Tom Gauld’s web site

(via Jorn’s shared items)

In many ways this story is far field from our contemporary debates about network management, file sharing, and the perils of protocol discrimination. But the main questions seem to remain the same—to what degree will we let Western Union then and ISPs now pick winners and losers on our communications backbone? And when do government regulations grow so onerous that they discourage network investment and innovation?

These are tough questions, but the horrific problems of the “Victorian Internet” suggest that government overreach isn’t the only thing to fear. In 1876, laissez-faire “freedom for all” meant (in practice) the freedom for Henry Nash Smith to read your telegrams if he didn’t like who you supported for President. It meant freedom for Associated Press to block criticism of Western Union, and even to put potential critics and competitors out of business. And it meant freedom for a scoundrel to hijack the system at his leisure.

Sure enough, the technologies and debates are different. Still, one wonders what Charles A. Sumner would say today if told that net neutrality is a “solution to a problem that hasn’t happened yet.”

Ars Technica: How Robber Barons hijacked the “Victorian Internet”

(via /Social Physicist)

There’s an update to this story:

contrary to reports, including one that appeared on FOXNews.com, the EATR will not eat animal or human remains.

Dr. Bob Finkelstein, president of RTI and a cybernetics expert, said the EATR would be programmed to recognize specific fuel sources and avoid others.

“If it’s not on the menu, it’s not going to eat it,” Finkelstein said.

“There are certain signatures from different kinds of materials” that would distinguish vegetative biomass from other material.”

Fox News: Biomass-Eating Military Robot Is a Vegetarian, Company Says

(Thanks Theoretick)

Update: Company says the robot will not eat dead bodies.

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.

Robotic Technology Inc.’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that’s right, “EATR” — “can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable,” reads the company’s Web site.

That “biomass” and “other organically-based energy sources” wouldn’t necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they’d be plentiful in a war zone.

Fox News: Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies

(via OVO)

Goldfarb reckoned that current battery tech was never going to offer an arm with decent strength and endurance at a reasonable weight. He’d previously run up against these limitations working on a DARPA exoskeleton project, and he reckoned he had the solution: the arm needed to be powered by a small rocket motor.

No, really. Goldfarb’s design uses high-test hydrogen peroxide fuel, formerly used mainly in rockets and torpedoes. Concentrated peroxide breaks down in the presence of a catalyst to produce high-pressure steam and oxygen. In Goldfarb’s arm, the vapour is used to drive pistons, just as in a steam engine: but rather than turning a wheel, the various pistons heave in or let out tension belts against springs so as to bend or straighten the elbow, wrist, fingers, etc.

According to Goldfarb, a small sealed canister of hydrogen peroxide that easily fits in the upper arm can provide enough energy to power the device for 18 hours of normal activity.

There have been a few little problems, though. The steam comes out of the generator unit at oven-like 230-degrees-C temperatures, making parts of the arm baking hot. But Goldfarb and his team have used strategically-placed insulation “to reduce surface temperatures enough so they are safe to touch”. An initial tendency to hiss and chuff noisily was fixed, too.

The Register: US boffins demo steampunk artificial arm

MAKE has a round-up of dead media tech, including a bit by Trevor Blake about mechanical television:

Television achieves the illusion of motion in a similar but unique fashion. Rather than refresh the entire image at once, as film does with each cell that passes in front of the projector’s light, television refreshes an image one line at a time in a scanning process. Within the cathode ray tube, an electron gun scans a single line of an image from one side to the other, then scans the line underneath it, until it has scanned an entire image.

The Nipkow disk is an earlier, mechanical means of achieving the same side-to-side, top-to-bottom scan process. It consists of a disk that rotates on its axis. A series of evenly spaced, uniformly sized holes are cut into the disk, spiraling in toward the center. The disk is housed in a box with a small viewing window: the outermost hole of the disk will form the outermost scan line visible in the viewing window, and each additional hole will form additional scan lines.

Full Story: MAKE

The story of mechanical television is an interesting one. Be sure to also check out Wikipedia’s entry as well.

Stretching your self-definition will help you when, in later life, you are forced to become something your parents could not even imagine. This is a likely fate for you.Your parents were born in the 20th century. Soon their 20th century world will seem even deader, weirder and more remote than the 19th. The 19th-century world was crude, limited and clanky, but the 20th-century world is calamitously unsustainable. I would advise you to get used to thinking of all your tools, toys and possessions as weird oddities destined for the recycle bin. Imagine starting all over with radically different material surroundings. Get used to that idea. [...]

Steampunk’s key lessons are not about the past. They are about the instability and obsolescence of our own times. A host of objects and services that we see each day all around us are not sustainable. They will surely vanish, just as “Gone With the Wind” like Scarlett O’Hara’s evil slave-based economy. Once they’re gone, they’ll seem every bit as weird and archaic as top hats, crinolines, magic lanterns, clockwork automatons, absinthe, walking-sticks and paper-scrolled player pianos.

Full Story: Gogbot

Above: 19th century anatomical study cabinet No.1

Klint Finley talks to cryptozoological pseudoscientific artist assemblage Alex CF about what goes into his work and staying ahead of the copycats.

Read the rest of this entry »

More at Steve Thomas art

(via Brass Goggles)

Great Steampunk slideshow and article on WebChannel.

(via Brass Goggles)

Pictured above: “Lycanthropy Research Case,” AlexCF’s latest piece.

Hello, my name is AlexCF, i am a professional cryptozoological pseudo-scientific assemblage artist and illustrator, i create items and objects from a past that wasnt quite; to fashion the things you wish existed in forgotten attics or secret rooms, dust covered relics of a time when the world was the same – but not quite, a time where our world was not entirely mapped, when creatures that defy our senses stalked the crevices of forgotten continents, an age of wonder and intrigue, of fear and trepidation. I mix Dickensian aesthetic with eldritch horror, ancient artifact and sci fi pulp – what you see here is the tip of a rather large iceberg, and over time i will reveal a plethora of oddities for you to enjoy, or buy.

The art of AlexCF

(via Grinding)

Warren Ellis’s free online post-apocalyptic steampunk comic is still running strong.

Freak Angels

Hovering high over a jungle while sipping a cocktail — it sounds like a dream but could soon become reality, if designer Jean-Marie Massaud has his way. His bold vision of a luxury airship hotel in the shape of a huge white whale could usher in a new era of eco-friendly tourism.

French designer Jean-Marie Massaud has a vision, one which looks like a huge white whale with flippers and flukes. The futuristic Moby Dick is actually an airship containing a luxury hotel. Guests of the “Manned Cloud,” as the ambitious project is called, will be able to enjoy the world’s most beautiful sights from up on high — if the project ever gets off the ground.

Full Story: Spiegel

The Cobalt is a response to the discerning public need for the next convergence device to blend elegance with simplicity and portability. The Cobalt’s round OLED touch screen allows easy access to all its features with a simple flick of the thumb left, right, up or down. The default screen shows time, date, temperature, and updates on voicemail, email and text. Completely customizable on every level, the default screen’s settings can be changed to suit your needs – from minimal analog hands to a full on digital display.

The Cobalt is designed with the style conscious in mind – when Bluetooth technology can be seamlessly integrated with earrings and other accessories for all-day wearability. Along with state-of-the-art voice recognition software, there’s a hidden spot on the back for house keys. All I need is this, a monocle, top hat, and a walking stick.

Text and one more pic: Yanko Design

(via Grinding)

It stands over six feet tall, comprises of a number of plastic tanks and tubes through which coloured water flows. Linked to the tanks are gauges, sluices, pulleys and felt tip pens. What they are looking at is a magnificent piece of Kiwi ingenuity created by Professor Bill Phillips (of the Phillips Curve fame), known as the Moniac machine. It is a dynamic model of a working economy.

Full Story: Wikipedia

See also:

Video demonstration

Wikipedia entry

Wikipedia entry on analog computing

(via OVO)

About twenty feet below the pavement the group emerged into an eight-foot-wide brickwork tube, the end of which was beyond the immediate reach of the lights. The sturdily-constructed tunnel was a relic from the years following the American Civil War, and it had remained virtually forgotten beneath the streets of New York since its main entrance was sealed sometime around 1880. As the men explored, they found the tunnel in remarkably good condition in spite of its age. When they reached the end of the tube, the men happened upon the wrecked remains of a unique mechanism for transport: a pair of carriages from America’s first subway, the experimental and ill-fated Pneumatic Transit System.

Full Story: Damn Interesting

(via OVO)

Above: Video footage of the new Lockheed Martin airship, via Simnatic

More information at Aviation News

The Aviation News article mentions a DARPA project called Walrus:

More info: Wired

Yes, he owns a flat-screen television, but he has modified it with a burlap frame. He uses an iPhone, but it is encased in burnished brass. Even his clothing – an unlikely fusion of current and neo-Edwardian pieces (polo shirt, gentleman’s waistcoat, paisley bow tie), not unlike those he plans to sell this summer at his own Manhattan haberdashery – is an expression of his keenly romantic worldview.

It is also the vision of steampunk, a subculture that is the aesthetic expression of a time-traveling fantasy world, one that embraces music, film, design and now fashion, all inspired by the extravagantly inventive age of dirigibles and steam locomotives, brass diving bells and jar-shaped protosubmarines. First appearing in the late 1980s and early ’90s, steampunk has picked up momentum in recent months, making a transition from what used to be mainly a literary taste to a Web-propagated way of life.

Full Story: New York Times

I’ve been thinking about what Steampunk has to offer the world besides being another quaint subculture, particularly in light of the fact that it’s about to step over the line of subculture and into trendy nonsense that will inevitably bring with it hoards of pipe clogging band waggoneers.

What I’m really interested in is the Victorian enthusiastic amateur inventor/scientist part. The way I see it, most of the worlds problems – poverty, hunger climate change etc.- will never be effectively addressed by a top down, high tech research and loads of investment capital approach. Rather, I imagine that any progress that will have any real effect will have to be of the sort that a self educated person can make in their garage.
There’s been a lot of debate about weather or not all the Steampunk case mods etc. are legitimate as they don’t actually use steam, aren’t real Babbage engines or whatever and I think that’s pretty legitimate although it also misses the point.
Which is that steampunk is really an art movement. It doesn’t really have any cultural agenda such as the original punk movement did and it’s certainly not interested with making steam age technology “useful”.

I would like to propose that were there to be some sort of a Steampunk cultural ethic it should be in taking that amateur inventor approach to modern technology with an eye to addressing the issues that humanity faces today.

Oh, and it should of course be done in such a way as to exemplify quality workmanship and ostentatious ornamentation.

Full Discussion at White Chapel.

More pics.

(via Posthuman Blues).

The second chapter of Freak Angels is up, and if my memory serves that makes it the longest running Ellis online comic ever:

Freak Angels.

A set of “steampunk” Justice League action figures.

More Images.

(via Honky Tonk Dragon)

Detailed pics at Datamancer.

(via Miss Patti).

Brass Goggles is a blog that details interesting bits of Steampunk gear. Above is actually the Hansen Writing Ball, one of the first typewriters (famously used by Nietzsche).

Brass Goggles.

(via Honky-Tonk Dragon).