Just Glue Some Gears On It (And Call It Steampunk)

[Siliconous Skumins]

Uhm, 17th century Nixie tubes??  I don't think so...   

I assume you are referring to Jean-Felix Picard's accidental discovery of movement induced light from Mercury in an evacuated glass tube (his barometer)?  Strictly speaking...yes-ish, it was sort of a discharge tube... But not really.
However in the 1700's somebody else demonstrated a Mercury discharge tube of sorts, again not really a discharge tube as it was just a glass vessel with a low pressure and liquid mercury, but he did light it via a static electric charge.

Hang on, *googles* Ah, he we go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barometric_light


Nixie tubes aside, the first device that could be said to be a working and "production" device, that could be described as a discharge tube, would have to be the Geissler tube -  invented 1857. The tubes were mass produced from the 1880s onwards.
It still worked fundamentally very different to that of a Nixie tube though...

SS

[Professor Bevel]

Note the verse about how steampunk is rewriting the past.
Also, Nixie tubes in the late 17th century? Were they still powered by witches at that point?

'Vacuum tubes', of which nixie tubes are a subset.  Neon wasn't in commercial production until 1902, of course, but argon based gas mixtures work too and the first vacuum tube experiments were investigating the barometric light effect - mercury-vapour electric light if the likes of Hawksbee had done more than fiddle (he did manage to build the first plasma globe, though, and that in the early 1700s!) Cavendish had most of the electrical work done by the 1780s, but simply didn't publish it.  (You can get some MASSIVE points of departure by simply having Cavendish not be as painfully shy as he was, or at least having the Royal Society send the boys round every month or so to make him publish on pain of locking him in a room with an extrovert girl)

A remarkable amount of the history of technology is impossible to read without silently urging the experimenters or tinkers to 'go on, go on, just... take... that ... next... step' (In Cavendish's case it's more PUBLISH YOU BLITHERING IDIOT) There are good social and economic reasons why not, of course, but retrofuturism is a speculative-fiction endeavour, so points of departure from strict reality are necessary to be true to itself.

And if that means every 17th and 18th century scientist was an iconoclast as well as a genius and every tinkerer was a genius at business as well as mechanics, and well-understood principles of economics and politics suspended themselves to make way for a new wave of AWESOME, great.  But you don't get, for example, Cavendish's work on thermodynamics without his work on electronics.  Nor Boyle's work on temperature and pressure (the sine qua non of good steam engine design) without his work on the properties of vacuums (he did a much better job of the vacuum pump than Otto Guericke did).

Etc.

You can't change just one thing.

[iron_armada]

catchy for sure. enjoyed, thank you.

[Jedediah Solomon]

I think that we sometimes, perhaps being overly defensive or protective of what we think, go to extremes. I personally don't get wrapped up in historical accuracy, but will fight to the death to protect your right to do so. I think the inventiveness of the industrial revolution, coupled with gentry society is the attractive part of the genre, not the Top Hats, Corsets, Goggles or gears {although it sort of IDENTIFIES the genre in the same way black eyeshadow and black lipstick identifies goth adherents}

[SteamBlast Mary]

IS this available on last.fm? Or does anyody know how to download it as an mp3, please?

[Herbert West]

I think that we sometimes, perhaps being overly defensive or protective of what we think, go to extremes. I personally don't get wrapped up in historical accuracy, but will fight to the death to protect your right to do so. I think the inventiveness of the industrial revolution, coupled with gentry society is the attractive part of the genre, not the Top Hats, Corsets, Goggles or gears {although it sort of IDENTIFIES the genre in the same way black eyeshadow and black lipstick identifies goth adherents}

Seems reasonable to me. To me steampunk is more about an asthetic style then it is Victorian authenticity. Otherwise how would one explain steampunk computers, or iPods? Vacumn tubes are fine when combined with wood, brass, and leather.

IS this available on last.fm? Or does anyody know how to download it as an mp3, please?

If all else fails, give http://www.keepvid.com/  a try.

[Wilhelmina Frame]

This was chosen as Best Video in the 2012 Steampunk Chronicle Reader's Choice Awards.

[OswaldBastable]

Yea, a well deserved win

[Professor Higgins]

It's available on iTunes as I bought it before Xmas and spent a lot of time playing it

[Clym Angus]

Sorry for the necro-post but I only just heard this and I would have to say it is fighting the cynicism that seems to pervade the market when something becomes slightly popular.

You can make anything you want for yourself and that's fine (no one can be expected to pop out of the womb and start manufacturing Dresden china, that's just lunacy) but cynically making shoddy objects for a quick buck should not be tolerated. By anyone, for any culture, at all, ever.

Excellent song. What does it remind me of? Oh yes Spotato!

[frances]

Did you notice the new song - steampunk holiday.  Just the sound, no video sadly; click on it right at the end of Just Glue Some Gears On It video.

[Clym Angus]

Yes, I did find it a touch busy and his wonderful voice was a little drowned out by instruments floating around the mix.
In short he's fighting the brass for ear time every step of the way. One of the few things in this world that would benefit from a critical eye and a light re-leveling here and there. Can't fault the song however.

Just my humble opinion.

His tash song however is fantastic, very well mixed; his voice nicely balanced by the woodwind.

Mr. Poppleton's Moustache

[frances]

Wonderful!
clap, clap, clap 

[Herbert West]

Bravo! Now there's a man who has his priorities straight!