A friend just introduced me to the Artwork of James Ng and I have to share the spellbinding intersection of Asian Art and Steampunk:

Full size image plus The Imperial Airship and Gates of Hell x2 are after the cut

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Is steampunk about Victorian fashion and uber cool mechanical gadgets or is it also about something more?  This is a question I have been struggling with for sometime, I am a goth from the late 80’s and I associate that subculture with an aesthetic sense of beauty that embraces the macabre with values alienation and hedonism within a frame work of self reflection. Since becoming more involved with the steampunk subculture the question of philosophy has been gnawing at my mind. ...

Noah has posted an update at Kickstarter with upgraded rewards for contributors!

Good friend and fellow tribesman Noah Beasley is joining the Open Source commerce fray, offering up some of his most popular designs.

[My] Items are created in a computer with modeling software, and then converted from bits to atoms using 3D printing technologies. By using this method, an item can be replicated a thousand times, or only once. There are no molds, there is no casting, there are only robots building each item from the physical pixels of the material required.

This means these things made of matter are not much different than any other piece of intellectual property such as music, movies, or software.

Click through to read more and support Noah's Kickstarter Project - I'm in! - Jake

Have you ever wondered how fast a steam car can go? You are not the only one.  The U.S. Land Steam Record (USLSR) Team is seeking to become the fastest steam-powered vehicle on earth at the famous Bonneville Salt Flats in early August 2011. The current record speed of 148 mph was set in 2009 by a British steam car, Inspiration, which broke the previous record of 129 mph which had stood since 1906.

The goal of the USLSR team is to blow the current record out of the water by creating a car that will travel at more then 200 mph.  The engine invented byHarry Schoell is called the Cyclone.  The Cyclone is "a compact, heat regenerative, external combustion engine that has been developed to achieve high thermal efficiencies and power-to-weight ratio. The engine operates on a Rankine cycle, and uses multiple heat recapturing processes off its cylinders, exhaust manifold and condenser to achieve thermal efficiencies reported at over 30%."  While the body of the car was designed by Chuck Williams the leader of the team and is extremely aerodynamic.  This will be Chuck's third steam car project. I wish him and his team the best of luck!

PS: The team is also looking for sponsorship.

Intro: Hello all, this is Brian Rowe, a Seattle based Hacker / Maker and member of Jigsaw Renaissance (JR) a non-profit maker space here in Seattle. JR is an collaborative community space that is open to the public that runs educational events several nights a week. 

When not blogging here or at JR's Blog I teach Information Privacy Law at Seattle University Law and run a volunteer organization that focus on Copyright & Patent Reform.  If you have interesting things you would like to see covered on the blog feel free to ping me at Brian <at> BrianRowe.org.

Image: The frame of the US Land Speed Record Teams Car, photographer unknown

I'm backing these folks and you should too!

"Because we support maker culture, we will release our production patterns on our site for download so that people can sew their own versions of our garments. In addition, we will be documenting our progress so that others can learn from our mistakes and improve on the model.

We want to prove that the current paradigm of competition in business is not the only way to make a living. We believe that small businesses can thrive through collaboration and resource sharing . . ."

Click though and pledge to support these fine folks, I truly believe they are onto something and that it is something worth supporting! - Jake

It seems maker spaces are springing up everywhere. And that's really, really exciting. We're a part of a movement, a gathering force of change and hope. We gather at Faires, at Cons, at challenges. We make friends and learn from each other. We feel epic, because we do epic things.

It feels amazing... until a space opens in the same city, down the way. Then we feel threatened, because we're socialized to see participants as a zero-sum game. We think someone going to NotYourSpace is, well, not going to your space.

I am really loving hating Regretsy's current  "Things That are Not Steampunk" series. The postings all elicit a facepalm and then silent sobbing into said palm; both of hilarity and pity for the genre.

Datamancer has two new keyboards for you to see an his site: The Reliquary and the gleaming new Marquis picture here.

My understanding is that The Reliquary was made for a client but if you like the Marquis you can bid on it right now on eBay

Click through for a couple of more pics and a video of the gleaming sparkling wonder that is The Marquis!

 Willow here, of Jigsaw goodness. You haven't heard from us in awhile, but that's because we've been going throughsome major growth spurts. Murals, zombie camp, building work tables, getting a class pet, more and more classes, making our Kickstarter (!!!), and lots of new rad people. Phew.

The space operates as a physical wiki - except for member desks, you can move or change anything, if you think it will operate better in that way. Over time, placement evolves to best use for people who are most active. (We took this idea from our parent space, Bucketworks. If you're in Milwaukee, check them out!) Which is rad... except that it's more difficult to track changes in a physical wiki than it is on the traditional online format. To that end, we've started using Yammer. It's Twitter for set groups - super useful.

. . .

(photo: myself at the 2009 Man Build)

About 23 miles north of the middle of nowhere lies a small, innocuous ranch. A sign, about the same prominence as the NO TRESPASSING beside it, identifies it as Black Rock Station Storage and Production Facility. This is Burning Man's work ranch.

Since 2007, I have trekked here- I am in situ- along with 15 other artists, crafters, carpenters, city slickers- to build Burning Man's figurehead, affectionately known among us as Mr.Splinters. In just under a week, a pile of lumber is transformed into a false idol famous enough to Moses blush.

The internet is spotty up here- we are, in fact, in the wild west (scorpions included) but both myself and the internet-starchild SFSlim will be posting about our progress. His writings can be found at the Burning Man Blog. You might also considering following me on Twitter, as 140 characters is a little bit easier for this ol' bessie, our internet connection, to handle.