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The best way to put on your pants without using your hands

This guy has a hands-free technique for putting on his pants that is as ridiculous as it is effective—and a total waste of time and energy. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

Here’s The Strain Poster FX Had to Take Down

The full poster is below, but yes: worms coming out of eyes was apparently too much for the stomachs of some people and, after complaints, FX has had to start taking the image down. Now, the yuck factor may be a selling point of the show as a whole, but apparently some people were not…

Boston Is Getting Solar-Powered Smart Benches in Its Parks

The next park bench you sit on may be smarter than you think. Boston is rolling out new smart benches to parks around the city, which will use solar power to allow anyone to charge their phone on the go and record data about their surroundings at the same time. The benches, developed by MIT…

Crazy downhill city bike competition looks like a suicidal race

I don’t know how riders cope with the adrenaline of downhill urban mountain bike race. Here’s Andrew Neethling speeding down Bratislava, in Slovakia. Here is the official video so you can see the course from a different perspective: SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

Researcher: Facebook Psychology Study Breached Ethical Guidelines

Over the weekend, the internet exploded over the fact that Facebook had conducted psychological experiments on user news feeds. While Zuckerberg’s team doesn’t see a problem with that it did, academic researchers seem think it breached ethical research guidelines. https://gizmodo.com/facebook-did-psych-experiments-on-random-users-to-study-1597385219 James Grimmelmann, professor of law at the University of Maryland, has written an extensive blog…

How Chilies Can Be Used to Treat Pain

Humans are, essentially, sadomasochists. For more 600 years we have sought out, cultivated, eaten, applied to our skin and even weaponized a chemical capable of making us feel heat and pain. Heat, it seems, is desirable. Whether in the kitchen or the bedroom, we have embraced the volcanic properties of the chili pepper to enhance…

Authors Convinced To Cosplay As Their Favorite Fictional Characters

Photographer Cambridge Jones got a bunch of authors to dress as their favorite characters. Above are Terry Jones as Rupert the Bear and Terry Pratchett as Just William. This project begs the question: If you had the chance, what character from your childhood would you dress up as? https://observationdeck.kinja.com/see-authors-cosplaying-as-their-favorite-childhood-cha-1597797884

The US National Archivesplans to upload all its holdings to Wikipedia—and that, apparently, includes so many images that it’s given up counting.

The Last Ship Takes a Stand, Declares “Terrorists Are Bad.”

In its second episode, The Last Ship looked at Guantanamo Bay, with all its associations in politics, ethics, and the media, and decided to answer the difficult question of “Are terrorists bad?” This was an episode that wasn’t really about the disease. It was about getting supplies to the ship and the fact that no…

All the Drugs From Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Visualized

This is Raoul Duke’s stash, for a single weekend, in Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. That is quite a weekend, right there. [Flickographics]

Some random person stuck in a cave? Nope: this is one of the European Space Agency’s astronauts training for life in harsh conditions. Scrabbling through Sardinian caves, they collect scientific data and test equipment and protocols like they could, some day, on an alien world. [ESA]

A Disturbing Mind Trick to Make You “Confess” During Interrogations

So after you got up this morning, had some waffles, and murdered your neighbor, how did you get away from the scene? Did you walk or did you take your car? Answering this question might lead to incarceration due to the Recency Principle. The Recency Principle is pretty simple. If you ask a person a…

Two years ago, Google bought Quickoffice. Since, it’s made it free, ensured it only worked with Google Drive, and then rolled all of its features into Google Drive. And now? It’s being retired: from next week, you’ll be unable to download or install it. So long, Quickoffice.

Things Are Getting Real On the Jurassic World Set

This picture was tweeted by director Colin Trevorrow this morning. It’s not entirely surprising to see that someone meets a bloody end in a Jurassic Park movie, so we’re wondering more about the role a mobile vetrinary unit plays. Here’s the full tweet from Trevorrow: [via Bleeding Cool]

Drone Month at AudioMo

There’s a month-long audio challenge in June called AudioMo (more at twitter.com/AudioMo and audiomo.net). The intention appears to be to get music-makers making music, along the lines of National Novel Writing Month and February Album Writing Month. Here’s a description of AudioMo from its website: AudioMo is a month long audio challenge, normally held in…

Terminator: Genesis is apparently being renamed Terminator. This comes from sources telling Bleeding Cool that various tie-ins are being branded that way, which would make this the final title. [via Bleeding Cool]

NASA’s Flying Saucer Test Flight A Success

The landing was a bit rough, but NASA is calling the test flight of its flying saucer shaped, low-density supersonic decelerator a success. Mika McKinnon has the details on the primary mission – which began at 120,000 feet and ended with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean – after the jump. https://gizmodo.com/the-long-awaitedflying-saucer-test-finally-happened-in-1597781119

Luckiest guy in the world avoids death by stray demolition rock

Witness a man being born again as a huge stray rock—ejected from the explosive demolition of a clothing factory in Czech Republic—swooshes right by his head. A few inches closer and he would have been instantly killed. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

A Successful First Flight for of the Saucer Test Vehicle over Hawaii

The long-awaited flying saucer test finally happened in the Hawaiian skies this weekend. The primary mission of evaluating the test vehicle was a complete success, but the bonus missions of evaluating new landing technologies were more mixed, with the parachute failing to deploy. The saucer-shaped test vehicle being lifted aboard the Kahana recovery vessel after…

This Is A Good Time To Catch Up On American Horror Story

Now that we know what the next season of American Horror Story is about, it’s a good time to catch up on the last few seasons of the show if you haven’t already seen it. I recommend starting with Season 2 (“Asylum“), moving on Season 1 (“Murder House“) and then watching Season 3 (“Coven“) This…