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Before Willy Wonka, before Edward Scissorhands, before The Nightmare Before Christmas, and before Beetlejuice, Tim Burton worked at Disney. That doesn’t mean his movies were any less bizarre, though. Case and point: his version of Hansel and Gretel. This 34-minute long film aired on the Disney Channel just once, on Halloween night in 1983. And…
Rough day? Long week? You’ve got a few options, audio-wise. Crank up something high-energy to shake yourself out of it. Throw on something super mellow to ease the tension. Or, if you can’t quite find the right tune but need some lyrical comfort, might I recommend spending seven minutes in heaven with Bob Dylan as…
See those black fins moving on the surface of this Falcon 9R rocket? That’s SpaceX’s magic sauce. These steerable surfaces will allow used rocket stages to safely land back on Earth, ready to be refilled and launched again. This on-board video of their new 1-kilometer-high test show how they work. According to SpaceX, this flight…
Designed by legendary adventurer Robert Young Pelton, here’s your chance to win one-of-35 DPx HEST/F Mr. DP Ti pocket knifes. One of the strongest folding knives ever made! https://gizmodo.com/robert-young-pelton-on-surviving-south-sudan-1575895489 This is definitely the neatest giveaway we’ve done yet. Pelton designed the DPxGear Hostile Environment Survival Tool Folder to be the last word in strength and…
Is chasing storms ethical? After one profit-hungry chaser published the photograph of a dying child, it’s time to re-evaluate if this is acceptable. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/06/19/pilger_nebraska_tornado_photo_why_stormchasing_has_become_unethical.html As someone who works as a disaster researcher and consults on emergency response, the fewer people we have in the path of destruction, the better. While yes, sometimes we still need…
Nearly 5,000 miles of abandoned railways criss-cross the the landscape in Mexico and Ecuador, left dormant for decades after privatization of the national system suspended passenger service in 1995. Two Guadalajara-born artists wanted to travel the paths of these “modern ruins,” so together they designed what just might be the coolest hybrid of all time.…
If you’ve got more air miles saved up than money in the bank, here’s a clever way to keep track of every single country you’ve visited on your global travels. Basic origami skills are all that’s needed to assemble this 3D cardboard globe featuring a gold foil outer layer that can be scratched off revealing…
By now, large-scale 3D printing has been around for a few years. (Crazy, right?) But there’s always been one big problem with existing technology: The printers need to be larger than the structures themselves. That’s a problem that a team of researchers say they can solve with swarms of tiny robots. The innovative thinkers at…
On Bob’s Burgers, everything is always about how poor the family is (or how awesome Louise is). They never have enough rent, or it always ends up getting spent or stolen. It’s a situation many of us can relate to, though the show never makes an effort to actually explain just why the Belcher family…
Many parents dream of their children growing up to be successful doctors, lucrative athletes, or award-winning performers. But if graphic designer or InDesign-savant are goals you’ve set for your kids, these beautiful font-themed Typeblocks will put them on the right path. Instead of teaching less useful facts like ‘A is for Apple’ and ‘B is…
It seems that, after hundreds of thousands of deaths, Iraq is in a worse state than before the 2003 invasion? How the hell did this happen? Who are these crazy ISIS killers terrorizing everyone and taking over the country? You’ll understand it all after watching this easy-to-follow video explainer. SPLOID is a new blog about…
Most Disney movies project a world that is far different from Game of Thrones’ Westeros. Still, there is royalty in both, and it’s interesting to think about what would happen if these young women were dropped into a grittier world. Would they rise to the ranks as master-manipulators, or would they be murdered through rebellion…
Most ruled journals out there are printed with lines that run from left to right, straight across the page. Pretty standard. Very straightforward. Somewhat sober. Then there’s this Inspiration Pad, a composition book on an acid trip. Lines akimbo. This thing is high as hell. Each spread offers a completely different pattern—from perfect geometries to…
Budapest trams don’t travel through the space-time fabric like the starship Entreprise, but in these long-exposure photos they look like they do. They were taken by Viktor Varga (top) and Krisztian Birinyi (middle and bottom) last Christmas. Here’s a video of the trams in action: SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us…
The D-Wave 2 is a much-hyped quantum computer, but, as scientists now report, it’s not actually any faster than a regular old PC. Wait, didn’t we say it was 3,600 times faster just a few months ago? Yes, and both are right. Whether one computer is faster than another is actually a mighty complicated question.…
We have a pretty good idea of what Apple’s forthcoming headquarters might look like, thanks to all the glimmering renderings. But the 3D visualization company Technology Integration Services Inc. just published a video of what the office will look like as you’re flying over it—and it’s even cooler in motion. What can we learn from…
Ever wanted to use your phone as a GPS navigator in the outdoors? Here’s a step by step guide to finding the maps, creating trails and waypoints and then using them on your Android phone. Editor’s Note: This guide might look impossible at first glance, but Henry walks you through the steps so thoroughly that…
Like some of the very people who drive on them, a few Los Angeles streets have achieved the height of fame. Sunset Boulevard lent its evocative name to Billy Wilder’s classic film noir. Pasadena’s Colorado Boulevard appears on millions of television screens each New Year’s Day as the route of the Rose Parade. And to…
If rumors are to be believed, Apple’s entry into the smartwatch world is coming soon: Reuters says production will start in July, with an expected launch date sometime in October. And it’s going to be (literally) big. Admittedly, this is still speculation, and we’re hesitant to call this definitive reporting. But unnamed sources at Taiwan’s…
Here’s something you might not know about the 6.4 earthquake epicentered near the Pacific Coast of Mexico on May 8: By the time it hit Mexico City, 170 miles away, people there already knew it was coming. Even before the shaking started, they had time to move to safety. They were ready—thanks to their advanced…
