Tech Crunch visits Creator, a San Francisco fast food joint that uses a factory-style "burger bot" to assemble its $6 hamburgers. Owner Alex Vardakostas says his burger-making machine, which he built himself, makes a better burger than any human could do. But doesn't a mini burger factory displace jobs? Nah, not according to Vardakostas. He says he's got a decent size staff, who make $16/hour, and they each receive "5% time" on the clock during which they can read a book or do anything else enjoyable while the robot keeps up its nonstop pace. (My calculations determine that 5% time on the clock is only 3 minutes per hour. I assume that's on top of standard breaks and a lunch break!)

According to Bloomberg, Creator will open its doors on June 27th. Read the rest

A 64-year-old Japanese man who works at the water bureau in Kobe has made a grave error. He left his desk for a break three minutes early so that he could buy a bento box for lunch. In fact, over a period of seven months, he boldly repeated this offense 26 times.

Once word got out, he was shamed for his dishonorable work ethics. He was forced to bow an apology on a televised news conference, after those who ran the conference called his deplorable actions "deeply regrettable."

Of course his lost minutes were calculated and deducted from his pay.

When asked why he would do such a disrespectful thing as to leave 3 minutes early, he said he needed a "change of pace."

In case you are in Japan and make a faux pas as serious as missing an appointment by 3 minutes, or if you commit some other rude act like accidentally bumping into someone, or saying a wrong word in Japanese that is actually something crude, here is a video that teaches you the many different forms of apology bows, depending on the level of shame you've inflicted upon yourself. Keep in line!

Read the full story on The Guardian

Image: Akuppa John Wigham - The Bow, CC BY 2.0, Link

Read the rest

When a man in Queens, New York celebrated Father's Day at Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden with his daughter and granddaughter, he asked for mayo and carmamel onions on his burger. But there was an extra ingredient he didn't ask for that appeared on his bill: spit.

Curtis Mays said the waitress had been nice, so didn't see it coming when he received his bill that told the chef, in red bold letters, "PLEASE SPIT IN IT TOO."

The waitress then tried to weasel out of it, denying to Mays that she was the one who printed the unsavory request. But once the manager got involved, the waitress was immediately fired, and Mays got a refund for his meal.

Ironically, the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden has an A rating from the Department of Health.

From ABC7:

Read the rest

In a tweet this morning, Trump chooses the dehumanizing word "infest" to describe immigrants coming to the US. This is eerily similar to German Nazi propaganda "linking Jews and vermin or disease to Germany."

"Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!"

Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2018

Twitter users responded strongly.

Actually, Trump, you have infested the US with your brand of hate. You destroy everything you touch. Your children are just like you. Complicit, immoral, despicable. You are Satan’s pin-up.

— Dilly Dilly 🤔🙄🤫 (@okeydoke4) June 19, 2018

"Infest our country" - now where have I heard that before?

Oh. Oh right. It was how Hitler described the Jewish people. You know...right before he murdered millions of them.#uspoli #immigration #TrumpCamps #TrumpConcentrationCamps #WhereAreTheChidren #FamiliesBelongTogether

— Andréa Dorego (@doregs) June 19, 2018

Infest. What a cruel asshole word to use. Shows your nature and intent.

— vintagecat (@vintage_vendor) June 19, 2018

You’re referring to human being that “infest” our country?

“Infest?”

Human beings don’t “infest.”

Bugs infest. As in “There is an infestation of bugs in this dilapidated home.”

You are the lowest of the low to use such dehumaning language to describe other human beings.

This is the stuff dystopian movies are made of. This video, put out by the ACLU, shows immigration agents asking passengers waiting to board a privately owned Concord Coach if they are a US citizen. Even though, according to the ACLU, there is no law anywhere in the country that bars non-US citizens from riding a bus in the United States, a Concord Coach employee answers "Yep" when an incredulous passenger asks if only US citizens can ride their bus. The passengers in this video know their rights and refuse to answer the question.

According to The Root:

In an interview with New Hampshire Public Radio, Concord Coach Lines Vice President Ben Blunt said the employee misspoke. Blunt said the company had not done a good enough job “talking about this issue with our staff,” before adding, “We don’t want to ask our employees—our drivers, our ticket agents—to be interfering with a federal officer who is lawfully doing his job.”

But Blunt’s answer glossed over one simple distinction that needs to be made: There’s a difference between interfering with a government authority and spreading misinformation on behalf of that authority.

An FBI agent was showing off his dance moves at a Denver bar on Saturday, but when he did a backflip, his gun flew out of his holster. When he grabbed it off the ground, it fired into the crowd that was watching him and hit a patron in the leg.

According to CNN:

One person was struck in the lower leg but is expected to survive, Denver police said.

Authorities have not identified the agent because he was not arrested, Denver police community resource officer Marika Putnam said.

Denver police will continue investigating the incident, and the district attorney's office will determine whether charges will be filed against the agent.

Porsche's can be a tricky car to maneuver if you've never driven one before (I know – I parked cars for private parties as a teenager and panicked every time I got into a Porsche), but how a hotel valet managed to park a Porsche Carrera underneath an SUV poses a real challenge to the imagination. The scene was so bizarre, a bystander thought they were shooting a movie.

The valet, working at a Hyatt Regency in Sydney, Australia, took the Porsche out of its park position and immediately hit the orange car that was in its way. He then, apparently, accelerated, nosing his way underneath the SUV until the SUV was resting comfortably on top of the Porsche. In the process, a third car was pushed into some posts.

According to CNN:

"I saw the valet hit the car in front from a parked position," said Jonathan Bouzaid, who watched events unfold and posted photos to Instagram.

"He then must have panicked and hit the accelerator causing the Porsche to go further under the orange car and pushing the white car into the bollards," Bouzaid said.

"I think the valet wasn't aware of the power that you get when starting a Porsche," he added. The luxurious Porsche Carrera can accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in less than five seconds, according to the company's website.

The valet had to be cut free from the wreckage but wasn't hurt and was sent home to rest, said Camilla Cooper, a spokeswoman from the Hyatt Regency hotel in central Sydney.

Stevedore Comedy talks about climate change as if it were real in "News From a World Where People Aren't Complete Idiots." Wake up America! Read the rest

Blowing smoke rings or the French inhale (blowing smoke out of your mouth and into your nostrils) are smoking tricks of yesteryear – how about vaping smoke through your ear? Pretty impressive, but according to a doctor on Quora, you can only perform this trick if you have "perforated eardrums."

"Smokers have some smoke entering their middle ear, but it (like the air inside it) is absorbed through the membranes lining that space. There would only be a way for the smoke to come out through one’s ear canals if the tympanic membrane had a hole in it." Read the rest

Emily Weinman, a smidge under drinking age at 20 years old, went to the beach in Southern New Jersey to enjoy Memorial Day with her daughter, her daughter's father, and a friend. A police officer suspected her of underage drinking, and he didn't take kindly to her screaming when he tried to arrest her, so he punched her a couple of times.

From ABC13:

"Two cops approach me on their four-wheelers and ask me and my friend how old we are. We gave them our ages. Then, we got breathalized, and it came back negative. I told them I wasn't drinking and the alcohol was clearly closed/sealed, which the cops seen."

Weinman then writes that she walked away from the officer, attempting to make a phone call.

"I asked them don't they have something better to do as cops than to stop people for underage drinking on the beach, saying to that there's so much more serious stuff going on. The cop said, 'I was gonna let you go but now I'll write you up' and he asked my name. I did not do anything wrong and anything could've been written down on that paper so I wouldn't give it to him. At that point I was told if I don't give it to him he's going to arrest me."

Within the first few seconds of the cell phone video, you can see a Wildwood police officer punch Weinman in the head and then put her in a headlock.

Weinman "was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, minor in possession of alcohol, two counts of aggravated assault on police and obstruction."

In response to the public reaction after this video was posted on social media, The City of Wildwood Police Department put out this statement:

This City of Wildwood Police Department has received reports of a video on various social media sources, regarding an incident that occurred on the Wildwood beach yesterday afternoon, with our officers. Read the rest

A man was driving on I-5 in Washington when he saw "a small black object in the air." He then heard it hitting the front of his car, but it didn't seem like a big deal. It wasn't until he stopped for gas 18 miles later that he noticed a handgun lodged snugly into his bumper.

According to the The Seattle Times:

“It’s just crazy. It’s a complete fluke it could happen,” Trooper Guy Gill said of the incident.

The Patrol turned the gun over to Lakewood Police and detectives are investigating whether the gun — which was missing its magazine — was involved in a shooting at a park about an hour earlier, said Lt. Chris Lawler. No one was injured.

In his years as a trooper, Gill said he has seen vehicles hit by all kinds of debris on the freeway — bolts, tires, rocks, bits of steel — but never a firearm.

Well...this is a first 🤷🏻‍♂️! Driver saw a small "black object" in the air while driving on I-5 and it struck the front of his car. He drove about 18 miles, stopped for gas, and found this. We recovered it and turned it over to @LakewoodPD. pic.twitter.com/Oo3KlbW362

— Trooper Guy Gill (@wspd1pio) May 24, 2018

It's been a strange news day for guns. I'm not sure which is weirder, a handgun spearing a car, or a gun in an oven shooting bullets at his owner.

Image: Washington State Patrol Read the rest

A gun-toting gentleman in Ohio wanted to keep his revolver out of harm's reach when his kids came to visit him, so he hid it in his oven's broiler. But 44-year-old Robin Garlock neglected to tell his girlfriend, who decided to do some baking later that evening. Suddenly, she heard gunfire and shouted for Garlock, thinking it was coming from outside. But no, the loud bangs were coming from inside the oven – the revolver was spinning around, firing off shots.

In the process of trying to secure the gun, Garlock forgot to put on an oven mitt and burned himself. He was also struck twice with bullets. Lucky for him he was "severely injured" but is doing okay.

According to Miami Herald:

“It’s too hot,” Warren Police Detective Wayne Mackey told the Vindicator...

Garlock was seriously injured in the incident, Mackey told Raw Story, but Garlock is now doing better...

The heat is what made the bullets explode, Mackey explained.

“Don’t store your guns anywhere that’s hot,” Mackey told Raw Story. “Don’t put your gun in an appliance. They make things for that and an oven is not one of the things.”

Mackey told the Vindicator that, though Garlock’s oven-explosion-gunfire story in Warren seemed unlikely at first, an investigation concluded that’s what happened — and the stove was riddled with bullet holes to prove it. Beyond the bullet holes, Mackey said, the gun had clearly been on fire.

How anyone could think storing a loaded gun in an oven (ovens don't have locks, not to mention how hot they get) is a good idea is beyond me. Read the rest

While an Uber driver was shuttling two passengers in Georgia last Sunday, he was arrested for attempted rape, sexual battery, and aggravated burglary. Looks like Uber did a real good job in vetting the man before taking him on as a driver.

According to Gizmodo:

It’s unclear how [Kevin] Jerome was able to drive for Uber. The platform claims to perform a background check on all its drivers, and notes on its website that “convictions for felonies, violent crimes, sexual offenses, and registered sex offender status, among other types of criminal records,” disqualify individuals from becoming a driver. An Uber spokesperson told Gizmodo that the company is investigating the incident.

Uber announced a new policy in April to re-run background checks for drivers on an annual basis. Prior to that change, it may have been possible for a driver whose record was clean when signing up for the platform to have been charged with a disqualifying crime without Uber’s knowledge and remain a driver. In Jerome’s case, his charges appear to have been issued in 2016, though it’s unclear when he applied to join Uber.

Image: Mark Warner/Flickr Read the rest

A couple in Portland is accusing Alexa of doing exactly what many people have feared she might do. They say she listened in on a conversation and sent it to a random contact of theirs – one of her husband's employees.

The woman, whose name is Danielle but whose last name hasn't been disclosed, says that two weeks ago she got a call from her husband's employee, who said, "Unplug your Alexa devices right now. You're being hacked."

According to KIRO-7 in Seattle:

"We unplugged all of them and he proceeded to tell us that he had received audio files of recordings from inside our house," she said. "At first, my husband was, like, 'no you didn't!' And the (recipient of the message) said 'You sat there talking about hardwood floors.' And we said, 'oh gosh, you really did hear us.'"

Danielle listened to the conversation when it was sent back to her, and she couldn't believe someone 176 miles away heard it too.

"I felt invaded," she said. "A total privacy invasion. Immediately I said, 'I'm never plugging that device in again, because I can't trust it.'"

Danielle says an Amazon engineer investigated.

"They said 'our engineers went through your logs, and they saw exactly what you told us, they saw exactly what you said happened, and we're sorry.' He apologized like 15 times in a matter of 30 minutes and he said we really appreciate you bringing this to our attention, this is something we need to fix!"

When KIRO-7 questioned Amazon, they responded with this: “Amazon takes privacy very seriously. Read the rest

When parents ask their daughters why Prince Harry is getting married, the younger of the two says, "Harry is getting married because they want to get married." But when asked what you do when you get married, the younger girl is stumped. That's when her older sister jumps in with a hand gesture that could be interpreted as crude.

She points her index finger with one hand and sticks it into a circle made with the other hand. "Don't do that!" a man – presumably her father – says. "Whoooa! What are you doing?" a woman – presumably her mother – says.

The girl responds with a heartwarming, logical and very innocent answer. Or, maybe the girl is just really great at thinking on her feet. Read the rest

An irate gentleman wearing shorts and a lime green shirt was caught on a security camera attacking an SUV – and then a passenger – with a sledgehammer.

He followed the SUV into a parking lot, and when the SUV stops, the enraged man jumps out with a sledgehammer in his hand, which he uses to whack at the driver's window. The SUV starts to drive away, when someone on the passenger side falls out. The SUV keeps going while the passenger limps towards it. The madman looks like he's finished and huffs back to his pickup truck, but then decides he's still angry. He whacks the passenger, and then for good measure swings at the SUV one more time.

The motive? One witness heard the attacker shouting, "You're cheating on my girlfriend," according to NBC10. Also from NBC:

The witness also said that the pickup truck driver tried to chase after the SUV with his vehicle after leaving the parking lot. This was not captured on surveillance video however.

Nobody involved in the attack has come forward with information. Read the rest

A private plane carrying at least six US passengers from Austin, TX crashed on the small runway at Toncontin airport in Honduras's capital, Tegucigalpa. The plane split in half, but miraculously nobody was seriously injured.

According to the BBC:

The Gulfstream G200 aircraft was on a private flight from Austin, Texas, when it skidded off the runway and into a ditch at Toncontin International Airport.

Surrounded by mountains and with a very short runway, the Toncontin airport is considered one of the world's most treacherous.