pileofcrapola

You can never have too many plastic containers. But they do have a tendency to absorb the smell of whatever you store in them long after discarding and even washing. So here's a neat trick: throw some paper into it.

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What's worse than scalding yourself in the shower? Getting Legionnaires' disease—a type of pneumonia carried by stagnant water. Avoid both by setting your water heater to just the right temperature. The DIY experts at Stack Exchange are here to help.

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Airport pickups can take a long time because the person getting off the plane has to make it outside at almost the exact same time as the person picking them up arrives at the airport. Redditor Mm2k offers a very simple solution: take a shuttle to a nearby hotel.

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It's always worth asking for a hotel upgrade, but if you feel shy about asking at the front desk or even calling the hotel ahead of time, a simple email to the right person can do the trick.

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Planning on a big or small get-together soon? Then you need to get your place in order and gather all the supplies that make for an entertaining time. Thankfully, The Sweethome has compiled just about everything you need.

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It sounds like a crazy idea. Get more sleep, gain less weight (and maybe even lose some). New research indicates why that may be: when you don't get enough sleep, you start to suck at controlling your impulses.

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Most people head to the grocery store on the weekends, but you can save serious money at the checkout counter if you head to the store in the middle of the week, or later in the evening if your grocery store is open late. Discounted bakery items and stock rotation days are a frugal food shopper's best friends.

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I bet you've come across the term "positive reinforcement" before–but honestly, do you know what it really means? Some time back, I decided to jump onto the positive reinforcement bandwagon. Except, it wasn't really clear to me what it is I should be doing. The worst part? The more I read about it, the more confused I got.

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Dear Lifehacker,
My family is seriously stretched thin for cash. Our credit cards are nearly maxed out and we wiped out our savings when my husband was laid off and then we had expensive medical bills. What can we do to get money fast and back on our feet again?

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If you’re like me, you have no muscle memories of the apartment you’ve lived in for five years and thus find your body banging itself up against a corner like it popped out of nowhere. Sigh, bruises. But you don’t have to live like that — your home should be a place of rest and relaxation, not a horror house of accidents waiting to happen.

I have no advice for the MBQs of the world beyond trying to watch where you’re walking, goshdarnit, this is your own home. But LifeHacker does have a pretty nice roundup of a bunch of things you can do to guard against accidents in the home. We’ve collected a bunch of our favorites below and you can check out LifeHacker for more safety lessons.

Cooking Accidents
1. Keep your knives sharp (and your wits sharper!), because a dull knife is way more dangerous than one that’s slicing, dicing and cutting properly. Make sure you know how to use them an aren’t just hacking at a pork roast with say, a cerrated bread knife.
2. A cutting board will stay put better with a damp towel, shelf liner or other non-slippy material under it.
3. Make sure pan handles on the stove face inward to keep them from little hands and also so you don’t bump it accidentally and knock it over.
4. Know how to put out a kitchen fire — hint: Don’t throw water on it.
5. MBQ’s own tip: Wear shoes when you’re cooking — it’s a lot more protection against any falling knives or splashy hot liquids. Once you dump a pot of boiling water on your bare feet you’ll never forget this rule.

Falls 
6. Secure electrical and phone cords out of traffic areas lest you snag one and trip.
7. Small throw rugs are basically lying in wait for you to stumble over them. Ditch’em all or use non-skid mats. Remove small throw rugs or use non-skid mats to keep them from slipping
8. Once you’re done joking about Captain Obvious, don’t stand on a chair, table or anything with wheels. Wheels have a tendency to roll.

Poisoning
9. The CDC says poisoning is among the top 10 leading causes of ER visits for nonfatal injuries, and it isn’t just kids accidentally chugging cough syrup. Some prescription meds and over-the-counter meds can negatively interact with other medicines or foods, so check with your pharmacist before combining anything. And keep everything clearly labeled in their original containers — that handful of mismatched pills you found in the sock drawer could be just about anything. Post this somewhere you can see it:  U.S. Poison Control Center — 800-222-1222.

Moving Heavy Stuff
10. How many times have you heard to lift with your knees and not your back? It’s true. Shimmy up to whatever you’re moving, as close as you can, and flex your knees to lift it. Keep your back straight and move your feet instead of wiggling all around with your back if you need to turn.
11. Slip and slide that thing somewhere easily by turning a bit of carpet remnant upside down on hard floors. That way you can move your heavy thing over the floors without scratching them. Blankets and newspapers work as well.
12. Find a friend if something’s too heavy — if you can’t lift a corner very easily, you need a buddy.

DIY and Landscaping
13. Above all else, don’t start on something if it’s high risk, including electrical work or doing stuff around gas pipes.
14. Even if the engine is off, do not stick your hand in to get something out of a blade. The blade could be under tension and snap forward anyway, and there goes your favorite right hand.
15. Just like knives, keep your tools sharp for maximum effectiveness and minimum ouchiness.
16. Don’t use power tools in the rain. Water and electricity do not mix.

How to Avoid Injuring Yourself During Everyday Activities [LifeHacker]

We’ve all seen the social media meltdowns that can ensue when customers write negative things about a company online, which always result in the company looking like the bad guy whether it is or not. But one online retailer has taken that revenge into the real world, slapping an unsatisfied customer with a $3,500 fine and dinging her credit score after she didn’t pay up.

A few years ago, Jen’s husband ordered a bunch of trinkets from a website that appears to deal in the sort of odds and ends one might find at a Spencer’s Gifts. But 30 days after he ordered it, the products hadn’t arrived and PayPal canceled the transaction, she tells KUTV.com.

She wanted to know why the items never showed up, so she did what any logical customer would do and called up the company to get some information. Unfortunately she couldn’t reach anyone, so she channeled her frustration into a negative review on RipoffReport.com.

“There is absolutely no way to get in touch with a physical human being,” it says, accusing the company of having “horrible customer service practices.”

Done and done, right? Wrong. Fast forward three years later when her husband got an email from the company (which means someone works there after all, eh?) demanding that the post be taken down or they would be fined.

The company cited a “non-disparagement contract” within its terms of sale with a clause that it says gives it the right to demand such a fine:

“In an effort to ensure fair and honest public feedback, and to prevent the publishing of libelous content in any form, your acceptance of this sales contract prohibits you from taking any action that negatively impacts kleargear.com, its reputation, products, services, management or employees.”

If you violate that contract, the clause says a consumer has 72 hours to remove the post or face the $3,500 fine. If it’s not paid, the delinquency is then reported to credit bureaus.

“This is fraud,” the woman says. “They’re blackmailing us for telling the truth.”

She and her husband attempted to get RipoffReport.com to pull the review but were told that wasn’t going to happen, and the credit bureaus say that because the company claims the charge is valid, the credit dent will remain.

When KUTV.com dug a little deeper, the news team found that the company had an “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau in 2010 (two years after the order was placed) for “not delivering products purchased online in a timely manner.”

The company also claimed in an email to KUTV.com via an unidentified person that the $3,500 fine and the alleged threat of removing the post or facing the fine wasn’t blackmail, just a “diligent effort to help them avoid [the fine].”

The news station spoke to a First Amendment attorney who pretty much said exactly what we’re thinking — this is unheard of.

“I think this is outrageous that a company like this would force a consumer to relinquish their first amendment rights to speak about their product as a condition of sale,” Hunt said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He says, and we agree that there’s a pretty darn good chance any judge facing this issue in court would throw out a non-disparagement clause as unconstitutional.

“I have a serious question about whether a court would enforce that kind of covenant because it’s massively over broad and against public policy,” he explains.

In the meantime, the couple can’t afford an attorney to fight the clause on the grounds of its likely unconstitutionality but are working with Experian to try and fix the damage done to their credit.

How about this for a sales contract? You sell me something, you deliver it. You don’t, well then your contract is null and void, sir. Harrumph.

Previously in vengeful companies: Criticize Dentist On Yelp, Get Threatened With Felony ‘Internet Business Defamation’; Shoe Store Allegedly Bans Mom Over Son’s Negative Yelp Review; Restaurant Owner Gets 90 Days In Jail For Creating Fake Sex Site Profile For Unsatisfied Customer; Restaurant Owner Gets Revenge On A Customer With A Fake Sex Site Profile, Hooks Up With Libel Conviction

Fined For Posting A Negative Review Online [KUTV.com]

It’s bad enough being stuck on an indefinitely-delayed plane when you’re a human who can play with an iPad or enjoy a book or something, but imagine being in that situation as a dog. Even the best-trained service dog must get tired of being crammed under a seat. When one guide dog became restless while a US Airways Express flight waited to take off, he and his owner were kicked off the flight.

From there, it became a battle of wills between the passenger and a flight attendant. While the dog insisted on curling up behind its owner’s legs, the flight attendant insisted that the dog needed to stay under the seat in front.

According to the airline’s safety rules, that’s where service dogs have to go. Other passengers sided with the blind passenger, though, and eventually the captain did turn the plane around and kick many passengers off due to the “unrest.” The airline describes the passenger’s behavior as “belligerent,” but fellow passengers disagree.

The original flight was eventually canceled. Some passengers, including the man with the service dog, took a 3.5-hour bus trip instead of flying. Others took a different flight.

“[The other passengers] could have stayed on the plane, but they chose not to. I’m so humbled,” the dog’s owner told WPVI news.

If you’re the kind of person who is terrified to check your credit score because you just know it’s gotta be awful and bad, stop reading. The PhoneID score is not for the faint of heart, steeped as it is in murky world of data collection. But what exactly is it, and should we all be scared or herald it as a new way to protect your reputation with companies whose services you use?

Forbes lifts the veil on a company called Telesign that’s pervasive but flies mostly under the radar to the general public. If you’ve ever used two-factor authentication to set up an online account, you might be familiar with its milieu — companies send a specific code to a new user to verify they are who they say they are and allow them access to the account.

Telesign helps companies do that verification and sends those texts for about 300 clients, nine of which are in the top ten largest websites in the U.S., according to Teleisgn’s CEO Steve Jillings. Don’t ask what they are, but just believe him.

Anyway, the company says this helps prevent fake accounts wherever a mobile number is required to have that account, and it’s going to lead to a new service: the PhoneID score, which is a reputation-based score for any number in the world. Not unlike a credit score, Telesign uses these ratings to sort the burner phones from your precious new iPhone.

As Forbes’ Kashmir Hill puts it: “Yes, there’s yet another company out there with an inscrutable system making decisions about you that will effect the kinds of services you’re offered.”

“We each have a unique mobile identity tied to our phone number that is linked to a wealth of information, from where we live to our online activities. This makes the phone number the most efficient and conclusive method to identify fraud online,” said Telesign’s CTO Charles McColgan in the release. “PhoneID Score introduces a new way for companies to quickly verify transactions, block fake accounts, and prevent eCommerce fraud, based simply on a phone number.”

The phone numbers are rated from 0 to 1000 with 0 being the phone number you’ve had forever and used to sign up for lots of credible accounts and 1000 being the Hello Kitty burner phone you toss in the hole with the body/drugs. The score also includes details like who owns the number, what kind of phone it is, how long you’ve had it, which service you use and what companies and apps are attached to it. That all figures into your score.

Much like a credit score, if you’ve never had a phone number before you’ll have a not as good score — a higher one instead of a low credit rating in this case — and Telesign will recommend companies either treat you like a golden child who gets anything you ask for (anything under 200) or the black sheep who can’t be trusted to not set up a fraudulent account (anything over 600). If you land in between it indicates you need to be reviewed more fully.

“A lot of the data comes from Telesign’s proprietary network data,” says Jillings. “We see very interesting traffic patterns in our closed network of clients.”

He adds that the company isn’t directly using client data but instead, accesses the metadata around the numbers. And if he has anything to do with it, in the future any account you sign up for will require a mobile phone number connected to it, which is where Telesign comes in.

Your Phone Number Is Going To Get A Reputation Score [Forbes.com]

Xerox and Walmart pointed fingers of blame at each other in the immediate aftermath of a public benefits card failure last month. Some shoppers saw that their cards showed no balance or limit and took the opportunity to strip store shelves. The administration of Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal knows where the blame really belongs, though: with the shoppers.

After all, an item with no price tag isn’t “free,” and a SNAP card outage doesn’t mean that you have unlimited money. While Walmart declined to prosecute shoppers who tried to buy carts filled with merchandise that cost far more than the real balances on their cards, the state of Louisiana will not be so gracious. They’re pursuing sanctions against people who tried to overspend.

The punishment for people who misuse SNAP cards is losing access to the program for as long as two years.

Also, we want to point out that EBT/SNAP cards are called “Louisiana Purchase” in that state, which is either hilarious or terrible.

Jindal moves to strip food stamps from abusers [The Advocate]
Jindal administration will pursue people who misused food stamps

The N.J. bistro might not welcome back a family who stiffed a server because she appeared to be gay.

University administrators said an acceptable replacement under the Affordable Care Act would have cost $900 per semester, a 1500% increase.

The giant panda cub is growing and weighs almost 10 pounds now.

A couple has dedicated the month of November to convincing their children that their plastic dinosaurs come to life while they sleep. 

High intensity workouts on stadium turf inside the gym are designed to work your whole body in a very short time.

Frank Wheeler is not the longest-serving newspaper carrier in Iowa, but he likely is the oldest.

 A 31-year-old man has been charged in connection to the production of child pornography.

A grocery store goof could save you $10 off your next $40 purchase if you can find the hidden Aldi coupon, print it, and redeem it by close of business tomorrow.

Winston-Salem State quarterback Rudy Johnson was expected to lead his team on the field Saturday as it attempts to win its third consecutive Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (CIAA) football championship. 

Disturbing allegations of one Woodbridge daycare has parents pulling their children out of the daycare.

Julio Blanco Garcia was sentenced for the murder of Vanessa Pham.

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Today's News:

 Can we have a round of applause for Jack please? Pretty please with peanuts on top? Thank you.

This is the end of the Wolf Dream interlude. Come back Monday for the start of the 16th chapter! ho boy.

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Today's News:

Good question Merlin.

Okay, so remember to come back tomorrow for the last part of this week's Interlude, by none other than the awesome artist Jack.