5 Ways Your Nerd Gadgets Are Killing You Video games will turn our kids violent. The Internet will ruin our attention spans. Texting will ruin the art of coherent typing -- yeah, yeah, Grandpa, we get it. You're scared of technology. But what's funny is that while all of the standard warnings turn out to be alarmist garbage, our geek toys are wreaking havoc in completely unexpected, and amazingly stupid, ways. For instance ... #5. You know the guy: He's veering right toward you, head down, eyes glued to whatever amazingly compelling narrative his buddies are texting him. GettySeconds later, four people were dead. You already know that texting while driving is completely idiotic and even worse than drunk driving, but who can't handle shooting someone a quick text while simply walking down the street? gadgetcomOne day society will learn that some folks deserve their head injuries. Meanwhile, cities like London have installed talking crosswalk signals at intersections to catch their attention. "Drowning, lol." #4. Getty #3.
The 6 Weirdest Things That Statistically Lower Crime You might not have noticed this in the middle of all of the bad news that floods the daily headlines, but crime in the U.S. is at its lowest point in pretty much ... well, ever. It's been steadily falling since the early '90s. And nobody knows why. Of course, such a giant, sweeping trend doesn't have just one simple cause, but studies have shown that it might have a few shithouse-crazy ones. So if you're feeling safer these days, science says it could be thanks to things like ... #6. Lead poisoning is one of those things our ancestors dealt with so thoroughly that we have trouble today realizing what a problem it was. "I shanked a kid for his Lunchables the other day." How deeply did lead's toxicity affect society? Nevin studied the criminal histories of nine countries and found that in each case he could link significant crime drops with that country's campaign to eliminate childhood lead poisoning. GettyShotgun victims are also very likely to have high lead exposure. #5. Wikipedia #4.
The 9 Most Unnecessary Gadgets Money Can Buy In a world where blankets with sleeves can create millionaires, it's no wonder inventors and businessmen are locked in a race to develop the next big thing in the lucrative "They really pay money for this?" industry. We don't hold that against them -- the entire world economy runs on that crap. What's harder to comprehend, though, is how they poker-facedly try to sell us gadgets that actually manage to complicate the task they're intended to help with. #9. wineenthusiast AmazonOr it might be tiny underwear for your glass. Apart from the obvious fact that using this product makes you look like a particularly boozy latchkey kid, there are just so many things that can go wrong here. AmazonEver wanted to know what it's like to be pitied by career alcoholics? Even if you manage to dodge all the other pitfalls provided by the product, there's this: How the hell do you drink from this thing? #8. leapsandbounds Everyone loves a good snowball fight. AmazonThe balls are pleasantly round, though.
6 Ways You Can (Accidentally) Attract the Ladies The other day the entire Cracked staff was sitting around on our lunch break when one of us realized, hey -- you, our reader, isn't having sex right now. We all agreed that was an injustice that could not stand, but what could we do? We are but an internet comedy site. Then we realized that the answer was simple -- we should make an entire freaking web series about it. Rom.Com is the new show from the people who brought you Adventures in Jedi School (us), and Agents of Cracked (also us, but like, a long time ago ... so it doesn't seem real anymore, ya know?). Of course, filming a series takes longer than 36 hours, so while we finish this up, please enjoy this Cracked Classic, which will scientifically explain how the weirdest, most utterly random things make you more attractive. If you're a heterosexual man, you've done at least one thing today purely intended to woo the ladies. Are you a little sensitive about the fact that you're not exactly the manliest dude on the block? Seriously?
The 7 Creepiest Inventions Ever Patented For the Crotch Some men will stick their dick in anything, and this is the only fact evolution and police blotters agree on. The penis is a combination executive toy and override switch. Most men don't actually think with their dicks, because we're not sitcom characters, but we're aware of them in the same way an oil rig manager has to be aware of the drill -- whatever else they actually want to do with their life, that's what the hardware they're using was designed for. GettyBecause it's miles long and pounding down into the planet's deep wet spots, and possibly the only thing more phallic than a phallus. But psychopaths ran out of things to enpenis about two hundred years ago and have been inventing new ones ever since. Most of them make the Saw movies look like infomercials for personal massagers. #7. Penis Exercise Machine (2010) Patent # US 7,828,718 B2 (PDF) Patent # US 7,828,718 B2 That's not an exercise machine, that's a spring-loaded genital noose. #6. #5. Patent # 494,436Messrs. #4.
The 6 Craziest People Who Are Overpopulating the World Millions of us are so terrified of or disinterested in having kids that we'll literally never do it. But the world's population keeps inflating like a balloon because there are plenty of people at the opposite end of that spectrum. Way, way at the opposite end. Like ... #6. The Fertility Doc With 75 Secret Kids Photos.com Let's say that for reasons known only to the fertility gods, you and your spouse are unable to have children. This guy, that's what. Photos.com"You should probably just get the funnel." The Crazy: During the '70s and '80s, hundreds of infertile women came to see Dr. Via Listzblog.com"Jabba, can I have your autograph?" It wasn't until Jacobson was accused of treating women with hormones to make them think they were pregnant (when he was really just showing them ultrasounds of their own feces) that people started to suspect there was something fishy about the doctor. Via Ranker.comThis is the evolutionary equivalent of steroid use in professional sports. #5. #4.
5 Horrifying Apocalyptic Scenarios (That Have Already Happened) It's impossible to turn on the news or go the movies without hearing about some disease or cataclysm that's about to end the world. There's a movie coming (2012) that as far as we can tell is about every apocalypse happening at once, and in the news the flavor of the week is swine flu--though so far the fatality rate has fallen rather short of, say, Popsicles. Our apocalypse fixation ignores the fact that the things we're afraid of are old-hat. Extinction level events have happened again and again throughout history and, lo and behold, we're still here. And hell, we probably wouldn't be without number five... Everyone knows this story: For millions of years, dinosaurs roamed the earth, snacking on the odd mammal that was unfortunate enough to get in their way. As for mammals, our only saving grace was that we bred like crazy and were too small to easily kill. Then one sunny day 65 million years ago, a big rock fell out of the sky like a game of cosmic billiards gone drunkenly sour.
The 5 Most Unsettling Disney Theme Park Easter Eggs We've mentioned before how Disney parks aren't strictly rainbows and tri-circled sunshine. While you and your family are waiting in lines and posting Facebook pictures to brag about how much fun you're having, there are secrets hiding all around you. If you know where to look, you can find ... #5. Fancy Some Disney Magic As you walk through the gates of Disney World, you're probably so overwhelmed by the magic of childhood that you don't notice that you're walking up an ever-so-slight incline. disneyorama.comIn case you ever wondered what the Death Star would be like if it were 400 percent more whimsical. Shortly after Disneyland opened, Walt Disney realized that it looked kind of odd when he had cowboys walking through Tomorrowland and astronauts walking through a Renaissance fair. Kingdom Keepers Wiki"Disney World is finally complete, the culmination of my life's work oh shit we forgot to build air holes!" Getty"Hey Dopey, can I bum a smoke?" #4. LA Times So how exclusive is this club? #3.
The 6 Cruelest Science Experiments Ever (Were Done on Kids) Sometimes science has to be ruthless. If curing cancer means dropping a dozen frightened children into the jungle for some reason, then by God that's what you do. And if you aren't curing cancer, but are just curious about what children look like when abandoned in a jungle, well, you still do it. Why? Because science. Think we're joking? #6. Getty In the summer of 1954, social psychologist Muzafer Sherif wanted to see if two groups stuck in the wild would learn to hate each other. Thus kicked off his Robbers Cave experiment, in which a group of 11 ordinary, middle-class 11-year-old boys headed to summer camp at Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma, anxious for three fun-filled weeks of hiking, fishing and swimming. The Situationist"In retrospect, providing the camp chapel with a full-sized crucifix was tragically misguided." GettyA nationalistic coup then wracked the Rattlers, leading to the establishment of a military junta. It took less than three weeks. Getty"I HAVE THE CONCH!" #5. #4.
The 8 Creepiest Cases of Identity Theft of All Time Identity theft is one of the most widely committed crimes in the world, affecting millions of people a year in varying degrees of severity, ranging from a few unwanted pizzas on your credit card bill to landing on an international watch list for political assassins. Sometimes the crimes are so elaborate and the consequences are so strange and unpredictable that it almost makes us want to cancel all our credit cards, forfeit all our licenses and live in a hole in the earth with pillowcases full of cash, surviving entirely on boiled tree roots and stale urine. #8. Getty Living with a roommate is almost always tough. But Brittany Ossenfort thought she was past all that, and with good reason. Via Quizlaw.comHow soon the lessons of Single White Female are forgotten. That all changed when Brittany Ossenfort got a call at work asking her to bail Brittany Ossenfort out of jail. Via Kansascity.comRichard. Getty"My name? #7. Getty"Honey, did you start taking meth and then give birth?" #6. #5.