Jonah Hex Trailer

Looks cool.



Josh Brolin seems to be channeling the Man With No Name and Adam Baldwin.

This looks awesome. It is from a French comic series, Adèle Blanc-Sec.

Amazing Bioshock Costume

Wow. That is incredible. [Link]

I finally lost my mind enough to try to tackle one of these big guys. For those unfamiliar, Big Daddys are the protectors of the Little Sisters in Rapture, an underwater city devoid of morality which has degenerated into chaos and insanity. They are huge, fast, strong, and as it turns out, a solid pain in the ass to build.

Steampunk Watch: The Akribos XXIV DaVinci Skeleton Steampunk Watch

Awesome steampunk watch. [Link]

I hesitate to call it steampunk, through the degradation of the term by people
like me, but my attempts at describing it otherwise only end up being laughably
convoluted loop-de-loops around the term. It reminds me very strongly of
Disneyland Paris' Space Mountain aesthetic, which is furnished after the
spaceship design of Verne's De la Terre à la Lune... all burnished brass and
exposed copper cogwork. But, of course, that's all very steampunk too.

This could almost make me wear a watch again.

Minion Want Ad

For Sean [Link]

[Hmm … I see that Jeff is looking for minions but the picture of the want-ad isn't big enough to read and gosh darn it, I've always wanted to know how such minions are recruited. I'll have to ask Jeff next time I see him … ]

Here you go:

Minions Wanted

☠ Do you enjoy the "Graveyard Shift"?
☠ Do you enjoy getting your hands dirty?
☠ Are you not a "People Person"?
☠ Can you follow orders blindly?
☠ Do you have what it takes to be a minion?

Minions are very important to the Mad Scientific Process. Many would "Kill" to have such a prestigious job opportunity. If your brain is at least 1300 cubic centimeters in volume and you have questionable morals and you have your CCM (Certified Craven Minion), you may be qualified to be a Mad Scientist's Minion.

Coolest Steampunk Gadget Ever! - Herr Döktor’s Vacuum Survival System

Awesome! Much more at the link. [Link]

Recently recovered from the archive at Castle d’Arrogance, details of Herr Döktor’s Vacuum Survival System, or ‘Space Helmet’, have just recently come to light; this object was produced at some, as yet, undetermined time (due to the peculiar and labyrinthine method of personal dating) as a means for ‘personal safety while travelling the Ætheral Void between the Spheres, and for safe and comfortable promenading upon the Airless Planets of the Solar System’
As you may be able to ascertain from the below pictures, this device is fully-functional, and no mere gimcrack or mountebank’s caprice:

Heart of Gears

Awesome. [Link]

Coolest Watch Ever

I'm a sucker for visible moving parts in a watch. [Link]

HD3 Complication Bi-Axial Tourbillon "Vulcania"



Now see it move



And it can be yours for $400,000.

Steampunk Star Wars Figures

From the guy who made the Steampunk Justice League figures. [Link]

I love this stuff.

Difference Engine Unboxing

Cool. Just image what the packaging would be like if it was made by Apple. [Link]

When Charles Babbage invented a massive calculating machine in 1849, he probably didn't count on the 150 years it would take to actually get the thing built.

Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2 was a precursor of modern computers, capable of performing complex mathematical calculations with 31 digits of precision, all using Victorian-era rods, gears, levers and linkages.

But Babbage never completed it. It took engineers and curators at London's Science Museum almost six years of work to bring Babbage's 20 pages of blueprints to life in 1991.

Now, thanks to Microsoft multimillionaire Nathan Myhrvold, a second Difference Engine has been built and delivered to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, where trained docents will turn its brass handle to crank out the calculations Babbage dreamed of automating.

Amazing Lego Steampunk Mech

This is incredible. Look at the detail. [Link]

Skytrains

This would make a great pulp visual: a line of airships hooked together as a train. [Link]

Back in 1997, Mike deGyurky, a program manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), had a design for a giant blimp, perhaps a mile in length. With a cargo capacity of 50,000 tons or more.

Mike and others at JPL had the skytrain concept, which were a bunch of blimp "box cars" connected together for less drag and more fuel efficiency. The largest of the box car designs was about 45,000 tons of cargo. Updated designs would be even better now because they were depending on thin film material for the skin and for thin film solar cells for power. Both of those have seen a lot of improvement and more improvement is anticipated.

JPL was and is not in the business of building airships, but was directly connected to an institution that was; The California Institute of Technology (CalTech). CalTech had been involved in Zeppelin research during the early 1930's. Theodore von Karman, a professor of aerodynamics at CalTech and a person who had participated in airship research in Germany (including the construction of the Zeppelin "Los Angeles" as part of wartime reparations to the US.) had proposed high speed dirigibles in his autobiography . This connection was first noted by deGyurky.

There were a number of design questions that arose and a number of which remained unanswered at the time. Among them, how would the system be powered? Elements of the SkyTrain could be covered with new ultra light weight solar cells to the point of being completely solar powered. A conventionally fueled backup would be necessary for staging operations. The 1994 analysis showed that this would reduce the pure solar SkyTrain cruising speed to around 43 mph. [a proposed Skycat airship design should have a speed of 97mph. The old Zeppelin's had a maximum speed of about 65 mph, There is an Aeroscraft, hybrid airship, that has a top speed of 174 miles per hour.]

The Steampunk Future of Fusion?

If this works, it will be amazing. [Link]

A picture from the patent filing for what General fusion is trying to build with backing from Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital. GF will build a ~3 meter diameter spherical tank filled with liquid metal (lead-lithium mixture). Rams use compressed steam to accelerate pistons to ~50 m/s. Make compression wave in the liquid metal. Microsecond of fusion once per second. Note: This could be considered like a variant of "steam punk nuclear fusion" made real if it works.

"Within five years, large companies will start to think about building fusion reactors," Wal van Lierop, CEO of Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, said in an interview at the Clean Tech Investor Summit taking place here this week. In three to four years, scientists will demonstrate results that show that fusion has a 60 percent chance of success, he said.

Lierop has backed General Fusion's Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) model. An electric current is generated in a conductive cavity containing lithium and a plasma. The electric current produces a magnetic field and the cavity is collapsed, which results in a massive temperature spike. MTF has an advantage over other fusion techniques in that the plasma only has to stay at thermonuclear temperatures (150 million degrees Celsius) for a microsecond for a reaction to occur.

Canada's General Fusion has received $1.2 million in venture funding to conduct further research on its fusion reactors, according to VentureWire. The company's ultimate plan is to build small fusion reactors that can produce around 100 megawatts of power. The plants would cost around $50 million. That could allow the company to generate electricity at about 4 cents per kilowatt hour, relatively low.

Sounds like something right out of Steam Boy.

Curta Mechanical Calculator in action

This is very cool. The Curta calculator is a very cool mechanical calculator created during World War Two by Curt Herzstark while he was in Buchenwald. [Link]



Very steampunk.

Gaslight Justice League

Very cool victorian versions. [Link]

I especially like the Martian Manhunter and Aquaman. More pictures at the link.

Hand made vacuum tubes

Very cool. [Link]

Fabrication d'une lampe triode
Uploaded by F2FO

Riding the Rails

I've always been fascinated by cars with rail wheel guides, and this car does it with style.

[Edit] Here is a page full of Hy-Rail cars. [Link]

Steampunk Art

Some really good stuff here.

[W]e present the most daring and imaginative works in Victorian tinkering and steam era computing... Based largely on the works of William Gibson, China Mieville, Jeff Vandermeer and good old H. P. Lovecraft, some of these "infant terribles" of artistic imagination are not for the faint of heart. They all however transport our technology-jaded selves into an era when steam-powered computers and gaslight "special effects" were the true scientific wonders of the world.

This isn't very steampunk, but it's cool anyway.

I bet when it flies. Ahem. I'll be here all week, try the veal.

Autogyro / Motorcycle

Really cool. I like autogyros, mostly because of the pulp connotations, but I think they just look cool. Here's a new design that may take to the skies.

The PALV. a personal air and land vehicle. a solution to increasing congestion in our cities, highways and skyways.

On the ground, the slim line, aerodynamic 3-wheel vehicle is as comfortable as a luxury car. But has the agility of a motorbike, thanks to its patented cutting-edge ‘tilting’ system. The single rotor and propeller are folded away until the PALV is ready to fly.

Airborne, the PALV flies under the 4,000 feet (1,500 m) floor of commercial air space. With land and air space reaching capacity, this is some of the last free space.

The PALV is highly fuel-efficient and powered by an environmentally certified car engine. It runs on petrol like a conventional car and can reach speeds of up to 200 km/h both on land and in the air.

Its straightforward autogyro flying technology means that the PALV is economically and technically feasible in comparison to other forms of air travel. Like a helicopter, it has a Very Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (VSTOVL) capability making it possible to land practically anywhere. It can be driven to the nearest airfield or helipad and, because it flies below 4,000 feet, can take off without filing a flight plan. The autogyro technology means that it can be steered and landed safely even if the engine fails as it descends vertically rather than nose-diving. Lift is generated by the forward speed produced by the foldable push propeller on the back.

Really cool steampunk props

Very nice stuff here.