This fellow has a magic fix-it stick, but it is cursed. If you see him, run. Read the rest

Students from Tufts University who attended this year's Macy's Parade were showered with confetti made from shredded, confidential Nassau County police files. The shreds revealed the identities of undercover officers, including their SSNs and bank details.

"It landed on her shoulder," Finkelstein said, "and it says 'SSN' and it's written like a Social Security number, and we're like, 'That's really bizarre.'"

Finkelstein, a Tufts University freshman, said he and his friends were concerned and picked up more confetti that had fallen around them.

"There are phone numbers, addresses, more Social Security numbers, license plate numbers and then we find all these incident reports from police."

The documents were apparently from the Nassau County Police Department.

Police documents found in parade confetti [UPI]

(via /.)

(Image: IMG_2528.JPG, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from supa_pedro's photostream) Read the rest

During a photo shoot, photographers working with Art+Auction magazine picked up an irreplaceable 2600-year-old terra cotta statue from Nigeria's Nok culture so they could move it into a better line for a shot. Yada yada yada ... they're now being sued for negligence. (Via Dr. Rubidium) Read the rest

Failing to prevent pregnancy is a pretty big failure for a birth control pill. Pfizer is trying to avoid that outcome by recalling 1 million packets of potentially defective pills. What's the problem? Every packet contains 3 week's worth of birth control pills and a week's worth of sugar pills—basically to keep you in the habit of taking a pill every day even during your period week. Some of the defective packs don't contain enough sugar pills. That's not really a problem. In others, however, the actual birth control pills have been swapped for extra sugar pills. That's what Pfizer is worried about. The recall includes Pfizer Lo/Ovral-28 tablets and Akrimax Pharmaceuticals brand Norgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol tablets. Read the rest

In several crash tests, the battery on a Chevy Volt began to heat up or burst into flame. The battery problems happened a few days or weeks after the impact and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating. (One potential factor: NHTSA testers didn't drain the batteries of juice after the crash, which is recommended. As a comparison, it's standard practice to drain a gas tank after a similar collision. So this could be an issue of new technology learning curve.) If you want to better understand why a battery that's been through a car accident could burst into flame, I'd recommend reading this piece by the Midwest Energy News. It's a nice summary of how lithium-ion batteries work, and how they respond to damage. Read the rest