stupid

Answer tricky questions to test your IQ with Stupidness 2

If you expect wise questions and wise answers, then Stupidness 2 isn't the game for you; instead, the app will shock and entertain by asking simple questions and, by playing on the ambiguous nature of the language, will trick you. In the end, the answers are obvious, but you need to think outside the box to figure them out.

With Stupidness 2 you shouldn't expect sharp visuals or awesome audio effects; this is an app that is focused on brainteasers, all of which are designed to use your mind and creativity with a single aim: to make you … Read more

The 404 1,061: Where we're in too deep (podcast)

Stupid Andy helps us round out the week before the three-day holiday, and our favorite way to pay tribute to the soldiers is by getting choked up at YouTube videos of soldiers reuniting with their dogs. The ones with their families are pretty good, too.… Read more

Al Jaffee: Snappy answers to (not) stupid questions

q&a Mad Magazine has been running its back-page satire Fold-In since 1964. What many don't realize is that one man has been the driving artistic force behind every Fold-In since then: Al Jaffee.

Now 91, Jaffee is still painting the Fold-In monthly, and says he has no plans to give it up. It started as a parody of a regular feature called the fold-out in much higher-brow (and higher-profile) publications of the time, and caught the public's attention instantly.

He now has numerous collections and books out, including "Tall Tales," a collection of his syndicated comic strip from the New York Herald-Tribune that had a unique vertical orientation; "The Mad Fold-In Collection: 1964-2010"; and a biography by Mary-Lou Weisman called "Al Jaffee's Mad Life: A Biography."

Jaffee hasn't missed an issue since he started, and his work is widely appreciated. In 2006, Stephen Colbert celebrated Jaffee's 85th birthday with the birthday cake equivalent of a Fold-In.

Since the Fold-In in this month's Mad answers the question, "What's the only thing unavailable on the Internet?" we figured we'd turn the tables on Jaffee and ask him some far less humorous questions of our own. … Read more

The 404 1,021: Where we're laced with Cinavia (podcast)

Stupid Andy sits in the guest seat and he has a bone to pick with Cinavia today. I'm warning you that this discussion is technically the first time we've nerded out about DRM systems so hard, but it's relevant in terms of resale, personal file backups, and the rumor that the next PlayStation console won't allow used games.… Read more

The 404 999: Where we press all the right buttons (podcast)

Stupid Andy helps us out today with a busy rundown that includes Netflix earning first rights to new movies before cable TV; an interactive ad in the U.K. that claims it can recognize gender at a 90 percent success rate; a new Low Latency comic on Crave, and YouTube getting caught with its pants down!… Read more

The 404 956: Where the files are IN the computer? (podcast)

Leaked from 404 Podcast 956:

The future of airport security: thermal lie detectors and cloned sniffer dogs. Facebook's most-shared articles of 2011 list shows babies, banks, and brats. Fios is coming to an Xbox 360 near you. Could your printer be a Trojan horse? Researchers say yes!… Read more

Are you a moron?

The Moron Test is a smart and snarky game that taunts you with trick questions, memory tests, Simon Says-type instructions, and other brain teasers. The Moron Test doesn't require any specialized knowledge--just patience, attention to detail, and a little bit of creative thinking. A timer tracks your progress through successive levels (from "Bonehead" and "Average Mammal" on up to "Genius"), and any incorrect answer triggers a hearty "FAIL!" and sends you either back to the beginning or to the game's halfway checkpoint.

Overall, this is a fun (if somewhat limited) … Read more

The 404 810: Where our tablet could eat your tablet (podcast)

Stupid Andy returns to the show and delivers an impressive cover of Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle" using just an iPad and the Classic Guitar app! Andy also shows off his new non-Apple tablet, so be sure to check out Wilson throwing a schoolboy fit in the studio in protest. Plus, be sure to listen to hear how you can enter to win a pair of Gunnar indoor eyewear!

The 404 Digest for Episode 810

Google Doodles and Maps pay tribute to the royal wedding. Stupid Andy's new toy runs Windows 7 and has a Core i5 processor, but no kickstand. This November, San Francisco will vote to ban circumcision. Jenny Lawrence leaves us a video voice-mail, and here's the video she's referencing: Analog Pants: Rick Roll by the Red Balls.

We also have two pairs of Gunnar Optiks indoor eyewear to giveaway, but you only have this weekend to enter! Just follow us on Twitter and shoot us a tweet mentioning #Gunnar404 and why you deserve a pair of performance glasses optimized for the digital screen. We'll announce the winners on Monday, so good luck!

Episode 810 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

The 404 729: Where Stupid Andy is The 404's Nerd of the Year (podcast)

Kenley is back on The 404 today to announce the winner of our Nerd of the Year contest, and Stupid Andy is the victor!

Stupid Andy is a closet geek, so even though you might mistake him for a regular guy, he's well versed in audio/visual languages which I think puts him in the category of nerd, according to this article comparing the two.

Time has announced its Person of the Year for 2010, and although Justin Bieber, the Chilean miners, and the Tea Party all came close, Mark Zuckerberg clinched the title of the person who Time describes as "for better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

With Zuckerberg in the cockpit, Facebook has changed the way we communicate and consume news, but we have to question whether the release of "The Social Network" had anything to do with the nomination.

Plenty of Gawker accounts were compromised as a result of last weekend's Gnosis breach, and we learn on today's show that even some of our fellow CNET colleagues were affected by the hack! 

We also take a look at a graph of the top 50 Gawker Media passwords that are now posted online for public consumption. Clearly people just don't care about their commenting passwords on the site, because the first 10 are all lazy keyboard strokes  like "123456," "abc123," and "qwerty." On the stranger side, "monkey," "consumer," "superman," and just the number "0" were all identified as popular passwords.

In the face of disaster, the smart thing to do is adapt and move on, so check out this Lifehacker guide to reassessing your online security measures. The page suggests using a free password manager called LastPass that generates complex passwords for you, stores them on a network, and even audits them to make sure they're not easy to guess.

Narcs around the world have been waiting for a Big Brother app for the iPhone, and now it's here. It's called the PatriotApp, and it deputizes any iPhone user (pending a 99-cent fee) with the ability to report a number of crimes directly to the appropriate governmental agency. It links your iPhone to organizations like the FBI, the EPA, and the CDC so you can report things like government waste, environmental crimes, white-collar crimes, and public health concerns on the fly, but it just seems like a professional tool to snitch on your neighbor. Finally, you can also use the app to post your claims to Twitter and Facebook, so all your friends can be aware of your citizen's arrests.

Remember Daniel, our friend who visited The 404 studio last March? He left us this video voice mail telling us about the current fashion trends blanketing his middle school. Congratulations on your graduation, buddy--be sure to tell all your new high school friends about The 404!

Episode 729 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more