharp-eyed reader of The Impulsive Buy noticed the tree-shaped ice creams on the shelf at Walmart and submitted them in horror. If Christmas-themed ice creams hit shelves during the summer and stay at least through the end of the retail holiday season, how “limited” is that edition, really?
You might remember that last year, one of our readers noticed a related product from Good Humor still on the shelves during August, the Mounds-branded Easter egg version with coconut ice cream. Maybe Walmart should consider putting up an “ice cream novelties from random holidays” shelf.
SPOTTED ON SHELVES – 8/11/2014 [The Impulsive Buy]
As well as observing how fast ice cream sandwiches melt on a hot day, Consumer Reports food scientists enlisted the aid of professional tasters to try the five different brands of ice cream sandwiches and describe them.
The Nestle ice cream started to drip 10 minutes in, with the Klondike bar joining in after 15 minutes in 100-degree heat. Ice cream sandwiches from Blue Bunny, Walgreen’s Nice! brand and Walmart Great Value were still holding together after 30 minutes, with the Walmart brand sandwich mostly intact after an hour.
And the common observation about all five? Gumminness, said testers.
“Higher quality ice cream melts clean on the mouth,” one tester noted, adding that these left an “almost foamy feel on the tongue.”
And while Walmart had said that its sandwiches melt slower due to having less cream than other ice creams, it’s no surprise the ice cream tasted gummy, because all five brands have gums added to them to prevent melting and ward off crystallization when freezing.
Check out Consumer Reports’ video of the science experiment below:
If you’re a feral feline in southern Indiana, it looks like the Walmart in Jasper is the place to be. The store’s parking lot has apparently been overrun by dozens of cats out looking to score free food. But unlike past instances where Walmart has been accused of trapping and hauling off the cats to be killed, this store appears to be taking a more humane approach to these wild cats.
According to a recent local news report, the Walmart in Jasper has become a favorite stomping ground for the 40 or so feral cats.
“I thought that they were helping WalMart with mice, maybe? I wasn’t sure,” says one customer. “I know that if you park back here, it gives them a cool place to sit. They will come out underneath your car, and when you come back out, there will be five or six of them under your vehicle.”
Earlier this summer, the store had banned a local woman from putting out the nightly feedings for the cats, saying the food was attracting critters that were even more unwanted, like skunks. The town was apparently divided in their support of the woman’s efforts and their hatred of feral cats, but in early July Walmart stopped preventing the woman from feeding the felines.
The local Humane Society has now gotten involved with the feeding process in the hope of eventually trapping the cats.
Their ultimate fate is the big question. As we’ve covered before, there are many people opposed to trapping feral cats only to euthanize them.
Several months ago, a Change.org petition asking Walmart to stop the process of euthanizing trapped feral cats received more than 12,000 signatures.
A rep for the Humane Society says they will continue to feed the cats but won’t trap them until they have found a place for them to live. But a new home would have to be outdoors on a farm or someplace where they can basically continue to live the outdoors life they’ve become accustomed to.
“We can’t do anything until we have a place to take them,” she explains. “They can never be tamed. Even the little kittens, they are already feral. You would have to get a kitten at like four weeks to tame it. These guys will have to live their life in the wild.”
She adds that even if they trap and find homes for the few dozen cats currently prowling the parking lot, “Research shows that once this colony is removed, there’s going to be more waiting to come in.”
Much like the agency’s admonition not to wash chicken before cooking it, the study shows us that what seems safe to us at an intuitive level isn’t as safe as we might think. Handling poultry normally hasn’t killed (most of) us yet, but it’s fascinating to learn where bacteria end up and why.
Shoppers were told that the researchers were studying their behavior, but not that their poultry-handling behavior was the main focus. After the shoppers put wrapped packages of chicken or turkey in their carts, researchers found poultry protein on surfaces that they touched. Those surfaces included their carts (of course) as well as dry goods that they touched, other meat, frozen food, refrigerated items, and their own purses or children.
In stalking shoppers, the study also found that only about 20% of shoppers used the plastic bags supplied in the meat department specifically to prevent this from happening. 85% of the stores, which ranged from giant chains to tiny family-owned groceries, provided those bags to customers.
Think about that the next time you grab a door handle at the freezer case.
Study: Shoppers Spread Raw Poultry Juices at Store, Home [Food Safety News]
Manassas principal fired after investigation found he fabricated resume MyFox Washington DC Join the conversation on our Facebook page! Like us and tell us what stories matter to you. Join the conversation on our Facebook page! Like us and tell us what stories matter to you. MANASSAS, Va. -. A Manassas city school principal is out of a job ... |
