As of today, one thousand people have saved our little web site to their del.icio.us bookmarks.
Everybody else is doing it, Shouldn’t you? =D
Category Archives: General News
Evilmadscientist in PC Magazine’s Favorite Blog List
Neat-o: our site was picked as one of PC Magazine’s 100 Favorite Blogs!
See us in Wired
In the August 2007 issue of Wired Magazine (pictured here and just showing up on newstands now), there is a short writeup about the CandyFab.
There’s even a picture accompanying the article, which shows us with the machine. w00t!
Update: The online version is up.
(Nice of them to make that available!)
We are one
One year ago today, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories went live. Happy birthday to us!
We originally started this blog as a means to help us document and organize our various projects. Since then we’ve seen writeups about our projects on more than two thousand other blogs, and even in a handful of print magazines. We’ve contributed projects to an art show, sparked some interesting collaborations, and built some of the wackiest machines that we ever have. In the course of these projects we somehow found excuses to buy three old HP pen plotters, 2.4×10^4 LEDs, a Macintosh SE, Marshmallow Peeps, and three hundred pounds of sugar.
What will the next year bring? Who knows! But, we’re looking forward to it.
Thanks for reading Evil Mad Scientist!
– Lenore & Windell
(Pictured above: An alphanumeric persistence of vision display. Source code, how-to and more photos coming next Wednesday.)
Evil Mad Scientist Forums
Our new forums have been quietly live and gathering dust (and a few posts) for a little while now, so we thought it was about time to announce their presence.
We hope that the forums will be a good place to share information. Got stuck building one of our electronics projects? Want to know where to find parts in your town? Want to tell us what projects you want to see us cover?
Some of the places you can ask and answer those questions are:
Whether you are seeking help on a project, want to beseech us to stop posting articles about peeps (sorry– there’s one more coming this year), or just want to help out your fellow evil mad scientists, please join in!
Make a physics education video and win the Phylm Prize!
“Phylm,” pronounced as “film,” is a portmanteau built out of the words “physics” and “film.” It’s also the name given to a new award, The Phylm Prize, aimed at spurring interest in physics and the educational use of new media. Translation: it’s a YouTube contest for physics geeks!
We’ve been invited to sit on the panel of judges for the contest, and so we’ll be looking forward to seeing the submissions. Videos up to two and a half minutes long featuring physics will be judged on clarity, accuracy, and creativity. This year’s winner will receive a check for $100 (US) to be dispersed in June 2007.
You can watch the video announcement at YouTube or (embedded) here:
We are guessing that many of you, our fine readers, already have an interest in physics and/or new media, so get started already! Let’s see your submissions! And don’t let the word “educational” intimidate you– educational propaganda is a highly appropriate diversion for evil mad scientists! (Besides, you could probably use the cash for your world domination scheme.)
Here’s some info from the rules on what kinds of things the clips can contain:
- A critique/analysis of the physics presented in a fictional work. For example,
could the bus in Speed have made “the jump,” or how strong would Spider-Man
have to be to throw a car that far? - An analysis of physics as revealed by the examination of a real-world video clip.
For example, what forces does a gymnast experience during his routine? - An explanation/presentation of some physics concept or theory. For example, what is the conservation of energy?
Submissions are due by 12:00 am (GMT) May 1, 2007. We’ll be waiting.
New option: Read evilmadscientist via E-mail
We’ve just set up syndication through FeedBlitz so that (if you like) you can get new evilmadscientist.com articles by E-mail when they are posted, typically 3-5 times per week.
(Geek translation: It’s a feed reader for people that don’t read feeds.)
To sign up, enter your E-mail address in the box and click the button:
It’s free of course, but you’ll have to wait for confirmation E-mail to arrive from FeedBlitz, which may take a few hours.
We’ve had some inquiries about project E-mail and/or newsletters, and so we think that this might be another useful tool to keep up with what’s going on here in Evil Mad Science land.
State of the blog: evilmadscientist inches into the technorati 1000
The Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories blog went live on June 21, a little more than six months ago. This week, we broke into the Technorati top 1000. w00t!
We noticed a couple of months ago when Honorary Evil Mad Scientists Laughing Squid first crossed that little line, and we are flattered to be amongst such great company.
As of yesterday, our technorati rank was 992, with over 2100 links from over 1200 blogs. Thanks everyone!
Some of our stories got a lot of attention, particularly the following ones:
- How to make the simplest electric motor
- Interactive LED Dining Table
- Make A Cylon Jack-O-Lantern
- How to hack LEDs into Lego minifigures for Halloween and the Lego Abominations
- Turn an RC car into a floor sweeper!
- How to Build a Better Bat Costume and a Crocodile Costume
- Building a Robotic Dalek Pumpkin
- Dessert sushi
Here are some of the other stories that we really liked, even though they didn’t get as much attention:
- Edible origami cranes
- Demonstrate Magnetohydrodynamic propulsion in one minute
- High-tech holiday decorations
- Christmas chaos
- Vintage Remote TV-B-Gone Case Mod
- Crafty fridge magnets
We’ve also (somehow) become “authoritative” in several subjects. According to technorati we are an authority on cooking, DIY, and craft. What this really means is that not very many folks tag their blogs well for technorati, but hey, we don’t mind being the top authority on electronics.
So, maybe all this popularity and authority means that we really are making the world a better place (one evil mad scientist at a time). Or it could be a sign that our reign of terror is getting off to a great start, Muahahahaaaa! If you think so, (shameless plug ahead) feel free to nominate us for the 2007 Bloggies, perhaps in the new blogs category. But hurry, nominations end on January 10. In the meantime, we’re going to bask in the glow of our rankings and look forward to the next six months.
Thanks again!
— Lenore and Windell
The Evil Mad Science Auxiliary Flickr Group
We’ve started a flickr group called the “Evil Mad Science Auxiliary,” it’s located at http://www.flickr.com/groups/evilmadscience/.
The purpose of this group is to provide a place to show off your pictures of things that are (at least marginally) related to projects on our blog. Did you build a cylon-o-lantern? Some interesting Lego creations? Some LED Holiday decorations or build one of our kits? Post it in the group and let us see!
The action shot above, by fdecomite on flickr, shows some tasty Escher cookies.
Nuclear test in North Korea
My friend Dave wrote me tonight: “That North Korean nuclear test claim? I checked the USGS website. Within an hour of the claim, they had posted data consistent with a nuclear test – 4.2 magnitude (too big to fake easily), depth 0 km, location pinned to a hillside in NE North Korea that has surprisingly good aerial coverage on the crosslinked Google Earth map – given that it’s a site long noted as a possible test facility. There is a road leading straight up to the base of the mountain, then disappearing.”
That’s pretty convincing!
Edit 2014: corrected links to usgs.gov and maps.
