Laughing Squid

Writer, journalist and Columbia University teacher Jessica Bruder drove across the United States to learn more about the community of “workampers”, rootless migrant workers who never were able to recover from the 2008 recession. Now living in their vehicles such as RVs and campers, these workers travel from job to job, doing a variety of...

Alla Lebedeva, a farmer in Barnaul, Alta Krai, Russia on West Siberian Plain raises lots of different animals including horses and chickens, but the ones that stand out the most are her absolutely gorgeous, fluffy, long haired Siberian farm cats who happily chase out rodents and other pests from the barn when they’re not playing...

Just ahead of the 2017 Doctor Who Christmas Special “Twice Upon a Time” airing on December 25th, BBC America created a wonderful montage of fans from all over the world saying goodbye to the departing Peter Capaldi and his final appearance as the 12th iteration of the titular Doctor. Included in this montage, amongst many...

Sky Magic sent 300 drones up into the air earlier this week, during Qatar National Day celebrations at Katara Cultural Village, to put on a spectacular performance with the first live drone light show in Qatar. A post shared by Katara Cultural Village-????? (@kataraqatar) on Dec 19, 2017 at 4:30am PST The First Aerial Illuminated...

A post shared by Star Wars Bakery ?? (@starwars_bakery) on Dec 19, 2017 at 8:23am PST The folks at Star Wars Bakery have created a dangerously delicious looking Imperial Star Destroyer out of nothing but gingerbread and tasty icing. They put it up on display at the DICE office in Stockholm. A post shared by...

In an empowering episode of “The Unsung“, MassMutual collaborated with Great Big Story to share the story of a young boy named Phil Mick in Auburn, Indiana, who began getting sick and avoiding school due to the daily harassment he endured from other kids. His mom turned to the United Motorcycle Enthusiasts, a group of...

Dear Satan is a hilarious animated Christmas film, created by Anomaly London, about a young girl who accidentally writes a heartfelt letter to Satan, when she actually meant to send it to Santa. One little girl changes the way Christmas functions in Anomaly’s awesome film, narrated by the great Sir Patrick Stewart, with one hellacious...

Yesterday we posted a video about an adorable cockatiel named Lucky who does a pitch perfect impression of the default iPhone ringtone whenever he’s upset. When Lucky’s humans played the video for him, the little bird went over to the laptop to investigate. Lucky then promptly removed the escape key, seemingly in an effort to...

In a semi-animated piece for Vox, writer and director Dean Petersen takes a look the casting of babies in film and television roles, going through the legal complexities around working hours per different state laws, how much they get paid, how their earnings are protected, the ever-evolving realism of mechanical babies and the reasons why...

Alessandro Maggia of Starlight Video Productions has created a wonderful video that takes viewers on a “fantastic journey” through dance scenes edited together from beloved 1980s movies. A fantastic journey into the most fabulous decade of Cinema history: the 80s!!! From Indiana Jones to Terminator, from Star Wars to Flashdance, you can see here a...

In “From Dream to Reality“, filmmaker Max Joseph shared the out loud process of coming up with the original idea to cover road medians in art that would appear to become animated as people drove by, the challenges of unforseen hurdles and the creative collaborations that would change and evolve the idea over the course...

Matt Johnson of Living Light Shows and his family turned their San Antonio, Texas home into an incredible 2017 Star Wars themed Christmas light show set to Klayton Celldweller‘s dubstep EDM remix of composer John Williams‘ iconic “The Imperial March” theme song from Star Wars. We previously wrote about their 2015 and 2016 light shows....

A post shared by Adam Hillman ? (@witenry) on Nov 22, 2017 at 9:24am PST Artist Adam Hillman has created a wonderful collection of images that feature everyday household objects and foods arranged together to make all sorts of pleasing geometric shapes and patterns. Prints of his work are available to purchase from Society6. A...

Joshua Schaeffer of San Luis Obispo, California has created an adorable animated GIF image of a cute little blue octopus, he calls a “quadtopus”, that is endlessly swimming and twirling through the ocean. I think Im going to call him a quadtopus. Trying to experiment with adding depth and life to flat line drawings. via...

Chicago engineer Matt Mikka of Warped Perception captured super slow motion footage of alcohol burning in various whoosh bottles. Mikka took his experimentation to the next level by burning nitromethane in his “jet bottles.” The results were quite stunning. via The Awesomer An Estes Model Rocket Engine Igniting Underwater in Super Slow MotionSuper Slow Motion...

Disney released the first trailer for The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, their upcoming live action fantasy film directed by Lasse Hallström based on E.T.A. Hoffmann‘s story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.” The trailer features Keira Knightly as the Sugar Plum Fairy and follows a young lady named Clara (Mackenzie Foy) who finds a...

AARP went inside the jolly classrooms of American Events and Promotions, where over 900 aspiring Santas were learning how to be a proper Santa Claus in terms of dress, grooming, posing and the ethics of working with children. The lead Santa stated that his favorite part of the transformation is when the men make the...

Technology entrepreneur Brian Behlendorf, one of the primary creators of the Apache Web server and co-founder of Organic, is currently the executive director of HyperLedger, an open source blockchain project that’s thinking beyond cryptocurrency. In a video for Big Think, Behlendorf explains how the decentralized nature of blockchain technology will lead to “significantly lower corruption...

In a cozy TED-Ed lesson by Maria R. D’Orsogna and animated by Matt Reynolds, narrator Julianna Zarzycki explains how a swarm forms, how the individuals within the swarm need to maintain the proper balance, how a swarm is self-governing boy and the many ways in which humans have learned from swarms. When many individual organisms...

Father Figures stars Owen Wilson and Ed Helms sat down with Wired to answer the web’s most searched questions about the themselves during an Autocomplete Interview. Father Figures will release in theaters on December 22nd, 2017. Why does Ed Helms always sing? Is Owen Wilson related to Ellen DeGeneres? Did Ed Helms really lose a...

Georgia Tech College of Design professor and founding director of the Center for Music Technology, Gil Weinberg, worked with fellow researchers to create a incredible bionic hand that was heavily inspired by Luke Skywalker‘s mechanical hand from Star Wars. The bio hand allows amputees to move individual fingers with the use of ultrasound signals. Musician...

Temecula, California woodworker and artist Kyle Toth of Wood by Toth created a tasty looking pepperoni pizza out of various types of wood. This pizza is made in bloodwood for the pepperoni, yellowheart for the cheese, and hickory for the crust. A post shared by Kyle Toth (@tothtoth) on Dec 4, 2017 at 4:06pm PST...

Darren Dyk of Beyond Slow Motion and a group of his friends built a huge fire tornado using box fans and captured slow motion footage of the fiery tornado swirling around in front of a beautiful Utah sunset. The Slow Mo Guys Build a Fire Tornado and Capture it in Spectacular 2,500fps Slow MotionSuper Slow...

A post shared by Lewis Miller Design (@lewismillerdesign) on Dec 1, 2017 at 4:38am PST Renowned New York City floral designer Lewis Miller of Lewis Miller Designs (LMD) has created a wonderful ephemeral trend he calls “The Flower Flash” in which beautiful floral designs, either new or “re-gifted” from a previous night’s party, appear on...

Hand Tool Rescue is a fascinating YouTube channel where a man demonstrates, without any narration at all, how he methodically restores vintage hand tools. He then puts the restored tools back in the hands of people who will actually use and appreciate them. A post shared by Hand Tool Rescue (@handtoolrescue) on Dec 12, 2017...

In a short, festive episode of their incredibly informative whiteboard series for Mental Floss, linguist Arika Okrent and illustrator Sean O’Neill explain the origins of typical words used around the holidays such as wreath, bough, sleigh, don, manger and wassail. Wassail comes from waes haeil meaning “be in good health. The waes part is an...

Toms Mucenieks, a very talented pianist, played a brilliant cover of the traditional Christmas carol “Jingle Bells” in a haunting minor key. Towards the middle, Mucenieks added a little Double Harmonic Minor, almost as if to make the song a bit less depressing. Long story short – I somehow got tired of the same Christmas...

Putting a modern twist on the ancient game, 3 Man Chess is a uniquely round chessboard that can accommodate three players at once in a single game, with only a slight change in rules and defensive positions. As stated in the description, “The complexities of the third player are infinite.” Play chess with 3 people...

The New York Times series “Daily 360” has captured incredible immersive 360 degree videos of some of the most beautiful places on Earth that are also considered, per a study and vote commissioned by the New 7 Wonders Foundation in 2007, to be the New Seven Wonders of the World. These highly visited Wonders include...

Domino artists Lily Hevesh (a.k.a. “Hevesh5“), Steve Price (a.k.a. “Sprice Machines“), and Hayden (a.k.a. “Dynamic Domino“) spent two days building an amazing rainbow spiral out of 12,000 dominoes. A post shared by Steve Price (@spricemachines) on Dec 15, 2017 at 6:53am PST A post shared by Steve Price (@spricemachines) on Dec 13, 2017 at 4:40pm...

A very determined, loving Labrador retriever father took his six devoted puppies out for a run around a nice big green field and over to the pond and repeated this process over and again in a patient effort to teach his offspring how to swim. On the first go round, only one or two of...

Bodega Studios, Northern Lights, Mr. Wonderful, and SuperExploder have created “Cocoa Strikes Back,” their 2017 stop motion animation for the holiday season that features a marshmallow version of Luke Skywalker taking on Darth Vader in a classic scene from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. We previously wrote about their annual holiday films from 2013,...

Whenever his humans begin putting on their shoes, a tiny cockatiel named Lucky automatically chirps out a perfect imitation of the default Apple iPhone ringtone to signal that he’s upset that they are leaving. While little Lucky is expressing his sadness in his own way, the performance itself is absolutely adorable. My friend’s family has...

The Euless Fire Department in Texas put on an incredibly festive light show with the use of their emergency warning lights that was set to Trans Siberian Orchestra‘s version of “Carol of The Bells.” via Digg An Intense Christmas Light Show Synchronized Across a Suburban BlockTricked-Out Cadillac Baby Stroller Has Fire Coming Out of the...

The Blitzen is a brilliant vehicle rooftop beverage cooler, created by the team at Deeplocal, that allows you to chill your drinks while you drive to your holiday parties. The liquor store only had warm Prosecco when a Deeplocal engineer went to pick up a bottle. With a short drive home and no time for...

In a very rare scene, Simon and Simon’s Cat were enjoying each other’s company by playing with a fishing rod toy that had a long string the cat enjoyed chasing. This went on for a while until Simon became distracted by his smartphone. No matter what the disappointed feline did to encourage more play time,...

Japanese ping pong player takkyuu geinin demonstrated his expertise in the sport by lobbing back incoming balls with a variety of household and musical items that each made a unique noise when struck. Amongst these items were a pot cover, a tambourine, a spoon, a pair of castanets and even a glass of wine. via...

Filmmaker Casey Neistat and 18 other YouTube creators partnered with Samsung to transform the long abandoned Northridge Mall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin into a magical winter wonderland for the local Boys and Girls Club. The creators spent nearly a month getting the place ready and were happily rewarded by the excitement on each kid’s face as...

The cheery puppeteers of Sesame Street sat down with Wired to discuss and describe in wonderful detail how they operate their Muppets, how they inject personality into the character and how they film certain scenes. Included in this interview are Matt Vogel as Big Bird, Ryan Dillon as Elmo, Martin Robinson as Mr. Snuffleupagus, Leslie...

In a rather saucy video from BBC Earth‘s “Polar Bear Spy On The Ice“, actor David Tennant gleefully narrated a scene in which couple of frolicking polar bears suddenly halted their amorous tryst in order to put right the skiing BBC “blizzardcam” that was spying on them. Once all was good, the romantic bears happily...

Universal Pictures released an amazing trailer for Mortal Engines, an upcoming sci-fi action adventure film directed by Christian Rivers, written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson, and based on the novel of the same name by Philip Reeve. The trailer takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where a gigantic steampunk machine version of...

A post shared by @ronmueckart on Dec 15, 2017 at 1:49am PST Australian artist Ron Mueck has created “Mass“, a truly haunting installation of 100 oversized skulls piled one atop another, in a manner very similar to horrific imagery that comes out of genocide and war. This seemingly somber study of mortality was intended to...

Theme Park University took a ride through Space Mountain, the legendary indoor space-themed roller coaster at Walt Disney World, with all of the lights on. Here is another thrilling video, created by SoCal Attractions 360, of a trip through Space Mountain with the lights off to compare both experiences. Disney Theme Park Toy Play Sets,...

On December 11, 2017, Lt. Justin Mayton with the Harlem-Roscoe Fire Protection District #1 in Roscoe, Illinois expertly and heroically set out onto the frozen Lake Legend where a man who had gotten stranded when his kayak sunk in an effort to rescue his dog Chewy who had fallen through the ice. Donning a proper...

Bad Lip Reading released “Hostiles on the Hill,” a hilarious new extended Star Wars lyric video for Luke Skywalker‘s snowspeeder rap featured in their Empire Strikes Back parody. It’s as sweet as cinnamon. We previously wrote about their brilliant Star Wars lyric music videos “Bushes of Love,” “Not the Future,” and “SEAGULLS! (Stop It Now).”...

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In his continuing concern about the inevitability of automation, the very insightful CPG Grey provides an animated explanation about machine learning. Using very comprehensible examples, he essentially boils the subject down to bots making bots that use humans to learn, improve and eventually become smarter than the person who wrote the code. But with machines...

Tech Vlogger Keaton Keller of TechSmartt went on a bit of a wild chase when he decided he wanted to buy one full Bitcoin for cash. After finding a few ads on Craigslist, he began calling. Several were duds, but one guy was willing to do the transaction, but wanted a 10% fee. Keller countered...

Reigarw Comparisons created a fascinating new video that compares the size, frequency, and collision power of asteroids. We previously wrote about their comparisons of hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanos. In this episode, we compare the impact of the sizes of asteroids from 1m to 1000km large, how often they occured and what are the results. Including...

In 2016, a photographer in Siberia, Russia captured the wonderfully astonishing sight of freshwater waves coming in from Lake Baikal, freezing in the extreme chill and instantly turning into ice shards as they pushed their way to the ever-increasing shoreline. Ice wave on Lake Baikal – Lake Baikal in Siberia is the oldest and deepest...