Guy Who Crowdfunded $55,000 To Make Potato Salad Is Throwing A Huge Potato Party For Charity

(Kickstarter)

Back when the guy known now as Kickstarter Potato Salad Guy raised about $55,000 for his first-ever attempt at making potato salad, everyone was wondering how in the heck you could possibly make that much potato salad to fulfill rewards for his backers. And now he’s got the answer — he’s going to throw a massive potato party, complete with potato sack races, food vendors and yes, potato salad, all for charity.

Now that he’s gone way past the $10 he sought in crowdfunding, Potato Salad Guy is planning PotatoStock 2014, which will include music, games and food, all with charity in mind, reports the Associated Press.

Sponsors like the Idaho Potato Commission have jumped on board to donate supplies for him and volunteers, so they can make 300 pounds of potato salad to serve at the festivities.

The Ohioan has also teamed up with the Columbus Foundation to start an endowment to aid charities in Columbus that fight hunger and homelessness, reports the Columbus Dispatch, starting with $20,000 in post-campaign corporate donations.

Money from PotatoStock will be added to that as well.

“His fund will have potential way after this potato salad is forgotten,” said the foundation’s director of donors and development.

As for why his quest for potato salad was so popular? It’s just one of those mysteries in the weird, interconnected world we live in, said a Kickstarter spokesman.

“You never know what’s going to take off,” he explained. “This was just the Internet being the Internet.”

Man who raised $55K is throwing potato salad party [The Associated Press]

Face of potato-salad campaign on Kickstarter poised to deliver on public party [The Columbus Dispatch]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Apple May Have Known About iCloud Vulnerability Months Before Nude Photo Scandal

(Steve)

Immediately after the first huge batch of stolen photos of female celebrities in various states of undress hit the Internet, Apple rushed to defend itself, saying the massive theft was the result of clever guessing and lax security on the part of the affected users. But a new report claims that Apple was warned months earlier that this sort of data theft could happen.

The Daily Dot has obtained e-mails sent in March of this year by a UK software developer to Apple in which he details a way in which iCloud accounts could be compromised.

On March 26, he explains that he was able to get around a security feature intended to prevent hackers from repeatedly entering passwords until finally reaching the right one. These so-called “brute force” attacks are generally stopped by security protocols that prevent a user from logging in after a set number of failed attempts.

But the developer claims he figured out a way to try more than 20,000 different passwords on any iCloud account.

Apple later sent the developer questions about his claims, but it’s not know whether any action was taken in response to his bug report.

There is also the possibility that the vulnerability exploited by the hackers who stole the nude celebrity photos is not exactly the same one as detailed in the developer’s e-mails to Apple.

Apple claims that it has patched the problem that allowed the hackers to steal the photos and other files from iCloud accounts. It has also extended two-factor authentication, which requires that you enter a separate and unique four-digit code sent to the actual device every time you login to iCloud from a new location.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Trucker Abandons Trailer With 350K Pounds Of Raw Chicken After Failed Ransom Attempt

(Mike Matney Photography)

Warning: If the thought of rotting chicken is something that will put you off your lunch, stop reading now. Because law enforcement near Missoula, MT have quite a bit of a smelly headache to deal with, after a trucker abandoned a trailer packed with 350,000 pounds of raw chicken at a truck stop on Tuesday.

County sheriff’s deputies found the trailer sitting mostly unnoticed at the truck stop, juices dripping out of it and flies gathering at the feast of rancid meat, reports the Missoulian.

The public information officer for the sheriff’s office says the truck and trailer were reported stolen by a freight company in the last few days, after the driver — an employee of the company — texted his bosses saying he’d return the load of chicken if they paid him a ransom.

While the chicken is worth about $80,000, officials say, the company declined to pay up. All that chicken is definitely inedible now.

“I noticed (the trailer) sitting there when I came out Saturday,” said the manager of the truck stop. “I keep an eye on how long trucks have been sitting there. You need to know if someone’s in the truck. In this case, it’s chicken.”

Health officials visited the truck stop yesterday to figure out the best way to get rid of all those smelly carcasses, but have left the trailer shut and haven’t moved it since discovering its cargo.

Our thoughts are with whoever is the first person to pull those doors open. May your nose protection be strong, friend.

35,000 pounds of rotting chickens abandoned at Missoula Wye [Missoulian]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Here’s How You Can Roll Back The Unfortunate iOS 8.0.1 Update

(Fabien ROCHET)

Millions of people worldwide rushed out to purchase the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus last week, and Apple immediately pushed out an early operating system upgrade to fix a few minor problems with the phones. Unfortunately, this update caused other problems in turn, like, um, losing their cellular service. Or the use of the phone’s thumbprint sensor. You know, minor stuff, but it still moved people to commemorate the update in song.

It requires a few extra clicks to downgrade your phone to a slightly older operating system, but is quite easy. Apple has a page available with software that will roll the iPhone 6 versions back to the first version of iOS 8. Download the software to a computer running iTunes, then roll back the upgrade by using the Shift or Option key.

A variation of this method also works if you updated our older iOS device to the newest operating system because iTunes told you to, and it made your phone slow or glitchy: as of yesterday, the last version of iOS 7 was still downloadable and signed by Apple, and could be installed without jailbreaking or other fun and nefarious methods.

Now, just keep your phone out of your pants pockets, and you’ll be all set.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

The Secret To Lowering Your Credit Card Interest Rate (Spoiler: Just Ask)

(Corey Templeton)

Are you sick of being slammed with an 18% interest rate on your credit card even though you regularly pay down your balance and don’t miss payments? “How can I possibly get that rate down a few points to make my finances more manageable?” you ask to no one in particular, but that’s a question to ask your credit card issuer because there’s a decent chance they’ll knock down that APR for you.

This is according to the folks at CreditCards.com, who recently found that most credit cardholders don’t ask for lower interest rates, but a majority of those that do ask get some sort of relief.

In a survey of cardholders, only 23% of respondents said they had asked their card issuer for a lower interest rate. But of those people, 65% were granted rate reductions.

But before you go running to your phone to call, you should check with your card issuer to find out what their policy is on rate reductions.

Some banks will simply look at your credit card activity and payment history to decide if you qualify for a rate reduction. So asking for a lower rate won’t have any impact on your credit score.

But some card issuers treat rate-reduction requests like it’s a new credit application, which will likely mean a check of your credit reports. That may mean a slight, temporary ding on your credit score.

If your credit has improved since you initially got the card, a hard inquiry with the credit bureaus shouldn’t be a problem. But if you’ve had some issues with late or missed payments with other lines of credit, the request could backfire.

Speaking of late payments, the CreditCards.com survey found that cardholders had even greater success with asking their banks to waive at least one late payment fee.

Again, only a minority (28%) of all respondents even tried to request a fee waiver from their card issuer, but 86% of those that did were able to get that fee removed.

“We were surprised with the success rate,” said Matt Schulz, CreditCards.com’s senior industry analyst. “It’s probably the best time in years to ask credit card issuers for a break.”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Lawsuit Claims Templeton Rye Misled Drinkers Into Thinking It’s A Bootlegger’s Whiskey

(Trevor H)

I’ve seen enough of Boardwalk Empire to know that [spoiler alert] bootleggers in the Prohibition era liked their booze. So of course, tying in a modern day whiskey brand to guys like Al Capone, who had a taste for whiskey made in Templeton, Iowa, as legend would have it, seems like a smooth move. But a lawsuit filed against Templeton Rye says the whiskey company violated consumer protection laws and misled drinkers by tying in its booze to the town, as it’s actually distilled in Indiana.

A law firm in Chicago filed a class-action lawsuit in Illinois on behalf of “all individuals in the United States who’ve purchased a bottle of Templeton Rye,” reports the Des Moines Register, after reports this summer that the whiskey is made from a stock recipe at an Indiana distillery.

Templeton Rye has been on the shelves since 2006, touting the fact that the founders were inspired by the concoction of Alphonse Kerkhoff dating back to the 1920s in Templeton, a recipe he’s said to have handed down to his successors on a scrap of paper. The company admitted, however, that federal regulations don’t allow it to make the whiskey from that actual recipe.

The lawsuit says that before admitting the Indiana roots of its whiskey, it tried to deceive drinkers into thinking that “the good stuff” was a craft whiskey distilled in Iowa, which the suit says violates the Iowa Consumer Fraud act.

It says that some marketing materials used by the company pushed that link, like a T-shirt that says, “Templeton Rye: Made in Iowa” and a promotional flyer touting a “small-batch rye whiskey made in the tiny town of Templeton.”

“Consumers, seeking an alternative to mainstream, mass-produced alcoholic beverages have purchased hundreds of thousands of bottles of Defendant’s Templeton Rye and have paid a premium price over other whiskeys to obtain those qualities,” the lawsuit said. “Unfortunately, thousands of consumers across the country have been injured by Defendant’s deceptive marketing practices.”

Templeton Rye has said it will start printing labels noting that it’s distilled in Indiana and bottled in Iowa.

Templeton Rye misled consumers, lawsuit says [Des Moines Register]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

The Dog That Brings Royal Dutch Airline Passengers Lost Items Is A Fakety-Fake, But He’s Still Adorable

Sherlock the beagle receives a hug from a little boy after returning the stuffed toy he left on an airplane.

Remember the super cute beagle we told you about yesterday? You know, the one that runs around the Amsterdam Airport Schipol returning lost items to Royal Dutch Airline Passengers. Well I am utterly heartbroken (although I should have seen this coming) to report that he’s a fraud. Of course, he’s a living breathing dog, but he won’t be returning your misplaced items anytime soon. Sherlock was used as an illustration of how KLM’s Lost & Found team works to reunite passengers with their belongings. [Factually]

An official with the advertising team behind the video confirmed that Sherlock isn’t a permanent part of the Lost & Found team.

“To launch the team, we decided to give them a helpful mascotte, Sherlock the search dog. With the video we wanted to show that KLM goes above and beyond to return lost items to their owners,” the official with DDB & Tribal said.

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Medieval Belgian Town Installing A Beer Pipeline Because — Wait, A Beer Pipeline?!

(Neilhooting)

Colin “My Waggling Eyebrows Are Hypnotizing” Farrell’s character was so wrong to be cranky about being stuck in Bruges in the movie In Bruges (pronounced “Brooooszh” in my head) — that city is about to be the first in Belgium to install its very own beer pipeline. I repeat: A beer pipeline.

Alas, all of our hopes of a beer sink in every home in Bruges are for naught, my friends — the medieval town in Belgium did approve the construction of a beer pipeline under the city, but only to link its 500-year-old De Halve Maan brewery to a bottling factory nearby that will send its liquid wares out to the far corners of the Earth, reports the AFP.

This will keep about 500 delivery trucks from mucking up the scenic views of the canals and rumbling down the cobblestoned streets, explains the company’s director, Xavier Vanneste, cutting down on about 85% of the total truck traffic.

“The idea is born of environmental and quality of life concerns, and not economic ones,” he explained.

The brewery will be on the hook for the cost of the pipeline, which will actually have four pipes, to help with the breweries efforts to clean and sterilize the pipe after every beer batch, Vanneste explained on the BBC World Service radio program that happened to come on air while I was typing up this story. (Editor’s note: It was really weird how that happened.)

And yes, the idea of thirsty citizens tapping into that pipeline to take a quick sip of beer is “the talk of the town,” he added. But it’s unlikely you’ll succeed.

“We’re quite confident we’ll be able to secure the pipe well enough; if there’s any leak or tapping, we’ll be able to detect it anyway,” he told the BBC.

Belgian beer pipeline to carry booze under Bruges [AFP]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Missing Ketchup Prompts Alleged BB Gun Shooting At McDonald’s Drive-Thru

(frankieleon)

Everyone knows that ranch is the preferred dipping sauce when it comes to McDonald’s french fries. Okay, fine it might not be for everyone. But no matter what condiment you choose, getting less than you think you deserve doesn’t mean it’s okay to shoot the drive-thru window with a BB gun.

KRCR-TV reports that just such an incident occurred at a California McDonald’s after a couple didn’t receive ketchup with their order.

At around 12:15 a.m. on Tuesday, employees say a red car occupied by a man and a woman left the fast food restaurant upset over ketchup not being included in their order.

Shortly after the couple drove off, employees realized the drive-thru window had been shot out.

Upon police arrival it was determined that the window had two small holes in the glass and a small BB gun projectile was found on the ground near the window. Police also reported that two vehicles in the parking lot were damaged by BB gun projectiles.

About an hour later police officers located the red car in a nearby Walmart parking lot with the man and woman inside.

A search of the vehicle found three BB gun handguns, BB gun projectiles, McDonald’s food packaging and drinks and a McDonald’s receipt for a recent purchase close to the time of the reported shooting.

Both individuals were arrested on unrelated charges, but local officers say they would seek additional charges regarding their suspected involvement in the shooting.

Police: Suspects shot at McDonald’s after ketchup dispute [KRCR-TV]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Report: Apple Will Replace Some Bent iPhones After A “Visual Mechanical Inspection”

Bending on purpose = no replacement (Unbox Therapy)

There’s some good news for people who may have accidentally bent their new iPhone 6/6 Plus phones — emphasis on “accidentally” — Apple will reportedly replace those devices after a Genius conducts a “Visual Mechanical Inspection” to judge whether the phone is bent or not.

This, according to a support chat The Next Web had with an Apple customer service representative (keep in mind this is one conversation, and Apple has yet to officially confirm replacements):

“So does a bent enclosure occurring during normal use fit under warrant?” TNW asked.

“That is 100% up to the Genius that you speak with at the store,” the chat rep reportedly explained. “There is a test called a Visual Mechanical Inspection that the device will have to pass. If it is within the guidelines, they will be abel [sic] to cover it. If not, the replacement would be a paid one.”

As to what those guidelines actually are, the chat rep didn’t divulge that information. But it does seem like things are afoot at Apple during #BendGate:

“Something told me to throw your symptom in the big chat room,” the chat rep added, after TNW passed on a chance to escalate to a supervisor. “Turns out, we’re looking into this with an insane amount of detail.”

Hear that? INSANE.

“Normal use” would likely be things like sticking the phone in your pocket and sitting on it — accidentally! — but would not include say, trying to bend the iPhone 6 on camera just to see if you can do it (spoiler alert: you can). If you find your new iPhone isn’t perfectly on the level, it’s worth checking with Apple to see if you can replace it for free.

Apple support says bent iPhones must pass a visual inspection to qualify for warranty replacement [The Next Web]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist