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Honestly, risk is a function of impact and probability—and that low battery is pretty inevitable these days. [Truth Facts]

If you’re on Verizon, your calls are about to sound clearer and work with video over the company’s network in the next few weeks. The carrier has finally announced support for Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) services, dubbing the feature Advanced Calling 1.0. A few caveats: both parties must be on Verizon’s LTE network and have phones capable…

Why Are Stars Star-Shaped?

Our Sun is spherical, so why is it that other stars look… star-shaped in the night sky? Actually, it’s all down to the quirks of light and your (imperfect) eyes. In this video, Minute Physics explains how a single point of light—like a star in the night sky—can be distorted as it passes through lenses…

These Cartoon Versions of TV Detectives Are Spot-On

Artist Olivier Fritsch Gomez uses only four colors in his caricatures of TV detectives. And yet, they’re perfect. We could totally imagine a Saturday morning watching these cartoons. There’s a real Rocky and Bullwinkle or Underdog vibe to these drawings, which sends me right back into the desperate race to get to a TV and…

The bad news: the Start Screen isn’t going anywhere in the next version of Windows. The good news: it will be much, much better. WinBeta reports that Microsoft’s next operating system codenamed Threshold, will include an updated Modern/Metro user interface when it launches in 2015. Here’s what it will reportedly get: No more desktop on…

With This Library Cake, You Can Literally Eat Yourself Some Knowledge

Once again, we find a cake that I love too much to eat. On the other hand, does eating cake versions of books make you smarter? Because that sounds like a learning avenue that we should be exploring. Here’s another question: Cake library or bookless library? https://gizmodo.com/the-first-college-in-the-u-s-to-open-without-any-books-1626642445 Here are more images of the cake: [Facebook…

Clever ads piece together trash to make fun of people who litter

Littering is lazy and selfish and just plain dumb. And it seems like the only people who don’t think that are the people who litter. That’s why LiveGreen Toronto cooked up these clever ads that combine trash to literally spell out what litterbugs are doing. Maybe they’ll realize now. The ad campaign uses popular items…

This Man 3D Printed an Entire Castle

A Minnesota architect has built a 3D printed castle in just under 4 months. Whether he used the world’s largest MakerBot or something else to print it is unclear. All we know is that whatever he used was capable of extruding layer upon layer of smooth concrete. Andy Rudenko wanted to 3D print a castle…

Full-Screen Ads and Pre-Roll Videos Are Coming to iOS Apps

Apple has announced two new ad formats capable of taking over the entire screen of your iPhone or iPad. The new formats will be a part of Apple’s iAd platform for iOS, which allows developers to build in ads right into their apps. Because if you’re going make bigger phones, you might as well have…

Violinist Discovers That Elephants Dance to Bach

Violinist Eleanor Bartsch decided to take her warm-up yo the local zoo. And discovered that elephants cannot let music go by un-danced to. Batsch was getting ready to play Bach Concerto for Two Violins with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and headed to the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, WI to rehearse. Her lucky audience was…

Guy slices up flying fruit with a katana like a real life Fruit Ninja

It’s an ad, so bear with the never ending attempts to sneak in Toaster Strudels but here’s master swordsman and multiple Guinness World Records holder Isao Machii slicing up fruit with a real sword better than any wannabe ninja can on his phone. On one side, it’s fun and ridiculous and hilarious that people can…

Watching this Video Feels Like Landing on Mars at Breakneck Speed

This video takes you on a virtual descent from orbit into the so-called Distributary Fan on Mars, located just northeast of Holden Crater. Using imagery from the Mars Orbiter and the Mars Global Surveyor, this visualization shows where liquid water probably flowed across the Martian surface in the past. [Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific…

Video: Israel’s Iron Dome intercepting 15 rockets at once

Here’s Israel’s Iron Dome chasing down 15 rockets in the air at one time and well, it’s crazy. Recent footage of the Iron Dome shows the defense system working and it’s like a firework show mixed with an air chase sequence that eerily resembles smokey tentacles reaching out to the sky. The future is scary.…

Jet skiing through a canyon looks a lot like podracing in Star Wars

This GoPro video shows Christian Yellott zipping through the incredible narrow canyons of Lake Powell but if I squint a little bit, I can convince myself that I’m watching kid Anakin podracing in Tatooine. Either way, it’s pretty awesome. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

Guardians Of The Galaxy Art Shows The Kick-Ass Gamora We Could Have Had

We loved the green-skinned super-tough version of Gamora we saw on screen in Guardians of the Galaxy. But now we’re realizing we were robbed. Concept artist Andy Park has tweeted a ton of art he did for Gamora and Nebula, and unlike that Rocket art the other day, this would have been better. https://gizmodo.com/guardians-concept-art-shows-how-rocket-could-have-looke-1624377227 Check…

The First High School Show That Showed Us It Was Okay to Be Different

Long before her Emmy-winning turn as a bipolar CIA officer on Homeland, Claire Danes played typical teenager Angela Chase. In doing so, she showed an entire generation, including me, that high school was not a perfect place, and that was totally fine. My So-Called Life debuted 20 years ago this week. Especially when you contrast…

Read In the Tub? The Waterproof Kobo Aura H2O Is For You

We love a waterproofed Kindle, and we put one through hell, but that’s an aftermarket mod, not a feature that comes standard. If you want waterproofed reading on the cheap(er), the new Kobo Aura H2O is for you. Offering IP67 certification (waterproof for up to 30 minutes in 3 of water if the port cover…

Doctors Say Schools Should Start Later In The Day

The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued its strongest statement yet in favor of delaying the start times of schools attended by adolescents to 8:30 AM or later. Currently, only 15% of schools meet this requirement. The abstract of the AAP statement reads like this: The American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes insufficient sleep in adolescents…

Why The Maze Runner Celebrates Friendship Instead Of Romance

There’s been a spate of high-profile science fiction romances recently. But in The Maze Runner, it’s friendships that are at the story’s center. Author James Dashner explains to us why — and just why he thought it was important (and realistic) to focus on friendship instead of romantic love. Spoilers ahead! Dashner stopped in today…

Severed snake heads can bite up to an hour after decapitation

This vicious-looking sunnovabitch here just lost a fight against the sharp end of a shovel—but you think that lack of a body is going to slow him down? Not a chance. Turns out, a wide range of predatory snakes are capable of reacting to stimuli and lashing out at potential threats for up to an…