Sploid: Where awesome, wild, and breathtaking tech moments burst into view.
Kotaku’s Evan Narcisse says that “within two minutes of playing Thralled my chest got tight and my head started to throb.” The iPad game puts you in the role of a slave mother fleeing with her baby. He says it was so powerful that it made him cry. https://kotaku.com/i-really-need-this-creepy-game-about-a-runaway-slave-to-1184668918
Josh Whedon—the director of teen TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Avengers—thinks The Empires Strikes Back sucks because—according to him—it doesn’t have an ending. Movies must have satisfying endings, he says. Otherwise they are bad movies, like French movies. If I want a movie that doesn’t end I’ll go to a French movie.…
Apollo 13 went terribly wrong, but it could’ve gone a lot worse—the astronauts actually survived this attempt at space exploration. Still, they had to talk to Richard Nixon. Check out these other incredible failures, because it’s not just the successful missions that make history. [Image via NASA.] https://gizmodo.com/photos-of-the-greatest-failures-in-exploration-history-1184646154
Bungie rose to popular culture stardom more than a decade ago with a game called Halo, which became a gigantic $2.8 billion business. They are aiming to do it again with Destiny, a sci-fi game so immersive, they claim, that people will be aching to return to every day. Watch this video to understand how…
Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer has bought her baby boy a $33,000 playhouse that’s probably bigger than your apartment. He isn’t even one year old yet. We hope he gets to play with his mom inside this disgraceful waste of money before Yahoo gets a new CEO. http://valleywag.gawker.com/yahoo-ceos-backyard-play-house-is-bigger-than-your-ap-1183474422
Tourists love to take pictures of each other standing in front of famous skylines. But the air pollution has been terrible lately in Hong Kong, so enterprising hucksters have installed fake “blue sky” cityscapes for the visitors to use as pretty urban backgrounds. https://kotaku.com/crap-air-makes-for-fake-tourist-photos-in-hong-kong-1182144346
Almost all baby boys in America were circumcised until a few decades ago, when the numbers began declining. Today in the western United States, only 40% of baby boys have the top of their penis chopped off by a doctor, while the rate is 58% nationwide. [Image via Shutterstock.] https://jezebel.com/infant-circumcision-rates-are-down-in-u-s-hospitals-1182874726
Gross old pervert Bob Filner is finally resigning as San Diego’s mayor, ending (?) an increasingly insane melodrama that is tacky even by San Diego’s corrupt, criminal standards. Filner is the Southern California suburb’s latest mayor to be forced out of office, but has not (yet) gone to jail like so many others. http://gawker.com/san-diego-mayor-bob-filner-to-resign-finally-1183521899
Sydney Leathers—the latest sexting partner of NYC mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner—may have been exposed to HIV via Xander Corvus—the actor who plays Weiner in Leathers’ Weiner porn parody. Just before filming with Leathers, Corvus had unprotected sex with Cameron Bay, who has just tested positive for HIV prompting a production moratorium in the entire industry.…
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. And those who can’t teach can steal expensive jewelry from their high school students and then get caught after selling the stolen valuables to a pawn shop. They’re going to love this guy in prison. https://deadspin.com/high-school-football-coach-accused-of-stealing-pawning-1179936286
The magical Apple HDTV set is nigh! Analysts, newspapers and blogs have quoted “reliable sources” claiming that for years. It feels like a decade, really. But again and again, the fabled appliance has failed to materialize. Now there’s a new rumor—stronger than ever, someone claims. (Of course, if you keep repeating rumors about company X…
Philadelphia’s baseball and football teams—the Phillies and the Eagles—shared the Veterans Stadium in the 90s. That included the shower, the rest room area and, according to one of the Eagle’s teammates, the blue chest, a big box brimming with “an awesome collection of porn.” https://deadspin.com/the-eagles-and-phillies-shared-a-porn-collection-at-the-1182454565
Every summer, the Earth gets destroyed by another couple of apocalyptic disaster movies. Why do we love seeing ourselves destroyed? Because daily life is a banal struggle, so global catastrophe or alien invasion seems fun in comparison. Plus, people behave beautifully when fighting a war together. https://gizmodo.com/whats-your-favorite-or-least-favorite-disaster-porn-1179307511
Government waste is a funny thing, because most everyone is outraged when they hear about real wasted money, but it’s only anti-government reactionaries who use such stories to justify taking away needed services from the elderly and sick children. Still, there are more than 500 good cars just sitting around federal property in Washington. Like…
People are idiots! But not you, of course. You’re not like the others. You know how to read! Also, you are a conspicuous consumer of printed matter sold by publishing corporations. Post some pictures of yourself with your carefully messy bookshelf and you’ve got the latest trend to warn other people away from you. https://jezebel.com/bookshelfies-are-selfies-for-people-who-can-read-1175293372
A terrifying and disgusting dead sea serpent washed up on Spain’s southeastern coast last week, spooking vacationers and bringing military officials to the tiny beach town of Villaricos. What is the 13-foot-long beast? And what sea monsters will August deliver next? http://gawker.com/what-the-hell-is-this-horned-sea-monster-that-washed-as-1177984154
Kate Dries says the Pure app is “for people who want casual sex but don’t want the bullshit of Craigslist or the hours it takes to online flirt with someone on OkCupid.” A Seamless Snapchat hybrid for sex. https://jezebel.com/the-endless-quest-for-a-hookup-app-women-will-actually-1177735667
Of you look close enough and for a long enough time, you will see this uncanny and extremely rare lights in the sky. They are called red sprites. What are they? https://gizmodo.com/ethereal-photos-capture-rare-red-lightning-phenomenon-1177809208
Many iPhone and Android owners dream of having the Nintendo classics for their touch gadgets, but as this Kotaku article demonstrates, a Mario game reinvented for touch screen only will be really terrible. Especially if it’s free. https://kotaku.com/the-horror-if-super-mario-bros-3-was-made-in-2013-for-1168392829
Smart phones are awesome. We walk around with amazing amounts of computing power in our pocket, connected to the entirety of human knowledge. Also: Plants Vs. Zombies! Angry Birds! Grindr! But what if you bought a $600 iPhone and now just want it to be a plain phone? https://lifehacker.com/how-i-turned-my-iphone-into-a-simple-distraction-free-1175739059
