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Porn Company Digitally Removes Condoms From Video

In 2012, voters in Los Angeles County narrowly approved Measure B [PDF], a law that requires porn performers to wear condoms. Some fans of adult film fans complain that the use of condoms is distracting, and a number of studios are either ignoring the law or shooting outside of L.A. County. But one porno producer is going the high-tech route, digitally removing the prophylactic devices from its performers’ phalluses.

BetaBeat reports that gay porn producers Falcon Studios are set to release their first film where the condoms were taken digitally erased.

Falcon is located in San Francisco, hundreds of miles away from where it would be impacted by Measure B, so why the post-production trickery? The film’s director says it was about evoking the more free-and-easy attitude of the ’70s.

“With this movie I really wanted to capture the essence of that time, when life seemed more carefree and spontaneous,” he explains. “In keeping with this concept, I felt that condoms need to be addressed. I wanted to give the impression of a pre-condom movie, but use condoms as we do in every scene we film.”

We’ve not seen the results, so we have no idea if the effect is believable. But if it could be done affordably and well, it might be an option for L.A.-based porn producers who wish to abide by the law while providing viewers what they want to see.

Given that multiple STD and HIV scares have intermittently shut down Southern California porn production in recent years, carnal consumers may need to learn to live with looking at condoms, at least until digital condom deletion becomes the standard.

[via TheVerge]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

NYC Officials Broker A Peace Between McDonald’s And Loitering Seniors

(Morton Fox)

Lest you were expecting a full scale West Side Story-esque rumble between the group of elderly senior citizens and the workers at the Queens McDonald’s where they love to congregate, rest easy. Peace has been achieved between the two groups, and all it took to reach this McResolution was the intervention of some local elected officials.

After last week’s story on the group of Korean seniors who chafed at the McDonald’s limit of 20 minutes for customers to finish their food, management has agreed to work with the group and ease the limit during off-peak hours, reports the New York Daily News.

That policy will be posted in both Korean and Mandarin, and in turn the seniors will have to give up their prime seats between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. if someone else needs a spot to sit.

“We had to dig deeper to comprehend the pride of a small business owner as well as the pride of our seniors to seek a place to socialize,” said Assemblyman Ron Kim, who helped arrange the deal and dubs it a “McResolution” in a press release about the détente (view the entire release over at Politicker).

The restaurant says it will also look into hiring employees who speak Mandarin and Korean and a local senior center will have a shuttle service for any elderly patrons looking for somewhere else to rest a spell or just gab the day away.

It sounds like everyone is happy, with the franchise owner saying in a statement that he’s proud to serve the community, and that his “restaurant has been happy to welcome these customers for years.” The deal will provide an environment “where all customers who wish to enjoy this restaurant have the ability to do so.”

Queens seniors, McDonald’s manager reach deal on seating time limits [New York Daily News]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

How To Not Suck… At Saving For College

(afagen)

This is Part One of a two-part feature on paying for an education. Next week’s HTNS column will focus on the best way to borrow for college. Next to a home purchase, sending your kids to college may be the biggest expense of your lifetime. And like all things money, this one is easy to screw up.

Whether you’re still saving or you’re right up against tuition payment deadlines, make sure you avoid these costly mistakes.

WAITING TOO LONG

The idea of paying tens of thousands of dollars for your or your child’s education is intimidating, and that’s why so many people put it off.

“I’ll never be able to save enough, so why bother?”

Tuck that attitude away.

Even if you can’t save the entire amount your matriculating mastermind will need, every little bit counts.

Saving $25 a week — think of what you spend on lattes and muffins — over 18 years will add up to $41,394 at a 6 percent interest rate. If you haven’t started yet but you have eight years to go before college starts, $25 a week will give you $13,256.

Even if your student is already a college freshman, there’s still time to save. A $25/week set-aside over two years will give you $2,600 — without counting any earnings from investments.

That’s more than you’d have if you saved nothing at all.

CHOOSING THE WRONG ACCOUNT TYPE

Older generations depended on savings bonds or Uniform Transfer to Minor Accounts (UTMA) for college savings. The interest from EE Savings Bonds is tax-free if the proceeds are used for qualified education expenses, but the low rate on bonds doesn’t make them all that attractive.

The appeal of UTMAs is that the first $1,000 of earnings is tax-free, the second $1,000 of earnings is taxed at the child’s rate and anything above that is taxed at the parent’s rate.

However, the world has mostly moved on from bonds and UTMAs, with most financial advisors agreeing that 529 plans are the best savings vehicle for college

In a 529 savings plan, the money you invest grows tax-deferred, and if it’s used for qualified education expenses, the money comes out tax-free. Every state has its own plan — some offer additional tax incentives for in-state investors — but you can also invest in any out-of-state plan. You can look into pre-paid 529 plans, too, which essentially allow you to buy future credits for certain colleges at today’s tuition prices.

Most 529 plans also offer an age-based investment option. For these, your money is automatically invested more conservatively as college gets closer in time, effectively putting your asset allocation on auto-pilot.

If you used an UTMA instead, you’d have to monitor your investments to make sure the stock market doesn’t tank when your student is a high-schooler.

There are other major disadvantages to UTMAs.

These are custodial accounts, so when your child turns the age of majority (18 or 21 in most states) he controls the money. If he chooses to use that cash for a Corvette or a tricked-out Mustang instead of a college education, there’s nothing you can do about it.

By comparison, if your child decides not to go to college and you have a 529 plan, you can change the beneficiary of the plan to other family members — future grandkids, maybe? — and even yourself.

Because UTMA money is in your child’s name — unlike a 529, which can be in your name with your child as the beneficiary — an UTMA will count more in financial aid formulas. (More on that in a moment.)

To learn more about 529 plan options, try SavingForCollege.com’s savings options comparison calculator for a side-by-side evaluation of different types of plans.

TITLING THE ACCOUNTS WRONG

Whatever kind of savings vehicle you use, the titling of the asset — who is listed as the owner — is critical.

That’s because financial aid formulas count a student’s savings more than a parent’s. It’s expected that 20% of a student’s savings is earmarked for college, while only 5.64% of a parent’s savings is considered to be set aside for tuition bills.

That’s a big difference.

For that reason, it makes sense in most cases for the parent to be the account owner and the student be listed as the beneficiary.

Financial aid formulas are another reason why most financial planners recommend using a 529 plan in the parent’s name rather than an UTMA, which is in the child’s name.

Grandparents or other relatives can be 529 account owners, too, and those won’t show up on financial aid forms at all.

IGNORING FEES

Not all college savings accounts are created equally.

What you pay for account management — the fees — could cost you thousands of dollars, a little bit at a time.

For example, a typical 529 plan sold through a state has an average annual fee of 0.69%, according to the Financial Research Corporation, while those sold through brokers carry average annual fees of 1.17%.

That may not seem like much, but if you invested $10,000 over 18 years with a 6% return, you’d have $2,000 less if you invested in the plan with the higher fees.

That’s a lot of pizza and textbooks.

Have a topic you’d like to see covered in How To Not Suck? Or maybe you’re an expert who would like to share your insight with Consumerist readers? Send us a note at notsuck@consumerist.com.

You can read Karin Price Mueller’s stories for The Star-Ledger at NJ.com, follow her on Facebook, and on Twitter @kpmueller.

DISCLAIMER: Any websites, services, retailers, or brands mentioned in the story above are only intended as some of many options available to consumers, and do not constitute an endorsement by Consumerist, Consumerist Media LLC (CML) or its staff. Per Consumerist’s No Commercial Use Policy, such information may not be used by others in advertising or to promote a company’s product or service. In addition, this policy precludes any commercial use of any of CML’s published information in any form, or of the names of Consumers Union®, Consumer Media, Consumer Reports®, The Consumerist, consumerist.com or any other of CU or CML’s publications or services without CU or CML’s express written permission.

by Karin Price Mueller via Consumerist

This Cat Needs A New Home After Living In A Home Depot For 13 Years

(WTOC.com)

The world was Depot’s oyster, and that world is the Home Depot. See, Depot is a cat and her home is Home Depot (try saying that three times fast). She’s lived in a South Carolina store for 13 years, but that life of trolling for pests, snuggling up with paint cans and greeting workers in the morning is about to end. She’s getting the boot after triggering the store’s security alarms one time too many.

Management says her adventures in the garden section will need to come to an end, reports WTOC, because she sets off the alarms at night. That means it’s time to find her a home, and some customers are upset that she’s getting evicted.

“Being an animal lover, I’d get rid of management before I’d get rid of the cat,” one customer told the news station.

Despite a petition on Change.org asking to let Depot stay, it’s not like she’ll be kicked out on her furry, adorable behind. Home Depot officials have said they won’t throw her out until someone steps up to adopt her.

If you live near Bluffton, S.C. and need a new furry friend, check out the contact info for the store in the source link below.

Cat kicked out of home, Home Depot [WTOC.com]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

FAA Changes Takeoff and Landing Rules At Major Airports Because Collisions Are Bad

(dooley)

The FAA is rolling out a new rule for air traffic controllers that’s designed to reduce the risk of airplane collisions.

As the Wall Street Journal reports (paywalled, alas), the new rule staggers the timing between takeoffs and landings. With more space and time between planes taking off on one runway and planes arriving on another, the potential for mid-air disaster drops.

The rule change comes after an investigation of five near-miss incidents over the past several years. The NTSB found that the old rules created hazardous situations and unnecessary risk of collisions because pilots were not necessarily given clear guidance.

According to the WSJ, under the new rule, “tower controllers will have to delay issuing takeoff clearances regardless of weather conditions to make sure landing aircraft have touched down or taxied away from any potential conflict.”

The initial rule change affects 16 airports, many of which have already implemented the changes. Others have until February or April to comply, and an additional set of airports will be subject to the revised rules in July. Among the airports currently covered under the new rule are JFK in New York, McCarran in Las Vegas, O’Hare in Chicago, and Dallas-Fort Worth, as well as the airports in Charlotte, Denver, Houston, Boston, Miami, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and “a handful of other locations.”

Increased safety is a great thing. So is there a down side? Well, yes, a small one: the change in regulations could worsen delays at peak travel times or in inclement weather.

It’s true that if you’ve ever been told that your plane is 73rd in line for take-off at JFK on a rainy Friday night, the idea of adding even more delays may seem daunting. But compared to an in-air collision? Bring on the hours of tarmac-sitting.

FAA Sets New Rules at Busiest Airports [Wall Street Journal]

by Kate Cox via Consumerist

Man Wearing Google Glass Claims Movie Theater Called FBI To Arrest Him For Piracy

If getting a ticket for wearing Google Glass will land you in the headlines for a good while, how about when the FBI comes to arrest you in a movie theater for the same device? Yup, headlines aplenty.

That’s the claim made over on Gadgeteer, where a reader’s story of not only getting booted from a movie for wearing Google Glass but encountering the FBI in the process is lighting up the Internet.

The author of the story says he’s been wearing Google Glass all the time since getting prescription lenses for the glasses. Over the weekend he went to a mall in Ohio to see Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, and at first it was like every other time he’d gone to the movies with the Google Glass on.

“It is the theater we go to every week, so it has probably been the third time I’ve been there wearing Google Glass, and the AMC employees (guy tearing tickets at the entrance, girl at the concession stand) have asked me about Glass in the past and I have told them how awesome Glass is with every occasion,” he writes.

We know what you’re probably thinking — of course it might seem suspect that someone is wearing a device that has a camera in it at a movie theater. Piracy is a real thing, after all. But he says he always turns the device off, while keeping the actual glasses on because they have his prescription lenses in them.

The trouble started after half an hour, when he says a man approached his seat, showed a badge and pulled the Google Glass off his face. He was told to go outside with the man immediately.

“Since I didn’t catch his name in the dark of the theater, I asked to see his badge again and I asked what was the problem and I asked for my Glass back,” the wearer writes in his account of the apparent FBI agents. “The response was ‘you see all these cops you know we are legit, we are with the “federal service” and you have been caught illegally taping the movie.’ “

He claims he tried to explain the situation and that he wasn’t taping anything whatsoever, but says that instead he was searched and more of his property was taken away. He writes that he was then brought to a room for a “voluntary interview” but that he basically had to cooperate or “bad things” might happen to him.

“I kept telling them that Glass has a USB port and not only did I allow them, I actually insist they connect to it and see that there was nothing but personal photos with my wife and my dog on it,” he claims. “I also insisted they look at my phone too and clear things out, but they wanted to talk first. They wanted to know who I am, where I live, where I work, how much I’m making, how many computers I have at home, why am I recording the movie, who am I going to give the recording to, why don’t I just give up the guy up the chain, ’cause they are not interested in me. Over and over and over again.”

Despite his insistence that he wasn’t recording anything and that the Glass was off, he says they insisted it had been seen on. He writes that he tried to show them the light that comes on if the Glass is activated, but was told he couldn’t touch the device in case he tried to erase any evidence.

After a long time spent trying to explain things, he claims that someone finally came in with a USB cable and connected the Glass to the computer, downloaded everything from it and started going through the photos.

“Then they went through my phone, and 5 minutes later they concluded I had done nothing wrong,” he writes.

At the end of the ordeal, he asked the agents why they couldn’t have taken those five minutes at the beginning of the whole thing, but they just left the room. He adds that someone else (from the “Movie Association” which could perhaps be the Motion Picture Association of America) gave him two free movie passes to make up for the interrogation.

When he asked why he wasn’t told simply not to wear the Google Glass if they were worried about piracy and thus, avoid the rigmarole, he says the man told him he was called by AMC, he contacted the FBI and here are two more passes for the trouble.

“I would have been fine with ‘I’m sorry this happened, please accept our apologies,’ ” he writes. “Four free passes just infuriated me.”

After all of that, the man says he should probably sue someone over his experience, but that he doesn’t have the time or energy to deal with it all. Instead, he wrote up his account so that others learn from his experience.

“I guess until people get more familiar with Google Glass and understand what they are, one should not wear them to the movies,” he muses. “I wish they would have said something before I went to the movies, but it may be my mistake for assuming that if I went and watched movies two times wearing Glass with no incident the third time there won’t be any incident either.”

We reached out to AMC Theatres to see if there’s a comment on this report, and will let you know if we hear anything back.

AMC movie theater calls FBI to arrest a Google Glass user [Gadgeteer]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

‘Password’ No Longer The King Of Bad-Idea Passwords

The password is…

No matter how frequently consumers are warned about creating predictable passwords, many just aren’t getting the message. The good news from the latest survey of leaked passwords is that the most frequently used password is no longer “password.” The bad news is that the new bad-password champ is equally idiotic.

According to the annual list of most popular passwords from the folks at SplashData, “password” has slipped to number two, giving way to the terribly clever “123456,” presumably chosen by all those people who wanted to make sure they fulfilled a six-character requirement.

In fact, seven of the 20 most frequently found passwords are just strings sequential numbers starting with 1. There’s 1234 (#16), 12345 (#20), 1234567 (#8), 12345678 (#3), 123456789 (#6) and the people who just run their finger down the number row with 1234567890 (#13).

For those who want to fulfill their six-character requirement but don’t like to stray too far around the number row, there’s also 123123 at #11. And for the truly lazy, there is 000000 at #25.

The truly un-clever folks go right for the home row, making “qwerty” the fourth most-popular password.

In the wake of the massive data breach of software giant Adobe, a couple new apparently Adobe-specific passwords popped up on the SplashData list — “adobe123″ (#10) and “photoshop” (#15). The fact that these two company-specific passwords made it this high on the list of all leaked passwords goes to show (A) just how huge the Adobe database leak was and (B) just how popular these two passwords are among Adobe users.

SplashData has announced its annual list of the 25 most common passwords found on the Internet. For the first time since SplashData began compiling its annual list, “password” has lost its title as the most common and therefore Worst Password, and two-time runner-up “123456″ took the dubious honor. “Password” fell to #2.

“Seeing passwords like ‘adobe123′ and ‘photoshop’ on this list offers a good reminder not to base your password on the name of the website or application you are accessing,” says Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData.

A couple of phrases made their way on to this year’s list — “iloveyou” inched up two spots to #9, while “letmein” dropped seven spots from last year to #14. The largest drop on the list — 12 spots — belongs to “trustno1,” which barely made the round-up at #24.

Here is the full list of passwords you should avoid like the plague:

1. 123456

2. password

3. 12345678

4. qwerty

5. abc123

6. 123456789

7. 111111

8. 1234567

9. iloveyou

10. adobe123

11. 123123

12. admin

13. 1234567890

14. letmein

15. photoshop

16. 1234

17. monkey

18. shadow

19. sunshine

20. 12345

21. password1

22. princess

23. azerty

24. trustno1

25. 000000

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

The Cheapest Ticket To The Super Bowl Right Now (For The Worst Seats) Is $2,700

(Kevin Dean)

Unless you’re the kind of fan who’s got an emergency cache of cash ready to unload at the moment your team gets to Super Bowl XLVIII, you’re probably not willing to fork over the kind of dough that’s currently being demanded for tickets this year. Even the cheapest (and worst) seats, all the way up in the back at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, pack a punch of a price at $2,700.

That was the very cheapest price right now on the NFL’s official second-hand marketplace, reports the Atlantic Wire, and those seats are basically the equivalent of being banished to the attic garret where you’ll slave away in the cold sewing for your rich employers. Or you know, up in the eaves in the upper corners of the end zones. We’re seeing prices around $2,800 however, and it’s only going to get pricier.

If you’re the kind who can throw money at any problem without blinking, the most expensive tickets out there will set you back more than $25,000 for seats in the bottom of the stadium at the 50-year-line.

Again, even if you’re shelling out thousands of dollars to have a seat at the showdown between the Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos, it won’t be that easy to get to the actual stadium. You can’t walk in, and you can’t get dropped off at the doors unless you’ve somehow managed to snag on of the few parking passes that will be issued. Oh and you won’t be warming up by the fire of a tailgating party, either, because that’s not allowed.

Better bundle up, y’all, and hope that the memory of the money you’ve spent to get to the Big Game somehow keeps you warm.

You Can’t Afford Super Bowl Tickets [Atlantic Wire]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Two Men Arrested For Using Credit Card Numbers Stolen From Target

(pdxmac)

While most ID thieves are wisely staying away from the more than 100 million credit and debit card numbers compromised by the recent data breach of Target’s in-store payment processing system, two Mexican citizens apparently thought they could get away with using some of these leaked numbers to make illegal purchases.

The AP reports that the two men from Monterrey, 27 and 28 years old, were arrested at the border crossing near McAllen, TX, over the long weekend. They had used card information taken from the Target breach to buy several thousand dollars’ worth of items at stores like Best Buy, Walmart, and Toys R Us.

Police say the Target customers’ whose card information was used to make these purchases were from the same area of Texas that the two suspects did their shopping in.

“They’re obviously selling the data sets by region,” said the police chief in McAllen.

The bogus purchases began on Jan. 12, say the police, who confirmed with the Secret Service that the cards used during this shopping spree were from the Target hack.

Police looked through retailers’ security footage to identify the pair using the fake cards and eventually identified their vehicle. When the twosome attempted to cross the U.S./Mexico border, via the Anzalduas International Bridge, in that same car on Sunday, they were arrested. Authorities say the men had 96 fake credit cards on them at the time.

It’s not known if this is the first arrest made related to the Target data breach, but officials tell the AP that these two men appear to be unrelated to the actual hack.

Target referred questions about the arrest to local authorities.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Amazon Patents Method For Shipping You Things Before You Order Them

(jojstaynings)

Regular Amazon shoppers are probably quite familiar with the e-tailer’s e-mail blasts that highlight things you might want based on previous purchases and the things you’ve searched for on the site. But what if Amazon went one step further and actually predicted the things you will buy and shipped them in advance?

The online giant applied for just such a patent back in Aug. 2012, and the U.S. Patent folks granted the patent last month, on Christmas Eve of all days.

The patent outlines the many, many ways in which Amazon’s “Anticipatory Package Shipping” could expedite the shipping process by getting items it believes customers will order to nearby distribution centers in advance of their being ordered.

So it’s less like mind-reading and more like the restaurant who knows you order the veal every Tuesday when you come by at 6:30, so it has everything ready to go.

The idea is ultimately to save Amazon money on shipping. Think of all the money it spends on one- or two-day air-shipping, especially for Amazon Prime customers in order to make delivery dates. If the company could bulk-ship predicted purchases to local distribution centers, that to-the-home delivery would be via cheaper ground shipping. In some cases, depending on customers’ proximity to a local center, same-day delivery is both logistically and financially feasible for Amazon.

So if Amazon sees a big video game title coming up for release and its computers figure out that there are certain customers who are likely to order release-day delivery of new titles, it may pre-ship enough copies to local centers so that they can be delivered via ground transport rather than Amazon having to pay for express delivery from one of its main distribution centers.

Among the many things that gets factored into the process is the cost for returning pre-shipped items to the warehouse. In some cases, it may just be less expensive to give some items away “as a promotional gift used to build goodwill” than it would to return them.

Just for fun, here are some diagrammatic explanations of possible scenarios from the patent (click on any image for full size):

Amazon Patents “Anticipatory” Shipping — To Start Sending Stuff Before You’ve Bought It [TechCrunch]

Amazon May Predict and Ship Your Next Order Before You Buy It [MainStreet]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist