-
Tech NewsSploid
Yes, I can’t have enough of these futuristic spaceships and city scenes
I can’t have enough futuristic spaceships and cities—and Dmitry Vishnevsky is pretty good at creating these postcards from places that never were or haven’t been yet. Dmitry Vishnevsky is a concept artist and illustrator based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. You can follow his work on Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, and ArtStation. This is part of a … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
If nobody owns these cool animal selfies, we should give them the money
This animal selfie compilation got me thinking: If the courts say these photos can’t be owned by humans because they are taken by animals, shouldn’t there be some kind of international legal mechanism to make the people who use the photos pay some money to protect each species? Makes sense to me. Above: My dog … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
Artists makes 365 beautiful tiny paintings for ants
Back in 2013, Lorraine Loots started her 365 Paintings for Ants—one delicate, tiny beautiful painting for each of the 365 days of the year. As you can see in this video and photos of her work, they are really neat and precious. Lorraine Loots makes her beautiful miniature paintings in in Cape Town, South Africa. … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
Beautiful glass sculptures transform light into beautiful color shapes
Chris Wood loves glass. So much she’s dedicating her life to the study of its properties, creating these beautiful installations in which light and color become a quasi-three-dimensional object. Chris Wood is a designer and artist interesedt in light and the physical and visual qualities of glass. She studied Glass at the Royal College of … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
Amazing photo of the MIR space station against the immensity of Earth
Surprisingly enough for a space junkie like me, I’ve never seen this image of the MIR—the Soviet space station that was destroyed on reentry on 2001 after 5,519 days in orbit. The photo was taken from the space shuttle Atlantis on the mission STS-71, docked in the photo below. What an amazing view. SPLOID is … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
NASA asteroid defense system is a failure, says audit
NASA Inspector General Paul Martin has alerted of the awful state of the asteroid defense system, a program mandated by Congress in 2005 to detect and track at least 90 percent near-Earth objects greater than 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter by 2020. This is bad news. From the report: While the program has discovered, … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
I want to live in these cool visions of the far future by Alex Ries
I love Alex Ries’ sci-fi illustrations because they feel more close enough to our current reality to be truly believable, like some lost far-future NASA concept mission designs. Even his alien creatures feel biologically plausible. Alex Ries is a Melbourne-based illustrator and concept artist who has been featured in Cosmos Magazine, Pearson Education Canada, and … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
Goodbye space shuttle carrier—and thank you for being awesome
You are looking at the second of the two Boeing 747 space shuttle carriers being taken to its resting place at the Joe Davies Heritage Airpark, in Palmdale, California. After two decades ferrying the space shuttles across the country, the two legendary aircraft are now retired. Over the next 20 years, it made 66 flights … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
Cool video: Ceramic head cuts one of the toughest metals in the world
That big block of metal is inconel, an extremely tough “austenitic nickel-chromium-based superalloy,” one of the strongest metals known to humans, used in “in extreme environments subjected to pressure and heat” like nuclear plants. How do you cut such a hard thing? Let’s watch a video. That’s a ceramic head rotating at very high speed. … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
Size comparison of optical telescopes from 1893 to 2022
Here’s a fascinating graphic comparisonof the mirrors of optical telescopes since the Yerkes Observatory—a 1893 40-inch refractor in Williams Bay,Wisconsin—to the largest of them all, the 128-foot (39-meter) European Extremely Large Telescope at Cerro Armazones in the Atacama Desert, Chile. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
ESA announces comet landing site, shows spectacular photos
As it releases closer and closer photos of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the European Space Agency has announced the landing site for Philae, the little spaceship that will be launched from the Rosetta mothership to touch down on the surface of this object—the first comet landing in history. Here’s the primary landing site: Site J is … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
This song made with random YouTube music clips is simply amazing
I started watching the music video of Give It Up—the fourth track of Kutiman’s first album Thru You Too—with skepticism. After all, how good can a song be if it’s made from samples taken from random, unconnected YouTube music clips? Well, apparently, it can be amazingly good. Just watch and listen. Kutiman’s real name is … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
A vision of the Universe captured in one single mashup picture
This blurry abstract painting is the mashup of 100 of the most popular Hubble Space Telescope images, made by Michael West of the Maria Mitchell Observatory. [The] Hubble’s top 100 images were downloaded and resized to identical pixel dimensions. At each point the 100 pixel values were arranged from lowest to highest, and the middle … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
The giant power plug used for floating wind turbines is pretty damn cool
This is the MacArtney 11kV, 400 amp wet mate connector, a plug “eliminates the need to bring cables to the surface by wet mating and de-mating cable infrastructure, wave energy converters, tidal energy converters and floating wind turbines.” I just find it fun because it kind of looks like a regular 120v plug. MacArtney’s wet … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
Edge of Tomorrow stunts and practical effects are absolutely crazy
Edge of Tomorrow was a pretty good movie—and spectacular too. So much that I thought most of the stunts and effects were computer generated. But no, a lot of those explosions and jumps were completely real, as this complete behind the scenes B-roll footage shows. Very impressive. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
Willie Nelson tells a story using an awesome magic card trick
The Awesomer found this cool video of the one and only Willie Nelson telling a story with a brilliant trick that uses every single card of a deck. It’s amazing to see a legend like him telling a simple story. I watched in trance and with a smile all the time. SPLOID is a new … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
Impressive photo of a spaceship 250 million miles away from Earth
You are looking at a photo of a spaceship flying 250 millions miles away from Earth. It’s Rosetta, floating in the pitch black vacuum of space photographed by its Philae daughtership, a lander that will soon arrive to the object on the background, the comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
Star Wars last scene without the music is impossibly hilarious
I always thought the final scene of the original Star Wars was one of the most ridiculous things ever* but, without the music soundtrack and with added ambient sound, it turns into one of the most cringeworthy scenes in the history of cinema. It’s just ridiculous. *By the way, can anyone explain why the hell … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
This is the largest spacecraft welding machine in the world
Behold the new welding “tool” at the Vertical Assembly Center in NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, the largest spacecraft welding tool in the world for the largest rocket ever, the Space Launch System that will take us one day to Mars. This thing is 170-foot-tall and 78-foot-wide. It will put together the main … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech NewsSploid
There’s NOTHING cuter than these puppies swimming underwater
OK people, stop doing whatever the hell you’re doing. Stop working, stop eating, stop loving or hating. Stop. Stop and watch these perfect OMFGAFASDGASDGHJDFG photos of puppies swimming underwater by Seth Casteel. Because nothing else matters, really. Nothing. Nothing but puppies. You can read Seth’s interview with NPR here. Seth Casteel is the author of … Continued
By Jesus Diaz