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Fabian Oefner is a man of many talents—and great patience. Investigator, artist, photographer, his images are always precisely crafted and beautiful. His disintegrating car series are a great example. I just spent 20 minutes exploring them. He explains how he (painstakingly) made them here: The Disintegrating series representing a staggering amount of work- has been…
In Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant borders Newtown Creek and Long Island City to its North. The facility opened in 1967 and, since then, has undergone several renovations and expansions—including its massive silver digester eggs—to accommodate NYC’s constant growth and evolution. Oh and in case I wasn’t completely clear: It’s entirely full…
Another day, another mahoosive fan creation made out of Lego bricks – but this one’s a little bigger than your usual project, and builder Thomas Benedikt is soliciting funding to create the mother of all Lego Star Destroyers. The reason Benedikt has taken to Kickstarter to help build the model is because his plans are…
Wireless Network Watcher is a free, simple program for Windows XP and above that can take a quick look at the computers and devices connected to your home network. Fire it up and make sure there’s no one on your Wi-Fi network who shouldn’t be there. If you do find a squatter, a password change…
One of the Apple Watch’s nifty features will be its Apple Pay integration, letting you tap-to-pay right from your wrist. Yes, that means the sensor-laden smartwatch will be connected to your credit card—but there’s a nifty trick to prevent would-be thieves from stealing your credit card if they nick your watch. We know that the…
We all know Beethoven composed most of his music while going deaf. But how is that possible? How can anybody write a musical piece just by imagining sounds inside his head? This video made by TED-Ed explains how: SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Soundcloud is the best things that’s ever happened to music on the internet. So it’s a blast to see how people are using the platform to build fun, new things—like this command-line interface for internet radio. Cmd.fm basically makes Soundcloud look just like Terminal or any…
Lobsters never took over the world because their claws are terrible at grasping. It’s the same reason deep sea divers, especially those that venture so far down that they require Atmospheric Dive Suits to keep from imploding, have such difficulty manipulating their tools at depth—the suits’ conventional lobster-like “prehensor” grippers are complete rubbish. But these…
The biggest of the big tobacco companies, RJ Reynolds, which also owns the fast-growing e-cig brand Vuse, is trying real hard to convince lawmakers to ban vaping. That might sound ass-backwards, but it isn’t. The firm is almost certainly hoping to stymie the competition by making sure its disposable “cigalikes” pass regulations but the refillable…
Fantasy Flight Games have revealed a new tabletop RPG out before the end of the year set in a variety of apocalyptic scenarios – but the twist is that it stars you. The End Of The World lets players create personas based on physical, mental and social attributes – as well as personality strengths and…
SD cards are everywhere now, and you can get them on the cheap. But SanDisk is not interesting “on the cheap” with the announcement of some crazy, insanely high-capacity flash memory that is more expensive than the camera you put it in. The new SanDisk 512GB Class 10 ExtremePRO SDXC card retails for $800 and…
New York City fills recycle bins with tons and tons of discarded paper. That cast-off fiber lives to serve another day, thanks to the wonders of recycling. NYC Sanitation’s director of photography Michael Anton followed that voyage from start to finish, creating this beautiful timelapse of the process. Maybe it’s the upbeat Duke Ellington music,…
In order to show the average consumer that 3D printers aren’t just for prototyping parts or building a plastic housing for an Arduino project, the MakerBot Digital Store has added a handful of downloadable 3D models of Sesame Street characters that parents can print for their kids. While the initiative helps promote fun, consumer-friendly uses…
Ever since Facebook first started pushing users over to its standalone messaging app (whether they liked it or not), there have been cries of outrage over what’s seemed like an inordinately large amount of required permissions. And while there’s still no indication that Facebook has any sort of bad intent, the company is collecting a…
This short film by French director Loïc Bramoullé displays the coolest spacesuit I’ve ever seen. Not just because its mean range of weapons, but also for its (artificial) intelligence to make decisions that protect its owner—a cute cat that seems a bit out of place—from things like evil alien bees. SPLOID is a new blog…
Say it isn’t so. Grocery stores are already a non-stop barrage of ads and signage trying to convince you to buy things, but soon that will even include those simple plastic dividers we use to separate our groceries on the checkout conveyor belts. Is nothing sacred? A company called Motion Display will be the ones…
A 24-year-old Chinese woman recently went to the hospital complaining of dizziness and nausea. She was most likely not prepared for the cause of the discomfort. The otherwise healthy grown woman does not have a cerebellum. Amazing—it’s the ninth case in medical history. That’s right. The cerebellum is a fairly sizable part of the brain—the…
If you stop and think about it, it’s kind of unfair that some athletes get to compete using marvels of engineering like incredibly light and streamlined bikes and some don’t. Instead, we should be assigning every 100-meter dash runner this backpack jetpack developed by Arizona State University. Called the 4MM because the ultimate goal is…
Each year the People’s Design Award honors a groundbreaking design that improves daily lives. Last year’s winner, the Pack H20 Water Backpack, was a more efficient way for people to carry drinking water long distances. This year’s nominees were just announced, and they include mushroom bricks, smart lighting, and multiple haptic wearables. Now, you can…
When it was first broadcast 48 years ago this week, Star Trek (like everything else) was shown in the 4 x 3 aspect ratio – but enterprising artist Nick Acosta has recreated a selection of panning shots from the series as widescreen images, and it looks rather lovely. Done by stitching together screenshots from the…
