We've mentioned before that Amazon is a great place to sell your used and unwanted items and make a tidy profit in the process. However, there are different ways to sell with Amazon, and some useful tricks that will help you get more money for your stuff when you do post it for sale. Here's what you need to know.
    
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We all know that walking is one of the easiest things you can do to keep yourself healthy, but if you want to increase those benefits without a lot of work, The New York Times suggests picking up the pace.
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Storytelling is an important skill, whether you're a professional writer or not. Who better to teach us about excellent storytelling than the creative folks at Pixar? Here are 22 rules to phenomenal storytelling, shared by Brave storyboard artist Emma Coats.
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A perfectly timed nap, set for the right amount of time, can do wonders for your brain. If you'd rather not set your alarm or you just don't know when you'll actually fall asleep, try this natural method of timing your nap, attributed to Albert Einstein, Salvador Dali, Aristotle, and other wise people.
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This one exercise can greatly improve your mobility and flexibility—and cure the many ills that come from sitting hunched in front of a screen all day. It takes just 30 seconds and you don't need any equipment.
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Even if you don't know CPR, the American Heart Association has some advice for you, in the form of this one minute video. In short, if an adult collapses, call 911 and begin chest compression—don't wait or try to wonder how to do it correctly; quick action can save a life.
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More and more, people are being told how important it is to "protect your credit score," "improve your credit score," and "find out your credit score for free!"—and by all accounts this growing chorus is making the average person more keenly interested in their credit score and how it works than ever before. There's just one problem with this new focus on the almighty credit score: in reality, we don't have just one credit score.
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Whether the weather or warm or cold where you are, making sure your car is clean is an important preventive maintenance step to remember. This video from Drive may go over the top for those of you used to a hose and sponge, but it's packed with tips to make sure your car is perfectly clean and well taken care of.
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You've probably experienced, or at least heard, that great ideas can come to you in the shower—it's even scientifically proven. Nevertheless, you probably waste more time enjoying yourself than you do having epiphanies. While you should take your breaks, if you want to get a little more done during your downtime here are five ways to make that happen.
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Most of us drive cars but share the road with large trucks. These behemoths of the road can pose a significant safety risk when we're careless. Redditor and truck driver stbb shares his experiences and explains why you should never drive alongside a large transport vehicle.
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You're reading this because somewhere along the lines, you spent more than all of your money. You may have failed to control your impulses. Or maybe you were unprepared for the unexpected and ended up with so much debt from medical expenses that you're struggling to get by. Whatever the case may be, you have debt, and it needs to be eliminated.
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“My account was ‘reclaimed,’” he writes, “but it still has all of the associated data and is not even available for new subscribers.” Oh, dear. He tried to sort this out with Yahoo support, but the representatives he spoke to didn’t understand why this was a problem. They suggested that he register for a new account.
That would be a good idea if it solved any of his problems. It doesn’t. He still had an old account floating around that he couldn’t access but that wasn’t purged either. His information was still in that account. He still didn’t own his old Yahoo ID and e-mail address, which was kind of the point of all this.
He wasn’t getting anywhere with Yahoo. You’d think they’d be delighted that someone still wants to use their service, since apparently employees themselves don’t. so he asked us to. We reached out to Yahoo, and they told us that they would check out the situation, but couldn’t share customer details with us. That’s fair.
Meanwhile, on Ben’s end, mysterious things began to happen. He received some kind of automated reset message at his alternate e-mail address. He tried to log in, and miracle of miracles: it worked. He logged in. Ben and his old account were reunited at last.
What happened to his account? Yahoo can’t tell us. Is there a way to get your own account out of limbo without enlisting Consumerist to chat with the public relations department? Maybe. Ben thinks that it was our prodding that got Yahoo to fix his account, not his own customer service fight.
Have you ever wondered about the people who made your clothes? Not just the people who sew the fabric pieces together, but the people who produce the fabric, transport it from place to place, grow or extract the raw materials, and every other phase of creating a single item of clothing?
The team over at NPR’s Planet Money did, and they’ve spent years trying to create t-shirts for their listeners from a bale of raw cotton so they can follow the process. They partnered up with Jockey, funded the whole thing on Kickstarter, and now the shirts are here. So is the beautiful site of videos, photos, and explanations of where these shirts came from.
The cotton used for the Planet Money shirts was grown in Mississippi from seeds created in a Monsanto lab. Reporters followed the path it took from there to Indonesia, then Bangladesh, or to Colombia, depending on which version of the shirt you followed. In between, they did the thing that every modern consumer secretly wants to do, whether they realize it or not: met everyone whose hands, warehouses, or ships the shirts passed through.
Where was the shirt you’re wearing right now made? Mine was made for Banana Republic in Vietnam…but that label doesn’t say anything about where the thread was spun, where the cotton was grown, or anything at all about the family history and future hopes of the people behind it. Maybe just as well: that tag would be really big and probably itchy.
PLANET MONEY MAKES A T-SHIRT [NPR]
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There are things in this world worth fighting over. And while for many a prime parking spot a the grocery store might be one such reason, that doesn’t mean you should pull a shotgun on your fellow shopper for a below par parking job. We’ve got some other ideas on how to handle such a situation.
Police in Manchester, N.H. say the trouble started when a 53-year-old man was pulling into a spot at a supermarket parking lot. Apparently the guy in the next space had made the unforgivable mistake of encroaching into his desired spot, say cops.
So he allegedly started yelling at the culprit, a 38-year-old man with his 2-year-old daughter in the back seat and his mother loading groceries into the trunk.
While the men argued as the guy tried to pull into the tight spot, the man tried to talk his new enemy down.
“I said to him, ‘Look man there’s an infant in this car don’t hit this car it’s not gonna be good. At that point he reached down and pulled up a firearm, which I guess later on was found to be a shotgun and said something to the effect ‘Well how good do you think it’s gonna work out for you?”” the man told WBZ-TV.
He says that’s when the man raised a rifle through the window of his pickup truck and threatened him, although the suspect didn’t point the gun directly at him. Still, scary enough, he told cops.
“He just acted like a complete maniac,” he said.
Police arrived on the scene and found the suspect’s 12 gauge Remington shotgun and 10 shells sitting on the passenger seat, and arrested him on a charge of one count of felony criminal threatening.
4 Things To Do Besides Pulling A Gun When You Can’t Get The Parking Spot You Want:
1. Take a huge, deep lungful of air in slowly through your mouth, and let it out through your nose.
2. Count backwards from 20
3. Go find another spot
4. Make sure you never park less than perfectly in the future to inspire good parking karma
We’ve all been there, we’ve all seen the monstrous SUV taking up two parking spots. But violence, or the threat of it, is never the answer.
NH Man Accused Of Pulling Shotgun On Man In Supermarket Parking Lot [CBS Boston]
How’s a person supposed to get into the holiday spirit with Grinches running around putting the kibosh on warm, wonderful and glowing Christmas lights? Well in an Orange County suburb, those so-called meanies are worried not about the strands adorning a particular home, but the strings of lights stretching across neighborhood streets, potentially creating fire hazards and roadway traps for emergency vehicles.
The neighbors in the community see the lights stretching across their suburb’s streets as holiday happiness, but that festive glow is also an “unpermitted encroachment” according to county officials who have ordered them removed, reports the Los Angeles Times.
While there’s the normal amount of outrage from residents who love the zigzagging lights at being told they’ve got to take them down by tonight or face fines and even prosecution (“This is America,” said one), the county says it’s about public safety. Decorate your house in all the lights you want, but going house-to-house isn’t a good idea.
“We don’t have issues with any of the other lights,” a county spokeswoman. “We fully support that.”
Due to the uproar from residents, the county says it’s willing to work with the neighborhood to get a permit for street decorations and consider extending tonight’s deadline, as well as waiving permit fees. But it’s not going to be easy coordinating all those homeowners to come in and apply for one.
“It would be more ideal if the homeowners’ association came to the table and offered themselves as the single permittee,” said the county spokeswoman.
That’s a long shot as well, since the HOA’s president says it isn’t meeting again until next year.
“We want the holiday spirit,” he said. But “the association has zero involvement.”
Time to take matters into your own hands, Whoville. Get a permit or face the Grinch (albeit a Grinch concerned about the safety of people but you get it).
O.C. neighborhood ordered to take down Christmas lights [L.A. Times]
Eggs keep for a long time when refrigerated, especially if kept toward the back of the shelf, but how do you keep track of when your eggs are going to expire? Sure, you could look at the packaging and expiration dates printed on the carton. Whatever, Grandma. Why would you want to do that when there’s a wi-fi enabled egg tray?
How does it work? This handy video is here to explain that to you. The answer is wi-fi, tiny LEDs, and human laziness.
The item does have (sarcastic) rave reviews. “No longer will I have to suffer counting anywhere from 1 to 14 now,” writes one Amazon reviewer. Amen, sibling!
Egg Minder – Wink-Enabled Egg Tray [ThinkGeek] (via The Worst Things For Sale)
The man tells Atlanta’s Channel 11 [via Ars Technica] he’d had his Leaf plugged in for about 20 minutes when he was approached by a police officer.
“He said that he was going to charge me with theft by taking because I was taking power, electricity from the school,” recalls the driver.
But rather than ticket the man or arrest him then and there, the officer filed a report. It wasn’t until 11 days later that a pair of deputies showed up at his house to arrest him.
While police say they determined that the man didn’t have permission to charge his vehicle, they also admit they didn’t check with the school to see if it wanted to press charges against the driver.
And one police sergeant says the officer should have arrested the man at the time of the incident, and that it doesn’t matter about the low dollar value of the alleged theft.
“I’m not sure how much electricity he stole,” explains the sergeant. “He broke the law. He stole something that wasn’t his.”
The driver, who spent about 15 hours behind bars before being released, likens his supposed crime to someone being arrested for drinking water out of a tap.
“People charge laptops or cell phones at public outlets all the time, and no one’s ever been arrested for that,” he contends.
Did the police overreact in this incident? We have a feeling that part of the issue here is the lack of public understanding about how much electricity it takes to charge up an electric vehicle. After all, it takes a huge amount of cash to fill a tank with gasoline so it might make sense that charging an EV would also be costly. Thus, the officer may have assumed this man was getting away with stealing significantly more than five cents worth of juice.
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According to police, a 35-year-old woman borrowed a wheelchair at a mall in Massachusetts. That’s not unusual: sometimes people who don’t own their own wheelchair need one to get around the vast expanses of the American mallscape. In this case, the woman said that she had an injured leg. That’s a valid reason to borrow some wheels.
The strange part is what happened next: she asked for security to transport her to the Apple Store. they obliged, taking her from the store to her car, but wouldn’t make a return trip. That’s when she dialed up emergency services. Of course.
Instead of taking her side, the officers who showed up on the scene had a chat with her about the proper use of 9-1-1. Her rational and measured response? She called 9-1-1 again and asked for an ambulance.
Let’s review. If you have been critically injured and need an ambulance to pick you up and take you to the hospital, then it’s okay to call 9-1-1. That’s what they’re there for. If your iPhone has been critically injured and you need to transport it to the Genius Bar, this is not an acceptable use of emergency resources. Even if you really, really love your iPhone.
Police: Woman calls 911 for a push around mall [Salem News]
Unlike when you flip over the couch cushions and dig into the seats of your car looking for change, it’s not a finders keepers situation with the leftover nickels and dimes the Transportation Security Administration found in 2012. Those loose coins left behind by passengers totaled $531,395.22 in fiscal year 2012 and the House just voted on what to do with it.
No, the TSA will not get to keep it to fund Friday pizza parties or buy new vending machines for a sweet employee game room — the House voted yesterday to use the change to help fund military programs at airports.
In the past, the TSA had used the spare change for aviation security, as under current law it’s required to deposit that left behind money into a special fund that’s spent bolstering security. In March the TSA reported that it had spent $6,539.94 so far translating airport checkpoint signs into foreign languages, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Instead, the new legislation will now have that money go into nonprofits that provide nice place for Armed Forces members to sit back and relax when they’re going through our nation’s airports. It sounds like a nice idea — after all, if business travelers need a break from the stress in a comfy lounge, why not someone who also has a very stressful job get a place of respite?
“The TSA has been keeping the pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters from your change purse to pay for their bloated bureaucracy,” the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jeff Miller (R., Fla.), said in a written statement Tuesday. “I would much rather see unclaimed change go to help military personnel on their way home from the battlefield.”
The Senate may or may not consider the bill, it’s not really clear at this point whether or not it’ll do so.
In the meantime, keep an eye on that pocketful of change you dumped into that plastic bin on the conveyor belt. It adds up.
House to TSA: Don’t Keep the Change [Wall Street Journal]
Ten genetically valuable cheetah cubs were born at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in November.
Washington Humane Society officials say two D.C. men have been arrested for allegedly abusing a bull terrier named McFly.
Visitors to the Grand Canyon witnessed a rare sight this week: the canyon was overflowing with dense fog.
The visionary behind the billion-dollar Doritos Locos Tacos idea never made any money on it.
Featherstone Elementary & Rippon MS were in secure-the-building status due to a search for a robbery suspect
What better way to cure holiday travel stress than man's best friend?
How close would you have to be to a supernova to get a lethal dose of neutrino radiation?
(Overheard in a physics department)
The phrase "lethal dose of neutrino radiation" is a weird one. I had to turn it over in my head a few times after I heard it.
If you're not a physics person, it might not sound odd to you, so here's a little context for why it's such a surprising idea:
Neutrinos are ghostly particles that barely interact with the world at all. Look at your hand—there are about a trillion neutrinos from the Sun passing through it every second.
The reason you don't notice the neutrino flood is that neutrinos hardly interact with ordinary matter at all. On average, out of that massive flood, only one neutrino will "hit" an atom in your body every few years.[1]Less often if you're a child, since you have fewer atoms to be hit. Statistically, my first neutrino interaction probably happened somewhere around age 10.
In fact, neutrinos are so shadowy that the entire Earth is transparent to them; nearly all of the Sun's neutrino flood goes straight through it unaffected. To detect neutrinos, people build giant tanks filled with hundreds of tons of material in the hopes that they'll register the impact of a single solar neutrino.
This means that when a particle accelerator (which produces neutrinos) wants to send a neutrino beam to a detector somewhere else in the world, all it has to do is point the beam at the detector—even if it's on the other side of the Earth!
That's why the phrase "lethal dose of neutrino radiation" sounds weird—it mixes scales in an incongruous way. It's like the idiom "knock me over with a feather" or the phrase "football stadium filled to the brim with ants".[2]Which would still be less than 1% of the ants in the world. If you have a math background, it's sort of like seeing the expression "ln(x)e"—it's not that, taken literally, it doesn't make sense, but it's hard to imagine a situation where it would apply.[3]If you want to be mean to first-year calculus students, you can ask them to take the derivative of ln(x)e dx. It looks like it should be "1" or something, but it's not.
Similarly, it's so hard to get enough neutrinos to compel even a single one of them to interact with matter, making it hard to picture a scenario in which there'd be enough of them to affect you.
Supernovae[4]"Supernovas" is also fine. "Supernovii" is discouraged. provide that scenario. The physicist who mentioned this problem to me told me his rule of thumb for estimating supernova-related numbers: However big you think supernovae are, they're bigger than that.
Here's a question to give you a sense of scale:
Which of the following would be brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina:
A supernova, seen from as far away as the Sun is from the Earth, or
The detonation of a hydrogen bomb pressed against your eyeball?
Applying the physicist rule of thumb suggests that the supernova is brighter. And indeed, it is ... by nine orders of magnitude.
That's why this is a neat question; supernovae are unimaginably huge and neutrinos are unimaginably insubstantial. At what point do these two unimaginable things cancel out to produce an effect on a human scale?
A paper by radiation expert Andrew Karam provides an answer.[5]Karam, P. Andrew. "Gamma And Neutrino Radiation Dose From Gamma Ray Bursts And Nearby Supernovae." Health Physics 82, no. 4 (2002): 491-499. It explains that during certain supernovae, the collapse of a stellar core into a neutron star, 1057 neutrinos can be released (one for every proton in the star that collapses to become a neutron).
Karam calculates that the neutrino radiation dose at a distance of one parsec[6]3.262 light-years, or a little less than the distance from here to Alpha Centauri. would be around half a nanosievert, or 1/500th the dose from eating a banana.[7]xkcd.com/radiation
A fatal radiation dose is about 4 sieverts. Using the inverse-square law, we can calculate the radiation dose: \[ 0.5\text{ nanosieverts} \times\left ( \frac{1\text{ parsec}}{x}\right )^2 = 5\text{ sieverts} \] \[ x=0.00001118\text{ parsecs}=2.3\text{ AU} \] 2.3 AU is a little more than the distance between the Sun and Mars.
Core collapse supernovae happen to giant stars, so if you observed a supernova from that distance, you'd probably be inside the outer layers of the star that created it.
The idea of neutrino radiation damage reinforces just how big supernovae are. If you observed a supernova from 1 AU away—and you somehow avoided being being incinerated, vaporized, and converted to some type of exotic plasma—even the flood of ghostly neutrinos would be dense enough to kill you.
If it's going fast enough, a feather can absolutely knock you over.
