Virtual cards vs. digital wallets: Which should you use and when?
Your nephew’s birthday is coming up, so you go online and find a $300 Little Tikes playground set on sale for $60. But when the party rolls around, your money’s gone and that gift never showed up. So you head to the grocery store to buy some birthday treats instead … only to get caught by a card skimmer at checkout. Ouch.
🚨 $400K MIA: A Silicon Valley woman nearly lost her down payment when a scammer infiltrated the email thread between her and her real estate broker. They convinced her to wire the money to a new account. It took banks five months to get it back. If you’re buying, talk through the wire instructions upfront with your broker, and when it’s time to send, call to confirm the details.
2 pounds
The weight of a hairball pulled from a woman’s stomach. By the time doctors got to it, the hairball was so big that it could be felt from the outside. She was probably suffering from a hair-eating disorder called trichophagia. If you’re feeling brave, take a peek. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
🍗 This week in deadly social media trends: “Mukbangs,” aka when an influencer livestreams themselves eating an obscene amount of food. A 24-year-old woman just died in front of her fans after eating 22 pounds of food in a 10-hour binge. The autopsy found a deformed stomach full of undigested food. Awful.
2 pizzas
Can feed any team at Amazon. And that’s just how Bezos likes it. In the early days, he enacted the “two-pizza team rule” to keep Amazon efficient. The rule says any team should be small enough to be fed by — you guessed it — two pizzas. Oh, you’re a real pizza work!
Paging Dr. Mario: This is something. EndeavorRx is the first FDA-approved prescription video game for ADHD. It challenges kids to multitask and ignore distractions while navigating levels. Some 73% of kids who used it said their attention spans improved. Def worth sharing to (maybe) get the kids off pharmaceuticals.
⚠️ Should’ve been life: An evil, vile Nevada man was sentenced to 65 years in prison for employing sextortion with over 100 children on social media. After the kids sent him explicit pictures, he shared them around the deep web. Parents, this is your reminder to spot-check your kid’s phone and get them to sign my tech safety contract.
Was your PC hit by the CrowdStrike fiasco? Microsoft just released a recovery tool to help. You’ll need admin privileges and a $7 USB stick to run it (steps here). The tool will walk you through creating a bootable USB drive. FYI: It’ll wipe anything already saved on the USB, so make sure it’s empty first!
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$108,150 salary
To be a cop in Plano, Texas. Big-city police departments were having trouble recruiting, so they pulled out all the stops (paywall link). Perks include take-home cars, paid workout hours and a relaxed tattoo policy. It’s working — more officers joined in 2023 than in the four years prior.
💸 This isn’t tech, but it is free money: Chase and Wells Fargo want your business so badly, they’ll give you $300 to open a new checking account. At Bank of America, it’s $200. The catch: You have to set up direct deposit. Check with your local branch for all the details.