Making your home more energy efficient is good for your wallet and the environment, but where do you start? This pyramid (in the vein of Maslow's hierarchy of needs) highlights energy improvements you can make, starting with the simplest and least expensive options.
    
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Yesterday, HTC announced its new One handset , along with a ton of new features. One of the lesser-touted but potentially more significant features is the new HTC Service Pack. This background app allows HTC to distribute its Sense applications independent of OTA updates. HTC is now the third company to follow this very encouraging trend: unbundling of apps and services.
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Duck and cover won't do the trick, but if you follow these ten steps, things should be just fine even if you're stuck in a nasty pileup.
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Getting Things Done, or GTD, is a system for getting organized and staying productive. It may seem complicated on the outside, but the end goal is to spend less time doing the things you have to do so you have more time for the things you want to do. Let's break it down and see how you can apply a simplified version to your life.
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If you're too busy to iron, but you need a shirt or pair of pants smooth and wrinkle-free for an interview, a night out, or just so you look good, this time-saving tip can help. Toss a couple of ice cubes (not too many) in the dryer with your wrinkled clothes. Run it on its hottest setting. It's strange, but it works.
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No matter how big the screen or how effective the software, web browsing on your smartphone just doesn't match the ease of browsing on a computer. It's never going to be perfect, but it can be a lot better. Here's how to make browsing on your smartphone suck less.
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Scented linen powder keeps your sheets feeling and smelling fresher for longer. A little goes a long way, so it lasts awhile, and home blog Apartment Therapy explains how you can make it yourself for practically no money.
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Whether from the flu or too much to drink, we all vomit from time to time. What shows character and retains dignity is how we handle the aftermath. Here's how you can recover from puking with grace and elegance.
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It seems more nightmarish than ever to get a decent night of sleep and feel good after it. If you'd like to wake up refreshed every morning instead of groggy and grumpy (no matter how little you might sleep), remember the 90-minute rule.
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Some people seem to have all the luck when it comes to scoring great deals on their purchases. But there's likely more than luck at play behind the scenes. You can make your own luck with a little effort.
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On Monday, the Malaysian government announced that they are certain that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean, with no survivors. That’s an international tragedy and an important news story, and was the top story on the New York Times website. Unfortunately, Apple was running a large and beautiful iPad advertisement on the front page at the time. An ad that featured a diver using an iPad underwater.
(Twitter)
The accidental synergy between the headline, “Malaysia Says Jet Went Down in Ocean,” and the iPad ad caught readers’ eyes, and a few grabbed screenshots before someone at the Times noticed and the ad disappeared.
Sure, intentional tragedy marketing is tacky, especially when it comes to tweets that include candle emojis.
New York Times: ‘Unfortunate Coincidence’ Over Apple Ad and Flight 370 Headline [AdAge]
She grew up happy with her adopted family, but always wondered who her mother was, and why she decided to leave her in the bathroom, reports The Morning Call. The first thing she wanted upon walking into a conference room with lawyers to meet her mom, however, wasn’t an answer.
“It was pure shock to see it was actually her standing there,” she said. “The first thing I got was my hug that I wanted.”
It was the first time she’d been with her mother since she was abandoned on Sept. 15, 1986 in a crowded Burger King. Her mother told her that she’d left her there after she was raped by a stranger during a family vacation abroad at 16.
Afraid to tell anyone she was pregnant, her mother gave birth in her bedroom at 17 and then brought her daughter, only hours old, to the fast food joint, knowing that someone would find her in the crowded restaurant.
“She kissed the baby on the forehead and left,” the woman’s lawyer said of his client’s mom. “She was a kid in high school. Back then, you couldn’t just go to a hospital and drop the baby off, no questions asked.”
It turns out that her mother had been searching for her too, after becoming “filled with guilt” about six months ago. She heard about her daughter’s search for her and decided to step forward.
As for the former Burger King Baby, she says she isn’t angry with her birth mother, because she’s had a good life. She’s married with three children and works as an emergency medical technician.
“I know I want to get to know her, share pictures, gain a new friend,” she said. “We have 27 years of catching up to do.”
EXCLUSIVE: Abandoned 27 years ago, ‘Burger King Baby’ finds mom [The Morning Call]
A New Jersey man who served 15 years in prison for robbing a Stride Rite shoe store has been accused of committing the same crime, at the same business, after finally walking out of jail a free man, reports The Star-Ledger.
Police say that a little more than 24 hours after the suspect was released from prison, he headed back to the shoe store and demanded cash from the store’s two workers.
He’s accused of grabbing $389 from the cash register, but when he demanded the employees hand over their keys to provide him with a getaway car, they refused and he fled on foot with two cellphones he’d also taken from them.
“He was not armed but just made a verbal threat,” a police spokesman said, adding that the suspect seemed agitated when the workers didn’t move quickly enough. “He took the drawer out himself.”
The employees called the police, who were then able to track the suspect down and locate the stolen phones in a garbage can nearby and the cash stuffed in a gutter downspout. He’s being held on bail and officials are trying to figure out why he keeps returning to this particular town and its apparently attractive Stride Rite.
Just out of prison, man robs Toms River store again, cops say [The Star-Ledger]
While there are millions of video game players who are perfectly nice people, there are enough jerks out there to give the gaming community a bad name, so much so that some folks refuse to play multiplayer games just to avoid dealing with the schoolyard bullying that can sometimes come over the Internet. Last year, Microsoft promised that its new Xbox One console would have a way to minimize jerks’ access to online gaming, and the company says it is now ready to start issuing warnings to users who behave badly.
The Xbox One’s “reputation” system uses a color-coded system to let other users know about whether or not you’ve been a good little gamer. Green means you’ve gotten positive feedback (or no feedback at all, which is a good thing) from the community; Yellow means your reputation “Needs Work,” indicating that you ticked off some people along the way; Red signals “avoid me” to other users.
Until now, these reputation statuses have just been indicators for other users to employ in deciding whether or not to play with a certain person. But Microsoft says it will soon be taking more active steps to keep misbehaving users from sinking into the red.
Later this month, users who fall into the “Needs Work” category will begin receiving reputation warnings from Microsoft.
“The purpose of these communications is to remind players about their effect on the community and encourage them to have more positive interactions,” explains the Xbox Live Program Manager in a blog post. “These warnings are based on community feedback collected since Xbox One launched.”
Those who continue to wear the scarlet “Avoid Me” on their avatars, will begin to experience penalties, says Microsoft. These users may have fewer options for matchmaking in online games or may not be able to use the Xbox One’s Twitch broadcasting functionalities.
So what about the vast majority of us who have done nothing wrong? Don’t we deserve at least a pat on the back?
To that end, Microsoft only reiterated previous statements about having future plans to reward users with solid reputations.
The average adult weighs about 155 pounds. That should be enough for a vehicle to determine if an adult is sitting in the front passenger seat, right? Apparently not in the case of more than one million recently recalled Nissan vehicles.
On Wednesday, Nissan announced the recall of 1,053,479 vehicles — 989,000 in the U.S. alone — to fix a software problem that could deactivate the front passenger airbag, Reuters reports.
Affected vehicles include the 2013-14 Altima, Sentra and Pathfinder, 2013-14 Leaf electric car, 2013 Infinity JX35, 2014 Infinity Q50 and QX60, and 2013 Nissan NV 200 cargo van.
Nissan recalled 989,701 vehicles in the United States for an issue that could cause passenger airbags to be deactivated.
An issue with the vehicle occupant classification system (OCS) software may not properly determine the presence of an adult front seat passenger. The system then automatically deactivates the passenger airbag, which would increase the risk of injury during a crash, according to documents [PDF] filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
A report by Nissan [PDF] notes that a number of circumstances could lead to the incorrect vacant classification, including high vibration at idle when the seat is empty and then becomes occupied, or unusual occupant seating postures.
Nissan began an investigation into the issue in early 2013, but could not determine if a safety defect had occurred. According to papers filed with NHTSA, last month the company determined an algorithm change to the OCS was necessary. It was unclear if any injuries had been reported in connection with the recall.
To fix the issue dealers will perform a software update free of charge. Owners of affected vehicles will be notified beginning in mid-April.
Wednesday’s recall marks the second for Nissan this year. In February, company recalled nearly 14,000 Frontier trucks after it was determined that improperly installed circuit breakers posed a potential fire risk.
Nissan recalling over one million vehicles for airbag issue [Reuters]
They might get mad if you take the cookies away but pets and pot don’t mix. (Brian Jackson Now)
While the idea of a dog getting baked might sound funny in your head in a movie scenario kind of way, it’s a very serious matter, veterinarians warn. There’s been an uptick in incidents where dogs have scarfed down marijuana, and because their bodies can’t metabolize it as fast, the effects last a lot longer.
So if your pup is glassy-eyed or stumbling around, it’s not looking for White Castle, it needs help.
“We see dogs stoned out of their minds for days. They’re a mess,” Tim Hackett, director of the Colorado State University veterinary teaching hospital tells USA Today. “The pot goes in cookies and butters. Dogs love that stuff, and they won’t eat just one.”
He worked on a recent study that tracked marijuana “intoxication” in dogs and found that there was a connection between how available pot was and the number of animal overdoses in Colorado after the state approved it for medical use in 2000.
The decision to make marijuana legal for recreational use in the state will likely lead to another increase, he says.
Your best bet is to lock up any food products, because dogs probably won’t chow down on a bag of marijuana by itself. It’s not so much the marijuana that’s harmful — though it can cause dogs to have trouble breathing — it’s that eating a pound of butter is dangerous no matter the form.
“It’s so readily available… and dogs are gorgers,” says Animal Planet’s Emergency Vets Kevin Fitzgerald, who also worked on the study. “A person would eat one brownie. A dog will eat the entire tray. And therein lies the danger.”
Puppies on pot a growing hazard [USA Today]
In an edited and condensed interview, the manager explains that he currently earns about $44,000 per year and works around 48 hours most weeks, and closer to 60 during the holiday season. While the new guidelines from the Department of Labor aren’t out yet, he can speculate about what changes to the exemption limits would mean for him. “I think I would get more time with my family,” he responds when asked what changes he would see if the revised guidelines make him eligible for overtime pay. “If I didn’t have more time with my family, I would definitely have money … to compensate me for time spent away.”
Managers, he explains, step in and perform store work that needs to be done in addition to managing hourly employees. Because managers don’t punch a clock, though, no one keeps track of whether they get breaks or lunches. Consumerist has discussed Walmart’s under-staffing and inventory issues, and this manager says that those issues continue. “They don’t have enough people to get the job done. And it shows. It shows on the shelves, in terms of the stock,” he notes, and we couldn’t agree more.
Keeping stores understaffed and under-stocked hurts business, Mr. Manager tells Eidelson. If a customer comes in with a list of 35 items and Walmart only has twenty of them on the shelves, the store loses that sale, and the customer probably isn’t coming back.
Exclusive: Wal-Mart manager speaks out about his store’s ugly reality [Salon]
For nearly 20 years, PBS’s Antiques Roadshow has provided ample hours of addictive TV watching as regular folks cart in their old stuff — art, furniture, clothing, toys, firearms, etc. — for professional appraisal by a slate of experts in these fields. But how does the show pick which stuff gets on the air? How do the appraisers know so much? And what happens after someone’s inherited trinket is valued at tens of thousands of dollars?
AVclub.com’s John Teti has a massive interview with one of the show’s more distinctive characters, smooth-voiced auctioneer and poster expert Nicholas D. “Nicho” Lowry, who has no problem pulling back the curtain on one of TV’s longest-running shows.
Here are just a few of the important things we learned from the Lowry interview:
1. The experts don’t always know every single fact about that family heirloom you show them.
“The main member of my entourage is Mr. Google,” jokes Lowry, who says that while there is usually just the one expert on-camera, the information he or she provides is the result of a group effort.
“We often have to confer with other people,” he explains. And even though he’s the only poster specialist in the Roadshow, there are other experts there who can offer their insights. “[I]f it’s a sports image, I confer with the sports people. If it is a pop-cultural image, I’ll refer to the pop-culture people. But generally speaking, if it’s a travel poster, which I know backwards and forwards, I’m not sure who’s there that can give a second opinion.”
And during the time between selecting an item for an on-camera appraisal and actually doing that appraisal (more on that process below), Lowry says he tries to squeeze in the necessary research so he looks extra smart on TV.
“A lot of these things, we really do know,” he says. “Price, we have a good idea for. But things likes dates of artists being born and dying, we may not have that committed to memory. Certain parts of the story that need to be put into historical context. There’s sort of a transient office in the back where the show has set up computers.”
2. The experts see a lot of the same items over and over.
Lowry says that while the experience at his category-specific table is going to be different than what the folks at other tables see, “I imagine there are certain common themes… And certainly everybody in America has one or two things in their family on paper that are identical.”
He says one of the things he comes across repeatedly from visitors to the Roadshow is old, early 20th century prints of Jesus.
“So here you have something that’s legitimately a hundred years old or more, but every single family had one,” he explains. “Because it was the dawn of a new printing era where high-quality color prints could be made inexpensively, so everybody could buy them… And they bought them, saved them because they were meaningful, and now everybody’s bringing them in.”
3. It’s a relief to hear you bought something at a flea market.
Family heirloom stories make for better stories, but there’s also a bigger chance of a letdown when the object turns out to be worthless or not as valuable as your grandmother had made it out to be.
Lowry says that when someone brings in something they picked for virtually nothing at a flea market, there is only an upside to the news he can provide.
“[T]hat means it wasn’t left to them by a loved one,” he explains. “It means they have a decent sense of humor, and it means you can say, ‘Wow! Well, it’s probably worth about $10, which is 10 times what you paid for it, so you did well.’”
4. A lot goes into deciding which items make it onto the air.
The show films for about 12 hours in any one day, with some 6,500 visitors bringing their stuff to be appraised. This all results in only three hours’ worth of show from each Roadshow stop. So how do they determine which stuff makes the cut?
First, visitors go through a “triage” area where they are given tickets to the various tables where the experts can evaluate their stuff.
“We’ll take a look at it, and if we think — if it’s not a turn-of-the-century Jesus, if it’s not an etching from the 1880s — we think, hmm, this is actually something that has value, a story. Without telling the guest anything, we just say, ‘Listen, I’d like to send for a producer and talk to them about it,’” explains Lowry. “Now, at this point, the guest knows that the producer is being sent for. But the guest doesn’t know if the producer is being sent because they have a made-in-Mexico reproduction, and they’re going to be embarrassed on national television, or if they’ve struck it rich with the rare, lost Incan treasure. They don’t know. They just know that they’ve been singled out.”
Then the appraiser and the producer chat privately about the merits of the piece. There is also some vetting that needs to be done — checking to make sure the person bringing the piece in is the actual owner, or that they haven’t recently had it appraised. Lowry says there is little interest in doing an on-camera appraisal when the person comes in showing they’ve done years of research and likely already know more about the particular piece than the experts.
If they then decide it’s something worth possibly airing, Lowry will go back to the item’s owner and say, “I know something about these things that you have, and I’d be happy to tell you about them, but I’m wondering if you’d like to try and do it in front of the camera.”
5. Not everyone wants to be on-camera.
It baffles us why someone would lug something to a show primarily known for its on-air appraisals only to say no to going on air, but Lowry says it does happen.
“Some people actually say no,” he admits. “It’s disappointing. It’s happened to me twice.”
6. The people are genuinely unaware of the appraisal until it’s done on-camera.
“It is 100 percent above board,” says Lowry. “All the guest knows is that they’re going to be on TV. They’re sent to the green room if the producer approves the pitch, but they really don’t know why.”
7. The wait for an on-camera appraisal depends on the time of day.
“If somebody walks in at 7:30 a.m. with a piece, the producer will be there right away, and the guest will go on right away,” explains Lowry. “Once the day gets underway, and the producers are running around—they’re all on their walkie-talkies, their headsets. They have lists of the appraisers they need to see. In the afternoon, if we get a pitch approved, it could be three or four hours before the guest is on air.”
8. Calling out a fake on-camera isn’t about humiliating the item’s owner.
While some people have brought plastic “ivory” vases, or the person who was convinced that “Faciebat Anno” was the name of violin-maker Stradivarius’s lady love, a producer for Roadshow tells AVclub that “A big reason that we film fakes is as a teaching moment. We’re not just trying to crush dreams or make ‘good TV.’ We want to teach the public what to look for. If there’s something that wouldn’t be that teachable moment, we’re not going to take the time.”
9. People with valuable finds can get police escorts.
While most of the more valuable finds on Roadshow are worth a few thousand dollars, they usually aren’t worth enough for someone to beat you over the head and take. For owners that suddenly find out they are the proud owners of a painting worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, the show can arrange some security for the ride home.
“I’m not sure where the cutoff is, but there is a point where, if an item is really worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, the person will be escorted home by the local police,” says Lowry.
The Roadshow producer adds that they will have security escort guests to their car if they’re not comfortable leaving the show after all these people saw them hit the jackpot on camera.
10. The appraisers are not allowed to purchase the items they evaluate at the show.
“Not only aren’t we allowed, but we are appropriately and militantly not allowed to do it,” explains Lowry, who says he and his fellow experts are not even allowed to hand out business cards. “That is probably the show’s cardinal sin.”
However, he gives a hypothetical example of how he can do business with a person who visits his table: “I do an appraisal for you, and it does or does not get on TV, but it’s a $5,000 piece, and you say, ‘Can you sell it for me? Can I have your business card?’ Which would be a normal thing to ask under the circumstances. The answer is, ‘I actually can’t give you my business card here, but as you’re leaving the convention center, there’s a table by the exit that has all our business cards on it. You’re welcome to take mine and call me during the week, and we can discuss it.’ That’s completely legitimate, and it sometimes happens.”
This is not the burger in question. It’s just another meat patty with cheese. (Morton Fox)
Rant aside, ginormous feats of food engineering always get my attention, and no less so than the concoction called “The Ulti-Meatum,” cooked up by a restaurant owner in the UK, reports Metro. She was inspired by a fictional version of the dish she saw in an episode of The Regular Show on Cartoon Network.
It’s not just stacking at work here, so I can’t be a total grump about it: It’s basically two complete cheeseburgers with lettuce and tomato serving as the top and bottom of the overall entity known here as the “burger,” with a middle meat patty between them that contains yet another set of buns, burger and cheese cooked inside it.
The result is a stack of 10,000 calories that would just be called “Three Cheeseburgers One Of Which Has Another Inside It” if its pieces were set out side by side.
“I couldn’t eat it – I haven’t even been tempted yet,” the restaurant’s owner tells Metro. “It’s massive.”
Anyone who does think they can take on the burger will get it for free — if they can finish the whole thing in one sitting before their clogged arteries explode all over everyone.
10,000 calorie burger within a burger is now a thing [Metro]
You can follow MBQ on Twitter where she’ll likely rant about something else everyone likes: @marybethquirk
(Spevman)
The survey reached over 80,000 participants, and a huge percentage of those respondents had something unpleasant to say about their providers. The highest-ranking providers only manage to look good in comparison to the competition, Consumer Reports found: “Even WOW and Verizon FiOS, which got high marks for service satisfaction, rated middling or lower for value, and out of 14 providers, nine got the lowest possible value rating.”
High prices and terrible customer service add up to a package of misery, the survey found:
When we asked Consumer Reports’ Facebook followers to tell us their telecom stories, the few happy anecdotes of attentive service technicians and reliable service were overwhelmed by a tidal wave of consumer woe involving high prices, complicated equipment, and terrible service.
“Customer service was so bad it made me really angry,” one poster said. “Slowest high-speed Internet on earth,” another said. “Cable television is a big waste of time and money,” another commented. “One of the best things my wife and I have done to enrich our marriage was to cancel cable.”
And about those high prices: the average family is spending $154 per month (or $1848 per year) on service they hate. Those rates are indeed climbing fast — much more quickly than inflation would predict.
A graph demonstrating how quickly cable rates have outpaced inflation, from Consumer Reports.
There is wiggle room with the enormous bill, at least; about 40% of the survey respondents reported that they try to negotiate with their providers for better prices. Of those hagglers, only 8% reported not receiving any kind of benefit, promotional rate, or waived fee. The deals are getting worse and farther between, Consumer Reports says, but there are still some to be had.
The report also says that even though most consumers might not go around talking about net neutrality, they certainly want their internet service providers to demonstrate it. 71% of customers said they would try to switch providers if theirs “were to try to block, slow down, or charge more for bandwith-heavy services.”
Of course, there’s the big snag: good luck with actually switching. Many of us don’t exactly have competition in our areas. Adding comparatively well-rated Verion FiOS to an area otherwise dominated by cable does add sorely-needed competition, but even that may not help consumers much. FiOS isn’t expanding and their sinking speeds are still slowing down.
The potential merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable is poised to narrow the marketplace even further. While a small handful of consumers may see new competition as a result, most folks are looking at their least favorite companies gaining even more power and even less incentive to lower prices or improve their customer service. And that’s pointing us to a future of, at best, more of the same.
How to save money on triple-play cable services [Consumer Reports]
(Symantec)
This text-and-spew scheme works on a certain type of standalone ATM, according to security vendor Symantec in a blog post yesterday (via PCWorld). The software is called “Ploutus” and was first spotted in Mexico.
Symantec isn’t saying which kind of ATM can be hit with this malware, but did test the system out on one of the machines to see how it works.
Installing Ploutus is tricky, and villains would have to access to the machine in order to jerry-rig it to barf cash. That’s likely why standalones are more at risk, as they’re more exposed than the kind nestled into a bank of ATMs.
The whole set-up is controlled from a distance by a text message, with an infected phone connected inside the also infected ATM to a USB port.
“When the phone detects a new message under the required format, the mobile device will convert the message into a network packet and will forward it to the ATM through the USB cable,” writes Daniel Regalado, a Symantec malware analyst.
From there, a “money mule” or someone else hired to be the cash collector grabs the dough and carts it off. And there’s no skimming off the top, either — whoever is in charge knows exactly how much money the ATM will spit out.
Symantec is warning that because most ATMs are still running outdated Windows XP, companies need to get serious about protecting their cash, as “the banking industry is facing a serious risk of cyberattacks aimed at their ATM fleet.”
Check out Symantec’s handy video below for more info on how the whole thing works:
Texting ATMs for Cash Shows Cybercriminals’ Increasing Sophistication [Symantec]
Text message command makes infected ATMs spew cash [PCWorld]
