Laughing Squid

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...

With help from Tony Reid of Mind Over Metal, Stephen Robinson of 52 Skillz learned how to rip a phone book in half using his bare hands. A post shared by 52skillz (@52skillz) on Dec 15, 2017 at 12:56pm PST How to Rip a Phone Book in HalfA Determined Man Quickly Learns How to Split...

On December 16, 2017, Ralph Carney, the brilliant wood and brasswind musician who was a good friend of Laughing Squid, passed away at the age of 61 in Portland Oregon. The Akron, Ohio native who lived in San Francisco for many years, had collaborated with such acclaimed artists as Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Jonathan Richman...

In another one of his truly insightful video essays, YouTuber Polyphonic dives into the career of the George Martin, the very talented producer, composer and musician in his own right, who provided The Beatles with their iconic full orchestral sound for much of the the band’s lifetime. While Martin is just one of several men...

“The Firmest Friend” is a really touching, award-winning documentary about forgotten homeless youths in New York City and the incredibly unique bond they share with their pit bulls, a breed that is often demonized as being vicious. Filmmaker Andrew Fixell sensed a real kinship between misunderstood humans and misunderstood dogs and wanted to share it...

When farmers in Fordongianus, Italy went out into the field, they were surprised to find that a small dog had climbed onto the soft, downy back of one of their longhaired sheep and got comfortable. The oblivious sheep didn’t seem to mind the canine interloper and just went about grazing along the grass as if...

Due to a serious predilection for the destruction of Christmas trees by one of their cats, Chris and Jess, the humans belonging to Cole and Marmalade, decided to forego the challenge this year and instead found a fun and simple alternative. Using inexpensive feline-safe materials, the couple created a giant cardboard gingerbread house complete with...

New York City sound designer Matt McCorkle, a member of New Museum incubator NEW INC, who previously made a spooktacular interactive Halloween Soundboard, has created the New Year’s Music Box, an interactive soundboard to celebrate the New Year. This online soundboard lets users experiment with the instruments of a four-part harmony performance of “Auld Lang...

In a gutsy TED-Ed lesson by Emma Bryce and animated by Jeremy Jusay, narrator Addison Anderson explains how the digetstive system works in order to transport necessary nutrients to keep the body and the brain functioning properly. Across the planet, humans eat on average between 1 and 2.7 kilograms of food a day, and every...

Jack Houweling of Jackspiano and Jax Design has created a fantastic tutorial video where he demonstrates how to make a double chaotic pendulum out of wood. His step by step guide, with pictures, is available to view on the Jax Design website. images via Jax Design via Digg The Corpus Clock & Chronophage (Time Eater)...

A post shared by Cristian Marianciuc (@icarus.mid.air) on Aug 7, 2017 at 9:43am PDT In January 2015, British origami artist Cristian Marianciuc challenged himself to make one unique paper crane per day for a year. Marianciuc then increased the challenge to reach 1,000 unique cranes a goal he easily reached over the course of three...

A post shared by Chad Knight (@chadknight) on May 8, 2017 at 11:03pm PDT Surrealist artist Chad Knight has created a mind-blowing collection of 3D digital sculptures that look they actually exist in the real world. Prints of his impressive works of art are available to purchase from Society6. A post shared by Chad Knight...

Kyloki is a funny web series, created by the folks at Leisure Elk Productions, about a random guy who attempts to live in an apartment with evil villains Kylo Ren and Loki. A post shared by Leisure Elk (@leisureelk) on Nov 27, 2016 at 1:26pm PST A post shared by Leisure Elk (@leisureelk) on Sep...

While visiting the Adelaide Zoo in South Australia, YouTuber Flippers & Feathers captured adorable footage of an excited small clawed otter as he skillfully and repeatedly juggled three small stones while lying on his back on top of another otter’s tail. It was almost if he were anticipating something very good, very soon. An Oriental...

Lynx & Birds is a charming animated Christmas short, created by Blue-Zoo Animation in London, that tells a heart warming tale about a fearsome predator who unexpectedly becomes a loving provider. A mama bird accidentally lets her baby bird fall out of its nest. The little bird comes face to face with a hungry lynx....

A post shared by Tina's perspective on life (@tinasperspective) on Feb 14, 2016 at 3:07pm PST Norwegian photographer who goes by the moniker Tina’s Perspective has captured some absolutely stunning macro portraits of the mysterious and magical beauty of the ever-changing cat’s eye from several different angles. Tina’s subjects were most likely Zorro, Zonic and...

Gavin Free and Dan Gruchy of The Slow Mo Guys teamed up with Amazon to promote the second season of The Grand Tour. To do so, they captured slow motion footage of a 4 ton wrecking ball destroying a brick wall and all sorts of vehicles. Puppy Christmas, Cute Puppies Destroying Gifts & DecorationsProject Wrecking...

A very silly little cat named Mew Mew who lives in Blacklick, Ohio, sneaked behind the computer where her human Kelley Fultz was working, caught the scent of a yummy baked good and stuck out a surreptitious white out to drag the half eaten piece of break away by the napkin. Fultz, however, was having...

Larry is a short horror film, created by Jacob Chase, about a lonely monster who comes to life after a parking lot attendant (Joe Calarco) reads a horror story. The terrifying creature only wanted a new friend. via io9 Battling Boy, Paul Pope’s Graphic Novel About Demigods and MonstersThe Shape of Water, A Cold War...

Producer Felipe Haurelhuk and editor Fabrício Carvalho teamed up with Darth Blender to create an animated version of the latest Avengers: Infinity War trailer. They used clips featured in 1990s television shows like Spider-Man The Animated Series, The Incredible Hulk, and The Avengers – United They Stand. A Retro Version of the Avengers: Infinity War...

Filmmaker Jacob T. Swinney has created an uplifting montage of people and creatures dancing in films from 2017. He featured scenes from movies like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, IT, and Baby Driver. A Supercut of People in Movies Watching MoviesA Montage of Epic Moments That Took Place at the Star Wars Celebration in...