Posts Tagged ‘mad science’

1
Nov

Mad Science for All

   Posted by: Rachel Ross    in art, fiction, mad science, silly

You too can proclaim your love for all things Mad and all things Science. Well, not REALLY mad. Just… unconventional. You know. Not, you know, anything dangerously unstable – scientists can handle these things. They’re rational, once you understand the principles. Nothing to be institutionalized over. Come on, knowledge is power! I think it’s fairly rational to want a Death Ray. Almost everyone wants one, deep down. But you know, not everyone can handle it. Not everyone has the knowledge – the genius – to get by with performing the impossible. You know it really IS a miracle of science – it should be called MIRACLE science, not mad science! Yes. It’s not mad at all. How DARE you call it mad. What were you thinking? Is it any wonder fools like you will be the first to go? I’ll SHOW YOU ALL…

I say, in the immortal words of myself, or perhaps Doc Gestalt, quoting my own Etsy description.

Look! Stickers! Magnets! Pins!  All for sale here. Or if they are gone, joy of joys, let me know so I can put more up for sale!

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6
Sep

Braaains

   Posted by: Rachel Ross    in crafty, crazy, mad science, silly, Uncategorized

Happy Zombies Deserve the Best

I am happy to say this zombie pin (which you can buy on my Etsy site) was featured at BuyZombie.com !

I have 37 more brains to sell, but most haven’t been posted yet. Please drop me an e-mail if you are interested!

Mad science pins and more to come, if my maniacal machinations work out… first I have to borrow a respirator, and some eye protection…

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27
Jul

Glistening

   Posted by: Rachel Ross    in crafty, crazy, jewelry, mad science

And this is what 40 brains look like.  They are going to have pin backs and magnet backs, soon, yes very soon… Muahaha.

You can see that the brains on the left have not yet been antiqued and glazed.  By far the most common comment upon seeing these is “They look like candy!” which means you eat different candy than I do. But I’m not judging you, not at all…

The plasticware defuses the whole sinister vibe.

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20
Aug

Tiny pre-update: Zubbles

   Posted by: Rachel Ross    in airborne, crazy, mad science, silly

I’ve been watching this product called Zubbles with half an eye, since about 2005, because bubbles are one of the whimiscal things I find fascinating and dear.

FINALLY they have come to market, with a “Buy” button and everything. ( Thanks to Elly and Natalie for pointing them out to me. )

So, of course, I hit aforementioned Buy button. They cost at least an arm, if not an additional leg. The story is that the inventor spent $3 million developing them!

Further updates as Zubbles warrant. Hopefully with photos!

I feel pretty gleeful at the moment.  Tonight is craft night, so hopefully I will have more art to post later.

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11
Aug

Vengeance is Mine…

   Posted by: Rachel Ross    in crazy, mad science, silly

Ok, Vengeance is not really anything I aspire toward. Respect, world domination, ultimate power, sure. Not really revenge. But today. Today I have a problem.

My co-workers have randomly thrown out the little carton of half-n-half that I keep in the fridge to use in my coffee for the last time. They will pay, oh yes, they will…

What scheme can I use to keep the creamer from being destroyed against my wishes?

Give me your best and/or craziest ideas!

 

Speaking of crazy ideas, I say, by way of bad segue, I am enjoying a podcast called “The Gearheart” – it is sort of an arcane-steampunk genre, which is “all the rage” http://www.thegearheart.com/

I also just signed up to sell stock photography at http://clustershot.com/glimmerville

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10
May

Uranium Failure

   Posted by: Rachel Ross    in crazy, mad science

Saturday I went downtown to a local arts and crafts show, which was severely hampered by 40mph gusts of wind. I ended up buying a few little things: a uranium glass bottle, and two copper bowls.

Copper Bowls and a Bottle

Copper Bowls and a Bottle

Uranium glass (often called Vaseline glass) is fascinating stuff. Here is a link to the wiki article. One thing I like about it, apart from the nice radioactive shade of green, is that it fluoresces under blacklight. I did not happen to have a blacklight with me (a shame) but I decided to take it home and test it there.
Amusingly, the blacklight I found first is my prop Sonic Screwdriver.
On the left (as a test item) I put a marble that I know is made of uranium glass. On the right I put the new bottle.
The Test Subjects. Control on Left.

The Test Subjects. Control on Left.

So I aimed my little Sonic Screwdriver at them, to see if they fluoresced as they ought.
Making a Note Here: Huge Failure

Making a Note Here: Huge Failure

As you can see, the control marble that is authentic glows wildly under blacklight. And the new bottle… does nothing. EPIC FAIL.

So there you go. Even a fake Sonic Screwdriver can be a useful tool!

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8
Apr

(Pseudo) Mad (Botanical) Science

   Posted by: Rachel Ross    in botanical, crazy, Game Night, games, mad science

I am playing a “Mad Botanist” in the Spirit of the Century game at International House of Johnson. So, since I had some Miracle Fruit tablets hanging around, waiting for me to try them, I decided I would bring them to Game Night Certainly “flavor tripping” ranks fairly high on the mad science scale.
Miracle fruit is a small bland red berry that is incredibly perishable and therefore hardly ever seen around here. It contains a chemical aptly named “miraculin” that, when eaten, alters taste perceptions (for about a half hour), making anything sour seem sweet. Since the berry is so perishable and unavailable, I bought tablets of freeze-dried fruit instead. Available at your friendly neighborhood ThinkGeek.com
I searched the internet for some sour foods other people had enjoyed with the berry, and came up with this list: lemons, limes, grapefruit, sour cream, and hot sauce. Kris added apple cider vinegar to the list. To up the mad science quotient, I displayed the cut fruits in my “Radioactive” plastic food containers. (Playing a mad plant scientist wasn’t that far a stretch.)

Miracle Fruit & etc.

Miracle Fruit & etc.

Laura, Gunnar and I each ate a chunk of lemon as the control, then began letting a miracle fruit tablet dissolve in our mouth. The miracle fruit tablet wasn’t that great, but you had to hold it in your mouth and allow it to dissolve completely, and covering as much of your tongue (taste buds) as possible, to get the maximum result. Gunnar pointed out that they tasted a bit like haw flakes (and I agree. It also left a little lingering sweet sensation, like stevia.). Laura was the first to finish her tablet, and took a chunk of lemon. To her (and my) delight, it was now as sweet as an orange – just as advertised!
We stood around eating lemons and grapefruit (the lime was not as popular, though I found it ok; the lemon was better to me, and the grapefruit was better to Laura). Kris and Gus both joined in at this point. I opened the sour cream. A spoonful of sour cream tasted like cream cheese – so then we ate some sour cream, along with the fruit, which was a great dessert combination. Gunnar broke out the vinegar, which was somewhat mild, but still not extremely pleasant. I tried the hot sauce, but didn’t notice any obvious flavor difference.
Dave wouldn’t try the tablet, due to the mysterious Chinese packaging – not even when I pointed out to him that the label reassuringly said “no known adverse side effects“. No I was not cackling maniacally at the time, either, I might add. Your loss, Dave!

The flavor alteration did last about a half an hour, I think. It was best if you put the food in the same area of your tongue that had held the berry the longest (the front of the tongue, more or less). By the time the spoonful of vinegar, etc. got to the back of the palate it returned to being unaltered and astringent.

All in all it was very fun! Some of the online reports I read of people ravaging through cupboards to test random things and decreeing that the miracle berry had changed their life… well it was nothing like that, but it was fun, hey!

I definitely plan to do it again. I read somewhere that in Japan someone had added a gene to lettuce so that lettuce would express miraculin (actually that’s in the wikipedia article if you read it). So maybe when that hits the market…

After all of that we had cupcakes, candy Dave brought back from the UK, and went on to encounter some Samurai warriors in 192- New York. It was, all in all, a very good evening. (Not counting the injuries sustained by Someone who was attempting to bound from the tops of train car to train car, on a moving train, without having taken any points in athletics.)

 

 

 

 

 

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16
Jan

Steampunk Artisans, Inspirations, Resources [EDiT]

   Posted by: Rachel Ross    in art, crafty, link dump, steampunk

Oh! And just to plug the two other sites I know that use the Aspire WordPress template…
(And both are neat sites!)
http://steampunkspectacular.com and

http://steampunkwallpaper.com (great images! I’m using one right now!)
I’m not going to bother to explain what the Steampunk genre is all about this time.
Feel free to check out the Wikipedia entry. But what enthralls me about it, is the beautiful combination of craftsmanship, technology, history, magic, sci-fi… wow! No wonder it’s growing!
I want to do more in this style myself!

Steam-type Dragon by Rachel Ross

Steam-type Dragon by Rachel Ross

Now, to start linking to people.
Four folks on deviantART whose Steampunk stylings really inspire me:


Porkshanks also on Etsy.
Earthenwood Studio also http://www.earthenwoodstudio.com/
Her husband is a great fantasy artist, too.
And of course, some other resources for you – these already include just about everything:

http://crabfu.com/ (even includes drawing tips )

Brass Goggles

Datamancer

And don’t forget

Girl Genius comic! (I am so frustrated, I can’t find my copy of Volume 5)

Finally, PMOG is a free browser-based Steam-stylized game (only for Firefox)!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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17
Dec

More Geeky Surprises

   Posted by: Rachel Ross    in crazy, photo dump

When last we left our hero (?) she was opening a box from ThinkGeek.

And she still is.

All of my awesome friends have figured out that I am, apparently, a big geek, and have sent me fun geek stuff this year! Wow, I am so humbled to have friends that know me well enough to know the stuff I like!

Tim (of here and here) sent me MIRACLE BERRY TABLETS! Have you ever heard of these things? These things are AWESOME. Or… actually I didn’t try them yet. But in my head they are just mind-blowingly cool. Go check out the wikipedia article here.  See, this berry contains a substance “miraculin” that makes your tongue quit detecting sour/acid for awhile, and that turns all sorts of sour foods into SWEET foods. It rewires your tongue and makes everything taste new. How fun! Can’t wait, can’t wait… I promise to blog about it, perhaps more than one place – I will keep you posted. I had this great idea to let my friends over at The Secret Lair try them too.

Rewire your taste buds - for SCIENCE!

Rewire your taste buds - for SCIENCE!

And JD of bystillwaters.etsy.com and here, (AND her husband John of here) sent me a glowing necklace that looks exactly like something I would wear (and am wearing right now, since instant I opened the box, and am going to wear to the office Christmas party tomorrow).

I’m not doing a good job taking photos of this thing, in low light, to catch the glow, but anyway – it shifts colors from red to green to blue.

Fuzzy photo, but shows the glow

Fuzzy photo, but shows the glow

 

AND, not knowing well enough to leave alone (JB said she refused to buy these for me) JD and John bought me… MANA POTIONS! Ok, actually they’re energy drinks, but HOW COOL IS THIS anyway?

Mana potions? For me? Muahahahahaaha...

Mana potions? For me? Muahahahahaaha...

If I still played WoW there would be a sheep joke here.

Anyway, again I thank God SO MUCH for each of you! I mean, it’s so amazing and wonderful to have Christian geek friends! And none of you ever has to send me anything for Christmas, and yet I’m so flattered and humbled that you did. Your friendship is the real treasure here.

And I should probably not have set a precedent for showing stuff people gave me on this blog, but it’s SUCH COOL STUFF. Whee. :)

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13
Dec

Unboxing the Unexpected Box

   Posted by: Rachel Ross    in crazy, photo dump

HOLY COW!

Lo, tis a box of joy!

I was floored today to find a box from Think Geek. I did not expect anything.

And inside… was a bunch of things off of my Think Geek wish list!

It was from the awesome JB – of JB’s Cresties and CatharsisComic (and also her dA page here).
Is she not nifty?

First I saw a Titanium Spork (of Daily Giz Wiz fame). That went right into my purse. Beause, hey, who knows when I’m going to need a titanium spork? These are uncertain times! Will I need a spoon? Will I need a fork? Will they be out of spoons and forks? I’m prepared for it ALL now, baby!

This is going in my big green purse.

This is going in my big green purse.

Then, wow, there was a USB OWL! And it’s so uselessly adorable!

Here it is sleeping on my mouse pad.

I have bored the owl already.

I have bored the owl already.

Then I moved it over to the speaker.

O RLY?

O RLY?

Now the little mascot owl needs a suitable name. JB said perhaps “Lord Sporkington” but I am not entirely convinced. Ok not even half convinced.

Then I pulled out a box of mad science! It’s… it’s RADIOACTIVE TUPPERWARE!
Ok it isn’t really, but it’s definitely as close as I’m going to get. MUAhaha!

Eat and Glow, it says. I like.

Eat and Glow, it says. I like.

And, to make the mad science food ensemble complete, a Pyrex-type beaker mug thing with graduations on the side! I say, intelligently making a long rambling sentence that isn’t very good.

That’s because my brain is full of the fog of JOY.

Now I want to drink something green.

Now I want to drink something green.

So I just want to reiterate: THANK YOU JB! You made my day into something amazing! I am so humbled and thrilled to have a friend like you! I definitely thank God for bringing you into my life.

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