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7 Quick Takes (Mad Science Edition)

7 Quick Takes (Mad Science Edition)

Last updated on: November 21, 2012 at 1:47 pm by Leah Libresco

7 Quick Takes (Mad Science Edition) 2012-11-21T13:47:11-05:00 Leah Libresco

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Sorry for a delay in posting and responding to comments. Halloween fast approaches, and I’ve been spending pretty much all my spare time with my sewing machine, trying to finish a costume in time. It’s cyberpunk themed, and I’ll tell you I got two of the patterns I’m using from here and here.

It turns out I’m not even the only one of my friends doing a neo-victorian take on cyberpunk, since one friend of mine is going as the protagonist from Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, which is definitely my favorite Stephenson. As I continue to hem, it seemed like a good week for mad science links.

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And I have to kick it off with this clarifying comic from Cowbirds in Love:

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If you want your children to grow up like that fine gentlemen, start them out right. Buy them crayons that are labelled with the chemicals that colored them instead of Crayola’s names.

P.S. I have never encountered the label ‘burnt sienna’ anywhere but a crayon box.

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A mad scientist needs powerful tools to take over the world. Few turn their creative insanity back on those tools, to make them bizarre, innovative spectacles in their own right. So I’m going to give a lot of credit to folks at Sawstop who invented a table saw that stops moving the microsecond it detects a finger in its path. Watch the video and be prepared to flinch.

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But the heart of mad science isn’t safety, it’s explosions. If you care to get in the seasonal mood, check out the instructable for a pumpkin that is also a flamethrower.

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Once you really let yourself get infected with mad science, you’ll find it starts seeping into every aspect of your life. I’m always reminded of Lane Smith’s book Math Curse in which a student hears his teacher say, “You know, you can thing of anything as a math problem” and then the protagonist starts seeing math applications everywhere.

For the real enthusiasts, a love for science doesn’t just insinuate itself into all your interests in the present. It goes back and changes your perceptions of the past. And with that ready segue, I’m going to post a trailer for a steampunk documentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW5trrXS1e8

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I’ve left this one for last, so you can avoid it if you want. A close up video of an eyeball moving in slow motion is either amazingly beautiful or the creepiest thing you’ll see in or out of a haunted house. You know your own mind best.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

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