The Steampunk Librarian | January 31, 2012
Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebowsky talk about future change as we start 2012. It sounds sort of ominous.
Speaking of, the Victorians had some ideas about the apocalypse. (A related link that’s just as interesting is io9’s “Victorian Hugos.”)
Lovecraft always manages to creep into steampunk conversations. Now Clockwork and Cthulhu make it more overt!
Blade Runner also creeps in a bit, and here’s a fantastic sketchbook of the production.
Want to race a dirigible? Sure you do! If you’re near Ohio this year, consider becoming part of the fun.
Category: Steampunk, Steampunk Librarian |
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Tags: Blade Runner, Victorian Hugos
Silver Goggles | January 31, 2012
I had the honour of having British-Chinese comedienne Anne Chen drop in on this here little blawg to plug an upcoming event in Greenwich, UK! It’s a Steampunk Opium Wars extravaganza, at the Greenwich National Maritime Museum, where there will be song and poetry about the Opium Wars, and folks playing historical figures from the time period will slug it out in poetry slams over the finer details of waging war to push drugs on an entire people to enslave them in a consumer market for trade benefits.
Dates: Thursday 16 February
Times: 18.30—22.00
Location: National Maritime Museum; Sammy Ofer Wing
Audience: Adults; Young people
Event type: Performance & storytelling
So if you’re in the vicinity of Greenwich, UK, I highly recommend you go check it out, and please make recordings if possible to share with the rest of us! :O
Category: Silver Goggles |
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Tags: Adults Young, FREE, Opium Wars, UK
Silver Goggles | January 31, 2012
While I’m still in Malaysia and not yet writing new posts, have a link. It’s a letter from Jourdan Anderson, a former slave who moved to Ohio after he was emancipated, responding to his former master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, who wanted Jourdan to come back. Jourdan responded by dictating possibly the best fuck-you letter in the history of fuck-you letters.
A bit of the letter:
Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
Read more...
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Tags: Colonel Anderson, Colonel Martin, Nashville Hospital, Tennessee Sir
Mage Ingeneur | January 31, 2012
We had an old chest of drawers which were so troublesome that we thought of throwing it out. It had 12 drawers and they all were sticking or the sides were collapsing no matter what I did the drawers wouldn’t work! So my partner suggested making a sound desk out of it. At that time I was using a large table so I thought why not? This was more compact and it was perfect for the old hi-fi system I’d just bought from auction for $40.
The speaker cabinets I covered with a banner I picked up from a recycling depot called
reverse garbage – they look a treat!
What a paint job….WOW!
If you would like to see a more detailed description of how I made this you can look at this link.
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Tags: WOW
Mage Ingeneur | January 31, 2012
Tinkering with soldering irons, components and wires there is never enough space on my desk to complete some of my projects or I have to put it aside for another day….so….I decided to make an all in one workstation that would keep my project together and be light enough to place elsewhere until I could come back to it hence the ‘Mega-Helpful Steampunk Helping Hands’! This is still a work in progress so here are some preliminary photos:
 |
| Frame for holding the PCB, magnifying light for those pesky tiny IC’s |
The box is an old cutlery canteen well sanded. The magnifying lamp was my old table lamp minus the base. The frame and uprights are brass and copper.
At different stages from pale to stained to varnished. (I used Danish Oil)
I changed the ‘look’ by using a hand held magnifying glass and and old sewing machine lamp.
A bit of TLC and the lamp looked great! This was bought from
The Bower
The next steps involve mechanising the opening of the jaws for the PCB, adding a soldering station and a power rail for testing completed projects.
Category: Steampunk |
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Tags: IC, Mega Helpful Steampunk Helping Hands, PCB, TLC
Mage Ingeneur | January 31, 2012
Well, after having won a competition with the iPhonograph (
see post) I moved on to something a bit funkier and definitely more fun. The Googly Sound was created using old car horns (from Indian taxi’s minus the rubber bulb) and I have used it with an iPhone and guitar, it works! The guitar amplified through Googly Sound was quite sufficient but just to increase the power I used a DI box which made for less distortion.
Here is what it looks like, an alien!
For those of you interested in how I made it, look at this:
Googly Sound.
This is what it sounds like, I am playing a very Indian song composed by Rebecca Kypri-Inacio and lyrics by Lisa D Sampson. The song is called ‘Anti-Bacterial Personality’.
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Tags: Anti Bacterial Personality, Googly Sound, Rebecca Kypri Inacio
Mage Ingeneur | January 30, 2012
I have been involved in Steampunk for a few years now – for those who haven’t heard of it the easiest way to describe it would be to say it is Victorian Science Fiction. Clothing new technology in old armatures. I wouldn’t say that I live the ‘steampunk’ life but I have created a few pieces which I hope you might enjoy.One of my first creations is the iPhonograph which looks a lot like a gramophone player, but in this instance the ‘player’ is the iPad! Have a look at some of these pictures:
If you are interested in making one for yourself I have created an instructable here is the
link. If you have the time please watch this video, the music starts about 30 or so seconds into the tape.
Category: Steampunk, Steampunk Home |
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Tags: Science Fiction
Steampunk Tribune | January 30, 2012
Found this little gem in the corners of YouTube, and figured it was time to bring it forth! Please do enjoy!
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Steampunk Tribune | January 29, 2012
IO9 published an intriguing article on Steampunk the other day (located here), which seems to imply some kind of faction distress in the world of Steampunk. Unaware of this situation, to do pass an eye of and see if you can confirm/agree with the gentleman, at: http://io9.com/5879231/its-time-to-rethink-steampunk
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Steampunk Tribune | January 28, 2012
Located a very nice video short produced by a talented team of artists, who labor under the nom-de-plume of “TeamKickassMedia”. Very relaxing short, which they produced in a twenty four hour period (very good coffee must have been involved)! Though I am still laboring to locate a website, please do enjoy their production!
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Steampunk Tribune | January 27, 2012
Came across this nicely done production, highlighting the Garden of Dreams in SL. Quite a spectacular destination, and an airship voyage is always in order – do enjoy!
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Tags: SL
The Chap | January 25, 2012
The first foreign director of the V&A museum, Professor Martin Roth, has publicly denounced the decline of neckties worn by British men, in an interview with Country Life magazine. The 57-year-old German professor and former general director of the Dresden State Art Collection bemoaned slipping sartorial standards in Britain, declaring “nobody seems to wear a [...]
Category: The Chap |
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Tags: Country Life, Dresden State Art Collection, Professor Martin Roth
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