Daily Dose of Common Sense

At a Wisconsin zoo on Friday, a woman wanted to feed the bears by hand. (I mean, who doesn’t? They’re all like Winnie the Pooh, right?) She ignored several barriers and warning signs in order to get up close and personal with the bears. Result? She lost several fingers after she was bitten. The woman’s boyfriend was also bitten as he tried to help her.

But this is not even the most disturbing part of the news report:

The woman’s boyfriend was bitten as he tried to pry the bear’s mouth off her hand, but he didn’t lose any fingers. Her 3-year-old granddaughter wasn’t injured.

Yes, that’s right. The woman, through her own stupidity, gets expectedly injured by a bear IN FRONT OF her granddaughter. Way to scar the little one for life, Grandma.

We’ve written about zoo stupidity before, but it really never ceases to amaze us how people purposely cross barriers and restricted areas to get to the wildlife. If you’re this reckless and dumb, you deserve whatever the animals dish out.

This week, a killer whale–which had already been involved in two deaths–killed a trainer at Sea World in Orlando in front of a crowd.

Now, I’m not going to go all PETA on your ass and start ranting about animals in captivity. My kids like to see the bears, elephants, and cows at the zoo as much as the next person. What doesn’t make sense is this is an animal who was involved in other deadly incidents. First a trainer was killed in 1991 and then a gatecrasher was found lying on top of the animal in 1999. In each case, it appeared the whale thought humans were toys.

How “dangerous” does an animal need to be before we decide it’s not worth the human life to keep it in captivity? I’m sure the orca show at Sea World is a big draw. And, the trainers are experienced and careful. But, when animals are prone to attack, is it really a good idea to keep them around? Here’s how a witness described the event:

Another audience member, Victoria Biniak, told WKMG-TV the whale “took off really fast in the tank, and then he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing around, and one of her shoes flew off.”

Yikes.

It never fails: A subway car is packed to the gills and some knucklehead still has a giant backpack on. If you commute by anything other than a car, or if you’re frequently around tourist attractions, you have likely had the same unhappy experience at some point.

A lot of backpack wearers never take the pack off. Ever. So, even in a crowd, the big ‘ol backpack is whacking people in the face, back, or chest. The owner usually seems oblivious and continues to barrel on through the crowd.

What is it with you backpackers? Have some consideration for the rest of us!

Photo

If you’re an avid user of social media–specifically FourSquare and Twitter–PleaseRobMe.com is a site you might want to know about. Done with a sense of humanitarianism (as in not for criminals), this site collects all the location data sent to Twitter and FourSquare and publishes it in a running stream.

For example, on PleaseRobMe.com, you’ll see posts like this:

@USERNAME left home and checked in 4 minutes ago:
I’m at The Computer Corner (99-185 Moanalua Road Suite 101, Aiea). http://4sq.com/….

@USERNAME left home and checked in less than a minute ago:
I’m at acclamation bar and grill (James street north and mulberry). http://4sq.com/….

@USERNAME left home and checked in less than a minute ago:
I’m at Costco Kawasaki (3-1-4 Ikegami Shincho, Kawasaki Ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa). http://4sq.com/….

The creators look to raise awareness about internet privacy and how the information we put out there could be used in the wrong hands. When you visit the site, you will see that most of the entries on PleaseRobMe.com are from FourSquare, a social media site that is practically a continual GPS of where you are. Which makes it kind of obvious where you aren’t.

The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have “friends” who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the internet.

We did learn this week that 30% of Americans are not online either at work or at home. So, there is a small percentage of people not iFollowing your movements. But, do you want the other 70% to know your precise location?

[Via The Consumerist]

Here are some of our favorite brief Web stories from this week.

Some people had common sense.

• The city of Boston dismissed thousands of tickets and tow fines for people who were issued violations while preparing for a storm that never came. The city had declared a snow emergency in expectation of the big storm cutting up the eastern seaboard. Stay classy, Boston.
• A 5-year old girl in Indiana called 911 when her dad experienced chest pains. She remained calm and stayed on the line for nearly ten minutes. She is now credited with saving her dad’s life.

And, some did not.

• Southwest Airlines kicked Kevin Smith off a flight for being too fat. Smith claims he fits between the two arm rests, which is the test of whether a person is too large for their seat. Huge PR nightmare for Southwest Airlines because Smith is a celebrity. I ask why the airlines even let him board in the first place, instead of kicking him off once on the plane?
• New toy: Fisher Price’s Bigfoot the Monster. It’s cute in a Muppet-gone-bad kind of way, but do we really want to encourage children to believe in this nonsense?

There’s a problem in the Florida Everglades that has nothing to do with climate change or the depletion of habitat. The problem is from pet owners who buy snakes they don’t know anything about, and then dump the snakes out in the swamp when they get too difficult to handle. The animals are then free to disrupt the ecosystem.

Wildlife biologists say the troublesome invaders — dumped in the Everglades by pet owners who no longer want them — have become a pest and pose a significant threat to endangered species like the wood stork and Key Largo woodrat.

Two types of non-native pythons are taking over the Everglades: the Burmese python and the African rock python. These snakes proliferate quickly, laying 50 to 100 eggs at a time, and experts say there may be as many as 150,000 of them in the area. The pythons have no predators in their new environment, so they can pretty much run roughshod over the local wildlife.

Not to mention a Florida resident who owned a Burmese python, only to have it escape and strangle his girlfriend’s two-year old daughter one night in 2009. A tragedy that could have been avoided with a little common sense.

Obviously, you shouldn’t buy pets you don’t understand or know anything about. Unless you have a full-time experienced keeper on hand, it’s irresponsible to keep exotic pets. But, even WORSE is to dump the animal out in the wilderness once it’s no longer any fun. Especially when you don’t know what the repercussions might be to the environment. At least give the animal to a local zoo.

With stomach flu taking over our house this week, we didn’t have much time for the news. But, of the little we saw, here are some of our favorite brief Web stories from this week.

Some people had common sense.

• Heinz has redesigned the ketchup packet. No longer do we need to fool with torn packets and ketchup everywhere. Behold the new packet that lets you either dunk or squeeze.

And, some did not.

• A man at a sledding party in Michigan wanted a boost of power. So, he filled a car muffler with gasoline and gunpowder, strapped it to his back, and ignited it for what he hoped would be a rocket-launch effect. He was burned over 20% of his body. No word on why NO ONE at the sledding party warned him what a bad idea this was.

Are you more worried about looking good behind the wheel, or being able to see the road?

Most of us don’t think about how our sunglasses will affect our driving performance. But, we should. Scott Marshall is Director of Training for Young Drivers of Canada and has a blog all about driving safely. Recently, he discussed driving and the trend of large eyewear. Why would big, chunky, expensive sunglasses pose a problem?

The current problem is the framing of many of the glasses is thick enough that it blocks part of their vision. The driver has a difficult time seeing off to their side in their peripheral vision. Other drivers can sneak up beside them without the driver knowing. It also stops the driver from seeing clearly at intersections for pedestrians or cyclists. These stylish sunglasses narrow the driver’s view too much and make driving more difficult.

Makes sense, right? But, you don’t want to skip sunglasses altogether. They reduce glare and brightness, which can be a potential hazard to drivers.

According to insurance statistics there are 18,000 car accidents in this country every day with as many as 6,000 of those accidents directly attributable to over- brightness and glare. Drivers are particularly vulnerable to the hazard of blinding glare.

Polarized sunglasses are best for reducing glare and brightness; so, in addition to the correct frames, also make sure you buy the right kind of glass.

Photo

Sometimes we make it easier on the bad guys.

Many computer users prove themselves easy targets for hackers and identity thieves. First, we learn that “123456″ is the most common password in use today.

Imperva found that nearly 1 percent of the 32 million people it studied had used “123456″ as a password. The second-most-popular password was “12345.” Others in the top 20 included “qwerty,” “abc123″ and “princess.”

Not exactly hacker-proof. Instead, pick a password of a letter and number combination that is at least six characters long.

Second, we learn that many adults put their full addresses in their social media profiles.

In one example, the study commissioned by a unit of credit reporting services firm Experian found that 14 percent of adults – and 20 percent of those age 60 and over – listed their full home addresses in their social media profiles.

Now, I’m not suggesting that putting your address online guarantees a robbery. (See our recent post “Do Thieves Read Twitter, Too?”) But, do you really want anyone, and we mean anyone, knowing where you live? Identity theft, junk mail, stalkers, past girlfriends, Jehovah’s Witnesses… you open yourself up to a variety of ways to have your personal domain invaded.

Don’t make it easy on them. Make the bad guys work harder and perhaps save yourself some aggravation down the road.

Photo

One thing I’ve noticed about suburban shopping is that it’s hard to return a shopping cart. Why else would you see a parking lot like this:

Actually, it’s not hard to return a shopping cart. It’s fairly easy. There are cart return sections all over most parking lots. Some people just won’t expend the effort. In this particular photo, there were at least six parking spaces rendered unusable because of the unreturned carts.

I have also seen carts bang into cars, people, and buildings. All because someone wasn’t courteous enough to take two minutes to return the cart to a proper place. Come on, are we so lazy?