pileofcrapola

When you are grilling anything that can melt or drip, a good way to keep it contained and avoid spills is to turn any regular spatula into a tray with some aluminum foil, suggests celebrity chef Alton Brown.

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Craigslist sometimes feels like the origin of all scams. When you're searching for a place to live, you can use Google's reverse image search to make it easier dealing with patient zero.

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It's no secret that browser extensions can have a negative effect on memory usage . Mozilla has conducted some research that once again reiterates just how much RAM extensions like Adblock Plus can eat.

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When you need help fixing your computer, the last thing you want is a communication problem. Before you call tech support or file a bug report, there are a few things you should do to make sure you get the best help possible.

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Android/iOS/Web: When you need to transfer a file from your PC to your mobile or vice versa, you could turn to Pushbullet . But for a faster, no-signup and secure method, Send Anywhere is a worthy alternative.

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Introvert or extrovert, a weekend surrounded by strangers—whether that's for a company getaway, a wedding, or a family trip—is always a little challenging. For introverts, it's about finding a balance so you can survive the weekend. Here's how I learned to deal with it without losing my mind.

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Apparently unable to send out more than one e-mail per day, printing company Shutterfly sent out an apology this morning for yesterday’s mailing. That marketing blast congratulated what appears to be their entire mailing list on their new babies. This confused many people who have older kids or no children at all, but was deeply upsetting to recipients currently dealing with infertility or mourning a miscarriage.

Krissy, the reader who alerted us to the original mass mailing, sent over a copy of today’s apology note.

The message was apparently intended only for new parents who had made baby-related purchases, and not for everyone on the planet. Since lunchtime yesterday, the company has also been reaching out to people who complained about the mailing on Facebook or Twitter, with messages customized for people who explained why they found the message so hurtful, especially when it landed in their inboxes just after the Mother’s Day marketing onslaught was over.

To repeat ourselves from yesterday, we really have to commend Shutterfly for realizing that sending the message out was objectively awful, and not shifting blame by saying something like “we’re sorry that you found the e-mail hurtful.”

Back in the day, you could hire the best babysitter on the block for $5 per hour, with $1 added for each kid. That was enough to pay for whatever high schoolers need to pay for, but nowadays the top babysitters are raking in the big bucks.

Babysitting site UrbanSitter has a new report based on a survey of about 7,500 families across the country to calculate the average hourly rates for all those child caretakers — nannies, mother’s helpers and of course, babysitters.

And it should come as no surprise that the Land of Everything Is Expensive, also known as New York City, has the highest going rate for babysitters, at an average of $15.34 for one child. That’s compared to a national average of $14.97 per one child, $17.12 for two children, and $18.27 for three children.

If you want to pay less for child care, moving to Denver might be in your future, where the least expensive babysitters can be found at an average of $10.84 for one child, per hour.

Check out UrbanSitter’s map below to see how your nearest city clocks in.

In an attempt to show the public, and federal regulators, that safety is of the utmost importance, General Motors issued five new recalls Thursday for a total 2.7 million vehicles.

The bulk of affected vehicles – 2.4 million Chevrolet Malibus, Pontiac G6s, and Saturn Auras – were recalled for taillight problems, The Wall Street Journal reports.

So far in 2014 General Motors has been mired with recalls; one of which included 1.6 million vehicles for an ignition switch problem that has been connected to at least 13 deaths and set-off a firestorm of inquiries into the company’s recall behavior.

Thursday’s remaining recalls include 140,000 Corvettes for loss of low-beam headlights and 19,000 Cadillac CTS cars for windshield-wiper failure.

Nearly 477 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks were also recalled for a tie-rod issue. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports [PDF] that an improperly tightened tie rod attachment could allow the rod to separate from the steering rack, creating a loss of steering and increasing the risk of a crash.

The final recall of 140,000 model year 2014 Chevrolet Malibus was initiated after testing work being conducted on a new model in late April found a break issue.

NHTSA reports [PDF] the affected vehicles may experience a complete loss of brake vacuum assist, disabling the hydraulic boost assist. If that occurs, slowing or stopping the vehicle will require additional brake pedal effort and a lengthened stopping distance.

On May 2, General Motors halted production at two plants since the same braking system is used in the current Malibu model. On May 7, dealers were informed to stop selling the vehicles after testing confirmed the issue.

Officials with General Motors say affected vehicles will be fixed beginning later this month at no charge to consumers.

The rather quick action regarding the Malibu break issue appears to be a result of GM’s shift to better investigate consumer complaints.

“We are not waiting for trends in defects,” Jeff Boyer, GM vehicle safety chief, tells the WSJ. “We have also hired 35 to 40 more safety investigators to help us find potential problems before they happen.”

Thursday’s news come just 10 days after GM issued a recall for 51,640 SUVs, including the Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia, because of a possible inaccurate readings of fuel gauges.

Additionally, the company faces multiple probes related to the faulty ignition switch recall, including inquests into how long the company knew about the deadly issue before warning drivers. Consumers have already filed lawsuits against the company for its actions related to releasing the vehicles although issue were known.

GM Recalls Another 2.7 Million Vehicles [The Wall Street Journal]

Alyson snapped this picture quickly at Winn-Dixie to evade detection, which is why it’s blurry. I’m not sure that things would be better if it were in focus. It wouldn’t make any more sense than it does now.

The regular price of packets is $1.99, and the apparent sale price is $10. If you have your store card, the sign brags, you can save 801 cents.

The sale is probably 10 packets for $10, or a dollar each, which is a reasonable price for premixed spice packets and not a bad sale. Whoever made the sign probably scrambled the numbers, but at least one customer was confused enough to avoid this product entirely.

“Needless to say, I bought another brand of seasoning,” Alyson writes. “I know, making my own is so much better but I’m in the middle of a move and lack half of what’s needed to make it myself.”

Don’t worry, Consumerist doesn’t judge you. Unless you pay ten bucks for a McCormick spice packet, but it doesn’t look like anyone is doing that.

This morning, an unknown number of women received an e-mail from photo-printing site Shutterfly congratulating them on their new babies. The problem is that most of these women hadn’t recently given birth, and aren’t pregnant. Many of them have no kids at all. While most were probably able to laugh it off as a weird mistake, plenty of recipients weren’t.

What we don’t know is how the message reached all of these people. Many claimed that they had never signed up for Shutterfly or its mailing list.

Here’s what they saw:

What a lovely ad…if you were someone who actually had ordered birth announcements from Shutterfly, or who had even given birth recently.

“The only problem? I’ve never been pregnant. And if I was, I certainly wouldn’t have told random people at Shutterfly about my life changing news,” wrote reader Krissy when sending us a tip about this misdirected mailing. “I can’t imagine how many Moms who lost their babies may have received this mistaken email, and how heartbreaking that would be.”

For some women who received the e-mail, it was an amusing oddity. Just more junk mail in their inboxes. (As far as we know, only women received this e-mail – let us know if you’re an exception. UPDATE: Nope, men received it too.)

Some were mildly annoyed or insulted, but speculated how the message might read to others in different life circumstances.

For others, it dredged up grief over the recent or not-so-recent loss of a pregnancy or of a child, or served as a cruel reminder of their struggles with infertility.

It wasn’t an intentional reminder of these things, of course. Almost 12 hours after the message went out, Shutterfly began apologizing to individual users who complained on social media.

Common elements of apology comments: sending the e-mail was accidental, and the company is very sorry. To their credit, they didn’t use blame-shifting language like “we’re sorry that you were offended.” Here’s one comment posted on a Facebook post:

Caryn, we want to extend our deepest apology for the email that reached many in error this morning. We know that this has impacted you in a personal manner and for that we are truly sorry.

In an official statement, Shutterfly told Consumerist, “Earlier this morning, we unintentionally sent out an e-mail in error to some of our customers. We deeply apologize for this intrusion and any offense this may have caused.” We asked for an estimate of how many people received the message, but they didn’t provide one. Maybe they don’t know.

Where in the world could a stolen tuxedo possibly show up? One formalwear store owner seems to have had a detective’s instinct, and managed to spot her pilfered merchandise at a local high school’s prom after someone boosted it from a store mannequin.

While it’s unclear if said owner was staking out all the weddings, proms and other fancy events in the area, police in Northern Arizona say she saw him wearing a $600 tuxedo that belonged to her store while attending his high school prom, reports the Associated Press.

She called the police on the spot and accompanied officers into the prom to identify the tux in question by color, style and the designer on the label.

Cops arrested the 18-year-old and charged him with a felony, after accusing him of breaking a window at the store and taking the tux off a mannequin.

Again, it’s not clear why the store owner was at the prom — maybe as a chaperone? Or she’s just that dedicated to her business to check out any possible lead around.

Police: Teen wearing stolen tux arrested at prom [Associated Press]

Most of us don’t have the proportions of the mannequins posing artfully in store windows, but windows shoppers walking past one upscale New York City lingerie store were a bit shocked to see that one dummy was so thin, its fake ribs were showing through its fake skin. The store has since pulled the mannequin and apologized.

Jezebel reports that the outrage spread on Twitter soon after people started seeing the mannequin on display at La Perla, a fancy lingerie store that makes my wallet cringe at its very name.

“How does #LaPerla think ribs on a mannequin is ok?!” one Twitter user wrote, posting a photo of the mannequin in question.

“This is so gross,” another replied. “This is just irresponsible and harmful. Too many young girls already have low self esteem and body image issues,” wrote someone else.

La Perla responded yesterday with an apology, saying it won’t use those ribby figures anymore:

“We have an update on this issue: The mannequin photographed has been removed from the store and will not be used again by any La Perla boutique. We are in the process of redesigning all La Perla stores with a new concept image and the mannequins that are currently displayed in our US stores will no longer be used. We appreciate and value everyone’s comments, thank you for bringing this to our attention.”

Are there other mannequins out there that are just as skinny? Yes, definitely. But it seems there’s something about seeing fake bones intentionally designed to poke up against that synthetic skin that seems to have crossed a line for many shoppers.

La Perla Removes Rib-Baring Mannequin from Store Following Complaints [Jezebel]

If you’ve been eyeing your pals jealously while they stroll around town looking like so many cyborgs in their Google Glass specs, now you, too, can spend $1,500 on the interactive eyewear. Google announced last night that it’s flinging the Explorer program wide open to anyone in the United States willing to fork over the cash for Glass.

In a blog post, Google says it took the information it gleaned after opening up the site for one day to see who would want to join the cyborg brigade and used that to make this decision.

It sounds like Google is anticipating a rush, but won’t say how many pairs of the specs are actually available to buy, so opening up the program to “everyone” comes with a “while supplies last” caveat.

“We learned a lot when we opened our site a few weeks ago, so we’ve decided to move to a more open beta,” Google writes. “We’re still in the Explorer Program while we continue to improve our hardware and software, but starting today anyone in the US can buy the Glass Explorer Edition, as long as we have it on hand.”

There will be an even wider consumer release at some point in the future, as well, but again, as wide a release as there can be for the kind of person who wants to spend that dough.

“We’re ready to keep meeting new Explorers, and we can’t wait to hear all your experiences and feedback to continue to make Glass even better, ahead of our wider consumer release.

Taking advantage of members of the military isn’t looked upon lightly by federal regulators. This idea was driven home today by the Depts. of Education and Justice, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., who jointly announced a sizable settlement against student loan servicers Sallie Mae and Navient for overcharging and imposing excessive fees to military members.

Sallie Mae and Navient agreed to pay a combined $97 million to settle charges that they violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act [PDF] which caps loan interest rates at 6% for active duty military members, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The companies will pay $60 million in refunds to approximately 60,000 servicemembers and a $55,000 civil penalty to settle the Justice and Education department’s portion of charges. The FDIC is requiring a payment of $30 million in refunds and $6.6 million in civil penalties.

Earlier this year Sallie Mae, the country’s largest originator and servicer of student loans, spun off its loan servicing, loan management, and collections to a new company, Navient.

In a news release about the settlement, Attorney General Eric Holder says that conduct like Sallie Mae’s “is more than just inappropriate; it is inexcusable. And it will not be tolerated.”

While the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was not involved in Tuesday’s settlements, it has been conducting its own investigation into the deceptive actions of Sallie Mae and Navient.

“Today’s action should serve as warning not just to the student loan servicing industry, but to all institutions that provide or service loans to the military,” Holly Petraeus, assistant director for the CFPB, says in a statement. “Federal agencies will be vigilant about holding all financial institutions accountable for providing the protections that our servicemembers have earned through their selfless service to our nation.”

Scrutiny against loan servicers’ allegedly deceptive practices picked up following a 2012 report by the CFPB that found service members faced hurdles in assessing their student loan benefits.

According to the report [PDF], servicers, such as Sallie Mae, were not providing military members with clear and accurate information about their repayment options. The CFPB reported that military borrowers were denied interest-rate protections because they failed to resubmit unnecessary paperwork while completing active duty.

“Sallie Mae gave servicemembers the runaround and denied them the interest-rate reduction required by law,” Petraus said in a statement Tuesday. “This behavior is unacceptable. And it’s particularly troubling from a company that benefits so generously from federal contracts.”

For its part, Sallie Mae said in a written statement that it is making the appropriate adjustments to be in compliance with military lending laws.

“We regret any inconvenience or hardship that our customers may have experienced,” the statement says.

While a written statement from officials at Navient offers apologies to the servicemembers who were affected by the issues, the company disputes the Justice Department’s interpretation of the military lending law calling it inconsistent with prior requirements.

In addition to the monetary settlement, Sallie Mae must abide by several provisions to ensure servicemembers are protected in the future.

• The company must request that all three major credit bureaus delete negative credit history entries caused by the interest rate overcharges and improper default judgments;
• The company is required to streamline the process by which servicemembers may notify Sallie Mae of their eligibility for SCRA benefits;
• The company must provide a revised process that includes an SCRA online intake form for servicemembers;
• The company must make available customer service representatives specially trained on the rights of those in military service.

Justice Department Reaches $60 Million Settlement with Sallie Mae to Resolve Allegations of Charging Military Servicemembers Excessive Rates on Student Loans [Department of Justice]

Sallie Mae, Navient Reach Student-Loan Settlement With U.S. Government [Wall Street Journal]

Statement by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Holly Petraeus on DOJ, FDIC Enforcement Actions Against Sallie Mae [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau]

On the one hand, a check for $14.73 doesn’t seem like that much to get worked up about. But for one man who lost his girlfriend to cancer in 2010, part of his role as her trustee is to recoup any debts owed to her estate. And that includes a refund check from Dell that the company took a heck of a long time to send.

The man tells Call Kurtis that the ordeal stretched on after he found the expired refund check from Dell in her belongings after her death, and was placed in charge of her estate. When he asked the company to reissue it and provided proof of his role as trustee as well as her death, he said it just never showed up.

Dell claimed that it had sent the checks twice, but the man says that’s not true. When Call Kurtis got involved, however, the company changed its tune, saying it had failed to send the checks to the right address.

“We are dedicated to responding as best we can to provide a good experience,” Dell said in a statement, without explaining why it had taken so long to clear up.

And while no, $14.73 is not a huge sum of money, that’s not what it’s about for the man, who says he’s just relieved to have won this battle on behalf of his late girlfriend.

“It hurts a lot, at times,” he said of missing her. “But I also reassure myself that she’s not in pain anymore.”

Call Kurtis: After Loved One Passed Away, Dell Won’t Send Her Refund Check [CBS Sacramento]

Washington Post

Fairfax County adopt a pet Washington Post Smokey, left, a 13-year-old spayed domestic shorthair cat, is available from the Fairfax County Animal Shelter. Gail, center, a friendly playful cat, is available from the Humane Society of Fairfax County. Bitsy, a 6- to 7-year-old spayed female ... and more »

Fairfax County Animal Watch Washington Post FAIRFAX COUNTY. The following incidents were reported by the Animal Control Division of the Fairfax County Police Department. For information, call 703-246-2253. US surfer Kolohe Andino competes during the Men Billabong Rio Pro final against French ...

Prince William County crime report Washington Post Prince William County. These were among incidents reported by Prince William County police. For information, call 703-792-7245. US surfer Kolohe Andino competes during the Men Billabong Rio Pro final against French Tahitian Michel ... and more »

The Centreville Independent

New Korean Grocery Store to Open in June The Centreville Independent A new Korean-themed grocery store is to open next month at the Centreville Crest Shopping Center in a space vacated last year by the old Grand Mart International Grocery store. Lotte Plaza Market is scheduled to open June 6, according to a foreman at ...

Five alleged Bloods gang members charged in Manassas City Washington Post Five people accused of being members of the Bloods gang have been charged with a total of 94 counts including rape and grand larceny, Manassas City police said Monday. In a news release, the Manassas police department said a three-month ... and more »

The Los Angeles Fire Department reports a ruptured oil pipe near Glendale has spilled about 50,000 gallons of crude oil onto streets.

We're entering the busiest time of year for moving -- May through August. The good news is, there are plenty of professional movers who'll do a great job with your belongings. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of con artists with a truck and website.

A team of federal investigators swept into Phoenix last month amid allegations of a disturbing cover-up at the veterans hospital.

Friends of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev became involved in the investigation into what happened after a signal from his cellphone while he was a fugitive was transmitted from their apartment, an FBI agent testified in federal court on Tuesday.

The parent company of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus says it has received a nearly $16 million settlement from the Humane Society of the United States and other animal-rights groups that filed a frivolous lawsuit against them.

A group that got in a free-speech court fight with Metro a few years ago is back with new eyebrow-raising ads on the sides of buses.

Does your grocery list include products from four different stores? For busy families, grocery shopping can be a logistical nightmare. One local business hopes to take the stress out of food shopping.

It isn't fun for anyone involved. From spouses to kids and the women themselves, menopause can be a difficult time.

An international rights group is pushing the federal government and the tobacco industry to take further steps to protect children working on U.S. tobacco farms.