Runaway Budweiser Blimp Breaks Free, Goes Cruising Over Canada

(Erin Bodechon on Twitter)

Maybe you thought your dream had come true, that finally someone realized how important your annual spring barbecue is to everyone involved and sent a beer blimp to mark the occasion. Sorry, folks. It’s just that a Budweiser blimp broke free of its tethers and is on the lam, cruising the Canadian skies like the rebel it never knew it could be.

Officials with Transport Canada’s Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System (try saying that three times fast, why don’t ya?) says the approximately 69-foot dirigible in the shape of a hockey goal light (#Canada) was floating somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 feet over New Brunswick, reports CBC News.

It broke loose at a ball hockey tournament on Saturday afternoon and has probably spent that time doing whatever it felt like, consuming as much fuel as it wants and generally living the high life without anyone telling it what to do for once.

As of today, it’s believed that the blimp fell to the ground finally, says the director of Labatt Breweries for Atlantic Canada, which owns the blimp. A grid search by air is underway to find it.

“It’s the only one we have,” he explained. “The manufacturer believes in all likelihood it has landed somewhere in New Brunswick, not all that far from Saint John, and we are actively looking for it.”

Hope you enjoyed it while it lasted, blimp. Because you’ll never get a chance to cruise wherever you want ever again after this little stunt you pulled. You’re so gonna get grounded.

Runaway beer blimp loose over New Brunswick [CBC News]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Target Tries Making Up For Data Breach By Issuing Secure Chip-And-Pin Cards Next Year

In the wake of the massive theft of customer data, Target is revamping its store-branded credit and debit cards with chip-and-pin technology that will make them more secure for in-person transactions, but still leave the door open to some fraudulent use.

Starting next year the company’s REDcard debit and credit card — along with a separate Target credit card that is currently co-branded with Visa — will be reissued with the MasterCard chip-and-pin technology, USA Today reports.

A spokesperson for Target says MasterCard was chosen over Visa because the technology could be used on all their card offerings.

Already in use in Europe, EMV (short for “Europay, MasterCard and Visa”) technology cuts back on card fraud because the chips make cards significantly harder to clone: even if you get all of the information from a card’s magnetic strip, as through a skimmer, without the chip actually being present the card data is useless in a physical transaction.

However, while the use of EMV technology in a card does make it more difficult to clone a card for in-person transactions, it doesn’t necessarily prevent an ID thief from using stolen card numbers for online or phone purchases. There is no such thing as a card that is 100% safe from clever criminals.

Officials with Target say the move is part of its renewed commitment to information security following the massive data breach that affected more than 110 million of the retailer’s customers during the 2013 holiday season. Since the breach the company has committed $100 million to the effort.

In anticipation of the new cards being issued, the company has begun to upgrade registers to accept chip-and-pin cards. Between 60 and 70 stores a week are being updated with the new registers and all stores are expected to have the new system by September, the spokesperson says.

This isn’t Target’s first foray into the chip technology sector. In 2003, the company tried to bring the technology to their own Target-branded REDcard. The retailer ended the experiment three years later due to high costs made not worthwhile because chip-reading technology was not being adopted at any other large retailer.

However, the outcome will likely be different this time around. Following the recent series of data breaches at retailers, including Target, Neiman Marcus and Michaels, conversation has been dominated by what types of technology could help prevent such attacks in the future and chip-and-pin cards are at the forefront. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in February, senators discussed the merits of the smart chip card system.

A short time later, Visa and MasterCard announced they hoped to end traditional sign-and-swipe credit card transitions and switch to the chip-and-PIN system by 2015. In March, the companies formed an industry group to address payment security issues specifically the adoption of integrated chip technology.

Target to reissue cards as MasterCard chip-and-pin [USA Today]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

3 Extremely Boring Ways To Save Money On Gas

(Steve Mohundro)

We all like to think that there are special tricks we can learn or technology that we can use to improve our fuel economy and save money on gas. That’s not so: there are tricks we can employ, but they’re intuitive and extremely boring.

1. Slow the bleep down. Driving everywhere faster does save the most precious natural resource of all: your time. That’s a pretty fair tradeoff, but just keeping up with traffic on the highway will use a lot more gas. How much? In their tests, our premium unleaded colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports found that gas mileage dropped by anywhere from 9 to 15 miles per gallon when they sped up from 55 miles per hour to 75. Vehicles in that test included a Honda Accord, Toyota RAV4, and Ford Fusion…and they even tried it with a hybrid version of the Fusion.

2. Don’t carry stuff on the roof. Sometimes you have no choice but to carry stuff on the roof, but it will still hurt your fuel economy. Tests showed a 15 MPG decrease with a roof-top carrier on a Toyota Camry at 65 MPH.

3. Don’t run the air conditioner when it’s hot. That sounds counter-intuitive: when else are you going to run the air conditioner? The trouble is, the system works harder when the outside temperature is hotter, and does affect your mileage by maybe 1 to 4 miles per gallon. When every drop of fuel counts, crack open a window.

Gas-saving tips & myths [Consumer Reports]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

San Francisco May Consider Paying Residents To Rat Out Neighbors With Illegal Airbnb Rentals

(Chris Camargo)

Most of the headlines about local governments fighting over the legality of short-term apartment rental services like Airbnb and VRBO have focused on New York City, where many of the rentals listed arguably violate subletting regulations. But there are folks in San Francisco who have a problem with these services and are pushing the city to rein them in.

Like NYC, San Francisco is a city with a good deal of tourist traffic and a limited supply of hotel rooms. It also has a decent population of residents and landlords willing to let out rooms and apartments to visitors. This makes it an ideal spot for a service like Airbnb, where users have the flexibility of spending thousands of dollars to rent out luxury homes for their visit, or crashing in someone’s spare bedroom for $50 a night.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, some of the city’s well-connected private citizens are pressuring local lawmakers to regulate this growing short-term housing business, limiting short-term rentals to only those parts of the city with commercial zoning and even going so far as to suggest that residents be rewarded for ratting out people who have turned their apartments into mini-hotels.

Under the proposal, whistleblowers would be rewarded with 30% of any fines or back taxes collected as a result of their alerting the authorities to illegal rentals.

“The short-term rental market is exploding and cries out for some sort of regulation,” one of the idea’s supporters, an area housing advocate, tells the Chronicle. “People are stunned to find out that a house on their block is now a hotel.”

This initiative is still in the process of raising funds to get on the ballot for next fall, and its supporters say the pay-for-tattling idea might not make it through to the final version.

A city supervisor has already proposed a new city law that would legalize short-term rentals throughout the city, but would require all operators of these rentals to register with the city. However, the registry would not readily be available to the public.

This is less strict than the privately backed ballot initiative, which would also require registration and would make that registry a matter of public record, so anyone could look up the buildings in their area to see which are operating short-term rentals.

Airbnb isn’t too thrilled with the idea of being further hemmed in by regulation.

“We want to work with everyone in San Francisco who cares about home-sharing, but this proposal would make it even harder for San Franciscans to make ends meet,” a rep for the company tells the Chronicle. “More than half of Airbnb hosts in San Francisco use the money they earn to pay their mortgage or rent, and the overwhelming majority share only the home in which they live. We hope to work with everyone on policies that help San Franciscans pay the bills and stay in the city they love.”

Rather than being compelled to do so, Airbnb recently announced that it would begin collecting the proper hotel taxes in San Francisco and other cities.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Judge Upholds Sale Of Woman’s Home Prompted By Unpaid $6.30 Tax Bill

(steakpinball)

A woman who’s been fighting for home since it was sold in 2011 at auction has suffered a setback after a judge ruled the sale can stand. She failed to pay a $6.30 interest fee on a late tax bill, but has been living in the home since its sale in an effort to keep it.

A Pennsylvania judge ruled that the woman had plenty of notice and time to pay up on that interest before her $280,000 house ws soled at a tax auction, reports the Associated Press. She’d been trying to reverse the sale.

“I paid everything, and didn’t know about the $6.30,” she said. “For the house to be sold just because of $6.30 is crazy.”

The judge explained in the decision that the county tax claim bureau did exactly what was required of it before the house finally ended up at auction.

“There is no doubt that (she) had actual receipt of the notification of the tax upset sale on July 7, 2011, and Aug. 16, 2011,” the judge wrote. “Moreover, on Aug. 12, 2011, a notice of sale was sent by first class mail and was not returned.”

The woman had said that her husband had handled the home’s property taxes until his death in 2004, leaving her to manage things on her own. At the time her house sold, she owed only about $235 in taxes.

She told the court that since her husband’s death, she “has struggled to assume responsibility for the financial matters previously handled by her husband,” in addition to “physical and emotional challenges that have caused her to be tardy in paying taxes.”

She’s planning on appealing to the Commonwealth Court, which had ordered an evidentiary hearing that led to this most recent ruling.

Judge OKs decision to sell widow’s home over $6.30 debt [Associated Press]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

[Procomún-INTEF] Bibliotecas más visibles y accesibles para todos

Con motivo de la celebración del Día del Libro, el pasado 23 de abril, y en torno a estas fechas suelen proliferar las actividades e iniciativas que intentan acercar la lectura y los centros de fomento de la lectura al ciudadano de a pie. Facilitar el contacto con el usuario, mejorar la apertura y el acceso a estos centros y a sus recursos es una cuestión que nos parece fundamental para que el desarrollo de prácticas lectoras y habilidades intelectuales e incorporen a la vida regular del ciudadano y creemos una sociedad con hábitos intelectuales saludables y un aprendizaje permanente.

En este sentido, queremos hacernos eco de algunas iniciativas relacionadas con la lectura y el acercamiento de las bibliotecas y sus recursos a los ciudadanos.

read more

from Educa con TIC http://ift.tt/1hakex5

via Educa con TIC Posteado por www.bscformacion.com

Netflix Will Also Pay Verizon To End Streaming Bottleneck

The most recent Netflix downstream speed results show how badly FiOS and AT&T U-Verse speeds have declined in the last year.

The months-long game of chicken between Netflix and Verizon has come to an end, with the streaming video company agreeing to pay off the ISP for a more direct connection to its network. For Netflix users with FiOS accounts, it means you will finally be able to watch streamed reruns of Mad Men without having to guess which character you’re looking at, but it continues to demonstrate that ISPs can passive-aggressively compel data-heavy content companies to ante up in order to reach their users.

A Verizon rep confirmed the deal to the Wall Street Journal last night without disclosing any specifics.

It’s believed that it’s similar to the arrangement Netflix made earlier this year with Comcast. In that deal Netflix pays Comcast some amount of money in exchange for being allowed to place some of its servers at third-party locations that have direct access to the Comcast network. This alleviates the bottlenecking that begun in mid-2013 when Comcast and other ISPs decided to only do the absolute minimum to deliver Netflix to end-users.

See, Netflix and other content companies that send out oodles of data generally contract out to bandwidth providers to carry their data downstream, but in order to reach the actual subscribers, Netflix still has to rely on ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, etc. to cover the so-called “last mile” to the end-user.

When downstream data bottlenecks at the point where bandwidth providers and ISPs meet, the practice had generally been for the ISP to open up some more connections — known as peering ports — in order to ease the flow of traffic. It’s like when a supermarket gets busy and the manager temporarily opens up a couple other registers to keep the lines moving.

But the ISPs don’t have to do this, and so last year a number of them stopped doing it for content coming from Netflix’s bandwidth providers, leading to slower and slower speeds for some Netflix users, to the point where FiOS customers were seeing slower speeds than some standard DSL customers.

The ISPs argue that they should be paid for having to deal with all the extra downstream data. Netflix argues that the ISPs are getting paid, by the consumers they invoice every month and to whom they promise fast download speeds. Netflix also contends that the ISPs are doing no heavy lifting by merely delivering content over the last mile; that all of the important data transportation work is being done by its bandwidth providers.

Netflix and others had hoped that the FCC would deal with paid peering arrangements in the new proposal for net neutrality guidelines, but FCC Chair Tom Wheeler has not only made it clear that he doesn’t consider these deals to be a neutrality issue, but that he also thinks it’s perfectly okay for ISPs to demand a toll for improved access to end-users.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

April Recall Roundup – Look Out For Unexpected Crossbows

In this month’s Recall Roundup, a lawnmower keeps going even after its operator has dismounted, computer batteries overheat, fireplaces explode, and a self-destructing goldfish bowl is no place for fish. (Actually, a goldfish bowl is no place for a goldfish: take the $20 you get back and put it toward an aquarium.)

Babies

Rechargeable batteries in Summer Infant video monitors – may overheat; fire hazard

Kids

Girls’ Sugarfly Peacoats with waist drawstring (Nordstrom Rack and Zulily.com) – drawstring could get tangled in small spaces or vehicle doors

BedHead Pajama two-piece pajama sets – do not meet federal flammability standard

J.P. Boden Boys’ Pajamas – do not meet federal flammability standard

Home & Kitchen

Petsmart glass fish bowls – can break or crack during normal use, which is a laceration hazard to people and a catastrophe hazard to fish

Pier 1 Hanging Glass Star Lanterns – welds on candle holder may break from heat of a candle

GunBox Gun Storage Boxes – lock may not work if safe is dropped

Whalen Stainless Steel Tool Chests (Costco) – laceration hazard from door

Kozy Heat, Ambiance and Stellar Hearth gas fireplaces and fireplace inserts – risk of explosion from gas buildup

Lawn & Garden

Ariens Snow Throwers and Power Brushes – blade or brush may keep spinning after motor is off

Remington and Troy-Bilt Electric Leaf Blowers – impeller may break and hit user

Hustler and BigDog riding mowers – mower may keep going after rider has left seat

Sports & Outdoors

2008 Felt S22 and S32 Triathlon Bicycles and 2010 Felt S32, B12, B14 and B16 Triathlon Bicycles – steer tube may break during use

Excalibur Matrix Mega 405 Crossbows – may launch arrows without trigger being pulled

Ontel ISO7X Isometric Exercise Device – handle grips may break off during use

K2 Kwicker and Kwicker BC snowboard bindings – can release unexpectedly

Electronics

Lenovo ThinkPad notebook computer battery packs – can overheat; fire hazard

Vehicles

E-Z-GO Golf, Shuttle, Off-Road Utility Vehicles – steering wheel may not control vehicle properly

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Lawmakers Urge Drug Store Chains To Stop Carrying Tobacco Products

(bluwmongoose)

It’s been nearly three months since CVS announced it was phasing out the sale of tobacco products in its stores, and so far no other major drug store chain has followed suit. So today, a dozen members of Congress, led by Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, called on these retailers to put an end to their part in the sale of cigarettes and other items containing tobacco.

Pallone, Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, along with 11 other members of the committee, sent a letter (full text below) to Steven Anderson, President and CEO of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, asking the trade group to urge its member retailers to stop selling tobacco products.

CVS, the nation’s largest drug store retailer in terms of annual sales, plans to have these products off its shelves permanently by October of this year. In announcing its decision, the company stated that it will likely give up around $2 billion a year in revenue, but that the sale of tobacco products was “inconsistent with our purpose” as a store intended to provide health care products to consumers.

In spite of pressure from a group of more than two dozen attorneys general and numerous advocacy groups, other drug store retailers like Walgreens have not announced any plans to quit selling tobacco.

Walgreens has only stated that it is “evaluating” the sale of tobacco products, while also continuing to be involved in a smoking cessation partnership with GlaxoSmithKline, the drug company that holds the U.S. license on Nicorette products.

“Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States,” said Congressman Pallone in a statement. “Removing tobacco products from the shelves of local pharmacies shows a real commitment to improving the health of consumers. We have a responsibility to protect our young people, and making these harmful products less available is an important step in the right direction.”

Here is the full text of the letter sent by the legislators to Steven C. Anderson, President and CEO of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores:

Dear Mr. Anderson,

We write to urge all of your member retailers to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products in their stores. In February of this year, CVS Caremark announced its intention to do just that, exhibiting leadership and dedication to helping people on their path to better health. Together we must send an unmistakable message to all Americans, especially children, that tobacco product use is incompatible with health and wellness.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health. New findings in the latest Surgeon General’s report indicate that cigarettes are even more hazardous and addictive than previously known. Each year 480,000 Americans die from smoking-related causes and smoking costs the country over $289 billion in health bills and lost productivity. All levels of government and the private sector have important roles to play in ending deadly addiction to tobacco.

At the federal level, we must ensure that the Food and Drug Administration can take regulatory action to protect the public from the dangers of tobacco – including banning candy-flavored cigars that appeal to our youth and ending e-cigarette marketing practices that target kids. As President Obama has proposed in his FY 2015 Budget, Congress should raise the taxes on all tobacco products and close loopholes that let tobacco companies avoid federal taxes. We must also remove barriers to quit attempts by making certain that tobacco cessation coverage is available to all Americans through the Affordable Care Act.

Chain community pharmacies are an important player in the health care system and as such can play a critical role in addressing the nation’s tobacco epidemic and improving public health. As the delivery of our health system evolves and we continue to focus on better health outcomes and controlling costs, we believe that cigarettes and other tobacco products have no place in a setting where health care is delivered. By supporting removal of tobacco products from retail pharmacy shelves and increasing access to tobacco cessation products, your members will send an unequivocal message about the dangers of tobacco use.

We look forward to working with you to reduce the toll of tobacco use and improve the health and wellbeing of all Americans.

Sincerely,

Frank Pallone, Jr

Henry A. Waxman

Jan Schakowsky

Eliot Engel

Anna Eshoo

Lois Capps

Gene Green

Doris Matsui

Donna Christensen

Kathy Castor

John Sarbanes

Paul Tonko

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Verso: creando lecciones y recibiendo el feedback de los alumnos

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