Sploid: Where awesome, wild, and breathtaking tech moments burst into view.
Everybody loves champagne! Why? Because it’s what the richest hip hop entertainers enjoy, night and day. They like to drink it and also pour it strippers. If you aren’t that rich, try learning about champagne and how to get a good bottle for a fair price. https://deadspin.com/how-to-drink-champagne-without-becoming-even-more-broke-1019494417
It’s an spectacular image: a lightning striking a train in Tokyo last Monday. There were no victims but it’s perfect summary of the terrible month suffered by trains all over the world. In total, there were 10 accidents, 149 dead, 450 injured. What the hell happened? 2013 was being a calm year until July came.…
What caused this gentleman to pull down his jeans and show his butt to the street while standing in the doorway of local clown shop The Fecund Clown? The police, obviously! They were just driving through this run-down part of town, as was the robotic photographer of this haunting image of Americana. https://jalopnik.com/heres-the-most-disturbing-thing-youll-ever-see-on-goo-1117899799
Even people who don’t care about video games are laughing at the fake (?) political commercials in the new Grand Theft Auto game. A drug-addicted right-wing “former stuntman” is campaigning against a know-it-all teacher’s union lackey who wants income taxes raised to 74%. Kill ’em all—that’s what this game is about! https://kotaku.com/grand-theft-auto-v-mocks-republicans-skewers-democrats-1134219480
Since the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden brought electronic surveillance back to the headlines, lots of people are creeped out about the government illegally watching everything we do online. At least there’s an easy way to keep bosses and spouses from reading your secret emails. https://lifehacker.com/how-to-encrypt-your-email-and-keep-your-conversations-p-1133495744
For the first time ever, scientists have re-built the beating heart of an animal with human cells. This means “regenerative medicine”—replacing diseased body parts with custom grown living replacements—is one step closer to being a very expensive procedure at your local hospital. https://gizmodo.com/researchers-have-re-built-a-beating-mouse-heart-from-hu-1134672119
Is Hyperloop destined to be the pipe dream of Elon Musk, another failed futuristic transport like these crazy futuristic transports of yesteryear? Hopefully not. But I wish some of these ten awesome inventions existed today. https://jalopnik.com/the-ten-most-ambitious-failed-utopian-mass-transit-syst-1135019271
Slap any superhero logo on any piece of merchandise and it will sell more. But these Avengers vibrators are mightier than that. Too bad they are just concepts, because I’m sure they would get tens of thousands of clients at next year’s Comic-Con. https://gizmodo.com/these-avengers-dildos-are-presumably-earths-mightiest-1111237515
Apple fans have recently enjoyed the two color choices offered in the iPhone models: black, or white. Maybe it didn’t matter because few people want to carry a $600 phone without a protective case. But today, iPhone lovers are in a state of shock because this video shows what might be a new, yellow iPhone.…
A discount clothing chain for young women is again being mocked for its endless offerings of Jesus-themed young women’s casual fashion. This chain is owned by fundamentalist Christians, but instead of only selling burqas they just put ridiculous cross shapes on all their tacky clothes. Can you name this horrid store? https://jezebel.com/forever21-celebrates-jesus-in-all-his-forms-1134817189
Badgers are cool. They don’t give a damn about anything, not even Slavic lords or warriors from the 12th century. That’s why this badger excavated his lair on top of their tombs, making a great discovery in the process. https://gizmodo.com/badger-unearths-medieval-graves-in-germany-1133762133
The Star Wars prequels suck. Boring premises, bad scripts, confusing plots, uninteresting motives, and nonexistent character development. But, as this dude explains in this video, they could have been great movies with some very specific changes. If you watch the two videos, you will see he’s right. They could have worked perfectly fine with these…
Some dogs love a ride in the car, other dogs hate it. Regardless, when you have a terrible car accident your pet will be thrown to its death or smashed to bits on the dashboard—unless you have a dog seatbelt, which one major car company is planning to put in new models. https://jalopnik.com/subaru-wants-to-make-car-rides-safer-for-your-dog-1125088992
Tech billionaire, electric car manufacturer and space-rocket contractor Elon Musk has everyone excited about his plan to zip people between Los Angeles and San Francisco in half an hour. But did a mysterious inventor and businessman do the same thing beneath New York City in 1869? https://gizmodo.com/how-one-inventor-secretly-built-a-pneumatic-subway-unde-1123695775
There’s so much we know about the habits and (terrible) behavior of modern humans, and so little we know about our ancestors before they could put everything on Twitter. That’s why it’s great to learn that we might’ve stolen valuable stick/rock technology from Neanderthals before killing them all. https://gizmodo.com/early-humans-may-have-ripped-off-neanderthal-technology-1120926300
Smurfs are some kind of idiot garbage from Nazi Germany. A company got the (presumably cheap) rights to make bad cartoons from these blue toys, and the resulting movies are predictably terrible. One funny part is there is just one female Smurf, who must be the sex interest and also the mother of all the…
Radar was the key technology to win the Battle of Britain against the Nazis. To protect their secret weapon, British Intelligence invented a propaganda campaign that claimed their pilots could see in the dark because they ate a lot of carrots. https://gizmodo.com/youve-been-lied-to-about-carrots-your-whole-life-becau-1124868510
Fans of British sci-fi series Dr. Who will ooohaaah endlessly at this amazing easter egg in Google Streetview. Put your Chrome in incognito mode and follow these instructions to get from the real world Police Box at Earl’s Court tube station into the TARDIS, the Timelord’s spacetime craft. https://jalopnik.com/google-maps-has-an-incredible-dr-who-easter-egg-1121878011
Johnny Manziel is a college football star currently in trouble for allegedly selling his own autographs. Yet his Texas family is supposedly loaded with cash, from Texas redneck pursuits such as oil drilling, small-time scams and … cockfighting. [Photo via Shutterstock.] https://deadspin.com/the-long-con-how-the-manziels-conquered-america-1040593220
There are wealthy people out there sharing their opinions on college—that it’s a poor investment, that student loans are insane, that even having a degree from a good university is no guarantee you’ll get a job in your chosen field. Fine. Meanwhile, those of us without degrees are facing a crazily hostile world. [Photo via…