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How Turbulence Happens, and Why It’s Not So Scary After All

Turbulence: spiller of coffee, jostler of luggage, filler of barf bags, rattler of nerves. But is it a crasher of planes? Judging by the reactions of many airline passengers, one would assume so; turbulence is far and away the number one concern of anxious passengers. Intuitively, this makes sense. Everybody who steps on a plane…

​How To Keep Your Pets Safe From Coyotes

The cockroach of predators? Coyotes now live in every state but Hawaii and thrive around human civilization, eating our garbage and sometimes, even our pets. Here’s what you can do about the pesky critters. As Gareth highlighted a couple weeks ago, coyote populations have spread down the eastern seaboard where a new, larger species has…

In This Corporate Dystopia, The Worst Crime You Can Commit Is Breathing

The animated short film Last Breath plays like a fever dream—or really, more like a nightmare. In a city run by a corporate mascot, one man realizes that he has become a social outcast because he’s one of the few humans who still breathes. The film is NSFW in some spots. Mak Ying-Ping directed Last…

Hey Google, Here’s How You Win Messaging

This week I saw a demo of the best messaging system yet. One where SMS and non-SMS messages, all calls, come to all your devices automatically. It only had one major flaw. It’s trapped on an iPhone. The promised beauty of the new iMessage is that it manufactures the illusion that everyone you know is…

An Argentinian UFO Hovers Mysteriously Over a Forested Hill

This UFO was captured in the skies above Tucumán, Argentina. What kind of craft could zoom so close to the treetops and then into the skies? Inexplicata has the story: A mysterious dot of light – manmade, natural or alien, take your pick – was photographed by Javier Lopez Posse on May 24, 2014 in…

Guitar player grabs GoPro from a fan and uses it as a slide for a solo

Brad Paisley was playing on the stage when he decided to use a fan’s GoPro as a slide for his guitar solo. This resulting footage from the sliding camera is truly unique. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

Sharknado 2 Teaser Is Even More Ridiculous Than The Original

We didn’t think it was possible, but Sharknado 2 has really raised the whole “sharks in tornados” aspect for the follow-up movie. This teaser trailer for the sequel really sets the bar high when it comes to hitting people with sharks falling out of the sky. Also, Sharknado is now doing good in the world…

The U.S. Government Inflicted Horrible Atrocities On Cthulhu’s Followers

Chances are, you’ve read tons of stories in the Cthulhu Mythos — but “The Litany of Earth” by Ruthanna Emrys is still something special. It’s set in a world where the U.S. government destroyed Innsmouth, closed Miskatonic University, and imprisoned the true believers. And now, one survivor of the camps is trying to rebuild her…

How Teen Hackers Were Portrayed In 1980s Family Magazines

Like all things, the way we portray hackers in pop culture has evolved through the years. But they were maybe never more adorable than in 1980s family magazines. According to a USC study that looked at 74 youth- and family-computing publications like FamilyPC and Family Computing from the 80s to show that people didn’t see…

Why Search For Aliens? A Beautiful Answer, In Under 30 Seconds.

Jill Tarter, who inspired the main character in Carl Sagan’s Contact, has been searching for extraterrestrial intelligence for close to 40 years. Here, in a brief but compelling video, she explains why she and so many others are driven to look for alien life. Why do we search for aliens? Says Tarter: We should be…

Refueling an F-16 in the middle of the night looks scary as hell

This video doesn’t show much—and that’s why it’s so damn scary: Two US Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon jets approach a KC-135 tanker for refueling in the middle of the night. With no moonlight, the pilots and the fuel boom operator can only see the lights as they get closer and closer until they connect.…

A Rare Look at the Graffiti-Covered History of NYC’s Subway

In just about every movie set in New York City in the 1970s and 80s there’s an establishing shot with a graffiti-covered subway. Saturday Night Fever That graffiti was like illegible technicolor hieroglyphics—a language that even most New Yorkers couldn’t read. It gave you a sense that the subways controlled by wild gangs of teenagers.…

The Bulging, Twisty Future, As Imagined by Designer Luigi Colani

These incredible works of the 86-year-old German-born designer Luigi Colani reveal vehicles, homes, tools and machines from the future. A Colani-BMW 700, the world’s first car with a self-supporting plastic monocoque car body, 1963 (via Carstyling) Colani C-Form, 1968 Poly-Cor plastic chair, 1968 A spherical kitchen, 1968 A Le Mans prototype from 1970, with the…

Remember Glasstron? We Were Such Dorks Back Then

Google’s latest attempt to make Glass™™™ fashionable reminds me (at least aesthetically) of Sony’s Glasstron — a cyberpunk headset display from 1998. The company claimed that it “replicates the viewing experience of a 52-inch TV at 6.5 feet.” Glasstron was obviously a flop, but it wasn’t just because the thing made the Sony executives above…

Creating the Rings of Saturn

How long would it take for Saturn to form its rings? Phil Plait of the Bad Astronomer blog goes on a research-binge with a bit of casual mathematics to figure out it would take a surprisingly short time for a diffuse ring, especially considering the usual mind-boggling timescales in astronomy. Image: Saturn’s rings as seen…

The SEC Is Finally Cracking Down on High-Speed Trading

Today, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairperson Mary Jo White announced a whole slew of initiatives designed to tighten the leash on computerized high speed trading in the stock market. If you’re playing the stock market and you’re not a supercomputer, that’s very good news. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the new rules would bring…

“I Didn’t Think I Liked This Genre, Until This Story Came Along”

It’s easy to write off a whole genre of books, comics or movies. You hear about the sexy vampires, or the killer dragons, or the massive starships, and you just decide it’s not for you. Until you come across one special story, that just blows your mind. Which genre did you think you hated, until…

The Stand Movie Will Be Three Hours Long

Hollywood has toyed with re-adapting Stephen King’s The Stand forever. But instead of a TV miniseries (hopefully better than the 1994 ABC version), we’re getting a movie. A three-hour-long movie. We have no idea if this will work. In an interview with Vulture, The Stand director Josh Boone (currently stumping for his new film Fault…

The success or failure of an upcoming U.S. ballistic missile defense test could affect when the Pentagon deploys 14 more ground-based interceptors to defend against possible missile threats from North Korea. The test— planned for June 22—will focus on the “kill vehicle,” which is supposed to destroy incoming missiles.

Short But Sweet Guardians Of The Galaxy Trailer Includes New Footage

This new TV spot for Guardians of the Galaxy is only 30 seconds long, but most of it is brand-new footage we haven’t seen yet. So if you’re as excited for more Rocket, Groot and Nova Prime Glenn Close (!) as we are, then this is going to be 30 seconds well spent.