Drone Light Show Sets Record

Drones have many uses, but let's not talk about war right now. For aerial entertainment, they are much safer than fireworks, and can light up the sky with intricate 3-dimensional images that are just breathtaking. The biggest show yet happened in Hefei, Anhui, China, on February 3rd, 2026. The Chinese company Guangdong EHang Egret Media Technology Co., Ltd. launched 22,580 and set a new world record for the "most multirotor/drones airborne simultaneously from a single computer (outdoors)." Since they qualified that, you have to wonder how many more were ever launched inside a structure. 

Oh yeah, and unlike fireworks, these drones can be used again. (via Geeks Are Sexy) 

A Common Scenario

(via Pleated-Jeans)

The Secrets of Silk

Up until 552 AD, Europe paid dearly for a luxurious fabric from China called silk. It was lightweight but strangely strong, felt good against the skin, and came in amazing colors and patterns. What was it made of? How did they produce such beautiful fabric with it? That was a mystery that China was careful not to reveal, because they were making a ton of money sending silk along a trade route that became known as the Silk Road. They kept the existence of the silk worm, and the food it ate. But they also had some really advanced technology for fabric production that worked on principles that eventually made their way into our modern computers. 

This simple video of the silk making process is more interesting than it has any right to be. There's a 70-second skippable ad at 4:07. (via Damn Interesting) 

Microwave

Inventor of the microwave: This machine will cook dinner faster than a stove or oven. Consumer: How hot does the food get? I: Very hot, like the surface of the sun. C: Oh wow, that’s incre– I: But only some of it. C: Come again? I: The rest stays frozen.

— kottke.org (@kottke.org) February 17, 2026 at 8:18 PM

Why Do Cameras Do This?

 

Now that panoramic photos are widely available on phones, you see weird camera effects more and more often. Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day explains the rolling shutter effect and why it happens. Wait until you see what the effect does to a fidget spinner, a guitar, and a spinning coin! (via Everlasting Blort)

O Printer! My Printer!

Mr. T-blog sent me a poem (Thanks!). It was inspired by the loss of TWO printers in a span of only two months. I can relate to the magnitude of this disaster. Apologies to Walt Whitman. 

 

          O Printer! my Printer! our fearful trip is done,

The laserjet has weather’d every rack, the PPM we sought is won,

The USB port is near, the drum roller I hear, the users all expletiving,

While follow eyes the DPI, the copy jam grim and daring;

                         But O heart! heart! heart!

                            O the bleeding drops of ink,

                               Where on the desk my Printer lies,

                                  Fallen cold and dead.

 

My Printer does not answer, his papertrays are pale and still,

My HP does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The laserjet is recycled safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From Staples trip the victor ship comes in with replacement won;

                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

                            But I with mournful tread,

                               Watch the desk my Printer lies,

                                  Fallen cold and dead.

-Mr T-blog

The Antikythera Mechanism

The Antikythera mechanism dates from the first or second century BC. It is an ancient Greek analog computer that calculated time and events such as the appearances of stars and planets and how they coordinated with years and even Greek festivals. In this TED-Ed lesson, we get an explanation of what a computer is and how analog computing works as compared to digital computing. (via Damn Interesting) 

Can You Make a Jetpack Out of a Rifle?

  
The recoil of a rifle can leave quite a bruise if you aren't properly braced. Most people only have to learn this lesson once. A young man named Rob noticed this force and imagined making a jetpack out of the recoil force of a rifle. Is this at all plausible? He submitted it to What If? as a theoretical question. They tackle those questions seriously, no matter how dumb they sound. The answer is "sort of," meaning that you could do it, but it would be difficult, ridiculous, and not worth the effort. 

But there are guns that have more powerful recoils than a mere rifle. And that's where this theory gets interesting. Not that we're ever going to try making a jetpack from a gun, but the existence of a gun that could do it is both interesting and unnerving.     

Turning a Car Into a Computer Mouse

 

Simone Giertz teamed up with William Osman to modify her tiny electric car, Cheese Louise. They turned it into a computer mouse. The aim is to draw a picture on a computer screen by driving the car. What you might need to know is that Giertz had only recently earned her driver's license, and the car is around 30 years old. So the picture isn't all that much, but the project was a success and the video is entertaining. Osman's video about the project goes into more detail about how they did it, and it's funny, too, but longer. 



The story of how Giertz came to own such a ridiculous car is here. (via The Awesomer)

Radio Face

From 1925. Now I know why I look so old. (via Undine)

The Magic Piano

A piano can produce beautiful music if you know how to play it, but what if you could see the music as well as hear it? This idea presented a challenge for the guys at HTX Studio, and they spent three years making it happen. In this video, we get to see the many ideas that didn't work, which are all pretty cool anyway. With every failure, the challenge became more important, and that's why they persevered to the end. 

We also have to admire this guy's dedication to learning to play piano in those three years, in order to do the magic piano justice. The result is not only a fascinating musical instrument, but also beautiful music and an astonishingly high-quality DIY video. (via Metafilter) 

How a TV Works, in Slow Motion

Gavin Free, one of the Slow Mo Guys has an 85-inch TV in his house! That implies that he has a large TV room, and from there you can imagine how well viral videos pay. Anyway, he and Dan are going to show us how television sets work, using different kinds of TVs and their mega-fast cameras so we can see thousands of frames for every video frame on the television device, whether its the big LCD set, a CRT, or an iPhone. You're not hallucinating- Gav and Dan borrowed a camera to film at 380,000 frames per second to make this video. Oh yeah, it turns out that the TV was given to him for this project. Nice perks with that job! (via Geeks Are Sexy)

Year-end Lists 2025: Tech and Video Games

2025’s Tech Breakthroughs


Tech 2025: The AI Year. 

From experimentation to infrastructure: the AI shifts that defined 2025. 

Elon Musk, AI and the antichrist: the biggest tech stories of 2025. 

The most outlandish tech CEO quotes from 2025. 

A comprehensive list of 2025 tech layoffs. 

10 Breakthrough Technologies. 

From robot 'girlfriends' to AI lipstick: The weirdest and most wonderful tech of 2025. 

The Best Inventions of 2025. 

The Top 6 Robotics Stories of 2025. 

Gizmodo’s Best Tech of 2025 Awards: Our Favorite Phones, Laptops, Gaming Gear, and More. 

The 2025 Esquire Gadget Awards. 

CNET Readers Shared Their Top 100 Tech Products of 2025. 

The Best Nintendo Games of 2025


Rolling Stone's 25 Best Video Games of 2025. 

GamesRadar+ GOTY: The 25 Best Games of 2025. 

Inverse's 25 Best Games Of 2025, Ranked. 

The video games you may have missed in 2025. 

The 20 Worst Games Of 2025. 

See all the previous year-end lists here. 

How Job Surveillance is Transforming Trucking in America

Truck drivers are under scrutiny by technology from their employers. First, there were governors to prevent trucks from exceeding the speed limit. Then came satellite tracking, and then onboard computers to monitor everything a trucker does, to make sure they stay within federal regulations as to how many hours they drive, how fast, and where they go. All decisions have been taken out of the trucker's hands.  

This is not new; in fact it's one of the reasons my husband quit long-haul trucking. He didn't mind staying within regulations, but some trucking companies crunch the numbers and plot out an exact schedule for deliveries, which doesn't allow for any emergencies, commonsense route changes, or even personal care, like pit stops. And although it's technically illegal, some companies will dock a truckers pay for not delivering by the computer-generated schedule. 

Trombone Text

(via Neatorama)

Laughing at His Misery

Have you ever done something so stupid that you didn't want anyone to know, but you had to ask for help anyway? This guy has to out up with laughter and humiliation to get his problem solved. The real punch line is that this comic was inspired by a real life story. But instead of one trusted geek, he was the target of hundreds of laughing geeks. At least he used a throwaway account for this one post. Maybe he imagined that those who laughed the hardest would one day face their own kind of embarrassing mistake. This comic is from CommitStrip.  

Tech in the Roman Empire

We think of the steam turbine as the force that powered the Industrial Revolution. We think of automatic doors and vending machines as modern conveniences. But these things existed a couple of thousand years ago during the days of imperial Rome. They had accurate clocks, grain mills, and self-healing concrete, too. Many inventions are ascribed to Hero of Alexandria, who was a gifted mathematician and an engineer who experimented with mechanical developments of all kinds, often powered by the physics of water, whether gravity or steam power. 

But before the Roman Empire gets all the credit, we have to remember that Hero was Greek, and Ctesibius as well, and they worked in Egypt. Both were probably expanding on even more ancient knowledge from both cultures. The Roman Empire was big and powerful enough to allow such geniuses to not only work but document their innovations in Alexandria, established by the Greeks as a center of learning and knowledge. Nevertheless, what those engineers of the Roman era accomplished is pretty impressive. (via Damn Interesting) 

Alexa is Not That Smart

Norm Krumpe had the digital personal assistant Alexa pick a number between one and a million. He only needed two guesses to get it right. Artificial intelligence has a way to go before it takes over the world. Someone remarked that it was like playing hide and seek with a giggling toddler. (via reddit)

Today's Password

(via reddit)

Cat Subway

We were amazed at the tiny but expansive apartment that engineer Xing Zhilei built for different sized pets. He didn't stop there. The challenges get bigger, and he keeps building. Now he has a working miniature subway train for his cats! 

The subway is quite large, although not large enough for human comfort, as you can see from the clips of the family working on it. It travels smoothly at a safe speed, has doors with motion sensors that automatically open, and even a working escalator. Notice both the train and the station have doors, aligned so the cats cannot get underneath the train. The cats, who are used to unique new experiences, were quite game to take a ride. See more miniature pet sized projects at the YouTube channel. (via Boing Boing)