San Francisco researcher Richard Din died this past Saturday of a meningococcal infection — the bacteria which causes meningitis. However, Din was not just a random individual struck down by a deadly disease; he was a researcher working with the very bacteria which killed him.

This video, teaching us all about fear in children, teaches us something about fear in grown adults, in that this thing is pure terror. Enjoy.

When you have a lot of money and live in a fancy penthouse, the first idea that should come to mind is to — obviously — set your bathroom atop a 15 story elevator shaft and make the floor glass so you can be terrified every time you accidentally drop something on bathroom floor. Designed by Hernandez Silva, this penthouse, located in Guadalajara, Mexico, seems to think the bathroom is a good place to scare the literal something or other out of people.

Late last month, the private information of people within the Utah medicaid system was accessed by nefarious hackers. The initial numbers of around 180,000 people affected were troubling enough, but those have ballooned several times over. The Utah Department of Health is now reporting that 280,000 people had their Social Security Numbers exposed and an additional 500,000 had less sensitive information — such as names and addresses — accessed.

I’d call it fake, but it’s hard to say given how much people love Angry Birds and the fact that it shows up just about everywhere.

Acid isn’t very good for your teeth. Go figure. But you never cover your teeth in acid. Or do you? The Minnesota Dental Association has released a list of popular sour candies and their acidities, showing how many of them can damage teeth. Spoiler: All of them. But blah blah blah, dental health. Boring, right? Not if you throw in battery acid as a point of comparison. Those dentists know how to get some attention. Keep in mind, acidity is measured on the ph scale, which is logarithmic, meaning that a ph score of 2.0 is 10 times more acidic than something with a score of 3.0. It gets more acidic as you go down. Battery acid is a 1.0. Wonka Fun Dip power? 1.8.

Check out the full, terrifying list after the jump.

Artist Dimitri Tsykalov produces some weird art, one of the weirdest being his raw meat representations of guns, some of which come with adorable little vegetable or fungi bullets. Tsykalov says the art demonstrates the simplicity and brutality of the gun, but it is entirely possible that it also demonstrates the oozing capability of raw meat when the grip is being squeezed; guns are generally supposed to shoot bullets, but these guns ooze meat juice instead.

The infamous “Bed Intruder” song, a meme inspired by Antoine Dodson’s appearance and testimonial on a news broadcast regarding the police’s search for a suspect who supposedly broke into Dodson’s home and attempted to assault Dodson’s sister in her bed, is available on the Rock Band Network, the indie-inspired platform on which lesser-known bands can have their songs implemented into Rock Band on a kind of do-it-yourself basis.

Harmonix has always put “comedy songs” into their games, dating as far as the very first Guitar Hero, with “Caveman Rejoice” by The Bags and “Hey” by Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives. Harmonix then moved on to Guitar Hero II and included “Thunderhorse” by Adult Swim band Dethklok, as well as “Trogdor” by Strongbad — they even included “Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld” from South Park and “Charlene (I’m Right Behind You)” by Stephen and the Colberts. Now, after moving from more traditional songs, to television songs, to Internet show songs, “Bed Intruder” will be the first meme added to the collection. Hide your mic stand, plastic-instrumenteurs, because Antoine Dodson has intruded Rock Band. The song costs 160 Microsoft Points or $2 and your soul.

(via Kotaku)

It’s sort of hard to be surprised when torrenting is the focus of a lawsuit, but this time it’s a little easier. The Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network is suing BitTorrent Inc. for patent infringement, of all things. While your typical torrenting lawsuits argue that BitTorrent and its software are accessories to copyright infringement, this lawsuit argues that BitTorrent is a patent infringement by its very nature.

It’s sort of hard to be surprised that torrenting is the focus of lawsuit, but this time it’s a little easier. The Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network is suing BitTorrent Inc. for patent infringement, of all things. While your typical torrenting lawsuits argue that BitTorrent and its software are accessories to copyright infringement, this lawsuit argues that BitTorrent is a patent infringement by its very nature.

Read on...

Last year, actor Dennis Singletary appeared in Honda’s The Really Big Thing ad campaign, a promotional event for the auto giant. Looking to keep his fuel bills low, Singletary tried to buy a Honda car under the same terms that he advertised. However, actually getting those terms turned out to not be so easy.

The first dealership he visited didn’t have the car he wanted — no harm, no foul. The second dealership he visited did have the car, but refused to give it to him under the terms advertised with the Really Big Thing. They claimed that his credit score was too low to qualify, which raised his monthly lease payments. This was interesting, since the first dealership had told Singletary that not only did he qualify but  that his credit score was 100 points higher than the second dealer claimed. Singletary went to so far as to call the first dealer and quote him the figure again in front of the second dealership’s manager, but to no avail.

It turns out that the second dealership was playing silly buggers with his credit score, using a higher quote in order to extract higher lease payments. Singletary ended up with a Honda at a good rate from a different dealership, but has been unable to bring down punitive measures against the people that tried to swindle him. His open letter to Honda has been circulating around the web, and paints a schizophrenic picture of Honda dealerships. One, helpful and forthright, the other deceitful despite staring into the face of the man that shilled their cars on TV.

(TMZ via The Consumerist)