Glaring omission
Bioshock.
That is all.
Big Blue wants to show off its ability to chew on Facebook pages and Twitter feeds to predict the next big mainstream fashion: steampunk. So now you know what your kids will want for presents this year: don't be surprised if they want to suddenly build dirigibles instead of rockets and ask for a steam-powered, gear-driven …
Yep, definitely The Chaos Engine from the Bitmap Brothers (of the age that bought you Sensible Software, Team 17, some of Codemaster's best efforts, Psygnosis ditto, Delphine, Bullfrog...)
William Gibson is also an influence on Steampunk, as is some Japanese anime such as Steamboy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboy
Did...did you just hipster steampunk?
Steampunk was already hipstered. It was hipstered before it was cool.
Slightly more seriously, I think IBM's sentiment analysis needs its Markov models re-trained. Steampunk went "mainstream", at least in the US, years ago. It's shown up in mainstream TV shows (as an object of mild derision, like Renaissance Faires and the like), and as a quick browse of Regretsy's "This is not steampunk" category demonstrates, people are using the label to peddle all sorts of crap.
It'll probably be recycled into "retro" before 2020.
the day I'm ahead of the trend is the day the world blows up. I've been a fan of steampunk for god knows how long. Also dieselpunk.
Although I do look forward to finally being able to buy some steampunk items without going "Bugger off, I'm not paying £80 for THAT!" (in reference to a 'replica' lever which had no function whatsoever)
"buy some steampunk items without going "Bugger off, I'm not paying £80 for THAT!""
Great: I can buy some mass-produced plastic shite as owned by four thousand other people, instead of grossly undervaluing the efforts of someone developing, designing and making something by hand!
Damn all those hobbyists: They should totally work for the same amount as someone in a sweatshop. /sarcasm.
Is it just me, or has it been going around in a climactic battle spiral for the past couple of weeks and slowly not getting anywhere in particular? It's as if it's run out of steam, or perhaps the Foglios are stoking the boiler ready for something special...... ?
Agreed, but some people do get it aesthetically right and functional, like this telescope, which I think you might appreciate.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to come right out and say it - I thought The Difference Engine was a bit shit.
I know I should have loved it, and the techy bits were interesting, but the rest of it felt like there was a good story in there somewhere, it just couldn't find its way out. Instead it was buried by tedious characters and sub-par writing.
I feel bad admitting it as everyone tells me it was brilliant, but no, it was just... a bit shit. Can anyone recommend any steampunk books which actually do live up to the hype? Boneshaker is already on my 'to read' list.
Anti-Ice is not particularly hot compared to Difference Engine, really. The plot device of "frozen stuff that becomes antimatter when thawed" is a bit contrived. It sure helps to heat boilers though.
YMMV.
There's nothing punk about it (and nothing steam either, really*) . The so called Steampunks spend all their time cos-playing aristos and posh adventurers.
* Just one steampunk item of clothing that does something rather than having all those cogs randomly stuck on it, is that too much to ask? Maybe a clockwork fascinator?
Some of the most interesting and intelligent people I know are fellow steampunks. There is a world of difference between sticking cogs on something and what steampunk actually is.
For example, this:
http://www.crabfu.com/steamtoys/r2s2/
Until you manage to produce something equally awesome, I think that maybe you are not in a position to trivialise other people's hobbies.
I believe the saying is, "haters gonna hate."
>With the exception that no brewing vessels that I know of literally (in the correct sense of the word) move around under their own steam, under radio control.
I think you've just found your next project! : D
Actually, if you visit The Beer Engine pub and micro-micro brewery between Exeter and Crediton, you'll see a lot of comic paintings on the walls that play on 'beer engine' (the name for the hand pump assemblies) and 'steam engine', featuring breweries on rails...
Its well worth learning about the period, the Arts and Crafts movement and the excitement of new technology. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is probably as good a place to start as any.
Or, Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, hilarious... he visits the British Library to self-diagnose in the way hypochondriacs now consult the internet!
The next big fashion is going to be Printpunk. 3D-printed accessories and artefacts.
Lots of people will have individual designs for a short period until a sub-set of patterns become dominant and are mass produced for people to choose their "individuality" on an industrial scale. Bit like the Arts & Crafts movement all over again and somewhere a 21st century William Morris will get rich. But who will it be?
>somewhere a 21st century William Morris will get rich. But who will it be?
Depends on the perception of value, and its motivation... people will spend £10,000 on a Damien Hirst print - a print, not an 'original' of which there are tens of thousands. Back in the saner realms, there are well-off people who will happily spend money on items crafted in the local area, such as furniture, or a bespoke kitchen. Being a patron to the arts (and the artisans) is a way of softening your image - see the Medici banking family who commissioned great artworks.
3D printing? I've assisted established artists in making artworks with a CNC machine and a 3D printer (despite there existing quicker and easier ways of achieving the same ends), but the client is looking for exclusivity, thought and finish.
This might give you an idea of what can sell:
https://www.othercriteria.com/browse/all/unique_items/
(glass replicas of plastic bottle bongs, as found in hedgerow near you, selling for £2,300... I have no idea)
Well if you are going to split hairs, your iPhone case appears to be "Clockpunk".
And if one is going to celebrate Steampunk Aesthetic one would be barking mad to ignore the work of Rowland Emett. His Lunar Cycle, demonstrated by Patrick Moore on the occasion of the first moon landing, was the very essence of the movement, and his wondrous Aqua Horological Tintinnabulator can still be seen , I understand, in Nottingham's Victoria Centre.
No, he didn't call what he did Steampunk, but it is so obviously in the genre he deserves celebrating as one of its stars.
So, you have a massive analytics capability, shedloads of cash (squeezed from poor mainframe owners), and instead of aiming it at something useful, like gene sequencing, or solving complex molecular structures for medicines, or just economic predictions to help the Germans bail out the PIIGS, instead they have a stab at predicting fashion? And miss. The first thing you learn after five minutes in any "social media" is that it has no reflection on the real World whatsoever. What a waste of time and money, TBH.
Steampunk fashion would be a massive improvement over what passes for fashion right now. Maybe it's just me, but there's a certain classiness to steampunk that really appeals to me. That's probably just a reflection of the fact that people in the Victorian era wanted to look good while a lot of today's trendsetters just want to be the center of attention.
That somebody has to knock things that other people like for the sake of it? I'm not a massive Steampunk aficionado, although I did enjoy The Difference Engine, Chaos Engine and even newer stuff like Dishonoured (http://www.dishonored.com/).
However I'd never consider talking crap about something I've no interest in because that's just rude. I can't really listen to Country and Western without smirking, I find it impossible to take it serious but I know people who love it and why the heck not? Are they going to be persuaded by me slagging it off? No. Am I going to annoy them for no real reason? Yes.
So why the 'hate' people? I think it's far better to say "I don't get why you think this is cool but that's fine because it's your thing not mine."
The Victorian's, steam-punk or not, knew a few things about manners and there are a few here that could stand to learn that from them at the very least.
"IBM says that the amount of yammering and bickering about steampunk has increased by a factor of eleven in the past three years"
Given the growth of twitter, facebok, social media and the general cloud of tw@ts that inhabits them, could this statement not be true about almost anything at all... such as "the amount of bickering and yammering about creationism has increased eleven fold over the last three years"... doesn't mean I'm going to buy an iPhone case with a picture of Adam, Eve and a "friendly" dinosaur on it anytime soon.