Sploid: Where awesome, wild, and breathtaking tech moments burst into view.
Finish him! Every gamer knows when that Mortal Kombat voice reigns down, something truly horrific is about to happen to your dazed opponent. We’re talking about fatalities. We’re talking about seeing a character’s skeleton or ripping someone’s heart out or punching their head off or turning them into blood goo or whatever else totally sick…
You know those basketball or soccer dribbling drills where you snake through a line of cones, dribbling in and out one way on a cone and then slithering through the opposite side of the next cone? That’s what pilot Hannes Arch is doing in this airplane at a wind farm in Tauern Wind Park in…
In my head, we screwed it all up. Our reality is an alternate timeline because our hoverboards don’t actually hover. There are people out there living in the real timeline where Back to the Future-style hoverboards actually do exist and do hover and are probably made in a factory that pumps ‘em out like in…
Obstacle detection and avoidance is one area in which drones fail utterly, which is too bad because human pilots just aren’t that good at flying them. The obvious solution? Teach a drone to think like fencer. Ross Allen and Marco Pavone, researchers at Stanford University’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, have been trying to perfect…
It’s pretty simple. The cornea and the lens needs to focus light right onto the retina in the back of the eye in order for us to see clearly. If our corneas and lenses are screwed up, it’ll pinpoint the light in front of or behind the retina causing us to only be able to…
Why is a pineapple called a pineapple in English but is named anana in pretty much every other European language? Well, it’s because English speakers saw the spiky fruit and thought of a pine cone and apple while other countries use the Tupi Guaraini (language used by natives in South America) word for pineapple, nana,…
Usually a music video conveys something about an artist’s worldview. In this case, we can infer that the members of Tame Impala are successful businesspeople with limited control over their emotions. Or at least that might be editor Ben Aston is trying to convey with his video for “Nangs.” He notes that the stock footage…
The placebo effect is real, we all know that. Our bodies can be tricked into getting better and healthier even when we’re take taking sugar pills or fake drugs or undergoing treatment that isn’t even supposed to help us get better. If we believe it will help, it sometimes really does help. Ted-Ed dives in…
Admittedly, it’s a little weird to do a history of Spider-Man in movies because they just told and re-told the origin story of the superhero within like a span of 10 years. But we all love Spider-Man so much that even though there’s not much history to go over, it’s still always fun to look…
The number of bad ideas on the internet far outweighs the good, and making art by tossing cans of spraypaint into the spinning blades of a running lawnmower falls into that former category. As YouTuber Uncle Rob also discovered, if you’re not careful, your masterpiece might go up in flames before you even have a…
Here’s footage of an old bridge over the Washita River in Oklahoma being demolished with 600 pounds of explosives. Because of the super slow motion, you can see how and where the explosives were rigged to the bridge in order to take it down. Explosions, always a good way to go out. SPLOID is delicious…
Approximately half of the content on the internet is cat videos, but the BBC managed to capture one that’s truly remarkable: high-speed footage of a wild Caracal as it deftly manages to spin itself around midair in order to land safely on its feet. Even if you’ve seen every last cat video on the web,…
As many bartenders know, one of the secrets to a tastier drink is playing with fire. Flaming an orange (or any citrus, really) is an old trick that looks impressive, but why does it work? First off, there’s a lot of flavor stored in the peel—that’s the whole reason you order drinks “with a twist.”…
In Fallout lore, Deathclaws were originally replacement troops in the Great War. They’re huge, scaly, and fast, and terrifying. This clay model from Sculpture_Geek is so realistic, it looks about ready to jump off its stand and headbutt you. I’ve seen superb model makers creatively shape clay on YouTube many times, but what surprised me…
It’s like when you’re parking your car in a parking lot and your tire bumps the curb because you went a little too far, only it’s a giant boat that’s gone too far and the curb is a dock with a bunch of people walking around. So yeah, not exactly the same. A lot, a…
There’s a moment, before all the crayons are melted and before it devolves into some sort of poisonous stew that people in the past had to eat because that’s all they had to eat, where some of the crayons have not melted and the crayons that have melted have not completely mixed together that this…
This rear angle capturing a MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter aerial refueling from a KC-130 tanker makes it look like aerial helicopter refueling is the most dangerous thing. The helicopter blades look like they would tangle up with the fuel line and send both aircraft tumbling down. Luckily, it’s not like that! Here’s a Black Hawk…
Modern knives have something distinctly badass about them. Maybe it’s the materials. Maybe its the sleek ergonomic handles. But they also seem to be missing the sense of personality and specialness apparent in the work of ancient Japanese bladesmiths. That’s why knifemaker Walter Sorrells decided to make a tanto—a type of short dagger—whose handle has…
If there’s one thing animators love, its sneaking visual references into movies, and Disney’s geniuses are some of the best at it. Some of these—like the Finding Nemo shoutout in Brother Bear—last only a couple frames. Others are so overt that after they’re pointed out you feel foolish for not noticing them sooner. But take…
The scariest place to be when you’re a kid? Alone, at night, in your bed, right before you sleep. You just know right when you close your eyes, all the stuff of nightmares is going to come alive and scare any chance of sleep out of you. And it’s probably all true! Who knows what’s…
