The 10 smartest and stupidest iPhone apps , according to British technology website The Register. The smartest apps include things like personal databases, information tools and music streaming and identification apps. The stupid section is a morass of farts, poop, pickup lines and badly rendered, vaguely creepy pictures of girls. Idiocracy, it seems, has come early to the App Store.
posted by acb on Jul 9, 2009 - 54 comments

Muxtape's Justin tells the story play-by-play. You may remember an earlier post about muxtape being shut down. After all kinds of speculation, discussion, and consternation, we can finally know what really happened.
posted by crazyray on Sep 26, 2008 - 32 comments

The Stupidity of Dignity: Conservative bioethics' latest, most dangerous ploy. Steven Pinker reviews Human Dignity and Bioethics, the latest report from the President's Council on Bioethics. [more inside]
posted by homunculus on May 28, 2008 - 28 comments

HorribleEconomicNewsFilter: Rogue trader costs his bank 7 billion dollar. Take that, Nick Leeson!
posted by Skeptic on Jan 24, 2008 - 55 comments

The hucksters behind the QLink Pendant claim that it "utilises Sympathetic Resonance Technology to rebalance the energetic systems of the body". Apparently, some scientists and engineers think £69.99 is a fair price for a necklace consisting of a copper coil and a zero-ohm resistor [neither of which are actually connected to anything]. The inventor claims that the QLink does not use electronics components “in a conventional electronic way” yet it "increases your capacity to function in EMF saturated environments."I guess golfers will buy anything that promises an improved score. It's the perfect accessory for my new Faraday suit.
posted by chuckdarwin on Aug 11, 2007 - 41 comments

Just when you thought virtual reality couldn't get any worse, it's 3D Email! "Immerse yourself in 3-D as you read and write your mail. Hang with your mail poolside, or feed your spam to the sharks! Deleting spam is so much fun, you may wish you had more! ...It's an email metaverse!"
posted by verb on Jul 18, 2007 - 46 comments

News of stupidity in the fight against terrorism: Up to three years in jail for not loudly enunciating, in front of his mom, that he had a penis pump. If you do not know that you are an American citizen, it's your fault and you may be deported as an illegal alien. Manhattan train stopped because of some woman's bottle of iced tea? BC Ferry delayed 3 hours because of a forgotten briefcase (my coworker lives next to the terminal and has learned that this was an RCMP officer's briefcase, though that detail has not made the media). There are so many of these stories...we really need one place to group them all together.
posted by Kickstart70 on Aug 24, 2006 - 87 comments

Bush's threat to veto stem cell funding is a joke. Scott Rosenberg says flat out why Bush's threat is shamelessly amoral and hyporcritical, and purely political in nature. (via)
posted by Doorstop on Jul 19, 2006 - 126 comments

Don't smoke urine if you're looking for a methamphetamine high, because you might burn yourself, or worse, have the world find out about your mishap. The best is the quote from his lawyer: "I suspect that, more than anything, Steve was doing this as an intellectual proposition." Lawyers will say the darnedest things.
posted by dbiedny on Dec 3, 2005 - 28 comments

This explains EVERYTHING. Originally appearing in Whole Earth Review many years ago, Cipola wrote an inspired and extremely funny game theoretic analysis of the nature of stupidity that explains the mysteries of the universe and the current administration. Or something.
posted by INFOHAZARD on Sep 27, 2005 - 27 comments

Man Claims Firing Over Drinking Wrong Beer He works for one mega-beer brand and, on his own time, partook of a competitor's.
posted by alumshubby on May 18, 2005 - 72 comments

Integrated Planning Guidance, Fiscal Years 2005-2011 --a Dept. of Homeland Security document outlining groups to watch out for in the coming years completely omits rightwing and militia groups and individuals as a threat. Clearly listed in the document? ELF and ALF--leftwing groups that destroy property, but have never murdered, unlike Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph and the many others who have arsenals and plenty of hatred, and have already proven themselves killers.
posted by amberglow on Mar 28, 2005 - 15 comments

"So...we set everything up. We planned it out. Turned my house into a ... bank actually and acted it out for like weeks," the caller said, adding he and others were "buyin' Louis Vuitton this, Blass that, everything man." If you robbed a bank five months ago and did such a good job that you didn't get caught and the police have no leads, would you keep quiet? Not if you're this guy, who was caught when he called into the Confessions segment of the Drex Morning Show to brag about it five months later.
posted by SisterHavana on Feb 23, 2005 - 15 comments

Amid rumors of a ritual suicide, it seems Luther Blissett has gone back underground, but out of the shadows Wu Ming emerges! Best of all, Q is available among several free downloads under Omnia Sunt Communia.
posted by roboto on Apr 2, 2004 - 9 comments

It's not a slur, but it sounds too much like one, therefore it's not an appropriate word to be taught in school. The job of Stephanie Bell, a veteran fourth grade teacher at Williams Elementary School in Wilmington, North Carolina, has been placed in jeopardy. Why? Because she taught a new vocabulary word to her class, and one student's mother became so outraged by the word that she's now on a crusade to have the teacher fired for introducing it to her students, in context, with a definition and discussion of its proper use. The word? The oft-maligned but wholly useful niggardly. (more inside)
posted by Dreama on Sep 5, 2002 - 118 comments

Don't be stupid! Not in the sense of poor cognitive capacity, or low IQ, but more in the sense of lack of wisdom and foresight. Why do smart people make foolish decisions?
posted by aeschenkarnos on Jun 7, 2002 - 12 comments

"The title of my talk tonight is How to Conquer Stupidity, which is actually a pretty stupid thing to attempt. For me, anyway. One, it's not possible. Two, maybe it's not even desirable. That's probably the premise of all of my work, that I embrace my stupidity wholeheartedly and celebrate it, as often as I can." And you can too, here.
posted by semmi on May 9, 2002 - 6 comments

Be discriminated against for looking too good. In Western Australia, a widow whose husband died accidentally is losing compensation money because she's considered attractive enough to remarry. What stupid laws do you have where you live?
posted by Jubey on Apr 13, 2002 - 26 comments

Stupid things I have done, a list by Heather and her readers.
posted by Mo Nickels on Oct 14, 2001 - 34 comments

And the award for the dumbass of the year goes to.... Constantinos Carpis - an Australian who "told ticket-counter employees he had a nuclear bomb during routine questioning as he checked in."
posted by viama on Sep 19, 2001 - 21 comments

Warning labels, the volume knobs on small infants, Death By Vending Machine. It's an ever-shifting line in the sand of human stupidity, a vague cultural boundary defining how much we expect our products and corporations to protect us from ourselves and how much we're willing to be answerable for our actions, a line dividing how logic-impaired we're willing to admit we sometimes are and how responsible a given corporation should be for dumping shoddy and/or dangerous products on the market without warning. Is excessive labeling a release from liability? Is it killing off common sense or the need to have common sense?
posted by th3ph17 on Jul 18, 2001 - 52 comments

Memorex hacked
Question. If you hack a site, is it really a good idea to leave behind your email address?
posted by yangwar on Feb 8, 2001 - 22 comments

Four out of Five Americans Know Earth Revolves around the Sun. I certainly wish this was an Onion Headline. Should we all know this? I'm inclined to think so. Elsewhere in the article, 2% of Americans believe that Independence was won from France. Shoot me in the face.
posted by liquidgnome on Jan 10, 2001 - 71 comments