Steampunk Fusion Dream

Title: Steampunk Fusion Dream
Artist: Moulton
Composer: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Barsoom Tork Associates
Midi: Yellow Submarine

In the town of Santa Fe
Lives a man who wrote to me
And he told me of his strife
In the land of science dreams

So we rallied up some puns
Till we found the steampunk theme
And we dived beneath the raves
In our steampunk fusion dream

We all believe in our steampunk fusion dream,
Steampunk fusion dream, steampunk fusion dream
We all believe in our steampunk fusion dream,
Steampunk fusion dream, steampunk fusion dream

And our friends are in a cult
Many more of them need an adult
And the band begins to play

We all believe in our steampunk fusion dream,
Steampunk fusion dream, steampunk fusion dream
We all believe in our steampunk fusion dream,
Steampunk fusion dream, steampunk fusion dream

As we live a life of tease
Everyone of us has too much greed
Bubbling gas and steampunk theme
In our steampunk fusion dream.

We all believe in our steampunk fusion dream,
Steampunk fusion dream, steampunk fusion dream
We all believe in our steampunk fusion dream,
Steampunk fusion dream, steampunk fusion dream

We all believe in our steampunk fusion dream,
Steampunk fusion dream, steampunk fusion dream
We all believe in our steampunk fusion dream,
Steampunk fusion dream, steampunk fusion dream

CopyClef 2011 John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Barsoom Tork Associates
Resurrection Hackware. All songs abused.

Steampunk Science and Technology

Steampunk is a genre of science fantasy fiction that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s in which authors re-imagined the 19th Century Victorian age of steam power in terms of 20th Century notions of science fiction and fantasy fiction. The "punk" of "Steampunk" is a riff on Cyberpunk. The "punk" of Cyberpunk, in turn, comes from the Punk Rock cultural genre of "high energy" and "ragged" musical style introduced in 1966 by a Bay City, Michigan, garage band called ? and the Mysterians. In this case, "punk" is also characteristic of the "punka punka" sound of steam-driven devices with oscillating pistons and rotating cams.

SPAWAR Cold Fusion Cell
	At the Midnight Hour, will this mysterious cell Cry 96 Tears?

The US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) in San Diego has given steampunk science and technology a boost with its 21st Century Cold Fusion Cell. In this device, a precision battery charger pumps electric current into an electrolytic cell filled with heavy water.

The main effect of the electric current is to split heavy water molecules into their constituent elements, Dueterium gas, and Oxygen gas, which bubble up to the top of the cell where they encounter a device known as a catalytic recombiner. The catalytic recombiner operates as a steamy hearth where the Oxygen and Deuterium gases recombine to form hot water vapor, which then condenses back to liquid heavy water in a foggy steambath. There is thus a miniature weather cycle in process inside SPAWAR's Cold Fusion Cell, although there are no oscillating pistons or rotating cams as in conventional steampunk devices. The sonic vibrations within the cell are limited to the bubbling vapors and possible sonic vibrations of the metal electrodes in the cell. The softly weeping tears of heavy water that condenses and dribbles back down the inner walls of the cell presumably don't contribute to the sonic output of the cell.

The SPAWAR Cold Fusion Cell doesn't emit a nostalgic "punka punka" sound, but that's made up for by the hullabaloo of the diehard fanatics who champion this 21st Century revival of steampunk science and technology.

_______________________________________
When I think back
On all the crap I read from Lomax
It's a wonder I can think at all
And though my lack of information
Hasn't hurt me none
I can read the text slog on his wall

Cold Fusion cells
Gives us those nice hot ions
Gives us the steam of tryin'
Makes you think all the work's a funny play, oh yeah!

I got an IR camera
I love to take a neutron image
So Krivit, don't take my Steampunk Cell away

Krivit, don't take my Steampunk Cell away
Krivit, don't take my Steampunk Cell away
Krivit, don't take my Steampunk Cell away

Krivit, don't take my Steampunk Cell
Krivit, don't take my Steampunk Cell
Krivit, don't take my SteampunkCell (away)

Krivit, don't take my Steampunk Cell
Krivit, don't take my Steampunk Cell
Krivit, don't take my Steampunk Cell (away)

Popular Epistemology

In Philosophy, the term epistemology refers to study of knowledge and justified belief.

In 1982, Philosopher/Logician Raymond M. Smullyan, Emeritus of the University of Indiana, published a popular treatment of the subject in a dialogue entitled, "An Epistemological Nightmare."

There does not exist a Journal of Experimental Epistemology, but Indiana University's Philosophy Department does boast an Experimental Epistemology Laboratory (EEL) where one can find a small collection of peer-reviewed papers on the subject.

Of course, what's really needed today is a lively periodical on Popular Epistemology (not to be confused with Steampunk, which is generally covered in Popular Pistonology).


EEL Mascot from Indiana University devours CF device

Mockin' the Dog

Title: Mockin' the Dog
Artist: Alisence
Composer: Rufus Thomas and Barsoom Tork Associates
Instrumental: Walkin' the Dog — The Who

Dar Kama dressed in black
Cupid's arrows shot through a crack
Slung low, embattled foe
Barsoom mocked the Poodle — what a horror show

Mockin' the dog, I'm just a-mocking that dog
Well if you don't know how to do it
I'll show you how to mock the dog

Ask Dar Kama for common sense
Colbert's elephant jumped the fence
It jumped so high it rattled the sky
Didn't come back 'til the Fourth of July

Mockin' the dog, I'm just a-mocking that dog
Well if you don't know how to do it
I'll show you how to mock the dog

Abd Lomax, quite contrary
How does your steampunk flow
Hell's Bells
Fusion Cells an' little itsy bitsy bubble noise trails,
Wallucinations all in a row
Mockin' your fog

I'm just a-mocking your dog
Well if you don't know how to do it
I'll show you how to mock the dog
Well if you don't know how to screw it
I'll show you how to mock the dog
Well if you don't know how to foo it
I'll show you how to mock the, dog

CopyClef 2011 Rufus Thomas and Barsoom Tork Associates.
Resurrection Hackware. All songs abused.

"At Resurrection Hackware, Lunatic Drama is our most important offense."

Classical Gas

A few days ago, we were musing about opium-induced dreams as a metaphor to illustrate the pipe dreams of the Cold Fusion enthusiasts.

This morning, on NPR, science reporter, Joe Palca, told us about smoking a variety of southwestern sage called Salvia Divinorum. Like smoking other opioids, Salvia brings on hallucinogenic dreams in which the subject experiences an altered reality.

Thinking about Salvia and Ions reminded me of Ian and Sylvia, a Canadian folk music duo from the 1960s. They came to mind partly because of their top song titles.

Ian & Sylvia

Four Strong Winds - Four Strong Winds - 2006 - 4:25 Early Morning Rain - Best Of The Vanguard Years - 2006 - 3:58 You Were On My Mind - Northern Journey - 2006 - 2:47 Some Day Soon - Northern Journey - 2006 - 2:21

Each of these song titles has a connection to my recent conversations with Abd ul-Rahman Lomax on his favorite subject of Cold Fusion.

Abd and I were reviewing a particular set of experiments, carried out by a chap named Zhang, who ran his Cold Fusion cell in steampunk mode, at or near the boiling point. In these cells, you need a safety valve to vent the gases if the pressure gets too high. The safety valve kicks in if the catalytic recombiner gets wet and stops working. In that case, there are four components in the steam bath. You have water vapor and steam, plus gaseous Deuterium and Oxygen. These are the "four strong winds" that are vented. The problem is to figure out how much of each one is being vented. It occurred to me that putting a steam whistle on the vent (thereby turning Zhang's Cold Fusion Cell into a Steam Calliope) would do the job. Just as inhaling Helium will change the timbre of your voice, the mix of gases will change the timbre of the Steam Calliope. It occurred to me that Zhang could assay the vented gases by analyzing the audio spectrum of the whistle from his Steam Calliope.

As to the other three songs from Ian and Sylvia, obviously Abd has been on my mind the last few weeks, and we've previously talked about how there is a little raincloud in operation in the cell. And of course, Abd and the Fusioneers expect to demonstrate Cold Fusion someday soon.