Oh, how I love this stuff.  Though the idea has been around for a while and the term has existed since the 80's (as a take off on cyberpunk), the Steampunk style of design seems to be coming into its own.  The idea behind steampunk is to recreate the aesthetic of 1800-era design by adapting our modern devices.  These things are truly brilliant and an antidote to our current throwaway culture.

Starting us off today is a beauty of a laptop.   This is a very brutal version of steampunk.  http://blog.scifi.com/tech/...



Next up is a refined version of steampunk, this time by my favorite maker over at the steampunk workshop. 

http://steampunkworkshop.co... You really need to go to this page to see the craftsmanship behind this piece.





Lastly, if you're not content with a lovely object and have money to burn (though not as much as you'd think), the folks at Because We Can have just done an entire office in the style of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

http://www.becausewecan.org... Again, I highly recommend going to their site to see more pictures and learn about their awesome shop and design principles.



You know, when I look at these things I realize how much garbage I fill my own life with.  Why not make something beautiful?

In our ever expanding quest to rid ourselves of our reliance on foreign oil, there is a new hydrogen generation process that is making the rounds.  The idea is that aluminum and water react to create aluminum oxide and hydrogen, and by adding gallium to the mix, the aluminum continues to corrode rather than just creating an oxidized shell.  It's a pretty cool concept and hat tip to Random Factor for passing me the article.

http://pesn.com/2007/05/17/...

WEST LAFAYETTE, INDIANA, USA -- A Purdue University engineer has developed a method that uses an aluminum alloy to extract hydrogen from water for running fuel cells or internal combustion engines. The technique could be used to replace gasoline, though it is not quite cost-competitive yet.

The method makes it unnecessary to store or transport hydrogen - two major challenges in creating a hydrogen economy, said Jerry Woodall, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue who invented the process.

"The hydrogen is generated on demand, so you only produce as much as you need when you need it," said Woodall, who presented research findings detailing how the system works during a recent energy symposium at Purdue.

Storage and transport of hydrogen is one of the big stumbling blocks to a hydrogen economy because of the low density of the gas.  Hydrogen by weight is incredibly energy dense, but by volume is it very light.  This is why most discussions of hydrogen as a fuel talk about pressurized tanks or even liquid or frozen hydrogen.  Of course, when the hydrogen needs to be frozen to get a good density, the energy used to freeze it cuts deeply into the margin of the energy savings.

The waste products are gallium and aluminum oxide, also called alumina. Combusting hydrogen in an engine produces only water as waste.

As a catalyst, the gallium is not consumed, and hence does not need to be replenished. The alumina can be recharged in a separate process, preferably using renewable energy.

Here is the Achilles' heel of this plan.  Apparently the process to reconvert the aluminum oxide to aluminum is rather energy intensive and while there is talk of building nuclear or wind plants to reconvert aluminum, these plants would have to be located outside of major population areas.  The beauty of course is that the gallium (which is really expensive) is never used up since it doesn't react. 

It also makes me wonder about the trucks or trains being used to haul the aluminum oxide to the plants and then the aluminum to the foundries to be reformed into pellets that are then hauled to filling stations.  I guess if we can pull oil out of the ground in Iran and put it on a boat that sails halfway around the world and then into a pipeline to a refinery, then  driven by truck to be pumped into a tank where it is waiting for me to put into my car to burn so I can drive to a theater and pay 7 bucks to see a movie and only spend 40 cents on the gas to get me there, I guess we can find a way to make the aluminum reclamation process economical.

More news stories here:

http://www.google.com/searc...

What cool energy news are you reading these days?

Things have been quite busy in the MakesThingsGo house these last two weeks.  A week and a half ago, we decided to talk to our real estate agent about selling the condo and she advised us to put in on the market the following Sunday.  So the race was on.

First up was getting the condo ready, including recaulking the tub, getting it staged, fixing a clogged drainage tube on the dishwasher, etc.  I did the photos and the virtual tour of the condo as well, so that took a chunk out of our days.  I used to do that professionally, but it was harder because I'm sort of in the middle between my girlfriend who owns the condo and the real estate agent who is used to having the photographers working for her.  The house wasn't quite ready either, and a lot of the outlets and light fixtures hadn't been put up.  A few of the outlets still don't have cover plates, but that's in the queue.  We didn't have cable hooked up, and the cable guy told us that our RG59 (which was what we had coming into the house) wouldn't work anymore, so they had to go out to the main line with RG6 and I had to rerun all of our interior cable.  The phone still isn't hooked up which bothers me less since I have been cell-phone only since the late 90s, but my girlfriend likes the land line, so that's getting done today.

We've got a 100 year old clawfoot tub but haven't hooked up the shower yet, so it's just baths for now.  We've got a bit of sheetrock to put up still as well which should be happening this week. 

Of course, a lot of the problems have had to do with showing as well, and I had to go over and put down a new threshold since the old one (which was in bad shape) actually came off during a brokers showing.

Let's just call today an home repair open thread.