Computers are my occupation. I create Flash animations for kiosks, websites, banner ads (yes, even the annoying ones) and desktop applications for a business to business company. I am writing this blog on my home computer, where I keep pictures, home movies, and funny PhotoShopped images. When computer components go out on my machine, I know just what part are compatible to the defunct component. I can even manually rid my computer of tenacious destructo-viruses, cleaning up all traces from the registry. I can do all of these things, but the computer is still just a computer; a cold, calculating, detached machine that does exactly what I tell it to do without emotion and without adventure.
Animatronics, on the other hand, are the computer's foil. These mechanical creations seem to have a life of their own, but owe their jerky, sometimes life-like movement to nothing but gears and sprockets. Sometimes they do what you tell them to do. Other times, their temperaments are such that they seem to be defying you on purpose in anger over some imagined slight. Banging on a purely mechanical creation could favor you with a surprising last-minute "burp" of energy, enough to coax that last cog into place. Try banging on your printer sometime; see if it produces that document you sent an hour ago.
Gears fascinate me. Steam engines and magnets are like real-life magic that I can grasp from top to bottom. Computers, I get, but not in the same big-picture kind of way. I get how electricity wants to run down the path of least resistance in circuitry and I get how the electron flow represents "on" or "one" when it is present, but "off" or "zero" when it is not. I took Circuit Analysis I and II when I was still of the mind to be a Computer Engineer. I suppose I wanted to bridge the gap between flowing electrons and creating animated GIFs. I still can not close the hole between electrical subroutines and logical computer-based ones. I can use either one, (I may be a little rusty on the electrical side) but I cannot mentally connect them. While computers assist me with my daily work and home life, I have no special place in my heart for them. The same does not hold true for mechanical gadgetry.
This love for gears, steam, and magnets, has led me to be enamored with movies such as League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Wild Wild West (I have not seen it, but still want to in spite of unanimous consent of the atrocity this film is to movie-making), Steamboy Suchîmubôi), Howl's Moving Castle (Hauru no ugoku shiro), Sleepy Hollow, Edward Scissorhands, The Time Machine, The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen, and Back to the Future Part III. I also enjoy Bowler Hats, cloaks and non-modern facial hair. I've had several pocket watches. I have a special place for brass, goggles, pin-stripes, rivets, Victorian-styled images (yes, all of this has relevance!), analog tube-radio machines, and old, dusty bookshelves of dark wood. Gnomes are also my favorite characters to play in World of Warcraft.
Why is all of this significant?
Three weeks ago I made a discovery. All of this fascination can be poured into one container: the sub-genre of SteamPunk. Without going into too much detail (just go to the Wikipedia link if you want to know more) SteamPunk is the sub-genre of speculative fiction that involves 19th century technologies in Victorian England. Much of SteamPunk (particularly the things with which I am enthralled) has to do with advanced versions of those technologies that our past never saw. Steam-powered versions of the individual automobile or a country-wide pneumatic tube transportation system, for examples. I found a name for all the little things with which I have felt a kinship for quite a while.
I keep up to date with modern occurrences of SteamPunk by reading Blogs such as Brass Goggles and Cabinet of Wonders. Now that I have been soaking in the steam of punkiness for a bit now, I decided to make a contribution back to the community. I spent this last week creating a SteamPunk-themed skin for iGoogle. Here's a picture:
Not much can be gotten from this image, but It is resplendent with SteamPunky goodness. The background is of Victorian wallpaper, there are brass goggles in the Google logo and the gears even move in the background. This skin has gained a great amount in popularity in the short time that it has existed. I have received emails from strangers praising it and it has even appeared in the forum of one of the afore-mentioned blogs. Yea! The web is a wonderful place!
1 comment:
Where's my update? I grow weary and impatient. Behold my impatience!!
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