Avery Ellis, Author at Gizmodo

A Modern Knifemaker’s Badass Take on an Ancient Samurai Dagger

Modern knives have something distinctly badass about them. Maybe it’s the materials. Maybe its the sleek ergonomic handles. But they also seem to be missing the sense of personality and specialness apparent in the work of ancient Japanese bladesmiths. That’s why knifemaker Walter Sorrells decided to make a tanto—a type of short dagger—whose handle has…

Sploid Avery Ellis Apr 1

10 Clever Easter Eggs Hidden in Disney Movies

If there’s one thing animators love, its sneaking visual references into movies, and Disney’s geniuses are some of the best at it. Some of these—like the Finding Nemo shoutout in Brother Bear—last only a couple frames. Others are so overt that after they’re pointed out you feel foolish for not noticing them sooner. But take…

Sploid Avery Ellis Apr 1

Here’s a Crazy Trick to Free Up Space On Your iPhone: Rent a Movie

A Reddit thread is claiming that for those of us—and there are many—who are running out of space on our iPhones, all we have to do is try renting The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Voila! Free space! Early April Fools joke, or so we thought. But I loaded my beat up iPhone…

Tech News Avery Ellis Mar 31

The Reason Baseball Bats Break Is More Complicated Than You Think

Shattering bats might look cool, but they’re really dangerous for both the players and the fans. Why does that happen, and how come bats always seem to snap in the same way? Consider the following: baseball bats are made of wood, and being a natural material, wood has certain innate structural flaws. One of the…

Sploid Avery Ellis Mar 31

Scientists at Fermilab Are About to Start Shooting Neutrinos Through the Earth

Fermilab outside Chicago will soon begin its Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), and what it hopes to accomplish is as brilliant and confusing as the book of its namesake. The experiment starts with accelerating protons close to the speed of light. That beam of super-fast particles is measured and then shot out through 800 miles…

Tech News Avery Ellis Mar 31

100 Greatest Movie Lines Delivered Right Before the Kill Scene

There’s no point killing someone in a movie if you’re not going to say something really cool beforehand. Burger Fiction compiled 100 of the very best one-liners that precede some deserving jerk—or innocent bystander—being brutally murdered. Expect to see a lot of Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis, and Eastwood, with a few odd gems and newcomers thrown…

Sploid Avery Ellis Mar 31

Adam Savage Goes Incognito to Comic Con as Hellboy

“Isn’t San Diego Comic Con in July?” you might be wondering. And you’d be right. But Adam went to the first inaugural Silicon Vally Comic Con on a personal invite from Steve Wozniak, and he pulled out all stops. As a nod to his first incognito con in 2008, Adam dressed up again as his…

Sploid Avery Ellis Mar 31

Hitting the Same Block Billions of Times Is the Weirdest Way to Crash Paper Mario 64

The great thing about Nintendo 64 games is that dedicated players are still finding exploits years later. But the true die-hards are discovering glitches that are purely theoretical. In Paper Mario 64, there’s a yellow block which appears to do nothing. Hit it with the hammer, and it still does nothing. Hit it a shit-ton…

Sploid Avery Ellis Mar 30

Slow Motion Laser Hair Removal Is a Tiny Massacre

Laser hair removal might be the most requested cosmetic procedure, but how does it work? As Veritasium explains, dark hair contains melanin, a pigment that helps protect us from the sun by absorbing many wavelengths of visible and ultraviolet light. Bursts of high-energy laser light are absorbed much better by these unwanted hairs than by…

Sploid Avery Ellis Mar 30

Hacker Turns On His Car With Amazon Echo

Amazon Echo is good for a lot of things, but until recently, remote-starting a car wasn’t one of them. YouTuber jryanishere seems to have gotten Alexa her driver’s license, thanks to a few snippets of code, a Raspberry Pi, and an OBDLink (which is some sort of Bluetooth scanning tool that works with GM’s proprietary…

Commerce Avery Ellis Mar 30

A Warm-Blooded Sculptor Built an Entire Band’s Instruments Out of Ice

Tim Linhart started off as an ice sculptor. Well, he’s still an ice sculptor, but now the crazy dude supplies a small orchestra with working music instruments made out of frozen water. The journey to founding Ice Music started with a fluke, when Linhart carved an upright bass out of ice and was surprised to…

Sploid Avery Ellis Mar 29

Bodypaint Wizard Transformers Herself Into Superman

I don’t even want to think about how long it took to get all this paint off. Kay Pike created this 1000x timelapse from her Twitch stream in which she used her astounding artistic skills to transform herself into the Man of Steel. The suit and the hair are spot-on, but given that Kay is…

Sploid Avery Ellis Mar 29

Vase Made of 256 Crayons Must Smell Amazing

A melted brick of crayons on a lathe combines everything I love about craftsmanship with everything I remember enjoying about a spirograph. The toys get bigger, but we never really grow up. And being a kid at heart requires making a mess. In the case of making a vase out of crayons that involves covering…

Sploid Avery Ellis Mar 29

How Effects Artists Make Fake Wounds Look Real

Even the most dedicated of method actors usually aren’t keen on having half their face blown off for a role. So where do they turn to when they need to look battle-worn and bloody? A very talented props department. In this video, YouTubers Freakmo and Powdah team up to make a super gross infected knee…

Sploid Avery Ellis Mar 28

Heartless! Kanye Posts Pablo Track to Apple Music After All

Remember that Tidal subscription you got to listen to Kanye’s new album The Life of Pablo? Turns out not all of that Mr. West’s definition of “exclusive” is somewhat looser than most. A track from the album, “Famous,” is now up on Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play (although it is a slightly altered version…

Tech News Avery Ellis Mar 28

Alton Brown Makes a Gallon of Carbonated Ice Cream in 10 Seconds Flat

Alton Brown has been the world’s preeminent food science wizard since the early days of the Food Network, and he’s about to embark on his second tour. What better way to celebrate than with a big vat of ice cream? The Jet Cream is essentially three water cooler bottles duct taped together. On one end…

Sploid Avery Ellis Mar 28

How the 1940s Superman Cartoon Changed Eveything

The Superman cartoons from the 1940s were animated with a beauty and fluidity not seen before, but they were also hugely influential outside the world of animation. In order to achieve realistic movement, the series’ animator Max Fleischer—who also created Popeye and Betty Boop—used a technique he invented called rotoscoping. The process involved animating on…

Sploid Avery Ellis Mar 28

It’s 2026 and Anyone in This Room Could Be a Hologram

Holoportation is now a thing, so start slapping everyone in arm’s distance to make sure they’re real. This new technology by Microsoft Research uses 3D motion capture and Microsoft’s HoloLens mixed reality hardware to “holoport” people from one place to another, which is definitely going to contribute to a universal feeling of paranoia in the…

Tech News Avery Ellis Mar 25

Watch an Ex-Animator Rediscover His Passion Over 100 Days

When Vimeo user Justgoscha became disillusioned with his life as a front-end developer, he decided to rekindle something that made him happy in his younger years—animation. So every day for 100 days, he resolved to draw what those in the game call a walk cycle—a short loop of a character simply moving—and the results are…

Sploid Avery Ellis Mar 25

London Becomes Its Own Adorable Asteroid in This Beautifully Shot Video

Say goodbye to London, because it’s about to become Earth’s second moon. Using some clever video stitching and a 360 rig, RavenCourt Films was able to to turn locations in London into its own Mario Galaxy levels, ensconced by an endless skyline. The city’s features are warped but just barely recognizable as each scene spins…

Sploid Avery Ellis Mar 24

Avery Ellis

A Modern Knifemaker’s Badass Take on an Ancient Samurai Dagger

10 Clever Easter Eggs Hidden in Disney Movies

Here’s a Crazy Trick to Free Up Space On Your iPhone: Rent a Movie

The Reason Baseball Bats Break Is More Complicated Than You Think

Scientists at Fermilab Are About to Start Shooting Neutrinos Through the Earth

100 Greatest Movie Lines Delivered Right Before the Kill Scene

Adam Savage Goes Incognito to Comic Con as Hellboy

Hitting the Same Block Billions of Times Is the Weirdest Way to Crash Paper Mario 64

Slow Motion Laser Hair Removal Is a Tiny Massacre

Hacker Turns On His Car With Amazon Echo

A Warm-Blooded Sculptor Built an Entire Band’s Instruments Out of Ice

Bodypaint Wizard Transformers Herself Into Superman

Vase Made of 256 Crayons Must Smell Amazing

How Effects Artists Make Fake Wounds Look Real

Heartless! Kanye Posts Pablo Track to Apple Music After All

Alton Brown Makes a Gallon of Carbonated Ice Cream in 10 Seconds Flat

How the 1940s Superman Cartoon Changed Eveything

It’s 2026 and Anyone in This Room Could Be a Hologram

Watch an Ex-Animator Rediscover His Passion Over 100 Days

London Becomes Its Own Adorable Asteroid in This Beautifully Shot Video

Two Songs We Really Wish Were the Anime Outros for ‘Steel Ball Run’

AI Training Data Giant Mercor Is Reportedly Looking to Buy the Work You Did at Your Old Job

Utah Is Giving Dr. AI the Power to Renew Drug Prescriptions

Here’s the Perfect Excuse to See ‘Project Hail Mary’ Again

US Airlines Are Hiking Bag Fees Amid Iran War Oil Crisis

This Ridiculously Simple Trick Might Stop Gulls From Nabbing Your Lunch

‘Starfleet Academy’ Season 3 Could Have Done the ‘Voyager’ Sequel Episode of Robert Picardo’s Dreams

Judge Kills Lawsuit Against Infamous Study That Might Have Increased Teen Suicides

Artemis 2: Follow the Mission With Our Live Updates 🔴

Researchers Discover How to Add Psilocybin, DMT, and Other Psychedelics to Tobacco

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life