5 Creepy Ways Animal Societies Are Organizing One thing we've learned during our extensive research here at Cracked is that animals are more and more amazing the more you learn about them. But there's a point on the graph where they're a little too amazing, and then it crosses into "unsettling." So we're not sure how to feel about the fact that... Chimpanzees Go to War You'd think "Chimpanzee Researcher" would be the most hilarious job in the world, what with the subjects always putting on people clothes and pretending to smoke pipes. More terrifying than the Congo chimp's alliance with the Clown People. Every once in a while groups of strong chimp males would form up and head north, toward the border between their territory and the land of the neighboring tribe. Then they did it again. You expect this kind of bullshit from apes. Source This isn't some freak occurrence, either. Ooh-ooh-ah-ah! And while we're on primates... Monkeys Have Prostitution, an Economy and Labor Strikes "Spare some tick-plucking?" Dumbasses. Service?
6 Scientific Discoveries That Laugh in the Face of Physics As we've pointed out before, there are some startlingly simple questions that science can't answer. And then there are the special occasions where the universe up and does a freaking magic trick that seems to be designed by an unjust, all-powerful entity dedicated to making scientists slowly pull off their glasses while saying, "What in the hell?" For instance ... #6. The Sun Can Make Stuff Hotter Than Itself We intuitively understand the direction that energy travels -- from the thing with energy to the thing with less energy. GettyThat asshole always has to be the center of attention. There's a discrepancy between what science says should happen and what the sun actually does, and it's known as the sun's coronal heating problem. The facts are pretty straightforward; the sun's surface sits comfortably at a blazing temperature of roughly 5,500 degrees Celsius. GettyHe's a loose cannon! GettyWould anything this awesome-looking follow rules dreamed up by some nerds? #5. #4. Getty"Wizards.
5 Places Where Society Inexplicably Breaks Down We have rules. We have a government. Most of us wear pants. We have television shows and movies, and the enviable luxury to complain about those things. Looking around, it's easy to call us civilized. But we're animals. #5. I like to mail headshots and DVDs of myself waving politely to our soldiers, firemen and several random addresses, just to remind everyone what we're fighting for. "Hi, I'm the only one in the world who can deliver your package, and it is not a priority for me." It's the same feeling people get when they go to the DMV (similarly understaffed, similarly line-heavy and similarly useless most of the time). At the DMV or the post office, unlike anywhere else, when someone enters and sees a line, they immediately don't believe it. If you want to see hate on a person's face, go to your local post office and watch people. #4. "Raise your hands in the air if you don't care! "Everyone, could -- if we could all calm down, there's -- I think someone died, somewhere." #3. But no.
The End of Online Anonymity: Why Will You Be Freaking Out? When you make forum posts beginning with, "I'm not a racist, but..." or call us retards in the comments, do you use your real name? What if you had to? Cracked has no plans to implement such a feature, but the world certainly seems to be heading that direction. You probably saw the raging backlash that occurred when one of the world's largest video game companies tried to institute a "you must post under your real name" policy: The idea lasted about two days before they were forced to back down. But that felt like a temporary reprieve for anonymity. For all that's going to accomplish. The curtain is coming down (or going up, depending on what type of curtain you're picturing) and it's fascinating to see how differently people react to that possibility. So where do you fall on this spectrum? People With Secret (But Perfectly Legal) Online Lives Let's get this out of the way right now: We know you don't have to be a troll to be afraid of revealing your identity online. Hint: It's the eyes.
5 Online Petitions That Prove Democracy is Broken The White House has set up a petition site for Internet commenters, which is weird, because it's usually in favor of democracy.* "We the People" lets random users make demands of the government. YouTube comments already provide more convincing arguments against democracy than Marx and Mao combined. After all, the person asking Yahoo Answers "How is babby formed?" *ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Guarantee insane political comments in the lead sentence. Now that the government has given democracy itself a comment section, let's see what the Internet is doing with it, shall we? #5. NOTE:Petitions are notoriously wordy because idiots think talking longer makes a stronger argument. Full X-Files Text It's obvious that there's life somewhere else in the universe (especially since every star has planets), and equally obvious that there's none on Earth. Getty"If I told you that you could ride it into space, would you look at the pictures of it?" We're not saying E.T. #4. Full text #3.
The 6 Weirdest Ways Wild Animals Are Having to Adapt to Us Humanity's track record with animals has never been stellar. After centuries of ocean dumping, worldwide deforestation, domestication and overhunting, it's safe to say we've got a greasy, opposable thumb in every one of Mother Nature's pies. That's not to say that humanity's only effect on the animal kingdom is pure destruction; in fact, sometimes our ecological footprint looks more like a clown shoe. #6. Talking Birds Are Teaching Each Other to Swear Probably the only thing you know about parrots and cockatoos is that they can talk. After all, the pets that are raised among humans and learn (or learn to imitate) dozens of words sometimes either escape or are released into the wild. That's why people around Sydney, Melbourne and other big cities in Australia have found wild cockatoos using English phrases. Now imagine how crazy you'd think you were going if one day you were walking through the woods and you suddenly heard a disembodied bird voice tell you to eat a dick. #5. #4. Photos.com
The 6 Most Horrific Lessons Ever Taught in Elementary School As a society we put an incredible amount of trust in our teachers. They're alone with our kids for most of the day, and what they teach them will shape their worldview. The potential for things to go wrong is enormous. And as you'd suspect, things often go enormously wrong. Irresponsible or downright crazy teachers wind up teaching our kids lessons we'd rather they'd kept to themselves. Never Be Afraid to Get A Little Feces On Your Hands At East Iberville Elementary School in Louisiana, they don't take shit from little kids, literally. It started when little Trevor ate too many Pop Tarts for breakfast. His teacher however, failed to recognize his achievement in its proper light and wanted to punish him. It turns out the teacher was part of an "alternative" teaching program, at least that's what the school said after police arrested her and charged her with juvenile cruelty. "Hurry up or no story time!" We're glad to hear that at least one school board member wants to fire the teacher.
4 Flawed Life Lessons Movies Accidentally Taught Us There are a few universal truths I have learned from watching movies throughout my lifetime: Killing is only OK if the guys are bad, love is more important than stuff and, given the choice, always bet on black. The lessons imparted by films may seem trite or cloying at times, but they are always important because they reflect the principles and priorities of our culture. We use the morals from movies as blueprints for our own lives, so even though infidelity, brutality and deceit can exist in a story, we know that by the end someone is going to be held accountable for it all, preferably while being karate kicked out of an airplane. But every once in awhile we get confused. #4. The Offenders:Up in the Air/Crazy, Stupid, Love. The moral of a lot of movies, romantic comedies in particular, is that we all need to check in with our priorities now and again to be sure we're still on the right track in life. Only one of these people is on the path to personal betterment. #3.
5 Absurd Solutions to Huge Problems (That Actually Worked) Who among us hasn't been asked by a teacher or a boss to "think outside the box"? It's all well and good when you're looking at a word problem on a Denny's application, not so much when you're staring down a problem with lives on the line. So you have to admire the guys who improvised the following: #5. Building a Supercomputer Out of Hundreds of PlayStations The U.S. military needed a supercomputer, but didn't want to spend the millions of dollars they typically cost. Getty"Nope, no boner flag -- we have our grownup hats on today." The Creative Solution: So they bought almost 2,000 Sony PlayStation 3s and hooked them together to see what would happen. OK, we're being a bit unfair there. cnetImagine the photorealistic Duke Nukem crotch bulge that thing could generate. For one-tenth of the cost of a traditional supercomputer, the Condor Cluster is also using one-tenth of a traditional supercomputer's power. GettyThey could have saved $4.2 million by shopping on Black Friday. #4. #3.
6 Horrible Aftermaths Implied By Movies With Happy Endings It's amazing how you can ruin a movie's perfectly happy ending with a little bit of analysis (as we've previously shown here and here). For instance, in the following films, the ending turned out just fine for the main character, but totally screwed characters who were left conveniently off-screen. For instance ... (Thankfully, analysis only makes the trailer for Cracked's new Star Wars mini-series even better.) #6. How It Ended: Despite popular belief, the movie did not end here: Although for many of us, it did. The official ending involves an actual battle with enemy fighter jets over hostile waters. "Well done. The Horrific Aftermath: While the film never made it clear which nation the U.S. engages, the initial script and audio commentary indicate that it was supposed to be North Korea. "I have you now." "Hell yeah, we did." #5. At the end of her three-plus hour rambling response to Bill Paxton's single question of "Do you know where this comically oversized diamond is?" #4. "Don't mind me.
6 Reasons Modern Gaming Doesn't Suck: An Anti-Rant Gamers tend to complain a lot about the state of modern gaming. I'm no exception to the rule: I look around me and see naught but the endless, flaming plains of Pre-Order Bonus DLC and the crumbling towers of Always Online DRM, and lo, I despair. Why do they have to keep segmenting, expanding or otherwise screwing with the formats of our games? Jesus, can't they see all this technology is ruining our technology?! But then I stopped and realized: We have all of these amazing, fantastic, borderline magical creations in our hands that, in many ways, dwarf all the wildest predictions of yesteryear -- and we've got the balls to stand around and bitch that they're taking too long to load. #6. Game worlds today are staggering in their depth and integrity. That's a world. I know the more pretentious gamers (myself included) loudly complain that the focus on graphics and technological benchmarks is killing the soul of the industry. #5. "All right, somebody die to amuse me." #4. That's not fair.
The 6 Most Disastrous Attempts at Internet Damage Control They call it the Streisand effect, and it happens any time people try to suppress Internet criticism, then see it blow up hilariously in their faces. As these companies can tell you, sometimes it's better to just let it go. Suing to Make Science Stop Being Right All the Time Chiropractors belong to a medical discipline that may or may not actually do anything to heal people. Despite some evidence that there's value in what chiropractors do, many people think they're full of shit, and they aren't afraid to voice this opinion. One such man, Simon Singh, decided to tell the chiropractic community just exactly what he thought of it in an article blasting the entire profession. He was probably just jealous. More specifically, he targeted chiropractors' claims that their services could help children with asthma or colic, and of course they were making a fortune off these claims. The Backfire: "Oh yeah, this'll cure the shit out of your AIDS." The Fallout: As for the unfortunate Mr. Adjust this.