Sploid: Where awesome, wild, and breathtaking tech moments burst into view.
The same soap bubbles that fascinated you as a toddler can be just as engaging when you’re all grown up. They just need to be super-sized, filmed in glorious 4K, and then manipulated in post-production with a mirror effect that turns them into undulating alien-like blobs. Cue up some Led Zeppelin and let your mind…
For the past four years, Tommy Edison has vlogged his experience as a blind man in a world full of people who can see. Some of these videos are revelatory, like when he explains how the blind use money, or what his dreams are like. Today he decided to find out what riding a rollercoaster…
The butterfly is in a much heavier weight class compared to the ant. But when you have a bite like this ant, it doesn’t even matter. Watch as the butterfly pokes its proboscis around until it irritates the ant enough for the ant to fight back by locking its jaws on the long, straw-like feeding…
To cap off their freshman year at the Naval Academy, hundreds of plebes try to scale the greased down Herndon Monument to replace the hat on top of the 21-foot tall obelisk. It’s a fun tradition that teaches teamwork and caps off a hard year—but it looks oh so ridiculous to see so many shirtless…
To make this list—which I’m absolutely sure will be totally definitive, with no need for anyone to ever debate it, right?—critics from around the world were polled by the BBC to name the greatest American movies in film history. I’ll save you some surprises: Citizen Kane was first, The Godfather was second. Hitchcock and Spielberg…
Calcium alginate is incredible stuff. It has the ability to surround liquids with a springy membrane so they can hold a shape and be handled like solids. The process is called spherification, and gets a lot of use in upscale, molecular gastronomy-type restaurants. One start-up is even trying replace water bottles using similar methods. But…
Nothing is more closely associated with “upcycling” than the lowly, splintery shipping pallet. You can get them for next to nothing and turn them into sweet boxes, benches, light stands, or put the wood towards hundreds, nay, thousands of other projects. Here’s how to pull one apart without ending up in the ER. Jim Ether’s…
How does radar not detect a B-2 stealth bomber? How can an aircraft with a 172-foot wingspan register as small as just a large bird, if anything at all? The Northrop B-2 Spirit escapes radar by being specifically designed to reflect radio waves away from the source so it’d never be detected. But the stealth…
Leafcutter ants get their name because they use their incredibly sharp jaws to slice through leaves. Pretty straightforward stuff. Unfortunately for humans, those jaws can cut through other things, like fingers. So the host of Brave Wilderness decided to find out how much damage one could do in just 60 seconds. It doesn’t take long…
You probably can’t get away with watching movies at your desk all day at work. But since most websites are still totally acceptable, warm up your scrolling finger, and go to town on this incredible fan tribute that sees the entire original Star Wars: A New Hope turned into one long scrollable schematic. The site’s…
If you’ve ever stumbled across a creation that looked too unsafe to ever be attempted—be it a thermite cannon or a flying hoverbike—you’re probably looking at the handiwork of Colin Furze. This time he’s built a flamethrowing electric guitar with a built-in smoke machine turning whoever’s playing into the ultimate rock star. It’s reminiscent of…
Salt. It shows up in our idioms about as often as our food. Even the word salary is derived from salarium, the term for a Roman soldier’s earned ration of salt. But one of the most ridiculous lies perpetuated about this humble mineral is that in ye olden days, salt was more valuable than gold…
Calvin and Hobbes should be everyone’s favorite comic strip. But what makes it so special? Kaptain Kristian dives in to explain why the strip is so good. The argument centers around the idea that Calvin and Hobbes puts art before commerce, as all art should. Created by Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes is wildly imaginative,…
The history of why Q is almost always followed by U is fascinating, and dates back to when the Normans invaded England in 1066. Before that, English didn’t even have a Q; it used “cw” to replicate the sound. After the invasion, though, the spelling of English was changed to match the French ways: “cw”…
Most people know potato guns are sweet as hell. Unfortunately, if you want to use one to turn any large pieces of produce into a smoothie (a squash or watermelon, for instance), you’ll need something stronger than a potato. Say, a steel-reinforced potato. That’s precisely what Dustin from Smarter Every Day did, and he filmed…
Nerf Screamers were the coolest. They had little plastic whistles embedded in them, so that they woul produce a screeching noise as they flew. (As I’m typing this, I realize how patient my neighbors must have been to listen to a tiny shrieking football at all hours of the day. Thanks Karen and Paul!) Regardless,…
A watch strap is just a strip of leather, right? Nope! Not when it’s handcrafted like this. There are so many steps involved in the process of making a leather watch strap that it borders on ridiculous. From selecting the leather to stamping out the strap to shaving down the interior to dyeing the material…
So you’re watching sportsball, and your team wins. The stadium fills with confetti, and the broadcast starts to look like total crap. Why does confetti make the players on your expensive TV look like Minecraft character? The answer lies in the nature of digital video compression. As Tom Scott explains, 99 times out of 100,…
If you’re interested in melting metal, and you totally should be because it’s basically the most fun way to recycle soda cans, The Art of Weapons details how to make an electric foundry for metal casting. Using charcoal to heat up a foundry can get a bit dirty so it makes much more sense to…
We’ve seen Beatles pancakes. We’ve seen Rick and Morty pancakes. We’ve even seen How To Basic parody the phenomenon of pancake art. As internet trends go, this one is on the wane, but we’d be remiss not to point of how incredible these Game of Thrones characters look as breakfast food. Somehow the people of…
