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Man fol­lows GPS direc­tions onto train tracks, into dummy hall of fame

Posted: 04 Jan 2008 01:57 PM CST

Filed under: GPS, Trans­porta­tion

Once again prov­ing that “peo­ple be stu­pid,” a Bed­ford Hills, New York man allowed his GPS to nav­i­gate him onto train tracks… while a train was approach­ing. Enter­ing a long line of folks like Cherry Tree Guy and the Nar­row Lane Invader, this men­tat in ques­tion appar­ently fol­lowed direc­tions to “turn right” onto a set of tracks, which he then inex­plic­a­bly became stuck on. Upon notic­ing the speed­ing loco­mo­tive head­ing towards his car, the man jumped out of the vehi­cle and tried to warn the engi­neer by wav­ing his arms fran­ti­cally — to no avail. The train slammed into the truck at 60 MPH and pushed the vehi­cle more than 100-feet, dam­ag­ing 250-feet of track. The man was unharmed, though we under­stand his ego has filed for divorce.

[Thanks, Dr. Mark]

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See Every­thing Your Friends And Neigh­bors Have Ever Bought At Sears [Evil]

Posted: 04 Jan 2008 10:58 AM CST

Want to see all the major appli­ances and repair ser­vices that your friends and neigh­bors… (and any­one else who you can look up in the phone book) have ever pur­chased at Sears?

Want to know what your mom might have pur­chased for your birth­day? Want to know which houses in your neigh­bor­hood have really nice expen­sive TVs?

Sears pro­vides a web­site, www.ManageMyHome.com where any­one can look up any­one elses’ entire pur­chase his­tory at Sears—using only their name and address. This is espe­cially con­ve­nient because these strange men keep drop­ping off huge lists of names and addresses on our door every year (we think they’re called “phone books”) and we never really knew what to do with them.

Appar­ently, all you need to do is cre­ate an account at www.managemyhome.com, click “Find Sears Prod­ucts” and enter a name, address and phone number.

From the CA Secu­rity Advi­sor Research Blog:

With their con­sent we have tested this tech­nique with other indi­vid­u­als and have received reli­able results every time. If they’d had major deal­ings with Sears, that infor­ma­tion is now avail­able to the pub­lic, from a tele­vi­sion bought in 1978 to a stove which was pur­chased else­where but had been repaired by a Sears technician.

Says Kurt, the reader who sent this tip in: “I was able to look up my entire family’s pur­chases. This is a scary one.”

Is Sears evil or what?

www.managemyhome.com

UPDATE: Rumor has it that all you really need is someone’s name and phone number.

Best Buy Employ­ees Busted For Switch­ing Items Inside Boxes [Crime]

Posted: 04 Jan 2008 10:19 AM CST

For those of you who were won­der­ing why you recently bought an empty box from Best Buy, look no fur­ther for your answer. Three Best Buy employ­ees from a Bridge­wa­ter, NJ store were busted for remov­ing items from their boxes and plac­ing them inside the boxes of less expen­sive items, which they would then buy.

From the Courier News:

Charged with theft, and con­spir­acy to com­mit theft, are Michael Lom­bar­dozzi, 25, 1178 Fair­field Road, Bridge­wa­ter; Jose Cara­ballo, 18, 452 Front St., Dunellen, and Randy Bil­lie, 21, of Pater­son, all sales asso­ciates at the store, accord­ing to papers filed in Supe­rior Court.

Cara­ballo told Bridge­wa­ter police that he received a call at home Dec. 28 from another employee to come to the store and pick up a box. Court papers state that Cara­ballo knew it was a box of a rel­a­tively low-priced item that was repacked and con­tained a higher-priced item.

Cara­ballo took the box to the cashier and paid the price listed for the lower-priced item, author­i­ties said.

When he got home with the box, Cara­ballo opened it and found an LCD pro­jec­tor val­ued at $1,499, accord­ing to court papers.

Lom­bar­dozzi told police that on Dec. 23 he took a Mac Book Pro, val­ued at $2,700, and put it in a box of a lower-priced item and gave it to another employee to buy, accord­ing to court papers. The other employee then gave it back to Lom­bar­dozzi, author­i­ties said. So when you get home and find that your “Mac­Book” box con­tains some­one like Mr. Lombardozzi’s bath­room tiles, don’t be sur­prised when you try to return the box and “they don’t believe you.”

Best Buy employ­ees charged with theft [Courier News] (Thanks, Ray!)
(Photo:meghan­n­marco)

Will fans pay? Reznor opens books on ‘Net music experiment

Posted: 04 Jan 2008 10:42 AM CST

Trent Reznor pro­duced the new Saul Williams rap record, then offered it online for 1) free or 2) five dol­lars. 18 per­cent of the down­load­ers paid. Success?

Read More…

Sci­ence to Gov­ern­ment: Evo­lu­tion Is a Fact, So Teach It

Posted: 04 Jan 2008 09:20 AM CST

A new report by sci­en­tific advis­ers to the U.S. gov­ern­ment empha­sizes the impor­tance of teach­ing evo­lu­tion in schools, while tak­ing a swipe at the “unsci­en­tific” the­ory of intel­li­gent design.