Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
The director shouts action. Time passes. Suddenly, a car crashes through a truck and, out of control, almost wipes out the entire film crew. This is what happens when you are filming a car action scene and you don’t take the appropriate safety measures.Fortunately, everyone seems to be alright. There are no details on where…
National Geographic just announced the winners of the National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest for 2014. They’re all so fantastic you’d swear they aren’t real. Like the one above, which is so fantastic that it looks like a photoshop. But it is real—a stunning picture by Marc Henauer of Green Lake in Tragöss, Austria. Every spring,…
Kurzgesagt sums up all you need to know about our planet Earth in this nice animation explainer that’s much more easy to understand than school ever was. It shows how fascinating and unbelievable Earth is and makes you realize how seemingly impossible it is for us to be living here. But we’re here! Oh, and…
If you love filmmaking you will love this 10-minute montage of some of the best steadicam shots in cinema history. It’s definitely missing some great long takes—like the amazing 6-minute steadicam shot in True Detective—but it’s a great summary of good uses of this shot, invented by Garrett Brown in 1971. In the words of…
On the rocky shore of La Grande Motte, a seaside resort in the south of France, a reflective facade is turning the horizon-line into a kaleidoscopic head-trip. Breath Box is an installation composed of hundreds of mirrored panels that move in time with the wind. A word of advice: Don’t stare directly into this super…
Drunk History is in many ways the best show on television at the moment. You get the LOLs of absurdist sketch comedy while arming yourself with enough History Channel-quality Fun Facts™ to make you sound smart the next day. At the same time, it feels like hosting a party in your living room—one that inevitably…
The US Navy sailorsin this photo are directing a landing hovercraft “into the well deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge in the Atlantic Ocean, July 29, 2014.” The scene is so cinematic that it could have been filmed onboard the USS Sulaco. It only needs some Power Loaders. From the outside, this is…
Whaddya mean you don’t want insect larvae chewing their way through your epidermis en route to bursting through your skin like tiny, winged Xenomorphs? That’s just how the Botfly shows its love (and propagates its species). It’s the circle of life, it rules us all, and many times it’s really friggin’ disgusting. What isn’t disgusting…
I’m a fan of Marco D’Alfonso since hisKirby-style Akira cover. But that’s not his only great mashup. There are many more—and even better! Like the iconic Avengers #4 cover by Jack Kirby mixed with Adventure Time. There are much more and I love them all. Avengers #4 The Incredible Hulk #1 Giant-size X-Men #1 Secret…
Teaching soldiers to take aim at a human target and pull the trigger requires practice, and while the end-game is the same—make flesh-and-blood contact—the enemy looks different depending on where you are in the world. Photographer Herlinde Koelbl spent six years shooting military training grounds for a new book called Targets, offering a rare, behind-the-scenes…
Sploid reader trout linked to this video here: A TOW 2B Aero missile exploding over a Russian T-72 tank to deliver its penetrator charge. The second explosion is the penetrator reaching the explosives and fuel inside the tank. Trout argued that Russia’s massive tank force would have a very hard time surviving to these missiles.…
The Samsung Galaxy line has been a smartphone stalwart for years. But unanticipated commercial and design criticism of its latest flagship, the Galaxy S5, has forced the company to go in a different creative direction—down a road that apparently leads straight to Cupertino, Calif. New leaks from Weibo show off a purportedly reimagined Galaxy smartphone.…
BioLite’s line of twig-burning, gadget-powering stoves has already cemented the brand as every wilderness geek’s best friend. But now, the brilliant minds behind the CampStove are giving you off-grid power and potable water, both indoors and out. Say hello to the KettleCharge. Whereas BioLite’s previous efforts have been more or less relegated for use in…
Last week we looked at The Bike Design Project, a competition between five design teams and bike builders to create the perfect urban bike. And today we have a winner, which will now be put into production by Fuji—so you’ll be able to buy it, if Blade Runner-looking velocipedes are your thing. The winning design,…
Europe’s controversial “Right to be forgotten” ruling has claimed its first Wikipedia page victim, according to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Wales told The Observer that the E.U. legislation is “completely insane and needs to be fixed.” The Wikipedia page will stay up, but it will not appear in Google search results. Google, like Wales, is…
Copenhagen has become a place that’s globally synonymous with great cycling culture. Yet the city is not coasting on its laurels, it’s always introducing new features, from gorgeous new bridges to street-embedded lighting. Here’s a video tour of all the city’s newest biking innovations. It’s not just that Copenhagen is so good at designing for…
Most kids growing up in the U.S. have heard of Johnny Appleseed. He’s the subject of museums and storybooks. Like Paul Bunyan, he’s a larger-than-life American myth, an outdoorsy, folksy wonder. Unlike Bunyan and his big blue ox, the shoeless hero bringing fruit to the frontier is actually based on a real person. A real,…
With the arrival of a beta 4 update this morning, Apple TV finally got a little a UI makeover. It looks like Apple TV is finally catching up with iOS 7. The redesign is not totally dramatic—and for now it’s for developers only—but there’s a new emphasis on colors a la iOS 7, and apps…
“What for example could be staler than to-morrow morning’s newspaper account of a prize-fight or political convention one has already received over the radio?” wrote one commentator in 1928. Radio was overtaking print as the news medium of the day and some people insisted that newspapers were going to disappear completely. And with that, “serious”…
It seems like most of the architectural zeitgeist in the U.S. is dominated by news of supertalls sprouting in Manhattan. But that has not been the case in many American cities. Even with widespread housing shortages and proof that density is better for residents, most American cities have had a fear of heights—until now. Thanks…