Sad, isn’t it? I mean, I have nothing against social networks. In fact, I think they could actually be helpful and useful in many cases. But sometimes, there are those who put too much of their worth or their life into these sites, that they’re driven to do really crazy stuff in some extreme situations.

Just a few days ago, a couple from Tennessee were murdered because they “unfriended” a woman named Jenelle Potter. In a fit, her father and some other guy went to the couple’s home and shot them in the head. Their 8-month old baby was found unharmed in the mother’s arms. Maybe there was more to this than just the Facebook unfriending, but as things stand right now, the whole thing sounds pretty sick.

Image credit: DarkDelaqroux

There’s also this video on YouTube that’s gone viral the past few days. It’s from an IT pro named Tommy Jordan who talks about Facebook parenting. In the clip, he shoots his daughter’s laptop because she posted “disrespectful status updates.” There’s some NSFW language in the video, so be aware before hitting play.

Maybe the video was just made to drive traffic, but it kind of makes you think: what’s happening to society? It’s not that the daughter’s status updates were appropriate by any means, but it’s a bit of a hyperbolic response to her behavior. Why not just take her laptop away – or donate it to charity?

I really don’t think that anything that happens on Facebook is worth taking someone else’s life – or shooting a laptop, for that matter.

These ornate “Steampunk” heels are adorned with lace and embellished with rhinestones on all sides. The edge of the shoes are also lined with smoked glass beads and vintage charms, which give the shoes a gothic vibe, in my opinion.

The coolest thing about these heels (and the reason they’re here on Technabob in the first place) are the LED lights. I mean, they aren’t the first pair of footwear that light up, but they’re the first heels I’ve seen that do in a long, long time.

They’re also pretty much the only ones I know that come with a remote so you can set the color of the LED lights and decide how fast you want them to fade or light up. I can just see someone wearing these heels now while getting down on the dance floor…

Anyway, they’re being made and sold by The Ratchet and Cog on Etsy for $180(USD) a pair. Any takers?

She got a 4D ultrasound done just last week, so we all got a good look at her baby. But before the 4D one was a sonogram that I did a bad job of interpreting. Where the baby’s head was, I saw a butt. Where her hand was, I saw a foot. Eventually my sister pointed out which was which and what part was where, so that settled that.

But if her sonogram looked anything like the one shown above, then I’d probably be more than alarmed – although I’d be able to recognize who (or what) she’s carrying insider her belly: Venom!

The sonogram was posted on Reddit by Venom’s proud father-to-be. Scary, huh?

[via Nerd Approved]

Apparently, not so bad. But you might have to try it out yourself by grabbing a bottle of of Meteorito. The wine was basically a fusion of interests for Ian Hutcheon, who runs a vineyard and this astronomy center in Chile called the Centro Astronomica Tagua Tagua.

What he did was ferment the red wine by putting the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes with the three-inch meteorite inside the wooden barrel. The wine is then bottled twenty-five days later.

So how does Meteorito taste compared to the non-meteorite version of the wine? According to Hutcheon, it is “livelier.” But hey, maybe that’s what something from space can do either to you (or to the wine.)

Each bottle of Meteorito costs just £7 (~$11 USD), and over 10,000 have so far been fermented.

[via Daily Mail]

The premise of the site is simple: if you’re willing to shell out one more dollar than the previous person who uploaded the most recent picture on the site, then you can upload your photo and have have it featured on the main page until the next person with deeper pockets comes along. The first image was uploaded for $1, the second at $2, and so on and so forth.

The site itself is an art project that was conceived and launched by Sebas­tian Stadler, Stefan Jan­dl, and Carlo Jörges. The first 300 photos submitted on the site will be published in a catalog that all the photo submitters will receive. And in case you were wondering, all of the money collected from the site will go into producing that catalog and into new TMEP projects to get the submitted images noticed.

As of this writing, there have already been 105 photos submitted. The site was launched in December 2011, so it might take a while before the 300-image mark will be reached.

If you think your photo is worth $106 (or more), then head on over to TMEP to submit it and have it featured.

[via Pop Up City]

Why he chose to do so, I have no idea. Maybe he wanted to give his kids some sort of show, or maybe he was just choosing not to use his noggin. Or maybe he was just plain crazy.

You can see for yourself what happened when the firecracker he dropped ignited the trapped gas down the manhole:

Thank goodness his kids weren’t physically harmed when the manhole blew up and its metal cover went flying. I’m sure they probably won’t want to go near any manholes anytime soon, though. Especially not with their firecracker-wielding father.

[via TDW via Geekologie]

Now that I’m a few years older (and more mature), I feel like I sort of owe it to them to make amends because of how I made fun of their inadequacies – which is why I’m going to tell them (and all of you other beardless men out there) about the Propia Hige Japanese Fake Beard that’s available from the Japan Trend Shop.

These fake beards are extremely realistic-looking beards that you stick onto your face and just forget, because they’re not the huge and freakishly bushy type. They’re all in the color black, though, so you might have to pass if you’re a blonde or a redhead.

However, faux facial hair doesn’t come cheap though, as a set of three of these beards of your choice is priced at the ridiculous amount of $137(USD).

If you’re open to the idea, though, then you might be interested in this bit of news. There’s this Chinese entrepreneur named Yanshi An, who will be selling tea fertilized with panda poop very, very soon. The notable thing is that he used to be a teacher of calligraphy at Sichuan University.

He recently bought over eleven tons of excrement from a panda-breeding center to use on his tea, which he hopes to harvest this coming spring. And he’s extremely excited about his Panda poop tea project, too. That’s probably because of the price. A kilo (about 2.2 pounds) of the tea is projected to be priced at more than US$77,000, but that’s only for the first batch. Future batches will be priced lower at around $3,000, since they’re considered to be a more “inferior” batch, as the poop won’t be as fresh anymore (but then, it really is panda poop ever really “fresh?”)

An insists it’s not all about just the money though, as he says that his main mission lies more along the lines of environmental protection by replacing chemical fertilizers with natural ones. He says: “Panda dung is rich in nutrients… and should be much better than chemical fertilizers. People should make a harmonious relationship between Tea heaven, earth and the environment. Everybody has an obligation to protect the environment.”

[via Weird Asia News]

In between all those dress fittings, cake tastings, and makeup trials, I must have heard countless horror stories about women getting jilted at the altar or engagements gone bad to last me a lifetime. So when I saw these ‘Til Death Do Us Part Knuckle Dusters, well, you probably already know which group of women I thought about.

This tough-looking set of rings was designed by Kate Bauman and was intended to be just a one-of-a-kind statement piece back in 2006. However, the demand was huge and the interest was high, so she decided to offer these knuckle dusters for sale on her site for $425(USD).

The ’Til Death Do Us Part Knuckle Duster can be cast in your choice of sterling silver or brass, with a 1-carat cubic zirconia set in each of its four rings.

[via This is Why I'm Broke via Red Ferret]

In a clever way of protesting this, Spanish street art collective Luzinterruptus set up eighty of these illuminated, micro toilets at the Plaza de San Ildefonso in downtown Madrid. Each micro toilet was filled with a yellow liquid (for obvious reasons, they didn’t use urine) and attached with a LED light.

Luzinterruptus explained the reason for their art intervention: “During the day and at night time, people urinate anywhere in the streets without any embarrassment. They just walk along, turn round, zip down and, even in crowded places, seen by passers-by, let go. Through our installation, public toilets, we have tried to attract attention -in a comical manner- about the problem we encounter when walking in centric streets and squares.”

At first glance, the plastic urinals they used look like oddly shaped socks for people with giant feet. But they’re actually plastic containers that are used for male patients to urinate into at hospitals. Who knew?

[via Pop Up City]

But just like our increasingly powerful mobile devices, the Erascan doesn’t just have two functions. It can also recognize the information it scans, such as handwriting, URLs or email addresses. You can also share and delete – for a second time! – the stored data from the Erascan itself.

There are already whiteboards that can save what’s scrawled on them (among other things), but a device like the Erascan is a bit more useful simply because it’s portable. Although if we’re going to make stuff up anyway why don’t we go wild and imagine an eraser that can un-erase – i.e. re-write or re-draw – whatever it erases?

[via Yanko Design]

But what about the rest of your face? Well, the Japan Trend Shop has a solution for that, too: the Face Slimmer Exercise Mouthpiece. It’s basically a mouthpiece that looks like a huge pair of puffed-up, gigantic lips. To exercise your face, just pop it into your mouth and say loud vowel sounds again and again for three minutes every day.

The movements will produce “regular and methodical muscle exercises” that will strengthen your facial muscles. The retailer claims that this product can fight wrinkles and improve the overall tone and look of your face – although I’m sure the latter isn’t applicable while you’re using the mouthpiece.

These Face Slimmer Mouthpieces are available online for $83 (USD). That’s pretty pricey for a piece of rubber, but still cheaper than a face lift, I suppose. But then again, there’s also no guarantee if it will deliver what it promises to, and you’ll look insane while you use it.

First released a few years back as the Nabaztag, and now reincarnated as Karotz, the little gadget has integrated microphone and you can speak to the rabbit, and then it will post what you say to Facebook for you. The wascally wabbit also has a camera inside and can take a picture of you to share on Facebook with your friends. In addition, an app is in the works that will also allow your friends on Facebook to take control of the rabbit and communicate with you by sending audio messages or even sending you a poke via the rabbit.

The thing will also read statuses or comments aloud to you from your Facebook profile. Karotz has voice recognition software inside and can play music for you, check e-mails, read weather reports, RSS feeds, and lots more. The device can also be made to notify you via e-mail when someone is in your home such as a child or a roommate – should they enter the room with the appropriate RFID tag on their keychain or backpack. There are also a few other apps, like one which lets you use Karotz as a remote spycam, since it has a webcam built in.

The rabbit sells for $129.99(USD) over at the Karotz website and from other retailers.

The deep-sea salvage ship discovered the site while towing a side looking sonar beneath the ship. The sonar discovered first a 400m long cylinder shaped object that was about 60m in diameter. A subsequent pass also discovered a disc-shaped object 200m away from the original discovery. The ship’s captain and crew are saying that they aren’t sure exactly what this is. Some are calling the discovery a UFO, and others are saying it’s nothing but natural occurring formations on the ocean floor.

The captain of the ship says he’s been in deep-sea salvage for many years, and has never come across anything like this. He notes that both of the objects are too large to be shipwrecks and are too large to the objects the might have fallen off ships on the surface of the Baltic. What we do know is that a casual exploration of the site is out of the question because of the costs involved. No one is willing to fund a full investigation until more details are discovered. What do you think is sitting on the bottom of the Baltic Sea? Maybe they’ve discovered Atlantis. Oh, and where’s James Cameron when you need him?

[via JDJournal]

Martin Kaltenbrunner is responsible for this backwards technology. He enjoys “hooking up cool old things to cool new things because it’s cool.” I agree. If you want to try your hand at making one, you can find some instructions here. Maybe you can open up your own Twitter telegraph office.

[via Hack a Day via Geekosystem]

The 4 inch-long bullet was invented by Red Jones and Brian Kast, who aside from being engineers are also hunters. So if you hate this tech, blame the game that they couldn’t hit. Although to say that this is overcompensating would be an understatement: the high-tech ammo has an optical sensor, an 8-bit CPU that handles “guidance and control electronics” and electromagnetic actuators that control its fins.

The bullet is meant to be used with smooth-bore firearms, i.e. ones that don’t have grooves inside their barrels. The grooves give spin to normal bullets to help them fly straight, but since this bullet literally has a mind of its own it doesn’t need the spin. The screenshot above shows the path left by a prototype fitted with an LED, proving that its electronics and battery are not destroyed when the bullet is fired. That is one weird trajectory.

Sandia’s press release also said that the bullet’s flight gets steadier with distance, so it’s better suited for long-range targets. The current prototype isn’t up to the U.S. military’s standards in terms of velocity, but its inventors are confident that they can make it go faster by using customized gunpowder. Or they could invent bullet time. Check the link below for more details.

[via Sandia National Labs via BBC News]

We’ve already seen what augmented reality mirrors can do to our faces, and while they can be used to correct or modify certain features, they can’t change our faces completely.

However, artist Karolina Sobecka wants to change that, and change it she has. Sobecka has come up with a new 3D visualization tool that replaces your face with a three dimensional image of an animal. What the mirror does is show a reflection of the person in front of it complete with real-time expressions and movements, albeit with an animal for a face.

She calls her project “All the Universe is Full of the Lives of Perfect Creatures,” which is pretty appropriate, if you think about it. Sobecka programmed her mirror by using FaceTracker, Unity3d, openFrameworks, Blender3d, and ofxFaceTracker.

[via Dvice]

The coolest of the projects that received grant money is one proposed by a team of scientists at Boston University that want to figure out if you can grow brown fat cells and then inject them into the human body as a way to boost metabolism and burn fat, leading to weight loss. The human body has both brown adipose tissue and white adipose tissue. The white fat cells make people obese, yet the brown fat cells help burn calories.

In fact, a recent study showed that a pockets of brown fat cells can burn as much as 250 calories in a three-hour time span. Those brown fat cells can even steal energy from white fat cells, further stunting obesity. The researchers hope to develop a method of growing those brown fat cells and injecting them into the body with the goal of helping overweight soldiers lose weight. You can bet that if the team is successful, this will also be highly profitable in the private sector with obese people looking for a way to lose weight.

[via Wired: Danger Room]

That said, these Bang Bang Doorknobs by Nikita Kovalev are really something else. Basically, these doorknobs are based on the look of 9mm Makarov pistols. To open the door, just pull the trigger and open.

I don’t know you’re supposed to lock your doors with these doorknobs though, as I don’t see any slots for keys or anything else. Maybe it has something to do with cocking the gun, or maybe these are strictly for interior doors which don’t lock.

[via Freshome via Nerd Approved]

That’s a good question Barry. The Resident Evil Wiki says that Capcom decided not to release this port because of poor quality. Then late last year an Assembler forum member named kiff claimed to be in contact with someone who has two cartridges containing unfinished builds of the canned game. That someone will be kind enough to upload the contents of said carts online for public consumption, but not kind enough to do it for free. The person is asking for $2,000 (USD), hence the fundraiser. Here’s some gameplay footage of the port, uploaded back in 2007 by YouTuber Dot50Cal.

Jill looks like a monster herself. If that wasn’t horrifying enough, remember that these are unfinished copies we’re talking about. They have significant glitches and missing content, such as non-functioning enemies and weapons. Kiff also said of one of the builds, “I am not 100% if any of the endings work.” And yet as of this writing kiff has raised nearly $1,500 with almost a month to go, so there’s a good chance that these builds will be released.

Then again the donors to the fundraiser are probably less excited about playing the game than the thought of virtually digging up a relic from a bygone generation. Head to Assembler if you’d like to donate as well. I wonder what the original developers think about this.

[via Siliconera & RetroCollect]