Posted 06/10/09 at 07:30:44 AM by Paul Lilly

We may have found the perfect accessory for steampunk fans who already own a steampunk USB charger and 8 foot tall themed case mod to match. If this sounds like you, then you'll probably be stoked about the 'Mechanical Memory key Number 3.'

Carved from wood and utilizing pieces from at least 6 different pocket watches (some over 100 years old!), the designer, Rob Smith, claims he spent about 10-12 hours constructing the 16GB USB thumb drive. Adding to the aesthetic appeal, 26 rubies reflect light from the drive, and when plugged in, it glows green from beneath the gears "giving the key a good sense of movement."

So the question is, which is cooler - the steampunk USB key or Transfomer USB drive?

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Posted 04/13/09 at 09:14:00 AM by Paul Lilly

Ever wonder what happens when you take a Jensen #75 and connect it to a lego Technic motor using a rubber band? Neither have we, but thanks to YouTuber twdunbar, we now know, and it's pretty damn cool. Using the parts just mentioned, twdunbar fashioned together a Steampunk-inspired USB charger for his iPod, but it can also be used for other devices.

"The motor is being driven and so it acts like a generator, which feeds into a voltage regulator circuit to give a continuous 5V to the iPod (or any USB device)," twdunbar wrote on his YouTube video page.

Check out the video here, and if you're into the whole Steampunk thing, drop these links into your browser:

8 Foot Tall Case Mod
Steampunk'd Modding

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Posted 02/23/09 at 01:50:04 PM by Paul Lilly

It's not too often that we get to see a computer case that stands taller than Houston Rocket Yao Ming, but at nearly 8 feet tall, D. Mattocks' Frankenstein machine has nearly half a foot on the NBA star.

Mattocks' impressive Steampunk mod consists of a vent salvaged from an old church, lots of copper piping, vintage gauges, green cold-cathode tubes, and a plethora of other parts. More than just aesthetics, one of the gauges serves a useful purpose by showing the computer temperature. Save for the optical and floppy drives' black face-plates, you wouldn't even know this tower housed a computer inside.

And speaking of the PC inside, two radiators cool the CPU and dual 8800 GTX videocards. Yates Loon fans help keep the components cool, and according to Mattocks, the rig never ramps up more than 10 degrees above room temperature, even when playing high end games for hours on end.

Plenty more pics to spy by clicking here.

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Posted 12/22/08 at 11:31:24 PM by Nathan Grayson

Here’s a curveball for you. According to Gamasutra, Warren Spector -- the man behind mega-tons like Deus Ex, Thief, and System Shock – is currently giving Disney’s rodent-king an “epic” makeover. Yep, Spector’s trading guns and leather for hop ‘n’ bop, and Mickey’s trading his steamboat for steampunk.
 
Gamasutra saw a few illicit pics of this very special episode of trading spaces, and noted that the game is set to feature “cities assembled from junk” and “a surreal seashore invasion scene, in which machines wearing the faces of the Seven Dwarfs deposit old-fashioned renditions of Disney characters onto the beach with mechanical hands.”
 
We know what we’ll be having nightmares about tonight!

Aside from that, however, little is known about the “distinctly shadowed, steampunk” game. In a Junction Point blog entry, Spector claimed that it's a collaboration between Disney and Pixar, but the information trail smacks into brick wall after that.

And so does this article.

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Posted 09/30/07 at 03:14:23 PM by Chris "MantaBase" Adcock

No, it’s not that snotty kid that keeps laying you out in Counter Strike Source. It's brass, innovation, and steam (the kind from water)

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