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Aphex Twin SAW2 Countdown: Track 7 (“Curtains”)

I am going to do this track-by-track countdown to the release, on February 13, 2014, the day prior to Valentine’s Day, of my book in the estimable 33 1/3 series. It is a love letter to Aphex Twin’s album Selected Ambient Works Volume II, which will mark its 20th anniversary this year, less than a…

Watch an enchanted forest come to life in a dancing light show

Ooh, lights. Pretty. It’s like stepping into an enchanted forest from the future. Romain Tardy and Squeaky Lobster created this installation called The Ark during Proyecta Oaxaca at the Ethnobotanical Garden in Oaxaca, Mexico. It’s built around the cacti that line the heart of the garden and the installation projects lights onto it and gives…

New awesome videos show how mesmerizing that morphing table is

It still looks like magic. To be honest, I haven’t ruled out magic as a reasonable explanation for this yet yet. The MIT morphing table that lets you create a virtual version of you has some new tricks up its sleeves and they’re just as impressively mesmerizing as the first time we saw it. Watch…

You can bake cookies from the cookie dough of cookie dough ice cream

Well, well, well. Isn’t this good to know? Turns out, you can strain all the ice cream out of cookie dough ice cream and use its dough to bake cookies. Surprise! It’s actually cookie dough! It’s not just factory made cookie flavoring made to make you crave ice cream more (even if it still is…

Most Beautiful Items: January 31 – Feb 7, 2014

Starting about two days ago and lasting until about two weeks from now, it’s all Olympics all the time. That’s all fine and well, but if you’re looking for a reprieve, you’ve come to the right place. From fungus towers to slinky-like sculptures, here are the most beautiful things we showed you this week. Human…

Anthropomorphized paperbacks act out the stories between their pages

A few pieces of wire and a couple props turn these old paperbacks into whimsical sculptures, giving them the opportunity to play characters from their own stories. The Hobbit grabs the One Ring; 1984 is spying on us; and the works of Sigmund Freud are ready to analyze your dreams. Wiry Limbs, Paper Backs is…

Why A Trompe L’Oeil Tech Bus Is Upsetting San Franciscans

Any mention of tech buses in San Francisco should come with a trigger warning, because pretty much every discussion surrounding the massive, much-maligned vehicles comes fully equipped with deep contention. Now, the winners of an unofficial competition to rebrand the behemoths—which are often partially bright white and completely unmarked—has sparked a new debate over art,…

Real life Spider-Man climbs 1500-foot wall with no equipment whatsoever

I can’t imagine climbing 10 feet and this guy did 1500 with no equipment. He’s basically Spider-Man. Rock climber Alex Honnold used no equipment to scale the 1500-foot limestone wall of El Sendero Luminoso in El Potrero Chico, Mexico. It’s the first ever free solo ascent of the wall. Honnold, who climbs Yosemite’s Half Dome…

This Week’s Best Photo-Related Posts on Reframe

Did you guys know there is a Gizmodo subdomain where you can go for all things photographic? Yep! It’s called Reframe, and it’s where you’ll find additional coverage of gear, techniques, news, and all kinds of great stuff related to the crafts of photography and videography. Here are this week’s best posts: All the Gear…

Meet the scientifically accurate Flintstones, and how awful they are

ADHD continues its scientifically accurate rampage across the animation world, this time intent on destroying everything you enjoyed about Bedrock’s most beloved inhabitants, the Flintstones. Please, no one tell the Creationists — they’ve had a rough enough week already.

The Dangers of Dating a Butterphone

We’ve all been there before. You’re out at a bar with friends when—suddenly—you find yourself talking the man and/or woman of your dreams. You exchange numbers, and the next morning, after carefully crafting your first sober communication, you await his or her response with bated breath. Your phone vibrates. You look down, eyes opened wide.…

Artist Ray G. Scarfo’s illustration of a semi-permanent moon base in the future. Published in the May 1969 issue of Science Journal, just two months before humans would first set foot on the moon.

3D Scanning Saved These Ancient Footprints Just Before They Washed Away

In May 2013, a storm uncovered these ancient footprints on an English beach. At over 800,000 years old, they’re the oldest human ancestor footprints ever found outside of Africa. The storm that revealed them soon washed them away too, but scientists have been studying the footprints for months after the fact, thanks to 3D imaging.…

Video: Massive avalanche seems to be alive

A massive avalanche violently invaded the Passeier Valley—in South Tyrol—yesterday. In this video it looks harmless until you get to the 1:30 mark. Then things start to get scary and weird. Instead of spreading through the entire slope and die, the snow actually takes the road onto the bridge that leads into the town, like…

Urbanization, Gentrification, Data: What’s Ruining Our Cities This Week

The “smart city” might not be so smart, and gentrification might not be so bad. Plus a sad story about how urban development is destroying Chinese villages—300 of them per day. This is our weekly look at What’s Ruining Our Cities. Urbanization is ruining Chinese culture When we talk about China, we’re usually talking about…

How to beat Flappy Bird, a video tutorial

If you have been frustrated with the hugely successfuland extremely difficult game Flappy Bird, here’s a tutorial that will teach you how to beat the hell out of it. It’s actually really easy once you learn this technique. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

HVAC Vendor Confirms Link to the Massive Target Data Breach

While it’s been widely reported since Wednesday that Fazio Mechanical Services was the third party vendor whose login information the Target hackers hijacked, president and owner Ross E. Fazio has finally put out an official statement confirming his company’s role in the attack. In the statement, Fazio denies that his company had performed any sort…

Teledildonics: The Weird, Wonderful World of Social Sex Toys

Sex toys are great, but they still can’t compare to skin-on-skin contact. That may be about to change—kind of—thanks to a new generation of internet-enabled playthings that fall under the awesomely-named umbrella of teledildonics. These toys let long-distance partners “feel” each other in real-time via data-enabled devices. A new company called Kiiroo, wants to break…

This sponge-filled syringe can plug a gunshot wound in just 15 seconds

First responders have to work quickly when treating gun shot wounds. To help them, a U.S. company has developed a syringe that pumps expandable tablet-sized sponges into the wound, blocking it while the patient is being transported to ER. The patent-pending device, called the XStat Rapid Hemostasis System, is meant to seal gun shot wounds…

Our Favorite Android, iOS, and Windows Phone Apps of the Week

It’s the end of a long week and the beginning of Winter Olympic madness. Don’t let your smartphone or tablet get left behind—turn it into a gold-medal productivity star, or the olympic village of time-wasting games, with our favorite new apps. Android Beats Music Beats Music is a promising new take on streaming music—it’s curated…