I expect in 120 years, kids will re-invent what they think is 1990's cyberpunk by gluing CDs and bits of broken DVD players onto their hats.
this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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In the 1990s all internet data was transported by snails using these things called AOL CD-ROM packets.
With the TC-AOL-CD-ROM protocol, you had to keep on gluing a copy of the same CD to another snail every day and sending it off to the recipient, until you get one back confirming the reciept.
That would be destruction of antiques.
There will be hundreds of millions of aol CDs in landfills for thousands of years.
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I’m confused as to the order im supposed to be reading these in.
I speak Tumblr, I can help.
copywriteddad wrote a post about a character feeling like a fantastical steampunk machine out of coal. Someone reblogged it making fun of them saying a steampunk machine is out of coal (instead of steam, I suppose) in the tags. Imagine quote tweeting but just adding tags. However tags on Tumblr doesn't readily show up so copywriteddad screenshoted it in order to reply. The other user doubles down, publicly this time, so copywriteddad have to point out coal is needed to boil water in steampunk.
Oh Great Tumbling Sage, I have long sought out one of your ilk!
Tell me, should I, a humble gay, get into tumbler? It seems scary, but also fun. I saw what they did to poor John Green.
Tumblr is one of the gayest places on the internet. You should go for it. The etiquette is arcane and there is no algorithm to guide you, but so long as your shoelaces were stolen from the President and you enjoy getting important news via Supernatural memes, the community will embrace you with open arms.
Search some hastags that you like, follow some people that post stuff you like, and before long, seeing a 15 year old post cross your dashboard will be like seeing an old friend again.
How do I learn the arcane etiquette, though?
I recommend this primer video by Strange Æons, who also has tons of great videos on all kinds of Tumblr Icebergs and drama and all kinds of good stuff.
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Thank you! I was especially confused because I kept reading the last message as "what is the coal doing in the water" , giving me context clues that maybe copywriteddad was an idiot? No, I was haha
Ah, that was very helpful thank you
Top to bottom. The bit with the white background is a screenshot of tags that other people have attached to the first post
Wouldn't technically nuclear power also be considered Steampunk?
Meaning there is no difference between Steampunk and Atompunk?
Nah, key difference is that in atompunk, the energy is typically converted into electricity.
A big part of steampunk is the pipes moving steam to the contraptions, compared to wires moving electricity.
Hmm. Suppose you were building a nuclear locomotive. (Setting aside, for the moment, whether this is a good idea.) Would nuke→turbine→electricity→motor be more efficient than just using the rotation of the turbine to move the train?
It can't be, right?
Diesel engine > generator > motor is frequently used for trains nowadays. Transmissions can be super inefficient, especially with discrete gear ratios
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It's possible that controlling the rotation would be significantly more difficult without the extra conversion.
That raises the question: are the Voyager probes (or anything with an RTG) considered Atompunk, or do they need random bits of sheet metal welded on to meet the aesthetic first?
I remember playing flash game years ago that was about WW1 dog fights in nuclear powered steam biplanes.
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There's a movie called Steamboy whose premise is the creation of a device that can store steam at nearly infinite pressure
So with a device like that, you might not need coal for your flying machine =)
I feel like storing steam at nearly infinite pressure is easier than getting steam to nearly infinite pressure
That's actually covered in the movie as well! They needed to find special water to make infinitely-pressurizable steam =)
I think It's, like, a Bag of Holding, but for steam.
At that point just call it magic no? Magic that works in metal pipes and spheres.
Seems sufficiently advanced enough 👍
Ah, I loved that movie but had forgotten the name.
where do you think you get the steam from in the first place
Coal, but the fantastical flying contraption in this thought exercise uses a container of pre-pressurized steam, so it wouldn't "run out of coal" like the one in the post. It'd just run out of steam
Steampunk is powered by magical non-heated water vapor motors rule.
Steampunk implies extremely polluting industrialized and unbathed Victorian slave labor rule.
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I mean...a steam engine is a heat engine that uses steam to transfer heat. So you can make a steam engine by getting basically anything "really hot" and running steam through it. This is the working principle behind solar thermal power plants (but not solar panels!). I.e., you don't necessarily need coal or even a fossil fuel to build a steam engine.
Yes, but the whole aesthetic of steam punk is fantastical machines that operate on Victorian-era technology, which would be coal-fire steam engines.
But if you put mirrors or magnifying glass as the heat source you lean too much towards solarpunk :)
If you do enough annoying wordplay to cause enough people to boil over with anger you can get Punpunk.
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Dayumn, they doubled down on that shit. Thats a rough lookout for humanity.
What, you think stupid people were invented after the stream engine? Humanity got this far despite the fact that half of us are brainless dickheads.
It's fine. It beats being just smart enough to know you're not contributing.
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Space 1889 gets its steam from solar thermal generators which power its steampunk space ships (ether vessels).
It gets its punk from it being about colonialism.
Colonialism is punk. TIL teehee
Cyberpunk depicts a techno-integrated capitalist hellscape in the same way. They essentially take ideas to extreme conclusions to show how hellish things will get.
Steampunk's alittle different, but the satirical depiction of colonialism is pretty punk.
IDK what is the coal doing to the water!? My mom didn't let me watch those videos, the stork just brings the baby right?!
:P
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