(no subject)

[winneganfake]

Ok, I'm going to aggregate for a moment here. Go check out Five Thoughts on the Popularity of Steampunk over on Weird Tales. And I just have to quote one small chunk of that:

"Having 120 gigabytes of information storage in solid-state flash memory is like having the entire knowledge of a hundred ancient libraries of Alexandria in your pocket. But who the hell wants to explore your pocket?'

Steampunk says: Let’s store that knowledge in a colossal mechanical brain the size of a skyscraper that runs on punch cards, and whenever we want to know something, we’ll get to feed in our punch card and watch it go zipping and flipping through a behemoth full of gears, all the way summoning little clockwork librarians to spring up from behind panels and inscribe notes on it with miniature styluses, and they will all be well-oiled except that one that’s just screech-screech-screeching up a storm all along its track, and the spectacle will be frakking awesome."

If I can ever aspire to that level of crafting, mechanics, and outright sheer arrogant design, my life will be complete.

Comments

Re: Aesthetics clash!

[kadath.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of information being as omnipresent as air, noticeable only by its absence. Your Internet connection should pipe to a wall display by the door that shows the weather by color and shape, integrated seamlessly into your consciousness as you leave your home. Your glasses should notice when your eyes dwell on the architectural details of that building over there and dump the history of the place immediately into your field of vision.

This is one of the reasons Transhuman Space is one of my favorite RPG settings. (THS has that Blue Planet "okay, what am I supposed to be doing?" issue unless you create your party carefully, unfortunately.)