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The power of 9s—and other marketing tricks that make you spend more We like to think we're smart about estimating value, but the reality isn't so pretty.
Most of us are senseless lemmings at the mercy of marketers and psychologists who are far, far smarter than we will ever be. It’s hard to think otherwise after reading William Poundstone‘s Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) – a delightful dissection of the tricks, tools and tactics behind the way we haggle over salaries, buy houses, and eat out at posh restaurants. (The same concepts can apply to how we value illegal goods and services, from prostitutes to purple haze.) “We don’t have an inner sense telling us what things are really worth,” Poundstone told us. “Instead, we rely on advertised prices…
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Top 10 most inadvertently funny movies in horror history You won’t pee your pants out of fear but you might poop yourself from laughing.
The movie villains who were actually the good guys Villains from throughout cinematic history who, on further examination, were definitely actually the good guys.
10 of the dumbest million dollar ideas of all time Completely useless ideas and inventions that still made a ton of money thanks to a gullible public and great marketing.
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The 11 best Goosebumps monsters Writing at a breakneck pace, R.L. Stine churned out sixty-two now classic Goosebumps. These are his best monsters.
It’s plain to see that 90s kid lit is enjoying a renaissance right now, and the king of the paperbacks back in the day was R. L. Stine. Writing at a breakneck pace, he churned out sixty-two mainline Goosebumps books as well as dozens of spin-offs and other titles. Stine’s series made horror accessible to audiences too young for R-rated fare, taking a variety of terror tropes and giving them young adult twists. With the second Jack Black-starring Goosebumps movie set to hit theaters, we pulled out the library card and reacquainted ourselves with the freaks and beasts of the original book series. Here are definitive picks for the eleven…
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10 cryptid monsters that turned out to be hoaxes A lot of these are silly as hell, too.
10 reasons you should never date a pornstar The pros just don't outweight the cons.
The websites stuck in time (and somehow still being served) Let's gawk at websites so old their html was written in Sanskrit—but are still functional and being served up by a server somewhere.
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11 short story collections that need to be in every bookshelf Ah, short stories — the lazy man’s novel. But so much harder to pull off.
Ah, short stories — the lazy man’s novel. Actually, that’s not true. In fact, a perfect short piece is, in many ways, much harder to pull off than a novel, where you have time and space to develop the narrative. Below are 11 collections that belong on any aspiring literary connoisseur’s bookshelf or toilet. Come Back, Dr. Caligari, Donald Barthelme (1971) While Raymond Carver was busy perfecting the art of realist suburban malaise, Donald Barthelme was going the other way, writing post-modern, deconstructionist short stories that would inspire subsequent generations of experimental writers with their non-sequitorial insanity. His first collection, Come Back, Dr. Caligari, is as strange a book as…
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True story: how I blew a 500k settlement on booze and prostitutes The story of how I got hit by a Dodge minivan and pissed away 500k on booze, whores, and designer furniture in an epic adventure.
Here are all the mentions of prostitutes in the leaked US diplomatic cables I sifted through WikiLeaks' dump of secret government cables for entries about sex work.
10 heartbreaking stories about dementia that make you appreciate our old people Fairy tales, confusion, and living hell.
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15 scientific ways picking up a book makes you a better man (and even gets you laid) Overall reading is on the rise, but quality is on the decline. Let science convince you reading a book is actually life-changing.
We can swipe through endless pages and pages on our tablets and phones. We have access to practically infinite archives of online articles and news. While modernity is allowing us to read more than ever, there is still a difference between reading and reading books. According the The Telegraph, while overall reading is on the rise, quality of reading is falling off a cliff. Reading your Facebook timeline isn’t the same as reading Tolstoy. It’s a shame, because reading a good book is not only fun; it’s nothing short of life-changing. Let me explain. Reading makes you more attractive to women A study recently confirmed the belief that being (or…
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Is this the creepiest radio show ever? Many of the horror writers—King, Matheson, Bradbury—share the experience of being traumatized by the 25-minute “The Thing on the Fourble Board.”
Guysmopolitan: 20 hilariously bad tips you would find in the male version of Cosmo You should probably just do the opposite of what Cosmo tells you whether it's cranking out dumb shit for men or women.
8 weird vintage sex products Want to enjoy the salubrious benefits of horse exercise massage? Come on in and let's cure your female hysteria.
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6 reasons the world may never recover from the Twilight franchise We can't let more Twilight happen.
It’s easy to laugh Twilight off as nothing more than watered down porn for middle school girls… but it is definitely no laughing matter. Twilight’s effect on the overall mental health of society is very real and very serious. We’ve chosen to ignore other serious threats to civilization, but this is a disaster that calls for the mobilization of efforts to stop Twilight. Teen pregnancy Chiseled werewolf abs and whiny vampires who look like the guy that brings the guitar and folk songs to a kegger make the reproductive organs of teenage girls go haywire. This has obviously resulted in an increase in teen pregnancies. Some of these pregnancies might…
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Smells like nostalgia: this is why smells trigger old memories You take a whiff and a flood of vivid memories from twenty years ago rush through you.
These useful fast food hacks will save money and change your lunch forever Tested and true fast food hacks to enhance your dining experience.
The gentleman’s guide to hacking Tinder We put the best experts in a room and distilled the essence into this thing.
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Meet the Yugo: the worst car ever made How do you double a Yugo's value? Just fill the tank.
Even people who weren’t born before 1985 know that the Yugo is a synonym for automotive crapulence – one of the most laughable, undependable, unfortunate products ever hawked in the United States. Jason Vuic’s fascinating book, The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History, provides a detailed roadmap of how this sad hunk of car came to be. It’s a thoroughly weird saga that involves a shady entrepreneur, backwards factories in Serbia, and comedians who loved to hate on this untrendy auto. Why do Yugos have a heater for the back window? To keep your hands warm as you push it. Now, the Yugo is a…
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The lottery curse: 8 lottery winners who lost everything Explore the archetypal ways lottery winners end up down and out, through eight real stories.
These are the haunting last words of doomed airplane pilots Black boxes record everything going on in the cockpits of crashing planes. These are the last words of their doomed pilots.
This 1950s science kit for kids came with real uranium What’s even better than a nice refreshing huff of DDT? Giving children uranium to play with to their heart's desire, of course.
