The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Embraces Steampunk

While we've had many posts about how steampunk is (pick one along the spectrum of) dead / waning in popularity / becoming mainstream / on the path of oversaturation, here's an article that certainly points to 'becoming mainstream'.

The IEEE professional society has just written about steampunk, and they hit on the works of our faves, such as Datamancer, Jake von Slatt, Molly Porkshanks, Crab Fu, etc. It is not a comprehensive article, but rather more of a captioned photo series.

Nothing really new here for us, but I do like their line "Hardware hackers are creating fantastical machines from a Victorian age that never was". And of course the idea of the IEEE recognizing the genre strikes me as '... and now for something completely different'. markf

http://spectrum.ieee.org/oct08/6816
http://spectrum.ieee.org/oct08/6810

Thanks for posting this, markf.
It goes a little deeper than usual...
On page two of the article, it mentions Miss Boo's steampunk cookbook and also this...

One Polish steampunk purist took issue with those who think that “imitating 19th-century upper class is rebellious or revolutionary.”

I know just where to find this in an early thread at Brass Goggles - I don't think that it is a "stickied" thread so it looks like the writer, Erico Guizzo, has done that bit more research.
{edit}(or was it at The Gatehouse perhaps).

Is there a printed IEEE society magazine which contained a fuller article?

Orlando.

I don't have a hard copy since I am not an IEEE member (the only professional society I am a member of is the 'Society of Vertebrate Paleontology'), and I did a bunch of rooting around on Google but did not turn up anything else. markf

IEEE Spectrum is the magazine for the IEEE. I don't know if there is still a print version (probably) or whether it would contain a fuller article. You might want to try your local reference library, or if you have access your University library and see if they have copies.

Z.

I do believe it is still a hardcopy publication (I'm sure I've seen copies on the shelves near the mailboxes where the letter carrier leaves stuff too large for the boxes, recently. Oh, yeah - this building is mostly MIT grad students and some staff.)

The MIT libraries are sure to have it. I'll try to remember to look next time I'm on campus.

I'm happy that Steampunk lures the attention of enginners. That's the kind of people able to see Steampunk not as a detachable trend, but a real source of inventive.

Or maybe the IEEE guys are becoming mainstream too

Steady on! Did I not read somewhere hereabouts, something on the demise of Steampunk?
Gizmondo--Godzillamodo--Thingummyrama --something like that was publishing an Obituary replete with daguerroshoppe enhanced illustrations.
Do you mean to say, they were wrong?

Seems to me these EIEIO fellows probably have the real story, being scientists and all.

Am I alone in finding great humour in the idea of our interest being recognized by an organization which sounds so very much like the cries of our victi..., er, the appreciative cheering of our friends? IEEE, indeed.

I notice that the article says that we are a "burgeoning" movement.

From the verb "To Burger".
Defininition- To chop up into small parts and reconstruct using an excess of grease.

Sounds about right.

Doctor Quack and Mister Splynge.

Beautiful things and the friendships people make will never go out of style.

So, hug an Electrical Engineer!
(just make sure you are grounded properly)

Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps wrote:So, hug an Electrical Engineer!
(just make sure you are grounded properly)

This made me snort milk out my nose... shame on you!

chshrkt wrote:

Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps wrote:So, hug an Electrical Engineer!
(just make sure you are grounded properly)

This made me snort milk out my nose... shame on you!

I've noticed one of the requirements of visiting this forum is a wipe clean keyboard (I've found inadvertantly snorting fresh orange juice out of your nose is particularly uncomfortable, hot coffee a close second)

And reading your comment, sir, has led me to learn firsthand of the questionable virtues of passing soda through one's nasal cavity.

Just as a side note, Nikola Tesla was Vice President of the IEEE at one time.