Appleseed
Appleseed MegaDork
8/14/24 8:53 p.m.

Arnold Schwarzenegger drove an M47 tank in the Austrian Army. He later bought an M47, the EXACT tank he drove, and had it shipped to California .

914Driver
914Driver MegaDork
8/15/24 8:03 a.m.
Oapfu
Oapfu Reader
8/21/24 12:56 a.m.

Matchbox "Golden X" was based on the real Nissan 126X concept car.  This probably would not be a surprise if I'd had the yellow "Datsun 126X" version instead.

P3PPY
P3PPY SuperDork
8/21/24 7:02 a.m.
mtn said:
Duke said:

TIL that the reason our client's check bounced is because they got wire scammed for almost $400,000 by someone pretending to work here.

There are only 6 people in our firm, the client works with one of our partners on a daily basis, and the spoofed email of the nonexistent employee had an extra 'A' in the domain.

Apparently the phishing started in early June and throughout the entire process it never occurred to anyone from the client to just call my boss and ask if this was legit.

They can afford to lose the money, but there were so many missed red flags that it's actually almost comical.

 

When I worked in risk management in a bank, I'd have weekly meetings (and often coffees/lunches) with one of our fraud managers. It is pretty astounding what people fall for. It is also pretty astounding at how good some of the phishing can be. If I get an email or a call asking for payment, even if I know it to be 100% legitimate, I'll still hang up and go through what I am 100% sure to be a secure payment method. Sometimes that involves me hanging up, calling the number that I know to be legitimate, and talking to the same person I just hung up on. It's just way too easy to spoof phone numbers. 

I once worked collections for one of the big credit card company banks and it ASTOUNDED me what they wanted us to do and what people would do. 
"Good afternoon, my name is P3PPY, and I'm calling from HugeBank, is this Bob Builder?"

"Yes it is"

"Hello, Mr. Builder, I'm calling about your account with HugeBank. Could you verify [AKA provide] your social security number for me?"

Other than perhaps the people who hung up, can you guess how many people declined to give away their SSN to a perfect stranger who had cold called THEM? None. Ever. 
I really wanted to change my script to "we want to talk to you about your account, would you call the number on the back of your card?" But of course no bank was getting their money back that way. 

914Driver
914Driver MegaDork
8/22/24 8:26 a.m.

TIL David Hyde Pierce was born in Saratoga, NY.  Went to Saratoga HS, played organ at the church and earned a Yaddo Award.

jharry3
jharry3 Dork
8/22/24 8:41 a.m.

The internet scanners are getting really good.   Somehow they rigged the login page of my investment account to display a message saying my account was locked because of a security breach.  There was a number to call.

I called and followed instructions.  Somehow they knew all my account numbers and the exact amount in each account.  They showed me a screen that listed a pending transaction of $34,000, one the guy said was authorized by me via  phone call call (which I never received)  The call went on for probably 1/2 hour while we are allegedly running diagnostics.   Then they guy switched me to "the attorney" who was going to "help" me.   I quickly realized it was the same guy.   He starts telling me that I needed to set up a "dummy account" and put my money in there so they can cancel the transfer.   That's when it realized it was a scam.  I told the guy  that I didn't believe anything he said and hung up.  They kept trying to call back.      Be careful.   One virus on your computer, that you don't realize you have, can allow a hacker to see and record all your actions on screen and make a scamming plan.     

Stampie
Stampie MegaDork
8/22/24 8:47 a.m.

In reply to jharry3 :

It's time for that computer to retire and spend a lot of effort changing passwords on the new computer.

NickD
NickD MegaDork
8/22/24 10:00 a.m.

TIL that you can get really nice Studebakers for shockingly low prices.

Appleseed
Appleseed MegaDork
8/22/24 11:36 a.m.

TIL about Jim Thorpe. I knew he was bad ass, but I've reassessed who I believe is America's greatest athlete.

 

NickD
NickD MegaDork
8/22/24 1:23 p.m.
Appleseed said:

TIL about Jim Thorpe. I knew he was bad ass, but I've reassessed who I believe is America's greatest athlete.

Jim Thorpe was like an anime main character. The guy was just like "Okay, I'm going to be good at everything" and was. Also got a helluva nice city named after him.

loosecannon
loosecannon UltraDork
8/22/24 9:46 p.m.

TIL that the adapters for DeWalt 18v drills that convert them to the more powerful (and expensive) 20V lithium batteries do not prevent the 20V batteries from discharging completely (like a proper 20V drill will do) and they absolutely kill the batteries. We had to replace all the 20V batteries at work today because all the lithium batteries got trashed by staff using them until they were right dead before putting them in the chargers.

preach
preach UberDork
8/25/24 5:10 p.m.

TIL- Recaro makes airplane seats. I knew that they make them for subs but not planes.

 

Antihero
Antihero PowerDork
8/25/24 5:30 p.m.

TIL that The Terror is a great series and I totally missed it.

 

Everyone should watch it

No Time
No Time UberDork
8/25/24 9:06 p.m.

Today I learned the orange store has a budget version of the Solo stove. I'm trying it out to see how it works: Solo on a budget

NickD
NickD MegaDork
8/27/24 11:55 a.m.

TIL that Roadkill's Stubby Bob was supposed to appear in one of the Fast & The Furious films, and even had some work done by the Fast & The Furious vehicle team after Tony Angelo destroyed it, but it was ultimately cut from the film.

NermalSnert (Forum Supporter)
NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) Dork
8/28/24 3:40 p.m.

That in September of 2012 my Miata left Brunswick GA  bound for Italy and in Feb. of 2015 left Germany bound for TN via Houston.

wae
wae UltimaDork
8/28/24 4:21 p.m.

TIL just how much the RV market is crashing right now.  There's a class C that was originally listed 12 weeks ago that had a screen clip of the JD Power valuation of the coach at the time.  At that time, JD Power put average retail at $51,667.  I ran the valuation tool today with the same inputs they used and the average retail is now $38,500.   In three months!

VolvoHeretic
VolvoHeretic SuperDork
8/28/24 8:18 p.m.

TIL: There was another Space Shuttle named Pathfinder that was a full scale shuttle mock-up to test shuttle ground handling.

MSN.com: Mock shuttle Pathfinder restored atop its stack at Alabama rocket center (photos)

CollectSpace.com: Mock shuttle Pathfinder restored atop its stack at rocket center

Pathfinder was returned to its original length — 121 feet (37 meters) from its nose to vertical stabilizer tip — after being truncated for its display in Japan. Its frame was reinforced with cold-formed steel to accommodate 516 3D-printed panels that in turn were painted, adding the vehicle's exterior details.

914Driver
914Driver MegaDork
8/29/24 6:40 a.m.

In reply to Antihero :

Netflix?

914Driver
914Driver MegaDork
8/29/24 6:41 a.m.

TIL who gives Minions character.

 

Duke
Duke MegaDork
8/29/24 7:48 a.m.
Antihero said:

TIL that The Terror is a great series and I totally missed it.

914Driver said:

Netflix?

AMC produced, but yes, it's recently available on Netflix.

We're halfway through (it's 10 episodes), and yes, it's very good. No huge names in it but some solid actors you'll recognize.

So far, pretty faithful to the book, which I read at Nick D's suggestion a couple years ago.

Appleseed
Appleseed MegaDork
8/29/24 7:50 p.m.

As it is my favorite movie, I am a student of the film "The Blues Brothers." TIL the soloist in the Triple Rock Church choir is Chakka Kahn.

NickD
NickD MegaDork
8/29/24 8:42 p.m.
Duke said:
Antihero said:

TIL that The Terror is a great series and I totally missed it.

914Driver said:

Netflix?

AMC produced, but yes, it's recently available on Netflix.

We're halfway through (it's 10 episodes), and yes, it's very good. No huge names in it but some solid actors you'll recognize.

So far, pretty faithful to the book, which I read at Nick D's suggestion a couple years ago.

TIL they made a TV show based off The Terror.

wae
wae UltimaDork
8/29/24 10:17 p.m.

TIL that the American Brewers Association thought that they had Prohibition licked in 1911:

Boy did they mis-read that....

Antihero
Antihero PowerDork
8/30/24 12:17 a.m.
NickD said:
Duke said:
Antihero said:

TIL that The Terror is a great series and I totally missed it.

914Driver said:

Netflix?

AMC produced, but yes, it's recently available on Netflix.

We're halfway through (it's 10 episodes), and yes, it's very good. No huge names in it but some solid actors you'll recognize.

So far, pretty faithful to the book, which I read at Nick D's suggestion a couple years ago.

TIL they made a TV show based off The Terror.

It's great, apparently each season is not connected to the last but this first season at least is fantastic 

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