Carried forward from the previous post because it was too damn long already: A view of Steampunk.

Steampunk, if you don't know, is a kind of Victorian era science fiction. And I've recently fallen in love with it. Instead of having technology hidden away behind sleek interiors, the mechanics of technology, the whirrings and clickings of the innnards and gears, are allowed and encouraged to be displayed. It's about the intricacies of technology, you know, the delicate bits and pieces that is the makeup, the base of technology, and it heralds the unheralded, and all the mechanics, all the blood and sweat and tears and oil and coal and steam that goes into building something is seen.

And it's a lot more human, less detached from the common view of scifi, with all its workings hidden and known only to a select few who speak the jargon. It's not actually any less complicated, steampunk machinery, if anything, it's more, becuase you have to account for the decorative as well as practical usage. It enables you to see what's going on, in the machines of grandoise designs, and there's a lot of DIY as well, with people builing steampunk versions of handphones and laptops and ipods. Granted, a lot of those modifications are purely cosmetic, but the love for detail is there. Steampunk doesn't simplify, the way modern technology seems to do with everything nowadays, you know, everything is sleeker, smoother, shinier, and phones are marketed by their thinness; "The Samsung Gold 3000 is so thin when you turn it on it's side, it disappears!".

To me, steampunk brings beauty back into technology. Because mechanical beauty is really on the inside. Have you even seen the inside of a CPU and not felt impressed? And think of the car enthusiasts who open the hood of their rides to show the heart and soul of their babies. Surely technology doesn't have to be so sterilised, so mundane. If we opened our computers and handphones and cameras and ipods (actually, not so much the ipods, I opened mine, there's a battery and a harddisk and assorted wires, not very exciting at all), what wonders would we see?
(Disclaimer: Dee does not recommend opening expensive tech without professional help and claims poetic license)

The traditional view of steampunk is usually brass and copper and gears and clockwork. All very earthy and close to nature. Because steampunk encourages you to get in there and get your hands dirty, not only with mechanical things, but also with clothes, you know. Oh, and I love the clothes as well, top hats! and waistcoats! and brass goggles! and long bustle skirts! Fantastic! There's a very DIY attitude to all things steampunk, partly because they're not excatly available at your local hypermarket, but mostly, I like to think, because half the fun is in making your own things, and the pride you feel in wearing hand remade clothes and using hand modified tech.

I would like to say I am a fully active member of the steampunk community, but I'm not. I don't have the panache, sartorial daring or mechanical ability. Still, a girl can dream.

I'm off to bake muffins.

Edit: Okay, the muffins turned out shit. I hate Nigella.