Greetings SteamFolk!

My wife has decided to go to DragonCon this year (our first visit) as a steampunk mechanic. It all started with purchasing handmade goggles at a local sci-fi/fantasy con. Coveralls that looked right were the hardest thing to find locally. Basic field boots were procured from a local army surplus store.

With these pieces making the foundation of the costume, I started modifying.

Boots were first.


I took a sheet of copper and hammered it to the shape of the toe.


I wasn't happy with the bare edges so I used a straight piece of copper to make a more convincing edge. Then it was time to rivet. I drilled holes for the rivet posts but the holes weren't that evenly spaced apart or from the edge. I got one rivet in when I thought of just gluing the rivet heads in place. That worked like a charm. Luckily I was able to cover the poorly placed holes with rivet heads.


The wife had the excellent idea to paint the round pieces right next to each lace anchor with copper paint to make them look like rivets.


Here's the boot so far...


I'll try to document the entire process for the community as it goes along. More later when I get more supplies.

The "punk" in Steampunk...
Hey all;

I've been party to a great many discussions of what the "steam" in steampunk refers to (steam era, steam power, steam...gears?) but very little mention of the punk element. The title of smacks of the recent cyberpunk, the 80s/90s literary and cinematic genre borrowing both from rapid technological blooms and the punk culture. I've read up on the development of the literary title, but haven't found much regarding the adoption of "punk" - and it is my hope that it wasn't put in for sound or syllables. Punk in the cyberpunk context refers to the disenfranchised, social desolation and by and large a hopeless youth. It perks my curiosity that a group so enthralled by time travel should adopt the "No Future" banner shared by the punks.

So, what say all of you?
Is the "punk" a reference to a movement in recent history that abandoned the super culture?
Possibly a much older use of the term "punk" based on a historical or arcane use?
Does it, in fact, refer to the crumbling, fungus-eaten interior of a log?

I just updated my website to reflect my blurbs and . . . wow . . . I look like a real author. (feel free to go and heckle my graphic design)

What's weird is that Flux is going to be talking about title/ cover details for BALLAD this month. You know, the one I just handed in last week? Freaky!

Because this newsletter was delayed, it only covers through last evening. Anything from that point on will be in tonight's newsletter.

News
An new community ncis_hq has formed for NCIS role-playing. For general information go here. For a list of cast members, check this. They are still looking for Ducky and Jimmy, among others.

Challenges
Vote for the best of round three (FINAL) in icontest_ncis. Results will be posted Wednesday.

Fiction
Ten Years in the Making - Chapter 2 written by cleo_caine (Jen/Ziva)
Maps written by inflightdata (gen, Gibbs&Abby) WARNING: possible spoilers for "Shalom" and beyond.

Artwork
129 NCIS icons created by abe16kidbosco
susie_crabtree is looking for an artist to create an icon for her.
20 Tony icons created by susie_crabtree


Other
fearlesssisters is looking for NCIS/Torchwood crossover fan fiction.
sparkleeye is searching for a fic in which Gibbs and Tony meet at a military academy.
karma_73 is looking for cross-overs in several fandoms.


Did we miss something? Let us know. You can either comment here or e-mail us: ncis.newsletter@gmail.com

Welcome to this week's collaboration project on LingWiki! This week's theme is false friends!

Just about every student of language at some point or another tries to use words from their native language when they need a word they don't know in another language. In many cases they can land a word that's about on the mark, in other cases they end up with something that's completely opposite of or unrelated to their intended meaning, and perhaps even offensive. I know someone who, on top of already having made a couple other mistakes while speaking Spanish, had to further clarifiy he wasn't pregnant to boot when he accidentally said that he was "embarazado".

This week's collaboration is about pulling together some of your favorites to share. If you have stories to go with them, all the better!

Thanks to all who contribute!

The 3rd was my birthday! Happy birthday to me! I got jewelry and cake.

On the 4th I lost my poor Zen.



Godspeed, Blue, my faithful one. May whoever picked you up and didn't return you love you well. We had such wonderful times.


~~~


So now I want to just build my own, or rather pay to have it built, I guess, since I don't really like any of the commercial models well enough. (None of them have gray screens anymore! I reject color screens. They keep turning off, and who needs that.) However, preliminary research suggests that the results are likely to be ghetto in the extreme. No matter! I will keep the dream alive! A built-in USB plug that tucks into the case and swings out or something maybe! Wood inlay around the sides!

I completed a sketch meme thingie because Jesse made me.

MORE THAN YOU EVER NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT KANO

At the end I tagged Rain, Sän, and Amber (OMG SPOILERS)

Wishing a very Happy Birthday to elektra_lyte!

I hope you're having a wonderful day! *hugs*

http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2008/07/a-mean-trick-to.html

(00:02) Wait for it ...
(00:05) Wa-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-it for it ...
(00:08) Al-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-lmost time ...
(00:10) WAKE UP!!  IT'S COLONEL SANDERS!!

(00:11) "Wha-huh?!"

Je cherche le mot pareil en français pour "codeswitch"? C'est quand quelqu'un parle une langue mais utilise des mots plus "précis" d'une autre langue. Comment dit-on ça en Français?

merci :)

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/07/then-tomorrow-was-another-day.html

Yesterday I did a panel with Richard Price, and then I signed for (according to the newspapers)about six hundred people for five and a half hours. Normally I try very hard to be as nice to the people who've been waiting for hours as I was to the people at the beginning, but I think I may have been ordering the people at the back of the line around a bit just to make sure I finished before the Tom Stoppard talk started at seven. (I finished with 25 minutes to spare.)

The crowd was lovely, and all amazingly good-humoured given how long they were standing around.

Anyway. Five and half hours, which is about five hours and ten minutes longer than anyone else here, which meant that I was being peered at suspiciously, as if revealed as some kind of odd alien being, by other writers with whom only that morning I was sharing jokes and food. I think they have now forgiven me.

After the Stoppard panel, which was marvellous, like a master class, (I'm typing this on the computer in the hotel lobby, and was just tapped on the shoulder by a Newspaper photographer who wanted me to come and pose for some shots, and seemed a bit baffled when I pointed out that I was working) I went to dinner with one of my Brazilian publishers. I hadn't really eaten since breakfast over twelve hours earlier, and discovered that when you are given a very large passionfruit caipirinha after a five and a half hour signing and on an empty stomach, you know it's working because your feet go numb. Possibly they simply went away. Luckily, my feet returned before I had to walk back to the hotel, but it was extremely odd.

Today it's the end of FLIP and the Desert Island Books panel, and I will read a bit from James Thurber's The Thirteen Clocks.

I am trying to translate two phrases from Danish to English which feature meat-related words which I don't know how to translate as I do not eat meat!

I googled and found this amazing image, which has the (Danish) names for all different cuts of meat from a pig. It is really useful as I have found out what 'ben' and 'nøgleben' look like, but naturally that doesn't help me much.

'Nøgleben' is the collarbone, but is that what we call it in (British) English? And what about 'ben'?

Thanks to anyone who can help!

Can someone tell me what the Russian and Chinese equivalents are to the TOEFL?  If possible, are there online practice tests that can help me gauge my ability in them? 

Specifically to Chinese, are there any tests to find out how many characters you know actively (or can recognize if nothing else)?  

http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2008/07/going-postal-on.html

The BunMaster 3000® can open junk mail at lightening speeds. With super-fast nomming speeds, you can throw out that donation requests from your alma mater faster than ever before.

Say 'Return to Sendah' in an Elvis voice, Donna B.!

Hello all!!!

I need to use phonemes to explain the weak pronunciation of "have" in the sentence:

He shouldn't have insulted the policeman.

When speaking it sounds more like:

He shoudn't've....

So would the "have" here be written like:

əv

or maybe:

ʌv

Or maybe something completely different????

This is all rather new to me, so I would really appreciate it if someone could help me out here. And I will also apologize in advance if I pop up here with similar questions in the near future; but I think this is the best place to check and see if I am understanding this stuff properly. :)

Thanks a bunch!!
"Lilith"

1- I've got the chance for some free Japanese lessons which I assume I could build up a bit more speaking practice from. I do believe, however, by the time they start, I'll be past the "basic" Japanese level and will want to do the "Level Two" course they offer there rather than "Level One". Has anyone else done anything similar and do they have any advice for me?

2- I've been trying to find good Japanese music for awhile (I dislike a lot of jpop and visual kei) and thought I'd share my findings:
( click )

I guess I should post some mcshep_match recs! I've been enjoying the stories over there, and the authors will be revealed pretty soon. Obviously, all of these stories are John/Rodney. (Also, why aren't more people guessing authors? Isn't that half the fun?)

Blink (Prompt: eye for an eye; AU; rated R for violence but I'd call it more PG)
I loved this. It's more than just fanfic -- it's science fiction. Brilliant and creepy and amazing.

No Place Like Home (Prompt: clean slate; rated R)
I really don't like the whole "destined to be together" trope (even though I've kinda written it; shut up *g*) and this story upends that cliché brilliantly. John is accidentally bounced into another universe, and what he learns about his and McKay's relationship is more than a little disturbing, but what he does with that knowledge rocks my socks. It's unromantic in the most romantic way possible.

Less to Say (Prompt: eleventh hour; kind of AU; rated R, but I'd call it PG)
Another story I really loved -- it unfolds slowly in a series of emails from John to Rodney, dropping little hints to the central mystery. Kept me guessing 'till the end.

All the Pharoah's Men (Prompt: weakest link; R for violence)
This one, I think, can totally be read as gen; I even recced it at stargategenrec. Rodney accidentally ends up on a chain gang building a pyramid, and turns out to be stronger and more resourceful than he knows.

You've Written Your Own Directions (And Whistled the Rules of Change) (Prompt: skin deep; AU; NC-17)
A gently wistful-sad-sweet take on a transgender John and Rodney.

Little By Little To the Truth; or a Narrative of the Atlantis Expedition (Prompt: pound of flesh; AU; R)
The gate to Atlantis is opened in 1904 rather than 2004. I think what I love most about this story (other than steampunk AU!!!) is that it isn't just crack; it takes a semi-serious stab at creating a believable 1904 and looking at how their different social mores would be reflected in the different way they relate to the Pegasus Galaxy and its people. But, basically, it's steampunk Atlantis.

http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2008/07/at-the-jedi-ass.html

"A sitz bath, HAH!  Adult diapers, FEH!  A Jedi craves not these things.  And why was there no tapioca with dinner?  Promised it, I was." (incoherent mumbling)

Try to remember him when, Barbara H.

Hey everyone, the Thing-a-Thon round 3 has started again, I will be taking prompts for a week from today and then there will be two (2) weeks worth of writing time again.

You can find all the details and leave your prompts - here :)