Sploid: Where awesome, wild, and breathtaking tech moments burst into view.
Bill Bonner has a truly incredible gig; as the archivist for the National Geographic’s collection of vintage photographs, he’s in charge of nearly eight million images, illustrations, and autochromes that cover the past couple hundred years. And he loves his job just as much as you’d imagine. This mini-profile shows Bonner in his element, sorting…
Adobe asked artist Alex Trochut to recreate the company’s logo “using the technique of his choice.” This is the impressive result, which I love because of its use of color and the fact that he didn’t use digital software to create these perfect bubbles. Listen to Alex explaining how he made them: SPLOID is a…
Kiev grows more violent every day as Ukrainians riot against its authoritarian government. Witnessing the transformation through media outlets could never sum up the amount of devastation conveyed in this single image of the city’s Independence Square. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
Josh Cooley has a good sense of humor which is probably what led him to start drawing R-rated scenes from famous movies in the style of a children’s book. Alien, Fight Club, The Godfather, Jaws—they’re all there. And they’re for sale. Cooley’s new book, Movies R Fun!: A Collection of Cinematic Classics for the Pre-(Film)…
NASA has created the first ever map of radioactive material in a supernova remnant, revealing one of the biggest mysteries in the universe: How stars blow up in these explosions, sowing the universe with heavy elements like iron, titanium or gold. The 3D simulation above shows the explosion process in Cassiopeia A, rendered from data…
Scientists have discovered two new species of butterflies in eastern USA—”an extremely rare discovery.” That’s cool, but I just wanted to tell you that butterflies have penises, which is one of the reasons that served biologists to identify them as new species. They look like deathly alien manta rays. The new Intricate Satyr (Hermeuptychia intricate…
These guys say you can use a stove to make a paper plane to gently fly in circles for as long as you want. Their new trick, however, is much better: make it loop forever at super speed using a chair and a hair dryer. https://gizmodo.com/how-to-make-a-paper-airplane-fly-forever-1280788882 The guys who claim this is possible explain it:…
Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze has sent me his latest photographic series, titled Wild Concrete. It shows a singular Hong Kong phenomenon: trees and plants that grow out of bare concrete walls all around the city. It’s shocking to see how stubborn nature is. In his own words: Usually wherever human beings are thriving, they always try to…
Leave it to the Russians to take snowboard slalom and turn it around to create what apparently is called “Russian extreme slalom,” a sport where your body has to be almost parallel to the snow in order to pass under ridiculously small gates. The action starts at 1:21. Is this a thing anywhere else? Because…
You’re looking at an x-ray of Hitler’s skull, now up for auction starting at $100. It was part of a 47-page 1945 classified report issued by the US Military Intelligence Service Center that “contained highly-detailed data obtained from Adolf Hitler’s six chief physicians.” The report also contained “ten x-rays of various views of Hitler’s skull…
We were teased with visual eye candy earlier today but here’s the whole shabang. It’s everything you’d want in a space and sci-fi flick only way more funny. Chris Pratt, John C. Reilly and Peter Serafinowicz get most of the laughing bits in the trailer while the rest of the cast of wacky monsters and…
She may look like the Black Widow sitting atop the Chrysler Building in a scene from Avengers, but she is the fearless Lucinda Grange, a British photographer specialized in sports, portraiture, architecture, travel, and adventure. In her spare time she loves to climb tall structures and explore abandoned buildings, taking some truly amazing photos like…
Mom, you look ridiculous. Son, what the hell are you wearing? These type of conversations go on in every household everywhere. In a generational tug of war between style and comfort it seems like parents and children are on opposite sides. But what if they changed places? What if parents wore the outfits of their…
If it looks like a Lamborghini, if it smells like a Lamborghini… it still might just be a Volvo. Yep, the $2 million supercar you’re staring at above was made at home from guys at Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan using a thirty year old Volvo 740. The total money they spent to make a carbon copy of…
Missed out on your chance to download Flappy Bird? It’s okay. You can just make a DIY box version of the same game. It looks way more fun. That’s what Fawn Qiu did. She made an IRL version of Flappy Bird using an Arduino sensor, two servo motors, a reed switch and magnets. Oh and…
Peaceful isn’t the right word, obviously. Quiet isn’t exactly correct either. Cathartic may be closest. That’s what it feels like to see a fully automatic assault rifle be fired in super slow motion. The bullets come one after the other in a relentless barrage but there’s a certain amount of detachment to its power and…
Some things are better left untouched. Really3D, the hilarious YouTube channel that animates classics into ridiculous 3D renders, proves that with a gagful 3D animation of the 1928 classic Steamboat Willie. You know, the short film that first introduced the world to Mickey Mouse. The 3D version of the classic is so bad and terrifying…
As usual, every single time I see one of these movie remakes as an 8-bit retro game I feel the nostalgia of playing something that I never played. Their version of Inception is, once again, impeccable. I wish these people made games instead of just videos. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join…
Bilbao. Great city, great people, great food—and one of the worst airports in the world.* The winds over its runways are crazy. Check out this video of an aborted landing filmed last Friday. Madness. Here’s a close-up of another recent crosswind landing, which is spectacular because of the zoom factor: And if you want more…
Shocking video of a US Army infantry outpost hit the web today, showing an airstrike gone awry. The soldiers are waiting for the strike to take out a group of Taliban soldiers, when a 500-pound bomb explodes just a few feet from their outpost. A 500-pound American bomb. Funker530 posted the video along with a…
