Boing Boing » Steampunk

Steampunk magazine #9

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:41:08 +0000

Margaret Killjoy sez, "Steampunk Magazine #9 is out and available for order. The pdf is up as well. New orders and pre-orders will be going out this weekend! 118 ad-free, Creative-Commons pages of steampunk mad science, lifestyle, fiction, and history. Including an interview with Cory Doctorow and how to make hydrogen airships out of condoms."

SteamPunk Magazine 9 (Thanks, Margaret!)

Kickstarting the next Girl Genius volume with Kaja and Phil Foglio

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:00:09 +0000

Kaja and Phil Foglio have launched a Kickstarter to fund the printing of volume 12 of the wonderful Girl Genius webcomic, and to reprint the older books. These are multi-award-winning, independent steampunk delights, and $30 gets you "an actual, dead-tree, SOFTCOVER copy of Girl Genius Volume 12: Agatha Heterodyne and the Siege of Mechanicsburg. 192 pages in full color. Shipped to you by means of one of the largest government agencies on Earth!"

Printing the actual books is our biggest single expense. The first print run of a typical volume costs in excess of US$25,000. If that seems high, you must remember that we print eight thousand of them, and they usually run to around 120 pages. Our latest volume, number 12, will be even more expensive, as it comes in at 192 pages, and we’ll be printing nine thousand of them, because eight thousand wasn’t enough last time. Exciting? Yes, but one can’t pay the printer with excitement.
We also have to ship the books. Actually, we have to ship them twice. Once from the printer to the fulfillment center, and once again from the fulfillment center to the customer. And whether a book is shrink–wrapped with thousands of its friends onto a pallet and loaded into a truck, or carefully packaged for individual shipping, several thousand pounds of books cost serious money to transport.

It's got a short fuse on it because they want to get the books in hand in time for San Diego Comic-Con. Act now!

Girl Genius Volume 12 Printing and Reprint Frenzy! (Thanks, Phil!)

UK Home Office commissions a super villain-catching-machine from Prof. Elemental

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:34:27 +0000

In this startling debut episode, the renowned Professor Elemental receives a commission from the government to build a marvellous snooping machine with which to catch the badduns. The Home Secretary has the right man for the job -- with the good professor's marvellous device, the Home Office will be able to spy on every communique that traverses the British Information Superhighway!

(It's all about the Snooper's Charter, the barmy UK legislative proposal to give nearly unlimited snooping powers to the government and police, and this video is courtesy of the good people at the Open Rights Group.

Professor Elemental build a Great Machine for Catching Villains Chapter One (Thanks, Jim!)

The steampunk creations of Will Rockwell

Rob Beschizza — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:53:09 +0000

John Biggs interviews steampunk designer Will Rockwell: "He began his career as a TV producer but he always loved to tinker with metals, leather, and wood – the three components of good steampunk." [TechCrunch Makers]

New Bob Basset mask with added angularity

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 21:54:58 +0000

A new piece from Ukrainian steampunk leather mask-maker Bob Basset. I like the angular forms here -- there's something a bit Roman in it, to my eye at least.

DW new. Steampunk Art Leather Mask

Assemblage raygun

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:45:38 +0000

The latest piece from mad assemblage sculptor Roger Wood is this delightful ray-gun: "Another mental health break from clocks with this Steampunk ray gun and charging stand."

Steampunk DJ mask from Bob Basset

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:46:34 +0000

The wonderful folks at Bob Basset in Ukraine have a new piece up, the "Steampunk DJ Mask," of which I'm rather fond.

New Steampunk DJ Mask

PDX event for "Vintage Tomorrows: A Historian And A Futurist Journey Through Steampunk Into The Future of Technology"

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 01:14:13 +0000

Hey, Portlandians! Brian David Johnson and James H Carrott are doing a talk and signing for their new book, Vintage Tomorrows: A Historian And A Futurist Journey Through Steampunk Into The Future of Technology, a fascinating look at the historical significance of steampunk, and an exploration of what the popularity of steampunk today's means about tomorrow's technology, at the Cedar Hills Crossing Powell's on March 25 at 7PM.

Steampunk, a mashup in its own right, has gone mainstream, with music videos from the likes of Nicki Minaj; America’s Next Top Model photo shoots; and Prada’s Fall/Winter menswear collection featuring haute couture, steampunk style. Some steampunk fans revile this celebrity. But James H. Carrott, co-author of Vintage Tomorrows, says that’s just how cultural change happens. “Things get appropriated; they affect the culture in some way or another, and the people who are at the heart of trying to make that change move onto the next key idea.”
So what is steampunk, exactly, and why should we care? Carrott, a cultural historian, says “steampunk is playing with the past.” The world that steampunk envisions is a mad-inventor’s collection of 21st century-inspired contraptions, powered by steam and driven by gears. It’s a whole new past; one that has a lot to say about the futures we want to see.
In Vintage Tomorrows, Intel’s resident futurist Brian David Johnson (@IntelFuturist) joins Carrott (@CultHistorian) in a globe-spanning journey to dig beyond definitions and into the heart of this growing subculture. Through interviews with experts such as Margaret Atwood, China Miéville, William Gibson, Cory Doctorow, Bruce Sterling, and James Gleick, this book looks into steampunk’s vision of old-world craftsmen making beautiful hand-tooled gadgets, and what it means for our age of disposable technology.

Vintage Tomorrows Book Signing at Powell’s Books Cedar Hills Crossing

What is good and important about steampunk

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:46:19 +0000

Nick Harkaway's essay "The Steampunk Movement is Good and Important" does a good job of answering charges that steampunk is cover for racism or colonialism, and does an even better job of explaining the attraction of steampunk technological visions to a modern artist:

Just as it would be tragic to ignore the advantages and consolations of the cognitive - and those who denigrate it in favour of a romanticised understanding of the instinctual or the mystical slander themselves - so equally it is idle and spurious to contend that we are cognitive entities riding around in bony control centres in our skulls, peeping out through windows in the face. We are not just brains with mobile life support. The emerging understanding of embodied cognition is the last nail in the coffin of that idea. We are bodies which think, and we’re at home with Steampunk because it is an ethos of design and creativity which acknowledges the humanly physical, that which we can understand with our fingers. It values our bounded selves, whose world is the middle earth between the flea and the horizon line in which objects obey Newton and relativity is barely more than an academic interest. It is a cognitively limited and incomplete sort of place. In terms of our senses, though, it’s all there is, and Steampunk is about being able to have the wonders of technology while still valuing, acknowledging and respecting that restricted view.
From that one central aspect of its identity, Steampunk mounts a challenge to grey-black plastic industrial design, to the faux-sanitised world of consumer technology and to techno-/neo-colonialism. It insistently re-makes technology as something friendly and even quasi-biological by producing things that owe more to Rube Goldberg than to the Filippo Marinetti-style “faster, harder” culture of Sony and Microsoft or the endless iterations of Apple and Samsung. The ethos admits of failure: Steampunk devices almost are not working properly if they don’t have leaks, if they don’t require maintenance and the occasional thump. That’s where they get character and animation, identities of their own which reflect their owners, while every iPhone can be seen as Apple’s endlessly replicated identity given passage into your every waking moment, a tiny and instantly replaceable cloned shopfront: what role is conferred or imposed by such a device on the person carrying it? It’s not that Jonathan Ive’s designs are poor, it’s that they are profoundly truthful: an iPhone is a vector, not an object, valued by its creator for its purpose and interchangeability, not individuality. Steampunk, on the other hand, repurposes, scavenges, remakes and embellishes in an arena where embellishment is seen as decadence, never mind the inherent decadence of creating the sheer amount of computing power our society now possesses in order that most of it should sit idle or be used for email and occasional games of Plants vs Zombies. Steampunk appeals to the idea of uniqueness, to the one-off item, while every mainstream consumer technology of recent years is about putting human beings into ever more granular, packageable and mass-produced identities so that they can be sold or sold to, perfectly mapped and understood.

The Steampunk Movement is Good and Important (via Kadrey!)

Top hat with a zoetrope inside

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:04:01 +0000

For a mere $500 (which is truly a bargain here), Etsy seller Ramonpiper will make you a custom top-hat with a zoetrope inside it, whose moving images can be viewed through a porthole in its high cylinder.

This is a leather top hat with an illuminated motorized praxinoscope. The praxinoscope was the next generation in moving picture technology after the zoetrope. It features six mirrored surfaces reflecting six images on a revolving cylinder that appear to move when the cylinder is set in motion. The switch in the bottom of the hat powers a battery operated motor that turns the cylinder and illumines two bulbs. There is a lens that magnifies the mirrors. The lens has a velvet-lined lens cover that swings from a brass boss and is affixed with studs at the front and rear. The hat is light enough to be worn at length and it will continue to operate while moving, walking, or doffing it to ladies.

Steampunk Victorian Leather Top Hat with Zoetrope Praxinoscope Movie Player (via Neatorama)

Articulated, flapping steampunk wings

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 23:33:27 +0000

PeaceLoveMagic sez: "Etsy seller steampunk22 from Thin Gypsy Studios offers these amazing wings crafted from wood, brass and copper. Fully articulated. the wings rise and fall with the assistance of custom carved black walnut handles. The wings are affixed with bonded vinyl/leather straps with a range of sizing options. $2750 seems like a bargain, when you consider most steampunks have to die to get wings. Judging by the images on their website/blog, Thin Gypsy Thief Studios seems to specialize in droolworthy steampunk accoutrements."

Steampunk Icarus Wings - Handmade, Backmounted, Pulley Driven Wings MKII

Insect Inspector leather mask

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 19:36:47 +0000

The latest from steampunk/fetish maskmaker Bob Basset is the "Insect Inspector": "Leather, Brass, Glass, soviet gas mask parts."

Insect Inspector. Steampunk art Leather Gas mask.

Steampunky concept motorcyle

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:37:44 +0000

This is the creation of Mikhail Smolyanov, whose concept bike designs are, to a one, wonderful to behold. Funnily nostalgic, gloriously impractical, and beautifully rendered.

Solifague Design (via Kadrey)

Edwardian Ball and World's Faire 2013, captured in video

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 22:29:50 +0000

Funny person and accomplished video storyteller Mark Day sends us this wonderful video he's just completed, and explains its contents: "Operatic shenanigans at the Edwardian Ball 2013, with the Vau de Vire Society, excessive corsetry and several steampunk googles sightings!"

Britons rejoice! The Foglios' Agatha H books come to the UK

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 10:17:28 +0000

I've previously reviewed Phil and Kaja Foglios' Agatha H books, these being prose adaptations of their spectacular, award-winning Girl Genius comics. Now, the UK's Titan Books has brought out the first two novels in handsome paperback editions, reasonably priced for all to enjoy.

The transition from comic to print works surprisingly well. While the action sequences sometimes feel a little like a script for a comic, they're always funny and delightful. The effect is a little like the high-speed feeling of reading a fast-paced comic, but with the depth of character that you get from a prose-novel's capacity for introspection and internal monologue.
In the Girl Genius world, the Industrial Revolution has all but destroyed the world, thanks to the Sparks, industrial wizards who are born with the mad scientist's ability to make uncanny machines and lifeforms that upend order and send villagers fleeing to the hills. Finally, Baron Klaus Wulfenbach brings some order to the chaos by conquering Europe and grinding it under his (surprisingly benign) iron heel. Agatha Crumb is a lab assistant at Transylvania Polygnostic University, ward of two "constructs" (reanimated corpses) that dote on her and care for her in her parents' absence. When her benefactor is killed by the Baron's men (and monsters), she is forced to flee, but before long, she is the Baron's prisoner aboard his flying airship castle, "the only capital city that was able to patrol its own empire."
Filled with folgian touches -- Borscht-belt comedy accents, things that go sproing, adorkable sentient machines, and laugh-a-minute slapstick -- Agatha H is a tremendously fun addition to the Girl Genius canon.

Girl Genius - Agatha H and the Airship City

Girl Genius - Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess

Bob Basset steampunk leather mask art-calendar

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 00:37:10 +0000

Bob Basset -- Boing Boing favorites, steampunk and fetish maskmakers -- have issued a rather lovely art calendar for 2013 with Mell Ghandy.

Bob Basset and Mell Ghandy Art Calendar 2013

Space: 1899, RIP Gerry Anderson

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 02:05:54 +0000

A fitting tribute to Gerry Anderson, who died yesterday in his sleep at the age of 83, is this lovely little "Space 1899" mashup, uploaded to YouTube in 2007 by illconprods.

Space:1899 (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Steampunk wrist-keyboard in a leather buckler

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 05:47:26 +0000

OK, so this is pretty amazing: Etsy seller Brute Force Studios has leather, steamed-out buckler with an equally steampunk wrist-keyboard/touchpad, which talks to your computer over Bluetooth and just, you know, wow.

-- 3-in-1 multimedia wireless keyboard (Keyboard, TouchPad, Laser Pointer)
-- Control your media while sitting on the sofa, lounging in bed, up to 100 feet away
-- Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery with a short re-charge time
-- Includes mini 2.4 GHz USB wireless receiver
-- Wireless receiver stores inside keyboard when not in use
-- Stand-by time: 500 - 700 hours

FUNCTIONAL Typewriter Arm Guard with Bluetooth and Touchpad (Thanks, Roger!)

Steampunk mask-maker gets justice after being plagiarised

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 06:27:31 +0000

Yesterday, I blogged about Bob Basset, the Ukrainian steampunk leatherworker, discovering one of his designs in the Design Toscano catalog without credit or royalty. The publicity that the Internet gave to Basset's cause caused Toscano to contact Basset and offer him a royalty, and they blame an unscrupulous supplier who claimed the design as its own:

To clear up the issue on the Steampunk piece that has some of our customers questioning our motives we would like to explain.
The statue was produced and offered to Design Toscano as one of a portfolio of new sculptures to review. There was some confusion between Mr. Bob Basset and the factory that produced this piece for Design Toscano. Mr. Mike Stopka, president of Design Toscano, spoke directly with Mr. Basset and explained that Design Toscano had been mislead in the creation of this piece. Mr. Basset and Mr. Stopka have worked out a generous plan that the artist will get compensation for his work and Mr. Basset has graciously allowed Design Toscano to continue to sell his fantastic work of art. Design Toscano is appreciative to its customers who informed us of this oversight and as always we celebrate artists and their creative work

To clear up the issue on the Steampunk piece that has some of our customers questioning our motives we would like to explain. (Thanks, Seth!)

Dieselpunk sculptures from New Zealand

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 01:50:34 +0000

Rob Murdoch sends us a link to his site, where he posts, "Science fiction themed retro looking sculptures of machines, animals etc all made from recycled machinery. Built in Dieselpunk fashion and of very high quality and design!"

They are indeed super cool. Alas, there appears to be no way to buy 'em! Rob, if you're reading this, please drop by the comments and let us know whether and how to buy these things.

Enjin Art System.For The Best Industrial Sci Fi Sculptures This Side Of Jupiter! (Thanks, Rob!)

Ukrainian steampunk mask-maker gets plagiarized by Skymall stalwarts Design Toscano

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 23:30:05 +0000

Update: Design Toscano has apologized for this and agreed to pay a royalty to Bob Basset. They blame an unscrupulous supplier who presented the design as its own.

Design Toscano, a wealthy, fast-growing company, is selling a leather steampunk mask that clearly plagiarises the work of Ukrainian leatherworker Bob Basset, a favorite around these parts. As Rob Murdoch points out in his post, Toscano could easily spare the budget to work with Basset to produce masks or designs for them -- the ethical thing to do. Basset, a poor artists living in Ukraine, feels powerless to do anything about it. This ugly business calls all of Toscano's products into question: are all the designs in their catalog unacknowledged rip-offs from independent designers, or just this one?

So having known and loved Bob’s work for 10 years at this point, imagine my happiness for him when I came across a sculpture of one of his masks being sold on this site. I thought “Great for Bob! More of his work is out there and it’s a great paying gig for him!” (Toscano is a multi-million dollar company so they can afford to pay their artists well and they often give credit to the artist). Then I had the horrible thought that maybe this isn’t good and it’s a case of a big company ripping off the little guy, which has happened before and will happen again so long as companies can get away with it. So I popped over to Bob’s personal Facebook page and linked him the online catalogue page with his mask and asked if he knew about it. An hour later, he replied with “Yes, I know they simply stolen our design. But what I can do from Ukraine I don’t know.”

So there you have it. There is no mistaking that the sculpture is a copy of Bob Basset work: his style is so unique. Not only was he not given credit for it, but he was not compensated at all for their using his mask. Now I hate to have to bring this to light because I have loved Design Toscano for years. I have a lot of fantastic statues and art from them lining my walls. But something has to be said. And you have to wonder, why did this happen? Toscano makes good money on the art they sell. They didn’t need to copy this work without compensation. Why not have approached the artist who made the masks they obviously liked and wanted to sell and commission a sculpture from him? Artists live or die by their sales. They need to be paid by people who want to make use of their work, and they need to be credited for their art.

Toscano's catalog copy is an exercise in chutzpah: "Get ready for a little anti-establishment, alternate history with our forward-thinking Steampunk gas mask that boasts a gramophone for hearing and no end of techno-Victorian charm!" They even call it a "Design Toscano Exclusive." Well, yes, they are the exclusive purveyor of the cheap knock-off.

Jaborwhalky Productions • Steampunk art stolen by Design Toscano? When you... (Thanks, Rob!)

How steampunk can humanize gadgets

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 17:35:22 +0000

Ben sez, "In 'Being More Human,' an essay in the fall/winter issue of Oregon Humanities magazine, Intel futurist and technological optimist Brian David Johnson explains what steampunk has to do creating friendlier, more humanist gadgets."

Steampunk reveals three relationships that people want with their technology. First, they want their technology to have a sense of humor. Humor and jokes give us a way to connect with and understand each other. Also, humor is a great cultural indicator that we understand each other. Studies show that if I can make you laugh, you not only think I’m smarter but also feel a deeper human connection to me. If we want to have a closer relationship to these technologies that are filling our lives, it makes sense that we would want them to get our sense of humor and make us laugh.
Second, people want their technology to have a sense of history. History is the on-ramp to the future. Only by understanding where we have come from can we make sense of where we are going. It might surprise you to realize that a pocket watch is a lot like an iPhone. We carry both around in our pockets. Both give their owners an advantage over other people who may not have them. But there is one difference: a pocket watch was designed to be handed down from generation to generation. An iPhone is designed to be refreshed from generation to generation. For an increasing number of people this doesn’t work. They want their devices to have grounding in history, a connection to the past so we can have a clearer view of our future.
Finally, people want their technology to have a sense of humanity. They want their devices to understand them as individuals. If you sleep with your smartphone next to your bed you want it to know who you are when you wake up in the morning. As our devices become increasingly smarter and central to our lives, we want these devices to understand us as individuals, not as consumers.

Being More Human (Thanks, Ben!)

Steampunk pipe-lamp with valve-switch

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 01:09:10 +0000

PeteJ sends in "a steampunk desk lamp I built, the valve is also the on/off switch." That's a hell of a switch.

New surreal woodcut collages from Dan Hillier

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 20:41:33 +0000

I've long admired happy mutant illustrator Dan Hillier, who produces beautiful line-art collages that combine Victorian woodcuts with original illustration to produce beautiful and surreal effects. He's just uploaded a passel of new work, including the wonderful "Wayfarer," above. You can buy 'em as prints online, or from his stall in the Sunday Upmarket in London's Brick Lane.

NEW WORK

Victorian jargon watch: "a dictionary of heterodox English, slang and phrase"

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 15:00:42 +0000

The Internet Archive has a complete scan of James Redding Ware's wonderful 1909 treatise "Passing English of the Victorian era: a dictionary of heterodox English, slang and phrase," ganked from the University of Toronto's Robarts library. The Archive has OCR'ed versions, hi-rez PDFs of color and b/w scans, and every ebook format you're likely to need.

If you'd prefer a hardcopy there's a paperback reprint for sale, too. It's really something. Here's a few gems:

Enobs (Back slang). Bone, in ordinary plural. A very favourite inversion is a sort of rebus, bones showing affording a study of ' knobs '.
But he swallowed a box of matches one day which burnt away all the fat and left the mere enoba you see now.
Evening wheezes (Peoples'). False news, spread in evening half- penny papers in order to sell them.
Fairy (Lower Peoples). A debauched, hideous old woman, especially when drunk.
Fake a poke (Thieves'). To pick, or manipulate, a pocket. This phrase is a singular revival. Johnson has ' Fake amongst seamen a pile of rope,' and as to poke ' a pocket or small bag'. ' I will not buy a pig in a poke !' Camden.
He denied that when entering the music hall he was accused by a larty of picking her pocket, and further said that when called out he did not say he had never ' faked a poke ' in his life. People, 6th September 1896.
Fake pie (Straitened Soc., 1880). A towards -the-end-of-the- week effort at pastry, into which go all the ' orts ', ' overs ', and ' ends ' of the week. See Resurrection pie a term which this has superseded.
Penny puzzle (Street, 1883). Sausage because it is never found out. (See Bag o' mystery.)
Wingers sometimes called Flanges (Colloquial about 1865). After the Crimean beard, which meant all the hair growable on the face, had lasted in fashion about ten or twelve years, the chin came to be once more shown, and the whiskers were thrown back, or pulled away from the cheeks, and allowed to grow as long as nature decided. The name was obtained from their streaming and waving character.

Passing English of the Victorian era : a dictionary of heterodox English, slang and phrase. [archive.org]

Passing English of the Victorian era : a dictionary of heterodox English, slang and phrase. [Amazon]

(via Making Light)

Gigapixel images of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine #2

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:38:23 +0000

Greg sez, "This project is using a number of computational photography techniques to document Charles Babbage's 'Difference Engine No 2' for the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. There are interactive gigapixel images for the four cardinal views of the device available to view."

Babbage Difference Engine in Gigapixel (Thanks, Greg!)

Steampunk's Guide to Sex

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 04:00:50 +0000

Margaret Killjoy sez, "We just got A Steampunk's Guide to Sex back from the printer! With contributions by Alan Moore, Molly Crabapple, and Professor Calamity, the book covers all kinds of crazy Victorian sexuality as well as ideas about steampunk and geek sexuality in the 21st century. It comes complete with sketchy DIY how-tos and is illustrated by original tintypes."

Prostitution, pornography, sex toys, dirty stories, BDSM, gay New York, can-can dancers, strippers, tight-laced corsets, prudery, polyamory, consent, venereal diseases, piercings, birth control, aphrodisiacs, creepers, floggers, steam-powered vibrators, sex slang—mad historian Professor Calamity and his assembled crew of steampunk authors, artists, and performers share everything you want to know, and more, about sex under the reign of Victoria and sex in our modern subculture. Featuring contributions by: Professor Calamity, Luna Celeste, Molly Crabapple, KC Crowell, O.M. Grey, Sarah Hunter (aka Lady Clankington), Margaret Killjoy, Canis Latrans, Talloolah Love, Screaming Mathilda, Alan Moore, Miriam Roček, J.I. Wittstein.

A Steampunk's Guide to Sex

Steampunk Dalek

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 19:19:16 +0000

About this spectacular wearable steampunk Dalek, BB reader Mark Dumont writes:

Electronics are contained in box at back waist containing arduino uno, 2 nine volt batteries, and small amp. Speakers are in ends of tube around neck and mic is on an earpiece. Arduino board powers eye stalk and dome lights as well as handles dalek voice modulation. I found the arduino sketch (source and circuit diagrams) can be found here, kudos to Andy Grove for the sketch. Originally created for my wife (the only dalek I will ever love) for the Time Traveler's Ball held at the Redmoor in Cincinnati 11/17/12

Photo Link. (Shared in the BB Flickr Pool)

Doktor A's immortality helmet

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 00:54:52 +0000

Doktor A's beautiful immortality helmet was produced on commission and looks like a spectacular way to extend your lifespan:

1. Remove strap and leads from the storage drawer.
2. Place electrodes against forehead and tighten strap.
3. Attach bulldog clips to terminals in the jaw.
4. Set over-ride timer to desired duration.
5. Crank the main handle to build electrical charge.
6. Close the main switch to engage the electrical flow.
7. Increase the electrical voltage using dial.
8. Wait until your Asphyx manifests within the tube.
9. Shut off charge to electrodes using the main switch.
10. Transfer the Asphyx to a long term containment device.
11. Congratulations you have gained immortality.

Congratulations you have gained immortality. (via Super Punch)

Encrusted, elaborate assemblage sculptures

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 17:03:17 +0000

Richard Symons, an artist based in London, makes elaborate, gadget-encrusted sculptures, and sells them on Etsy. The teapot above sells for USD130.00. The mask on the right sells for USD60.00.

Richard Symons (via Super Punch)