pileofcrapola

Psychology and the human brain are awesome. This list of 10 amazing ways to stop overeating is proof of it.

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It's usually pretty obvious that your mood has a strong effect on your willpower, motivation, and subsequent procrastination, but The Wall Street Journal explains exactly how our attempts at mood repair can derail productivity. The good news is that you can use that to your advantage.

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Candles are an okay way to introduce a little bit more heat into a room. However, with a heat-resistant container and a couple of flower pots, you can turn those candles into an efficient space heater.

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Infections, additional surgeries, a long recovery or preventable death are what make up a number of potential malpractice suits. But what if, after years of suffering because of a doctor’s mistakes, you were told your case isn’t worth the time?

A recent article by ProPublica, part of an on-going investigation of health care safety, highlights the growing struggle to find a lawyer to take on malpractice suits, even though with so-called “merit.”

Hundreds of thousands of people suffer some type of preventable injury or die while undergoing medical care, ProPublica reports. Yet, those patients and families hoping to recover losses with a lawsuit are turning up empty-handed.

That’s because more and more lawyers are turning down malpractice suits.

The publication cites a 2013 Emory University School of Law study that found 95% of patients who seek an attorney for harm suffered during a medical treatment will be shut out, mostly for economic reasons. The same study found that nearly half the 450 attorneys surveyed refused any case if damages were less than $250,000.

The damages of a lawsuit are generally determined by lost earnings, medical bills and future costs caused by the injury.

Many patients and families shared their stories of failed attempts to bring about lawsuits with the publication.

One woman talks in detail about the botched cancer surgery she underwent, leaving her unable to continue working as a registered nurse and on disability.

Other readers told of how they were unable to recover losses after elderly parent died from what they believe was negligence by doctors and hospitals.

Ten Patient Stories: When Attorneys Refused My Medical Malpractice Case [ProPublica]

Times used to be, someone would bring up a lawsuit over hot McDonald’s coffee and we’d all sagely nod our heads and intone, “Ah yes, That One Famous Case 20 Years Ago.” But lately it seems what old is new again, as another Mickey D’s customer is suing the chain saying she was burned by hot coffee at an L.A. location.

It’s not like this is the very first time hot coffee since that first big case — there was this lawsuit from 2010, a case involving a toddler in 2012 and in somewhat related liquids, this hot chocolate suit.

The newest case also happened in 2012, when the plaintiff said she was injured two years ago after ordering coffee at a McDonald’s drive-thru, reports the Los Angeles Times. She’s blaming the lid’s fit, or lack thereof, and is seeking unspecified monetary damages.

“The lid for the hot coffee was negligently, carelessly and improperly placed on the coffee cup … resulting in the lid coming off the top of the coffee at the window, causing the hot coffee to spill onto the plaintiff,” the lawsuit says.

We imagine any conversations regarding hot liquids go a little something like this:

L.A. woman sues McDonald’s over hot coffee, 20 years after huge verdict [Los Angeles Times]

Poultry and spinach go well together, but that doesn’t mean that a Florida woman was happy to see that her frozen spinach came with some free meat. Mostly because it came in the form of the tiny skull (eyes included…well, one eye) of an unidentified bird.

It’s impossible to deny that most of our food is grown outside, where all sorts of animals live, die, and poop. The customer is a little grossed out, but doesn’t want money or a replacement: she wants to know that Publix cares about the problem. She also wants to know where the rest of the bird ended up, if it’s possible to get that information. That’s fair.

Where is the rest of the bird, though? Is it in another bag of spinach? Was it so finely chopped that it was undetectable among the spinach? That’s the mystery. One of the eyes from the bird’s head is also missing: did that fall out and get consumed with the spinach, or was it never in the bag to begin with?

WARNING: BIRD SKULL PHOTOS BELOW

One little animal, the head of which is barely the size of a quarter, and it raises so many questions.

Publix offered a refund, but a package of spinach costs less than two bucks. In a statement, the company said that no one else has complained of bird parts in their vegetables. So that’s good. They told TV station Fox 13:

We did receive communication from the customer through our customer care department, which was shared with our corporate quality assurance team. They are working through the details with the customer and the supplier. We have not received any additional complaints and believe this is an isolated incident.

In other words, they don’t know where the rest of the bird is, either.

This afternoon, the customer posted on Facebook that a Publix representative came to visit her, delivering frozen vegetables, a fruit basket, a gift card, and the news that bags of spinach will be pulled from shelves.

Sarasota woman finds bird skull in Publix spinach [Fox 13]

It seemed like any other night at a Florida Chuck E. Cheese: Pizza, games, fun, games, robo-animals. Then a brawl broke out between two partying families over–what else?–prize tickets. According to one woman on the scene, the fight escalated to include as many as thirty adults and a can of pepper spray.

The fight began between two children. Their families intervened, but not to do anything ridiculous like “break up the argument” or “set a good example.” No, the brawl between families escalated.

“Food was flying, and drinks,” one participant told TV station WBBH. “Then [an adult] took the metal thing off the table and threw it.” When one person involved in the brawl used pepper spray, deploying the substance in such close quarters affected everyone nearby.

Most of the participants had already fled by the time police arrived, and management threw anyone else involved out.

“We are deeply saddened that individuals would choose to behave in this manner in front of children and families,” Chuck E. Cheese said in a statement about the incident. “We take altercations in our stores very seriously and have spent more than $15 million to date on measures to help ensure the safety of our guests.”

If you’re thinking that you’ve heard this story before, maybe you’re thinking about the 30-person brawl over prize tickets in Chicago back in October, or maybe you’re remembering a brawl over ticket exchanges at a Wisconsin Chuck E. Cheese back in July that also involved pepper spray.

Family brawl disrupts fun at Fort Myers Chuck E. Cheese’s [WBBI]

Is your GPS stealing your identity? It might seem far-fetched, but some privacy advocacy groups are concerned that companies tracking consumers’ location data could put you at risk.

While companies tell consumers they are collecting location data, they don’t always disclose what information they are collecting. Or how that data is stored.

Some companies don’t give consumers the ability to delete personal data, leading to a cache of personal information that could be easily accessed by hackers, the Washington Times reports.

Although privacy behind the wheel is an issue worth noting, officials with the Electronic Privacy Information Center say there haven’t been any major violations of consumers’ rights.

“Anytime you’re collecting data about consumers, there’s a need to be aware of what the companies are doing and the implications of holding that data,” Alan Butler, an attorney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the Times.

A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Congress’ watchdog arm, looked at 10 companies involved in the auto industry, including Ford, Honda and Chrysler, along with GPS producers Garmin and TomTom, to see what kind of information was being collected from consumers and how it was used.

Data collected is used to provide turn-by-turn directions and traffic information, as well as provide information for roadside assistance or recovery from theft. 

The report found companies are taking steps to protect consumers’ privacy, such as making sure data is de-identified in the case of a breach.

Several of the companies share location data with third-party companies, such as traffic information providers. However, all of the companies said they do not share personally identifiable location data with or sell the data to marketing companies or data brokers.

Is you car spying on you? GPS tracks ‘consumers,’ identity theft at risk [The Washington Times]

One of the trendiest things you can do to a food is to pair it with something else. Got some delicious, sea salt caramel chocolates? Here’s a beer to go with that. Love cheese? Here’s the wine you absolutely must drink with it, darling. And so it follows that now that recreational marijuana is legal in Colorado, someone had to be the first to pair it with a food. In this case, it’s sushi.

While you might usually think of pairing pot with say, a bag of chips and some kind of neon drink at 2 a.m., a Colorado sushi restaurant is rolling with its new form of high dining as the best weed/food combo. Puns!

In order to enhance diners’ dining experiences, the marijuana culinary powers that be have been sorting out how to best accomplish that. The same restaurant — with chains in Boulder and Denver — sent out flyers encouraging smokers to satisfy their munchies in 2009, reports Time.com.

Now there’s a full-on pairing menu for partaking and then eating, including:

Pakalolo Shrimp with Pakistani Kush
Honey Miso Salmon with Sour OG
Katsu Curry with Blue Dream

Everything is arranged for smokers’ comfort as well, with a dining room “ergonomically designed to reduce paranoia” in case you get freaked out by all the people eating fish around you. Or like, if the fish start talking. That would just be weird.

High Class Dining: Colorado Restaurant Introduces Weed-and-Food Pairing Menu [Time.com]

When you hear about a big salmonella outbreak that’s sickened hundreds, you know there’s got to be a problem somewhere along the supply chain. But hearing the words “cockroach” and “infestation” linked to a chicken processing plant is just so… real. And gross. Which is why the U.S. Department of Agriculture has shut down a plant in California, saying live cockroaches running around at such a place are not good for public health.

The Foster Farms poultry processing plant has a bit of a bug problem, reports NBC News, which is especially troubling (okay, but it’s always troubling, let’s be clear) in light of two recent outbreaks of salmonella food poisoning in the last year. One of those is still ongoing.

“Today our inspectors observed insanitary conditions in the plant,” said Adam Tarr, a spokesman for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.

Officials aren’t revealing if they fell into a pit of live cockroaches or if just a few are running around the place, and they’re not saying where in the facility the buggers were. But in the USDA’s letter to Foster it says cockroaches were spotted near a hand wash sink at an inspection station.

USDA inspectors were then taken off the job at the plant, which can’t run without them there.

Foster confirmed the shutdown in a statement on its site, saying things are stopped for the moment to “to allow for enhanced sanitizing to take place.” Perhaps someone is making a run on the roach motel aisle?

“This is an isolated incident; no other facilities are affected,” the company’s latest statement reads. “Today’s treatment is expected to fully resolve this incident. No products are affected. Product production has been transferred to the company’s other facilities.”

It’s not just that cockroaches are creepy, crawly and the last thing you want to see scurrying around food. They also carry bacteria, which includes salmonella. The USDA clarified, however, that the recent cockroach shutdown isn’t related to the ongoing outbreak.

USDA shutters Foster Farms poultry plant over cockroaches [NBC News]

- The carcasses of almost a dozen cows have washed ashore in Denmark and Sweden, puzzling police in the Scandinavian countries.

ZALDIVAR Associated Press

- Can natural sweeteners that taste good rescue diet sodas from their decline?

- With the number of seriously wounded and ill soldiers at a six-year low, the Army is closing down some of the special units set up to care for troops and reorganizing the program.

- Rescuers called off their search Thursday for a sailor missing since a Navy helicopter with five crew members aboard crashed in the ocean off the Virginia coast, the Coast Guard said.

With the big chill came an increase in calls to animal control departments around the D.C. area from people worried about animals being left out doors.

- A Maryland family's dog that went missing on a holiday trip to Maine has been found after surviving more than a week of sub-zero temperatures and severe winter storms.

PotomacLocal.com

What Might Have Been: Unfinished Manassas Lab Space Demolished PotomacLocal.com Steel that in 2010 was going to be turned into a biotech lab and research space for Covance is being torn down after they were left to rust when the company abandoned the project. The parcel of land on the Prince William County / Manassas City boarder ...

Fairfax landowners choose paintball over McMansions WTOP Jeff Waters and his wife could have sold their 200-acre property at 6390 Newman Road in Clifton in “two seconds” to a developer to carve into McMansion lots. Instead, they're developing it themselves — into the Fairfax County's first paintball field ... and more »

WANTED: Suspect Rammed Victim's Car, Knocked Down Street Sign, Police Say Patch.com Dwight Angelo Washington, 43, is wanted by Manassas Police on multiple charges. (Manassas City Police.) Download PDF. Loading... x. ×. Next Previous Slideshow Download. A Manassas Park man who police say used his car to ram another into oncoming ... and more »

Prince William County and Stafford County home sales Washington Post Prince William County. These were among sales data provided to The Washington Post by Lender Processing Services. To find sale and assessment records for homes elsewhere in the Washington area, visit www.washingtonpost.com/homesales. BRISTOW ... and more »

A couple in Texas wants to take their pregnant daughter off of life support. However, a law in Texas forbids it, since the removal would harm the unborn fetus.

Medical marijuana patients and advocates are voicing opposition to new rules at Denver International Airport that would ban marijuana on airport property.

Images of an ice-encrusted lighthouse in Michigan have gone viral during polar vortex.

The Foster Farms plant in California is one of three investigated for a salmonella outbreak nationwide.

Passengers aboard a Southwest Airlines flight were concerned about boxes of American Red Cross blood shipments left on the tarmac.

Loehmann's , a discount retailer which traces its roots back more than 90 years, will soon begin liquidating its inventory.

Virginia's General Assembly started its 60-session today, three days before Governor McAuliffe will be sworn in.

So Happy Goth’s husband found a set of Creation Adventure Team DVDs, and somehow convinced us to watch it. We were expecting it to be so bad it’s good, but it blasted right past bad and became nearly unbearable to watch.

Whatever organ causes cringing was trying to leap out of my thorax.

What we were expecting was a few logical fallacies to shoot down and chuckle over while drinking some beers, what we got was a terribly produced film that just stated dogmatic opinion after opinion, while simply mocking scientific explanations.

Eventually, though embarrassingly not immediately, it finally clicked for me that this wasn’t some great creationist treatise, but a simple brainwashing film meant to indoctrinate children. That was the horrifying part, and something the creationist camp gleefully admits to.

The Biblical Reality Glasses were an actual thing from the video. They were glasses that you needed to put on to see the creationist version of the truth. I couldn’t have made a better analogy if I tried.

Some incredible person made a condensed edit of the first episode and posted it on Youtube.

Sit through the whole thing, the jingle at the end is just fantastic.

-obby

P.S. Yes, I am aware that very few Christians are actually creationists.

You probably aren't talking to your insurance company on a good day. However, if you have to get repairs done to your home or car, you can often get them to pay you for doing the repairs yourself (or choosing your own shop).

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