Can SteamPunk Sky Pirates win against the Predator?  I’ve seen enthusiasts invent some impressive weaponry, but would any of it stand a chance against the high-tech alien weaponry of Predators?

This is the first poll in what I hope will be a long series of “SteamPunk Versus”.  In the future, I’ll pit Sky Pirates against all sorts of foe and situations.  But for now, vote in the poll and/or comment, and let everyone know what you think.

UPDATE: This dog won’t hunt. I foolishly built the poll on a Macromedia plugin and sat on it for a dozen years. The results are GONE, but needless to say, we all know what the answer was…

When I look at the flag of the former USSR with its hammer and sickle flowing under the star of the Communist party, I think of gentler times when the kind hands of Lenin and Stalin brought together the farmers and industrial workers to stand as a proud people and against American imperialism.

Unfortunately, the Soviet Union fell, and in the wake of that great civilization came skinheads, rap music, McDonald’s, and now TorrentReactor.  Vicious rumors that TorrentReactor has purchased the village of Gar in Russia and renamed it to Реактор словоизвержения (Torrent Reactor) are apparently true.  There is still a small chance that this is all some kind of elaborate hoax.  What’s more disturbing is that Gar TorrentReactor is not that far from the Seversk nuclear reactor.  Why?  I’ll tell you why.

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Airships have made their comeback, and in more than one way.  Lockheed Martin has been developing the High Altitude Airship (HAA) which can reach 60,000 feet and provide advanced tactical information.

And there’s more.  Cargo, Passenger, Satellite, and other airships.

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Steampunk motorcycle concept by Solifague.  Too bad it’s not real, but there’s a way around that. It’s a very sexy concept, but there are some obvious design flaws like the drive system and brakes.  But, that’s what concepts are for.  Perhaps you’ve seen the TV show about Orange County Choppers.  OCC is one of the best custom motorcycle shops I’ve seen, and they could easily take this concept and turn it into reality.  However, they already have a custom ride called the “Black Widow”, so the name will have to be changed.

I’ve seen a LOT of SteamPunk interpretations of Star Wars.  This is by far the best Darth Vader I’ve seen done.  It seems that Greg Peltz has real talent.

In fact, if you look at Peltz’s blog, you’ll see he’s quite the artist.  There are other Star Wars renderings as well as a varied collection of other works.  Too bad he uses Blogspot (terrible); he should be using WordPress, like ME.

Supernatural and Troublesome Ectoplasmic Apparitional Management (S.T.E.A.M.), of course…

The GhostBusters League of S.T.E.A.M. commercial is an intelligent recreation of a 1980’s movie in the 1880’s Victorian style.  Normally, I would make fun of this kind of thing, but I can tell that these guys put a lot of work into this.  Plus I wouldn’t want to make fun and then have real ghosts show up; that would just be embarrassing…

There’s a new game on Xbox LIVE Arcade (XBLA) called Aqua, a SteamPunk naval-action shooter.  It’s not bad at all, except I would have done it with sky-pirates.

Aqua is a stylish steampunk naval-action shooter for Xbox LIVE Arcade. The game is driven by an entertaining story-campaign with beautiful hand-drawn comics and features a unique, distinctive neo-Victorian art-style. Steer your ship into the middle of a raging naval war, where masses of enemies and allies engage in real-time operations over large, multi-screen maps. Equip your ship, choose your tactics and form your own special squadron to support you in battle, issuing offensive and defensive orders to overcome huge fleets of enemy ships, submarines, airplanes and defensive installations.

Aqua is a good deal at 800 Microsoft Credits, or $9.99.  While it’s not as intense a game as Toy Soldiers, nor as mind-bending as Portal, it’s easy and fun.  The storyline and plot are straightforward, and the voice acting makes me feel like the game is aimed towards pre-teens, but I don’t care.  It’s nice to have a milder kind of game to play.  I give it 3 out of 5 Omegas.  The good news is that like any XBLA game, you can download the trial version and try it for free.

Visit the game’s official website: http://aqua-the-game.com

Have a look at the teaser trailer for the upcoming SteamPunk movie “The Marionette Unit”.  It looks intriguing, and the production quality reminds me of something older, like a TV serial shot in England 10 to 20 years ago.  The overall atmosphere is warm, and there’s a certain realistic feel that I like.  Awesome job for a trailer.

I can only surmise that these villains are turning this poor girl into some kind of puppet, and the first connection reminds me of the Matrix.  What the Hell is going on?  I want to see more!  Excellent…

Via SteamPunk on Facebook from The Marionette Unit.

The SteamPunk exhibition at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford.

It’s a very nice exhibition with an excellent explanation of what SteamPunk is.  If you’re new to SteamPunk, or have friends that are, this is an excellent video to start with.

Some bored engineer at HiTechSys has converted one of their high-end VTR controllers into a completely operational Victorian-styled device.  Probably because it was NTSC which was replaced by ATSC a.k.a. HDTV, now 4K soon to be 8K. STOP THE MADNESS. All I want is to be able to watch the VHS pre-enhanced Star Wars on my SD 13-inch analog TV.  They gave the guy who did it an award and then showcased it at the NAB trade show.

Not bad.  Really pretty good, and I even like the telegraph.  But green phosphor CRT’s instead of LCD’s would have impressed me more.  And vacuum tubes instead of integrated circuits would have really impressed me.

Via: DVICE