Quick Takes: Refrigerator reboot

Samsung customers in South Korea were left with a mess after a disastrous software update caused their fridges to lose their cool at an especially inconvenient time. Just days before the Sept. 24–26 Chuseok holiday, colloquially known as Korean Thanksgiving, some Samsung smart refrigerators simultaneously stopped working after the company inadvertently sent test files to the networked appliances. That left the unhappy customers facing the prospect of spoiled food just before the holiday. Some tried turning their refrigerators off and on to restore them to proper working condition, while others flooded the tech giant’s consumer forums to complain. “All my Chuseok food is going to spoil,” one user wrote, according to a report in Tom’s Hardware. “What am I supposed to do with the eel and premium beef?” another added. Samsung quickly apologized and promised to get all refrigerators working by the beginning of the holiday. The incident highlighted the potential downside of network-connected home appliances. In February, a robotic vacuum owner tinkering with his own device found he could take control of about 6,700 robotic vacuums around the world through a network connection.

Double trouble

What’s worse than having a truck-mounted boom crane fall on your house? A Florida homeowner found out Sept. 24 when another crane meant to remove the first also toppled over onto his roof. Earlier that morning, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., fire officials had raced to the home after getting reports that a crane mounted on a heavy-duty truck had tipped over and collapsed on the structure. When another crane crew attempted to hoist the fallen machine, their equipment also failed, sending the second crane crashing through the Spanish-tiled roof. Emergency officials say no one was injured in either incident.

When you’ve got to go …

Occasionally the time comes when you can’t put nature off any longer. For one driver, that time came at 4:30 a.m. in Rosenberg, Texas, shortly after he discovered the doors to a local Kroger grocery store locked. Rather than look elsewhere to use the restroom, the 60-year-old man punched the gas of his gray 2006 Chevrolet HHR and drove through the grocery store’s door, police say, ostensibly so he could use the restroom. The vehicle came to a stop just short of a candy display, but the collision left glass strewn across the floor. “All he said was the doors were locked and he had to use the restroom,” a police officer later told The New York Times. Authorities in Rosenberg charged the Mississippi man with felony criminal mischief.

Slow-speed chase

It certainly wasn’t the fastest police chase in history. Officers with the Monroe Township police in New Jersey were alerted Sept. 28 to a suspicious tortoise perambulating down a city street. They quickly gave chase. “After a brief foot pursuit (we won), the suspect was safely taken into custody,” a police spokesman said. After capturing the large sulcata tortoise, officers posed for pictures with it and then asked the public for help returning the reptile to its rightful owner. Eventually the tortoise’s owners came forward and took it home.

Return on investment

Back in July, a man looking for vinyl records at a Michigan estate sale stumbled upon a captivating painting and, on an impulse, paid $30 and took it home. On Oct. 1, that unnamed man sold the unexpected find for $1.35 million. The painting turned out to be a work by renowned midcentury Chicago artist Gertrude Abercrombie who painted the piece, Alderman Merriam’s Shells, in 1951. She gave the painting to a Kalamazoo, Mich., doctor named John Reynolds in 1952 in lieu of payment for a medical procedure. The painting remained in Reynolds’ family until the estate sale earlier this year.

Just say cheesesteak

Perhaps the only thing powerful enough to bring together two famed Philadelphia cheesesteak rivals is a shared animosity toward social media influencers. An incident at Pat’s King of Steaks Sept. 30 resulted in a criminal charge against a patron who said he threw a cheesesteak at an employee for social media content. Security footage showed the young male content creator holding a camera with one hand and flinging a cheesesteak through the window at an older male employee with the other. The assailant quickly fled but not before the employee could hurl the remnants of the sandwich back. A manager from rival Geno’s Steaks condemned the attack in a statement to WPVI. “That’s somebody’s grandfather,” Anthony Rossi told the outlet. “They don’t deserve that.”

Sofa on wheels

A pair of North Carolina men took the concept of “couch surfing” a bit too literally. According to an Oct. 1 social media post by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, officers stopped the men in late September as they rode down the street on a plush love seat attached to a pair of electric scooters. Officers said the men were transiting South Tryon Street with the furniture balanced between side-by-side Lime scooters. After the traffic stop, police said on social media, “While we appreciate the creativity, we do have to remind everyone: no matter what you’re ‘driving’ (using that term extremely loosely), please think about safety first.”