Cool Tools

Windell Oskay is the co-founder of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, a Silicon Valley company that has designed and produced specialized electronics and robotics kits since 2007. Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories also runs a popular DIY project blog, and many of its projects have been featured at science and art museums and in Make, Wired, and Popular Science magazines. He's the oo-author of the recently published book, “The Annotated Build-It-Yourself Science Laboratory.”

Alexander "Zander" Rose is the executive director of The Long Now Foundation, which was founded in 1996 to become the seed of a very long-term cultural institution that fosters very-long-term planning. He was hired to build their clock that lasts 10,000 years. He’s also the founder of the Robot Fighting League, and a contestant on the ABC series Battlebots (airing Sunday nights)

Jared Zichek is owner of Goldenagefigurines.com, which produces limited edition hand painted resin figurines of selected superhero, science fiction, and horror characters from the Golden Age of Comics.

Our guest this week is Andrew Mayne. He is a magician, maker, and the author of five bestselling mystery and thriller novels. He’s the star of A&E's magic reality show Don't Trust Andrew Mayne, and he’s worked for David Copperfield, Penn & Teller, and David Blaine. His latest book is a thriller titled Name of the Devil

Ben works at Google[x], Google’s semi-secret technology development facility, where he creates advanced prototypes. Ben previously developed virtual reality hardware at Valve. After work, he spends time on various projects that usually involve circuit design, machining, and chemistry. You can follow Ben’s projects on his youtube channel, Applied Science.

John is a maker, technical/artistic problem solver, teacher, builder of quirky electro-mechanical contraptions, husband, and father of two. He hosted the Make: Television series on PBS, has worked in CG animation for 20 years, is now a producer at Disney Research, and writes for MAKE, Boing Boing, Adafruit Learning, and other places online and in print. You can find him at JPiXL.net and @johnedgarpark on twitter

Our guest this week is Douglas Coupland. Since 1991, Douglas has written thirteen novels published in most languages. He has written and performed for England's Royal Shakespeare Company and is a regular columnist with the Financial Times. He began a visual art practice in 2000, and his first museum retrospective opened in summer 2014 at the Vancouver Art Gallery and travels to Munich this summer.

Bob Parks is a freelance magazine writer who lives in Vermont. He writes for Popular Science, Runner’s World, and Bloomberg Businessweek. In his spare time he does projects with his two children and renovates his family’s 1870s farmhouse. He can be found on the Web at judder.net and on Twitter at @bobparks.

Mark Krawczuk calls himself a creative instigator: he is either coming up with interesting things for people to experience, or he is helping creative people do interesting things. Mark throws all sorts of prankstery and adventurous events which you can find out about at KrawczukIndustries.com Mark has worked extensively to make the Lost Horizon Night Market happen - it's a guerrilla art event, where people create experiences in the back of a box trucks, then all meet up on the same secluded spot, and create a temporary town square of art. The event started in New York, and has spread across the country. Through the month of August, Mark is leading an event called Everyhere Logistics, where 6 truck creator teams from New York, and 6 from San Francisco will travel across the country to meet up with other cities who are throwing Lost Horizon Night Markets, a different city each Saturday. You can find out more at EveryhereLogistics.com During the day Mark works as a freelance producer / project manager - getting all sorts of creative people to design and build technology, by getting them to use process that works. Mark has lately been providing palm reading and business consulting, to help people see their past, present and make plans for their future.

Simone Davalos has a long and storied history of aspiring to being a technological reprobate. For many years she settled for moving people to terrified delight with competitions and events involving as many different kinds of robot as possible, a move which has landed her in the Guinness Book Of World Records - twice. Her careers have included, but are not limited to: dive bar gal Friday, assistant marching band pyrotechnician, circus dork, online used car part sales, Survival Research Labs groupie and unindicted co-conspirator. She is now Projects and Tech Support Engineer at Other Machine Co., and when she’s not answering your questions she enjoys placating people with cake.

Children at heart rejoice! Mike Evans has a list for you (and your kids) that will have you playing and learning with a selection of entertaining guides and tools. Mike's picks reduce the initial learning curve of trying to get into a new activity so you and your kids can jump right in and start having fun! To see more of Mike's toys, tools and projects, be sure to head over to his blog, Secret Dad Society.

This week Laura Welcher joins us. Laura is a Linguist, Director of Operations for the Long Now Foundation and volunteer at the Global Lives Project.

This week Erik Knuzten, co-author of Urban Homestead:Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City and Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World joins us with a list of must have tools for self-sufficient, DIY home living. Check out Erik’s identically named website and podcast, Root Simple for more on how to build yourself a sustainable DIY lifestyle.

Our guest this week, Matt Cutts, is a well-known blogger and the head of the Web Spam team at Google.

Peter Rojas is the founder Engadget, gdgt and Gizmodo. He is currently co-hosts MVP, a podcast about new tech products, alongside Ryan Block, a former guest on our show. Peter focused his picks for this episode on personal impact, his philosophy being that truly worthy tools not only change your life, but they also change the way you think about the world. With help from some of the following carefully chosen tools, you may find yourself acting and thinking a little differently.