The internet keeps mashing these two together, and the Doctor has had enough. AtomicPunk is the dark side of the atom: duck-and-cover drills, fallout shelters in the backyard, the mushroom cloud looming over every chrome-plated appliance. It is the 1950s screaming at you that progress has a body count. Raypunk is the optimistic lie we told ourselves at the same moment: flying cars, robot butlers, gleaming Googie diners, The Jetsons as sincere prophecy. Same era, opposite emotional register. One says “we’re all going to die beautifully”; the other says “we’re all going to live forever in a push-button paradise.” Both are wrong, which is exactly why both are magnificent.

The Omega7Red Formulae distinguishes them by what the gears do to you. Apply AtomicPunk to a suburban house and you get a fallout shelter with a cocktail bar and a Geiger counter as the centerpiece. Apply Raypunk to that same house and you get a rotating rooftop pad with a personal jetpack rack and an AI butler who still somehow talks like a 1962 dishwasher commercial. Related? Yes. Identical? Absolutely not, and if you keep calling them the same thing the Doctor is going to start mislabeling YOUR aesthetic subgenre. How would you like to be called “GardenPunk?” Think about it.

The confusion is forgivable because both aesthetics are having an enormous moment right now, as even the genre theorists are noting, riding the wake of Fallout and Oppenheimer. But “big moment” is not an excuse for sloppy taxonomy. The Formulae demands precision. Now you know. High-5.

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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I’m not sure it’s real, but it’s a cool concept.  The design is based on a 1954 TV, and some other old-fashioned elements.  I’m just glad it runs Windows 7.

Via: Yanko

I was right!  As warned in my previous post, the Russian’s are proudly gearing up their Soviet attitudes, as evidenced in this year’s Victory Day parade.  This Soviet veteran (along with his fellow comrades) was not only photographed at the celebration in Red Square, but he’s toasting with Vodka to honor the modern Russian military.

Do you see that patch on his arm?  That’s CCCP (Союз Советских Социалистических Республик) along with the Soviet Union Navy ensign flag.  Now, why would he be toasting the (non-Soviet) Russian military?  Hmmm…?  Maybe his new comrades are “like-minded.”

I’m just kidding. I love this old guy. Look at all those honors hanging from his uniform. That’s one salty sailor who has seen a lot of serious shit. And I promise you, he made it because of his political and moral training. Good job. High-5!

Seen in the parade photos are MiG-29 and Su-27 Fighters, Ilyushin Il-78 Tankers, Tu-95 and Tu-160 Bombers, Topol-M Missile Launchers, Msta-S Howitzers, T-90 Tanks, BTR-90 Infantry Fighting Vehicles, Ka-50 Attack Helicopters, Sprut-SD Tank Destroyers, and of course Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Tons of great pictures from this year’s Victory Day parade.

Welcome back [Soviet] Russia!  We missed you…

May 9th, 1945 (Victory Day) – the day that Nazi Germany capitulated to the USSR.  It became an official Soviet holiday in 1965 and continues to be celebrated even after the fall of the USSR.  Traditionally, ceremonial military parades are held on the day, such as the one in Moscow on the Red Square.  However, on May 9th, 2008, the Russian Federation returned to the Soviet Union tradition of showing off its mobile nuclear weapons during the Victory Day parade, declaring its return to super-power status (Также неизбежное поражение тех американских капиталистических свиней).  This is the RT-2UTTKh Topol-M Mobile ICBM, NATO Designation SS-27 Stalin.

This is a brand new “modernized” version of the weapon system, with a whole new kind of ICBM.  Want to know why you should be concerned?

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The GOGBOT Festival in Enschede, NL – now with Nuclear Weapons!  I was searching for more SteamPunk related stuff to report on and I came across the GOGBOT Festival hosted by PlanetArt.  According to the description, it’s supposed to be some kind of SteamPunk related exhibition – well, it was in 2008.  I think they’re doing AtomPunk (Dutch version of AtomicPunk) in 2009, but they’re foreigners (Dutch) who think differently than us.  In any case, they are now clearly communist scumbags who are armed with a “Fat Man” type atomic weapon with a blast yield of 21-kilotons.

PLANETART presents the 5th edition of the GOGBOT festival in Enschede 18-21 September 2008.  More than 150 artists, performers, musicians and other creative spirits will show their talents at 10 locations of the free entrance expo’s. GOGBOT will show robotics, electronic music and audio art, virtual worlds, freakshows, inter-active installations, live-cinema, streetart, gaming, performances, keynote speakers, lectures, steampunk videoclips, DJ’s, VJ’s, parties, lots of steam, and  more….

It sounds like fun.  However, digging deeper, I looked into PlanetArt’s Photostream hosted on Flickr and found out what it’s really about.  I found bunny rabbit zombies, dead animals, a tree growing out a person’s butt, rape immortalized in bronze, Iraqi political statements, Hitler, Jihad memorabilia, and I kid you not – a naked guy with a blow-up sheep doll on his woo-hoo.  Looks like PlanetArt and/or the Dutch are a bunch of really sick people.  I personally recommend against going to the GOGBOT Festival; but if you go, let me know…