pileofcrapola

Sitting all day is terrible for your health, but so can being on your feet all the time. Whether you've adopted a standing desk or have a job that requires you to stand a lot, here are a few movements you can do to counteract the strain of standing.

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This week, Google made a change to how it loads images in your email. Now, instead of pulling images from the source, Google caches the pictures on its own servers. That's great if you want the pictures, but if not, you can turn it off.

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You probably know that carbonated drinks are fizzy because of their CO2 content, and that it's released when you open a bottle or can. What you may not know is exactly how that process works, and why the glass you drink from plays a role in how long your drink is fizzy. This video explains it all.

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When comparing breads, wheat gets the gold star of health—and it earns it. But now that we've got fortified breads, the health experts at Examine.com argue that you can get the whiter variety along with near-equal health benefits. Here's why.

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Many behaviors can make for a bad workplace experience. It could be horrible manners, general laziness, or just that they're awfully distracting. Perhaps you confronted them or maybe you tried to handle it without getting them in trouble. Whatever the case, we'd love to hear your worst coworker experience.

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One secret of store brands—or "private label" brands with seemingly bargain quality—is that they're often made by the same companies that manufacturer big name products. So instead of paying twice as much for the same (or very similar) product, buy the just-as-good carbon copies. Here's a look at some of the many products you can save a ton of money on.

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Android/iOS: Google Maps for iOS and Android updated today and both now show you any hotel bookings, restaurant reservations, and flights you have scheduled right on the map itself. This way if you look at an airport in Maps, you'll see your flight times and a link to view the email with more information in it.

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If you're a fan of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and other spices often used in baking, this video guide from America's Test Kitchen will walk you through when they're best used, how you should buy them, and how you should store them when you get them home from the grocery store.

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For years, Amazon has been selling certain household goods, like toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and cereal, that are the bread-and-butter for warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam’s Club, but the online retailer has had trouble competing because of the shipping costs. That may change next year with the reported launch of something called Pantry.

USA Today has the goods on Pantry, which Amazon has not announced but which looks to be slated for a 2014 launch.

In spite of the fact that Costco and Amazon attract similar customers — people who want low prices, large selection and reasonably decent customer service — shipping has hampered Amazon’s ability to sell these everyday purchases in two ways. First, the cost of shipping these sorts of items is often inordinately high compared to the sale price. If Amazon eats that shipping cost, it may lose money. If it charges shipping costs to the customer, any value goes out the window.

Second, while many Costco and Sam’s Club shoppers have no problem loading up their carts with everything from computers to cream cheese, the idea of buying household staples and having to wait days for these purchases to arrive — or to have them come in separate shipments (not to mention all the cardboard boxes!) — is disconcerting.

While Pantry, which USA Today says will be marketed to Amazon Prime subscribers, can’t do anything about the time delay between ordering and receiving, it does deal with some of the other shipping-related issues.

From the USA Today story:

It will launch with about 2,000 products typically found in the center of grocery stores, such as cleaning supplies, kitchen paper rolls, canned goods like pet food, dry grocery items like cereal and some beverages.

Amazon will let Prime shoppers put as many of these items into a set sized box, up to a specific weight limit. If the products fit and they don’t exceed the maximum weight, Amazon will ship the box for a small fee.

So Amazon cuts down on its shipping costs by grouping as many items as possible into one box, especially if all those boxes are the same size and about the same weight.

The customer will get all his orders at once and without the cardboard apocalypse that would have occurred if items had shipped separately. It certainly won’t be a Costco-killer, but it could give Amazon a bigger slice of the $850 billion/year packaged goods market.

Of course, much remains to be seen about Pantry. Will the prices be comparable to what you get at warehouse clubs? Will Pantry be selling the same super-sized mayonnaise jars and triple packs of ketchup, or will the items for sale be more what you’d find in a typical grocery store? For customers purchasing multiple Pantry boxes at once, we’ll be curious to see if Amazon optimizes boxes so that customers get the most value out of them, or if the e-tailer will arrange items so as to squeeze the most money from the customer.

We won’t know the answers to any of this until Amazon reveals more info (or if anyone at the company wants to tell us at tips@consumerist.com)

You might remember the national story from earlier this week about a man who went to the media with his tale of woe about how how he was banned from Walmart for life just for bringing other retailers’ ads to price match. We thought there might be more to the story, and there was. Gosh, there was.

Walmart workers claim that the man was well-known for trying to match prices from expired ads, which goes against both the spirit and the letter of Walmart’s price-matching policy. Some employees would let him have the matches anyway, reports ABC 15, the TV station that originally publicized the story based on just an interview with the shopper and not, say, reading the police report.

That alone wasn’t why he was banned from the store, either. He was banned for threatening the physical safety of Walmart employees. “Never once did I say anything to the gentleman,” he had told the TV reporters. According to the police report, the shopper did say a few things to the gentleman. Specifically, “I’m going to mess this mother f_ _ _ker up,” referring to the cashier, threatening to wait in the parking lot to “do [the cashier] in” and to “beat his ass.”

Arizona Man Doesn’t Have Lifetime Ban From Walmart for Price-Matching [New Times]
Man banned from Walmart: Retailer says Joe Cantrell threatened employee

Did a mysterious forgetfulness sickness descend upon 221 sickened in Colorado by synthetic marijuana, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes happened? Did part of the population suddenly forget that they live in a state where real marijuana is legal? We don’t know but the CDC is not a fan of the fake stuff, which is illegal in the state.

While it’s not like you can (currently) just walk up to any corner store and say hey, can I get some legal pot please, even if the fake stuff is easier to get, it appears to be sending people to the emergency room quite a bit in Colorado, reports the Associated Press.

That increase in ER visits led the CDC to join with state health officials to uncover a monthlong outbreak of people sickened by fake pot. Investigators found two new kinds in the state, ADBICA and ADB-PINACA, the latter which was also involved in a similar outbreak in Georgia.

Fake marijuana is dried plant material sprayed with synthetic cannabinoids so that it looks kind of like the real stuff, but it’s illegal in Colorado and other states, as well as the federal government, have been trying to ban it. It’s a squirrelly issue though, as the chemical makeup of the stuff can change so often.

Out of those 221 probable cases of fake pot sickening in Colorado, officials looked closer at 127 of those. Everyone who fell ill was from either the Denver area and Colorado Springs, were all about 26 and mostly male. Ten of those patients had to go into intensive care as a result. No deaths have been confirmed.

Again, it’s likely easier to get the fake stuff when you can walk into a store and buy it — well, four that were selling synthetic pot have been shut down, so maybe not — but again, it’s better to be safe, and legal, than sorry.

CDC: 221 sickened by synthetic pot in Colorado [USA Today]

Last week, a Domino’s Pizza franchisee in New York City terminated the employment of 25 workers who had filed complaints about being underpaid. That’s kind of against the law in New York, and so after receiving a little talking-to from the state Attorney General, the franchisee has agreed to re-hire the previously dismissed employees.

According to the Assurance of Discontinuance document [PDF] filed in the matter the office of AG Eric T. Schneiderman began investigating this franchisee back in October, issuing subpoenas to see if the company had been in violation of state and federal labor laws.

Some employees who work for this franchisee claim they are being paid like they were tipped employees (i.e., that they would be deriving a majority of their income from tips) when in fact they were spending much of their time doing work for which they would not receive tips, like working in the kitchen.

As we’ve explained before, employers are allowed to pay tipped workers below minimum wage, so long as the employees receive enough tips to make up the difference. In New York, the minimum wage for a tipped delivery driver is $5.65/hour, and there are statutory limits put on the number of hours a tipped employee can do work for which he or she will not receive a tip.

New York law prohibits employers from firing workers who make good-faith complaints — whether it’s to the employer or to a government agency — that they may be receiving wages that violate state and federal labor laws.

The Schneiderman’s office is still investigating whether the Domino’s franchisee is underpaying his drivers or forcing them to do too much untipped work, but both the franchisee has entered into the above-linked Assurance agreement that will get the dismissed employees back to work by Sunday, Dec. 15 at the latest, and protect them against any retaliation.

“Because of this agreement, 25 workers will be back to work in time for the holidays,” said Schneiderman in a statement. “New York’s labor laws exist to ensure the protection and fair treatment of employees in the workplace. My office will take swift action where there is any indication that an employer may have retaliated against workers for complaining about illegal labor conditions.”

One of the reinstated employees says he and his fellow drivers are “excited to be able to return to work at a legal wage. This was never just about us alone — it was about the 84% of NYC fast-food workers who, like us, are victims of wage theft in our city.”

A month after new FCC Commissioner Tom Wheeler asked the wireless industry to stop futzing around and agree to some consumer-friendly standards for unlocking wireless devices, the wireless biggies get around to revealing what they believe are guidelines that are the best for everyone.

As we mentioned in November, a big sticking point between the FCC and CTIA – The Wireless Association was the insistence by the FCC of a standard that would require carriers to proactively provide notice to consumers when their phones would become eligible for unlocking. The wireless industry understandably balked at that idea, given that it would be like reminding customers, “Hey, your contract is up. Why don’t you take your new phone over to our competitor?”

But looking at the six standards below, it appears as if CTIA ultimately relented, out of fear that the FCC would use its authority to require it anyway.

Here are the six additions that AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint have agreed to and which will be added to the CTIA Consumer Code. Today’s agreement gives the carriers three months to implement at least three of the six standards, and a year to implement all six:

1. Disclosure: Carrier will post “clear, concise and readily accessible” policies on postpaid and prepaid mobile wireless device unlocking on their websites.

2. Postpaid Unlocking Policy: Carriers, upon request, will unlock wireless devices or provide the necessary information to unlock devices for their customers and former customers in good standing and owners of eligible devices after the fulfillment of their service contract, device finance planning or payment of ETF.

3. Prepaid Unlocking: Carriers, upon request, will unlock prepaid devices no later than one year after initial activation, consistent with reasonable time, payment or usage requirements.

4. Notice: Carriers will clearly notify customers with locked devices when those devices are eligible for unlocking. The carrier also has the option of automatically unlocking devices remotely when they become eligible. This is all to be done without an additional fee.

However, carriers “reserve the right to charge non-customers’/non-former-customers a reasonable fee for unlocking requests.”

5. Response Time: Carriers are given two business days after receiving a request to unlock the device or initiate a request to the manufacturer to unlock the device, or provide an explanation why the device does not qualify or why the carrier needs more time to process the request.

6. Deployed Personnel Unlocking: Carriers will unlock mobile wireless devices for deployed military personnel who are customers in good standing upon provision of deployment papers.

Carriers can deny any unlocking request if they have “reasonable basis to believe the request is fraudulent or the device is stolen.”

This may be the end of the year-long unlocking saga, which began when the Librarian of Congress listened to wireless industry lobbyists and made a change to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that made it illegal for a consumer to unlock a new wireless device — even if he owns the device outright — without the permission of his current wireless carrier.

Since then, everyone from regular folks to advocacy groups to lawmakers and the White House has called for the Librarian to rethink his industry-biased decision, or for the FCC to take action that would allow consumers to unlock their devices without fear of violating the law.

In September, the Commerce Dept.’s, National Telecommunications and Information Agency formally petitioned the FCC to require the wireless industry to unlock consumers’ cellphones.

“This is a welcomed move that should give consumers more flexibility and choice in the wireless market. This agreement extends unlocking abilities to both pre and post-paid customers and also to devices gifted or purchased from outside the carrier,” said George Slover, senior policy counsel for Consumers Union. “The ability to unlock your phone is only effective if consumers are aware they can unlock, which is why we are encouraged that this announcement places an emphasis on notifying customers of their eligibility. Consumers Union is committed to monitoring the agreement to ensure that it works for consumers and urges all carriers to adopt these new policies.”

Slover did have some concerns about the fees wireless companies will allow themselves to charge to non-customers.

“We will be keeping an eye on these fees to ensure consumers are not priced out of unlocking their phones,” he explains.

Restaurant chain Buffalo Wild Wings is ditching Coca-Cola as its soft drink supplier and switching to Pepsi. But what’s most fascinating about this change is how the folks at PepsiCo convinced BWW to jump ship.

See, PepsiCo doesn’t just make Pepsi and Mountain Dew. Through Frito-Lay, the company also owns a large number of popular snack brands like Doritos, Ruffles, Cheetos, Sun Chips, Lay’s, Funyuns, and Tostitos. And it’s the thought of being able to offer those products in conjunction with the wings and beverages that has BWW happy to say adios to Coke.

But it’s not just about having some Cheetos in a bowl on the table. No, there’s some crazy food science in the works here.

BWW CEO Sally Smith tells the AP that the recently visited the PepsiCo food innovation lab — which we imagine is like an Oompa-Loompa-less Wonka chocolate factory — where Pepsi showed off some possible treats that BWW could make with PepsiCo products, like Doritos as a crunchy topping for wings or chicken tenders, or salad dressing that uses Mountain Dew.

“I don’t think it will be in the next 12 months, but we’ll possibly start testing after a year or 18 months,” said Smith.

PepsiCo still has a huge partnership going with the Dorito-shell tacos going over at Taco Bell. Perhaps the way forward for the company is to just seek out more deals like that the BWW one.

Maybe it can reach out to Pepperidge Farm and create Cheeto-flavored Milano cookies? Or maybe the people at Mondavi might be interested in a Diet Mountain Dew zinfandel? The world could be PepsiCo’s orange-powder-coated oyster!

Reader Daniel sent us what looked like a straightforward case of fuzzy math. At his local Target, a half-dozen eggs cost 99¢, while a dozen of the same exact eggs cost $2.09. Or do they?

“They are the same product, just different quantities,” Daniel wrote. “What’s even more amusing is the half dozen containers are just the dozen ones cut in half.” Well, that doesn’t make very much sense, unless Target is charging customers extra for the privilege of not having to pick up two separate half-dozens.

Except…wait a minute. The shelf tag for the eggs on the left says something about brown eggs. Maybe Target is really charging twelve cents extra for the privilege of having brown eggs. (Why do brown eggs always seem better, anyway? I’d pay an extra twelve cents for brown eggs any day, and I can’t articulate why.)

We wrote back to Daniel about this, and he said…well, actually, those eggs in the white boxes on the left are conventionally raised eggs with white shells, so even if it isn’t the same container, they’re the same darn eggs.

Maybe it’s time to revive our “Target is Crazy” series.

In 2011, the Supreme Court held that it was A-OK to not only hide a complicated forced-arbitration clause in a novel-length contract for a consumer product or service, but that it was also just peachy that such a clause stripped the consumer of his/her right to bind together with other affected customers in a class action. Since then, sellers of everything from cellphone service to video games have added these complicated clauses in an attempt to keep complaining consumers out of court and into the unfair arena of arbitration. Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued its first report on forced arbitration, and the results are, sadly, not shocking.

The report [PDF] focuses solely on financial products like credit cards, checking accounts, and prepaid debit cards, where arbitration clauses have long been employed.

DOES SIZE MATTER?
Not surprisingly, the CFPB found that larger financial institutions and credit card companies are more likely to include these clauses than smaller banks and credit unions.

“That raises interesting questions about why smaller institutions and credit unions do not use arbitration clauses as frequently in these markets,” said CFPB director Richard Cordray in prepared remarks for today’s public hearing on the topic in Dallas.

It’s worth noting that this large/small discrepancy did not cross over into the prepaid debit card market, where arbitration clauses seem to be standard, regardless of the size of the card’s issuer.

“In fact, smaller players are much more likely to use arbitration clauses in prepaid card contracts than they are in credit card or checking account contracts,” said Cordray.

NO SUITS FOR YOU
An arbitration clause on its own doesn’t take away a consumer’s right to join in a class-action suit. This bar on class action has to be explicit in the contract. Alas, CFPB found that more than 90% of arbitration clauses on financial products explicitly bar consumers from participating in class arbitrations.

“The few clauses without this express limitation were in smaller bank contracts,” said Cordray, “meaning that almost all of the consumers who are subject to arbitration provisions are effectively precluded from participating in class proceedings — whether in court or in arbitration.”

A comparatively small percentage of financial products (about 1-in-4) allow for customers to opt out of the arbitration clause, but doing so usually requires the submission of a written opt-out request within a relatively narrow time frame, often 30 to 60 days from the start of the agreement.

IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME
According to the report, the average length of an arbitration clause in a credit card contract is around 1,100 words, with some containing as many as 2,410 words. These clauses accounted for an average of 14.1% of the total word count in their respective contracts.

Not only are these clauses long, they’re also more complex than the rest of the text in the contract. The CFPB subjected these contracts and clauses to the Flesch-Kincaid readability tests and found that the average arbitration clause was written to be understandable to a sophomore in college, while the rest of the contract requires the reading skills of a tenth grader.

There wasn’t a single case studied by the CFPB in which the arbitration clause was as readable as the rest of the contract around it.

CALLS FOR ACTION
The CFPB report has drawn a positive response from numerous advocacy groups that have long claimed that forced arbitration deprives consumers of basic legal rights.

“Forced arbitration clauses give corporate wrongdoers immunity from justice if they sell a shoddy product, commit fraud, violate consumer protection laws, or fail to do what they promised,” says Ellen Taverna, legislative director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates. “The ordinary consumer has absolutely no idea he or she is giving up constitutional, statutory, and common law rights and surrendering his or her ‘day in court.’”

“The federal law that governs arbitration has been interpreted to the point where it has warped all sense of fairness or justice, and has given corporations a get-out-of-jail free card,” said Christine Hines, consumer and civil justice counsel at Public Citizen. “The mere existence of a forced arbitration clause and class-action ban in a contract can squash thousands of valid consumer claims and shield companies from being held liable for their misconduct.”

“Allowing companies to force consumers into an often biased, secretive, and lawless system deprives millions of people of their right to justice,” explains Lauren Saunders, managing attorney of the National Consumer Law Center.

Do you enjoy M&M’s, but find that they just don’t contain enough chocolate? We’re pretty sure that no one has ever had that problem, but M&M’s/Mars has solved it anyway with the creation of M&M’s Mega. Each candy has three times as much chocolate as a regular M&M, coated with the traditional candy shell.

Sure, you could eat equal weights of regular M&M’s or of M&M’s Minis, but there would be a different proportion of chocolate to candy coating. Low-carb is in style now, you know.

The candies won’t hit shelves until May 2014, so you’ll have to cope with only regular-size M&M’s until then.

M&M’s to Launch ‘Mega’ Version with Triple the Chocolate [Foodbeast]

- She is called the most wanted woman in the world, a suspected terrorist charged with plotting to blow up resort hotels in Kenya packed with Christmas tourists, a Westerner who wrote an ode praising Osama bin Laden, a jihadist who has eluded the law even as she has traveled through Africa with four young children in tow.

- Exercise might help women beat breast cancer. Researchers found it can ease the achy joints and muscle pain that lead many patients to quit taking medicines that treat the disease and lower the risk of a recurrence.

Prince William County police say dozens of blackbirds were found dead along a Nokesville road and authorities are investigating the cause.

When temperatures drop, drivers should be checking tire pressure more often, especially with a quality tire gauge, says John Townsend II with AAA Mid-Atlantic.

A suspected drunk driver is in custody and a police officer hospitalized after a crash in Laurel, Md., early Friday morning.

A driver was charged after a crash in Laurel involving a police cruiser, say Prince George's County police officials.

Longtime 'It's Academic' host Mac McGarry died Thursday at age 87.

Pantry is set to launch in 2014 and will let Amazon Prime members buy consumer packages goods that will be shipping in a set sized box with a maximum weight limit, sources say.

The South African sign language interpreter says he suffered schizophrenic episode.

WUSA9 has learned of more allegations of abuse at a Minnieland Academy daycare facility.

The National Zoo says a Przewalski's horse foal has died at its Conservation Biology Institute.

The National Zoo says a Przewalski's horse foal has died at its Conservation Biology Institute.