Here Are Two Graphs Any Parent Of A College-Bound Kid Didn’t Want To See Today

As we’ve mentioned numerous times over the last few years, college tuition costs have skyrocketed during the past two decades, far outpacing inflation and saddling an entire generation of college-educated Americans with student loan debt that can take many years to pay off. All the while, college graduates aren’t making as much as they did when college was more affordable. Surely the trend of soaring college costs has to level out, right?

Not according to these projections from J.P. Morgan Asset Management, which estimate that the total cost (tuition, room, board, fees) of a college education will continue to increase at a rate of 5% per year.

That means that the school that cost someone $40,000/year in 2013 will more than double to $90,000 by 2030. That adorable toddler whose every move you’re documenting on Facebook could be putting you in the poorhouse in 17 years when he starts working on his degree in Frisbee history.

Even the significantly less expensive public colleges will exhaust most parents’ bank accounts, with costs expected to jump from around $18,000 a year in 2013 to nearly $41,000 by 2030. So even if your local Big State U. has an acceptable Frisbee Studies department, your kid will still probably need to take out student loans just to get through.

And since those costs could continue to increase each year, by the time a child born today graduates from college, her education could run her anywhere from $186K for four years to more than $400K. Not many jobs being offered to recent graduates that will help pay down that level of student loans:

[via BusinessInsider]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Let’s All Move To Wisconsin, Land Of Plenty

(Great Beyond)

Full disclosure: I grew up in Wisconsin (as some may have noticed due to frequent mentions of cheese and the almighty Green Bay Packers) but hear me out when I say everyone should just move there: According to a new report, Wisconsin has more bars than grocery stores — at a rate of 2.7 times more.

Over at FlowingData.com is a handy chart culled from Google Places API based on two things: The number of bars in the United States and the number of grocery stores. Unlike earlier versions of the same kind of mapped data, this time the magnitude of bars vs. grocery stores was included on the map.

So in the map below, the greener the area, the more grocery stores there are than bars. And the browner you go on the scale, the more bars. And voila! We have Wisconsin, now known as “the beer belly of America.”

(FlowingData.com)

It’s worth pointing out that if you’re looking at the numbers from a per capita perspective, Wisconsin only clocks in at the third highest rate, with about eight bars per 10,000 people. North Dakota (9.9 per 10k) and Montana (8.6 per 10k) come in at first and second, respectively.

Delaware, Maryland, and Mississippi have a lot more chow and a lot less boozing going on, with under 1.5 bars per 10,000 people.

To those states and the rest of the country, Wisconsin is throwing its loving, boozy arms open to you. It’s a land of cheese and cheese, where beer flows in the streets and I won’t even make you pledge allegiance to Lambeau Field. Because that would be crossing the line, so far as Boss Meg Who Is From Chicago is concerned, at least.

Where Bars Outnumber Grocery Stores [FlowingData.com]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Criminals Stuff Macau ATMs With Malware, Extract Customers’ Money

Did you think that tiny Bluetooth ATM skimmers were a terrifying prospect? Two men in Macau are accused of using long strips that look like circuit boards to infect ATMs and digitally extract customers’ card numbers and PINs.

Krebs on Security is the place to learn about scams like these, explaining both the crimes and how they work. In this case, police say that the two suspects aren’t from Macau (a Chinese territory west of Hong Kong) but are from Ukraine. They stole $100,000 by corrupting the automatic tellers.

They allegedly used these green objects, which were connected to a laptop, then inserted them in the card slot. This is the best picture that we have of them so far, but the strips are about as wide as a credit card and maybe five times as long. They resemble a circuit board, but no details on exactly how they were constructed have been made public yet. Obviously.

According to a source at the bank in question, inserting the circuit board card thingy caused the machines to crash and restart, then run normally while slurping up card number and PIN data from customers. The government says that the two suspects returned to the ATM to gather their virtual loot, extracting it from the machine using the same green strip.

It’s almost enough to make a person refuse to withdraw money from anywhere other than a metal box in her backyard. (Not really. Stay out of my backyard.)

Thieves Planted Malware to Hack ATMs [Krebs on Security]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

89-Year-Old Storeowner Takes Golf Club To Legs Of Sword-Wielding Robber

Pop quiz, hot shot: You’re an 89-year-old owner of a small store that is being robbed by a man carrying a sword (yes, a sword). Do you A) let him take what he wants and hope he doesn’t hurt you; B) try to talk him out of it; or C) grab the nearest object and start swinging away?

For a woman in Moses Lake, WA, the answer was clear — grab a golf club and tee off on the jerk trying to get away with her cash drawer.

The almost-nonagenarian, who has owned the store for 60 years, tells KREM-TV that the incident happened last Sunday.

She came upon the robber trying to pry open her cash register, and first thought about stabbing him with the scissors that were already in her hand.

“But I didn’t. I didn’t have the nerve to stab him,” she admits.

The man kept trying to scare her into opening the drawer for him but she refused, until… “He pulled out his little sword out of his little jacket, and he just kind of waved it a little bit.”

The storeowner says rather than feel threatened by the weapon, “It just probably made me a little bit more brave.”

The robber pushed her and she fell to the floor, where she found the golf club.

“I tried to swing this club at him and I tried to hit his head a couple times but I couldn’t reach it,” she recalls, saying she ended up hitting the man in the legs.

The robber was able to make off with the cash register, but he inexplicably left behind some souvenirs — his clothing, which he shed outside of the store.

“He must have been running around in his underwear and no shoes because that’s what they said, they found all his clothes,” says the storeowner.

The man also dumped the sword and register, both of which were recovered by police.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Why Would A Plastic Toothbrush Cost Almost $12,000? Because It’s Been To Space And You Haven’t

(It doesn’t even vibrate. Nate Sanders Auction House)

Most of the time, we can rest assured that we’re living a way cooler life than our toothbrushes. What do they do all day but sit around in a cup by the sink, bristling at the sound of rushing water and just hoping they get used at least twice in 24 hours? Unless you’re a toothbrush that’s been to space, and in that case, you can fetch a pretty penny for having lived such an abnormal toothbrush life.

A toothbrush used by an American astronaut who flew to the moon sold at auction for $11,974 this week, proving that it’s much cooler than most humans and a lot more interesting than your average dental hygiene tool.

The clear Oral-B40 brush was used by command module pilot Jack Swigert during the 1970 Apollo 13 mission, reports the AFP, and was sold to an anonymous buyer this week.

You’ll remember Swigert as the guy Kevin Bacon played in the 1995 movie Apollo 13. So no, not Tom Hanks’ toothbrush.

Swigert flew around the Moon as part of the Apollo program, but wasn’t one of those who stepped foot on the surface. He passed away in 1982, but his toothbrush lives on and again, is a lot cooler than anyone I know.

Apollo 13 astronaut’s toothbrush sells for $11,794 [AFP]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Suspended GM Engineer “Forgot” He Had Bad Ignition Switch Fixed In 2006

(Theo Curmudgeon)

Last year, the General Motors engineer who quietly signed off on a fix to an ignition problem that has resulted in at least 13 deaths claimed in a deposition that he had no knowledge of making this incredibly important improvement. But after Congressional investigators have turned up all sorts of evidence showing that he did indeed give the okay for this fix, the engineer reportedly says he simply forgot about it.

He is one of two engineers suspended in April for their part in allegedly trying to sweep this defect under the rug while more than a dozen people died.

The NY Times reports that Congressional investigators recently put him through a 10-hour round of questioning over his involvement.

To recap for those not entirely familiar with the case — In 2001, before any of the defective cars hit the road, GM noticed the possibility that the ignition switches in certain new vehicles could be easily turned off if the key in the ignition is attached to a heavy keychain, or gets bumped by the driver. This causes the engine to quit, and results in a loss of power steering and brakes. Most importantly, the car’s airbags become useless.

As owners and dealers complained about the problem, GM mulled over various fixes to the problem but did not act. Meanwhile, accidents were happening and people began to die. Then in 2006, the engineer in charge of these ignitions gave the go-ahead to the third-party manufacturer of the switch to start producing a new version that would not turn off so easily.

However, the part number was never changed to reflect this fix, so new switches commingled with old, defective ones in dealerships’ inventories. When GM finally got around to issuing the recall in 2014, it not only had to recall all the vehicles made before the ignition switch was fixed, but it had to subsequently add on another million vehicles made after that upgrade because some of those newer cars might have the old switches in them.

Signing off on a change to an ignition switch is no small thing, and the failure to change the part number after this fix gives a stink of cover-up to the engineer’s actions. But in a 2013 deposition for a lawsuit brought against GM by the parents of a woman who died while driving a Chevy Cobalt, the engineer stated, “I don’t ever recall authorizing such a change.”

Then on May 19, while being grilled by Congressional investigators, the engineer admitted he did indeed make the change, but that it must have just slipped his mind because it had been seven years and the ignition fix was not the only change he was making at the time.

The family involved in that lawsuit has asked the court to reopen its case against GM, claiming the engineer perjured himself by saying that any changes made to the ignition switch happened without his knowledge or say-so.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Signet Acquires Zales, Creates Mediocre Jewelry Voltron

(Jay Phagan)

We love to use wedding imagery when discussing corporate mergers, because it’s a useful metaphor: months of preparation and due diligence lead to a joyous union and (we hope) decades of happiness as life partners. In the case of the acquisition of Zale Corp. by Signet Jewelers Ltd., the comparison is just poor writing, since all companies involved are mall jewelry stores, where Americans buy their wedding bling.

You might remember the name Signet because it comes up whenever a reader has a problem with an item purchased at Kay or Jared. We always recommend that people take their complaints up the food chain at the company’s corporate parent. Signet also owns Piercing Pagoda, a chain of large kiosks that sell less expensive jewelry. Combined, the companies will control 14.6% of the retail jewelry business in the United States. Taking over Zales will also give the company a bigger presence in Canada.

The last decade has been rough on Zales, and the chain’s competitor is taking the company over as its comeback succeeds. The companies say that Zales will continue to exist as an independent subsidiary, with its current CEO staying on as president and CEO.

Mall jewelers Zales and Kay get hitched [Dallas Morning News]

Signet and Zale tie the knot, create mall-based jewelry giant [CNN] (via Chain Store Age)

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Minnesota Brewpub Grants Free Beer For Life With $1,000 Investment

(pwrplantgirl)

What if you could pay only $1,000 and be guaranteed a freshly-poured beer whenever you felt like it? That’s not a feasible deal for most of us, but for early investors in one Minnesota brew pub, that dream has come true.

When three business partners wanted to raise $220,000 to get a bank loan and open up their own restaurant, the Northbound Smokehouse & Brewpub in southern Minneapolis, they at first tried to the usual rout of finding investors and offering a voting share in the restaurant, reports The Atlantic’s City Lab.

But those investors didn’t know much about the restaurant business, so they tried a different tactic when friends and family offered up a few grand here and there.

“They were, like, ‘I’ve got a few grand, but I don’t have too much money,’ ” one business partner recalls. “And people kept saying this over and over, and we latched onto the idea. Why not just take a couple grand from everybody and then we’d have all the money we’d need?”

Ding ding ding. The plan they settled on? Those who invested $1,000 could get free in-house beer forever and ever, or as long as the pub stayed open. Or they could receive 0.1% nonvoting equity in the company for every $1,000 invested. A $5,000 investment got investors 0.5% equity AND beer.

The brewpub is now a registered LLC and hit its $220,000 goal, and has been thriving for two years now, giving away about 17 free beers per day. All told, there were 46 investors who took the first option, 42 chose the second and another 30 who took the third.

Yes, that means 72 people have free beer for life, and you don’t. Better start looking for another brewpub offering that kind of deal, good luck!

Would You Pay $1,000 Once to Get Free Beer for Life? [City Lab]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Amazingly, Diners Didn’t Want To Eat At Toilet-Themed Restaurant

(Photo: Yelp user Maki K.)

A restaurant whose entire bathroom-related theme — complete with toilets as seats, dishes with hilariously fecal names, and miniature toilet-shaped bowls for your food — seems to have been cooked up by a potty-obsessed two-year-old has closed down after an eight-month run, suggesting that most people would rather put foods in their mouths without thinking about how that food will ultimately exit their bodies.

The owners of The Magic Restroom Cafe in City of Industry, CA, apparently thought that customers would want to sit on actual (though non-functioning) toilets in a room decorated to look like a bathroom while eating Taiwanese food.

But not just any Taiwanese cuisine. No, the MRC kicked it up a notch with some dishes with clever names like “black poop” and “smells like poop.”

Perhaps it would have all been more acceptable if the food was better, as many reviews on Yelp (which, granted, doesn’t always give the full measure of a restaurant’s quality) point to the dishes being “nothing special,” “sub-par,” or “just okay.” Many people who went to the MRC during its brief time in this world say their primary purpose in trying it out was to see the decor and to take photos, which is probably why there are more than 400 of them on Yelp for a restaurant that wasn’t even open a year.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go to the city health department to get approval for my new food truck, the Vomit Van, soon to be serving extra-chunky guacamole at corner near you.

Magic Restroom Café Goes Down the Toilet [L.A. Mag]

Magic Restroom Cafe Craps Out After Eight Months [Eater L.A.]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Yes, The TSA’s Airport Security Screening Rules Still Apply To Travelers Who Are Mad About Missing Flights

(frankieleon)

Listen, I know it feels like the sun and moon revolve around your head and the entire fate of humanity lies in your hands. But that’s not reality, and even if you’re late for your flight, you still have to go through the annoyance of security checkpoints at the airport, just like the rest of us. Otherwise, the entire airport terminal might just get locked down and that’s just a rude inconvenience for other travelers.

Metro Airport’s McNamara Terminal was put on security lockdown for more than two hours last night after a man forced his way through a security checkpoint without bothering to get screened, officials tell the Detroit Free Press.

After investigating the incident, the TSA said all law enforcement agencies involved had given the all clear, while about 40 passengers had to wait to be screened during that time.

According to the TSA, The Man Who Would Not Stop For Screening had come in from Little Rock and apparently missed his connection to Los Angeles.

So instead of listening to a TSA agent, he reportedly forced his way back into the terminal, for what purpose, it’s unclear. He was still in custody late last night, so his trip is even more delayed now.

“A passenger, who was already on the secured side of the screened checkpoint, exited through the line and made the decision to turn back around and go through the secured side without being screened again,” an airport spokesman said.

That little move mucked up a lot of travelers’ plans — baggage from flights piled up on carousels, people tried to “bum rush” the gate to exit the airport, and cars lined up outside waiting for passengers stuck inside.

Just a reminder: Yes, the rules apply to you. Even when you’re late. Even when you’re flying in from Arkansas on a Thursday and wearing one green sock and one yellow sock. That last part I made up, but it could be true and the rules do apply in that case, as well. So do the rest of us a favor and follow them.

Metro Airport lockdown lifts after 2½ hours; traveler arrested after forcing past security [Detroit Free Press]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist