[For those keeping score at home, this is the second update in as many weeks!  From here on out, we'll be trying our hardest to bring you unique Steampunk news once a week! -- s.sprocket]

“A man’s home is his castle” is the phrase that comes to mind.  Your Castle, YOUR place.  It should be reflective of the lifestyle of you and those who live within it.  No surprise then that we get threads in Tactile like this one where folks talk about steaming up the home.

Many Steampunk apartments can be found with a simple Google search. This apartment for example made it to many blogs and even news broadcasts.  The question becomes then, has anyone ever tried this on a larger scale?  Or more importantly, Has anyone ever attempted to “live the life” as well as the aesthetic? Click more to find out!

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On a Rainy day, I picked up my girl and we went to downtown Anaheim where we found a delightful museum that had a banner that made my head snap as I was looking for parking. “Steampunk?!” Says I. Well then, this date just got interesting.

Inside, you’ll find exhibits from a few of your fellow Brass Gogglers! Sadly I did not get pictures of the artifacts on display due to photography rules at the Museum, but I can say I was impressed with the collection.

Also at the Muzeo, there’s a great exhibit on the Victorian Era including Oil Paintings, Books, Gentlemen’s Canes, Firearms, and many other interesting items. It was an afternoon well spent, and I encourage any Steampunk within driving distance to Downtown Anaheim, California to head on out. The Exhibit is there until January 9th.

Information About the Exhibit: http://www.muzeo.org/exhibit_current.html

Directions and Hours: http://www.muzeo.org/visitor_info.html

ALERT!!!!

DON’T FIGHT IT,

ITS BIGGER THAN BOTH OF US

2011 “Steampunk: tomorrow as it used to be” exhibition is underway!

Opening 15th October

Closing 27th November

The Forrester Gallery,

Thames St., Oamaru

Steampunk – Tomorrow as it Used to Be

If you do, here’s your chance to get in on the planning.

Via email,  came this:

EuroSteamCon I

So here it is, the idea of a European Steampunk Convention. Since a lot of things are happening on the other side of the Atlantic and some decent events have taken place in Britain, it is about time something major happens in continental Europe. Thus far, conventions and meet-ups have only been local or country-based affairs. There are active steampunk scenes from Spain to France to the Low Countries to Germany to Poland, all of them have thus far existed in relative isolation.

Now it is time to change this. It is time we all got together somewhere.  If people travel across the length and breadth of North America to attend a convention, so can we, and we have far less ground to cover.

Maybe there will be one location where we all meet up. Maybe the convention will take place in several places all over Europe connected by life video streams. I do not care what the final shape of the event will be as long as it connects the steampunks, dieselpunks and related scenes across Europe. If we manage to turn it into a 24 hour world-wide event, even better, but for now, the working title is:

EuroSteamCon I

Some of my closest friends in and outside the scene have already given me a thumbs up and pledged their support, among them the informal head of the Austrian Steampunks. Philippa Ballantine of Ministry of Peculiar Occurences fame has also signalled her interest in participating. Now we need to connect the scenes across Europe.

So, if you are interested in joining the crew and get this project on the road, get in touch. Everybody is welcome, the more, the merrier, the more diverse, the better. If you are a lonely steampunk somewhere in Transylvania, contact me and I will help you get to the event when it happens.This is for all of us. I also want to reach out to our Spanish and French friends, we know you are out there, but we seldom meet, online or offline, let’s change this. If you can contribute, if you are a musician, a DJ, a technician, if you know, own or have access to a great location, get in touch. Let us work together and create the first European Steampunk Convention!

This is the age of the ætherweb, we can reach more people with the click of a mouse than our Victorian ancestors could hope for reaching in a life time. Let us use our connections. Spread the word! Translate this message and share it with your friends!

And to all of you who know already have an idea how they can contribute, help out or actively participate in any way, contact me: webmaster@dailysteampunk.com

Join Tor.com for Steampunk Week, starting Monday and running through Friday, October 7th.

Please come and support our fellow steampunk bloggers as they take Tor through the ins-and-outs of our community: Margaret “Magpie” Killjoy, Lord Bobbins, Andrew Fogel, Captain Donna Ricci, Janus Zarate, Ekaterina Sedia, Kaja Foglio, Lee Ann Farruga, Fabio Fernandes, Simon J. Berman, John Coulthart, Nisi Shawl, Gina Gagliano, Jaymee Goh, Cat Rambo, John R. R. Leavitt, Tyson Ness, Jess Nevins, Mike Perschon, Glenn Freund, and Pablo “Mr. Saturday” Vazquez III.

Steampunk Week at Tor Books

Our forum’s very own k-9 has produced a beautiful Electrical Gaming Device out of an XBOX 360 console:

See the whole build on the forum

As those who follow our twitter feed are already aware, we had a planned outage recently that took quite a bit longer to complete than hoped.

The short version, for those interested:

• Our hosting facility needed a power upgrade to meet updated building codes
• When the power came back online, we discovered that a PMU on our rack was marginal, preventing hosts from coming back online
• Once this was fixed, there were some networking issues (firewalls and routers not keeping pre-power-down state)
• And our NAS volume had bad RAM that kept the main server’s filesystem from mounting

Our host was very professional and worked hard to restore service lost as a result of these unfortunate events, and is working with us on compensation for the downtime.

My apologies for the extended outage; watch here and the Engine Room for updates in the near future that should limit the impact of future outages.

A new book, “A Strange Engine of War: The “Winan” Steam Gun & Maryland in the Civil War” is due to be released by historian John Lamb, through the Chesapeake Book Company.

Lamb, inthe book, states: ““Charles Dickinson, who was apparently a dancing instructor and gymnasium operator, went into partnership with Joslin and another investor.  They built several versions of the device, and then sought a patent, but had a falling out when the patent came out in Joslin’s name only. “   Dickinson would go on to patent his own device, which would be steam driven,  and after exhibiting the hand powered gun in the Midwest, he had a working prototype built in Boston, then took it to Baltimore, no doubt hoping to find buyers or investors, Lamb says.  “In the great tradition of American snake oil and patent demonstrations, Dickinson invited Baltimore’s city council to a demonstration of the gun outside his home in February, 1861.”

More at Strange Engines

Andy Tibbetts of Portland, Oregon in the US is building a Steampunk pirate ship:

The C.S. Tere is a 100% custom-built steam punk pirate ship. She has a hand built steel frame encased in wood, driven by a 10 foot diameter hub-less front wheel and two steel wheels in the rear. The ship will be powered by a 3 cylinder engine which drives hydraulic pumps.  Steering is rear wheel and occurs from the captains’ deck.

To this end, a Kickstarter project has been, well, kicked off. Check out the video:

[Tip of the tri-corner to BoingBoing]

A while back, during a sherry infused evening, I was happily sorting through my collection of railroad photos, interspersed with browsing through “Victory” from the Dr. Grorborts collection from Weta.. I was struck by a what i thought was an interest8ing revelation.. or was it the sherry? In any case.. I give you my ramblings on the styles of the classic Weta rayguns, and ask the question.. “Was Dr. Grorbort a railfan?”

Rayguns and Railroads – an essay on style.