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Learning to lasso is insanely difficult, but in this BBC video champion roper “Cowboy Craig” Ingram shows how it’s done in super slow-motion. It’s mesmerizing. The rope appears to defy some of the basic laws of physics, but it’s all down to years of practice and some experts flicks of the wrist. An amazing skill.…
Sony and Panasonic announced last year that they had plans to develop a new, high-capacity optical storage disc—and they weren’t lying. New details indicate that a new Archival Disc format will have a capacity of up to 1TB. Claiming that the Archival Disc format will be hardy—coping well with dust, temperature and humidity—Sony and Panasonic…
The Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy protection last week admitting to an outstanding debt of around $63.6 million. Now, a team of hackers claims that the company still has investors’ bitcoins. Forbes reports that a group of hackers has uploaded files to prove the point—including a spreadsheet of more than a million trades,…
Neil Young’s new music player, Pono, has been on the cards for some time. But now, there are finally some real details: from March 15th, you’ll be able to pre-order one on Kickstarter for $400. The big, bright triangular digital music player provides “studio master-quality digital music at the highest audio fidelity possible” according to…
The Awesomerer found this impossibly mesmerizing time-lapse video taken in Tokyo’s Yurikamome train. It’s also the weirdest and trippiest time-lapse video I’ve ever seen. It’s called Hyperdrive, and it looks like they are traveling in the Millennium Falcon in Tron universe. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
Netflix must be really laughing its ass off right now, as everyone trying to watch the season finale of True Detective complain about HBO GO not being available. HBO GO has crashed—it’s been deader than Rust Cohle’s soul for the last three hours. I’ve tried it at least two dozen times—both through my computer and…
Heartbeats are like our own nifty personal metronomes, but composer Greg Fox turned his internal rhythms into blissed-out sounds we all can enjoy. Using custom software and a computer hookup, he recorded his chest pumping and turned it into the basis of four new tracks—and they’re beautiful. Fox joined creative forces with Milford Graves, an…
With the successful launch of the Global Precipitation Measurement satellite in February, we’re one step closer to a tasty new data stream on rain and snow around the world. Don’t get too giddy though, weather geeks. The anticipated gap in polar weather data is looming as the current satellites reach end-of-life and the replacement satellite…
Ooooh, pretty… If you were lucky enough to see the fireball explode over northern Canada on Friday night, file a report for SCIENCE! Gotta say, having a fireball AND auroras at the same time just strikes me as downright greedy. Didn’t see it? Don’t worry, we have photos.
The architects of this tiny pharmacy in downtown Osaka didn’t have much to work with—just a skinny alleyway between two hulking buildings. But the resulting structure is so cool, it almost looks as though it was there first. You’d be surprised how far back it goes, too, so click through for an aerial shot. The…
All that cement and steel has to come from somewhere. In an amazing video by filmmaker Brandon Li, we get a chance to stroll through a world not many see: The dockyards of Dubai, where everything from food to construction materials arrive in the UAE city. “I spent a couple afternoons hanging with the workers…
They’re the perfect accent to a well-manicured backyard, but the solar-powered lights dotting your gardens and walkways are just one misstep away from being accidentally destroyed. So Ikea’s come up with the perfect solution, LED lights that you press into your lawn so that they’re flush to the ground while still providing plenty of light.…
With the right touch, most abandoned buildings can become something great. But to my eyes, this massive, crumbling factory in the jungle outside Shenzhen would’ve been beyond help. Not so for the architects at O-Office, who are turning the industrial site into an arts district. Today, the factory is called the iD TOWN International Arts…
In the same theme as the Oscar’s #RealGravity photoset, NASA Goddard has put together a gallery of eye-candy to celebrate today’s Cosmos premiere. Is entertainment-inspired photo galleries curated by space agencies a thing now? I can handle that. The reboot of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series with Neil deGrasse Tyson even has NASA Goddard excited. Over…
We know that the rocks of Stonehenge were carried there from over 200 miles away, but we’ve never known why. Now, researchers say they believe it was for the special sonic qualities of a particular kind of stone—and that Stonehenge might have served as a bell-like instrument. We first heard of this theory in December,…
A 40-foot wall of ice reaches down to the high-tide line at Acadia National Park in Maine, proving that as cool as artificial ice climbing walls are, you can’t beat the real thing. [AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty]
The KUKA Robot Group is already hyping its upcoming match next week between one of its robotic arms and professional table tennis champion Timo Boll. But hobbiest engineers can make ping-pong bots too. Here’s Ulf Hoffmann’s garage version, which is surprisingly competitive given its amateur status. Keep in mind that Hoffmann appears to be just…
Well, this is awesome. California designer Yumi Yoshida has designed the perfect couch for those who just can’t commit to giving up an entire chunk of their apartment to a sofa. Instead, her Origami Couch unfolds into a wide, thin floor mat in the blink of an eye. Here’s how it seems to work: The…
New York has one of the oldest and biggest subways in the world, and as it has expanded, the city has used almost every letter in the alphabet to name its new lines. Conspicuously absent? The P line. Probably for the exact reason you’d imagine. There are a handful of letters that don’t exist as…
