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Well, Shit...
The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) has issued a "boil water" notice to all communities east of Weston, MA. (List of affected communities here.)
ETA: Aaaaaand the MWRA is getting slammed, so the page is down. However, the homepage has a map of the affected communities, and the MWRA also has an alternate link. Beware the ridiculous load times.
Crap. My town is on the list. I've got a pot on the stove now to boil up some water. Crap. Crap. Crap.
Apparently the whole thing was triggered by a water main break that's dumping 8 million gallons of water an hour into the Charles River. So, the system's been shut down, and emergency water supplies have been brought online. The backup water supply is safe for bathing, flushing the toilet, and putting out forest fires, but not much else.
Perfect news after coming home from the Steampunk Festival, which turned out to be a reminder of why Steampunkers sometimes drive me bonkers.
Lemme explain.
First off, I'm a history nut. I love history. All of it. But New England history really gives me heart-pounding, palm-sweaty love. A big part of New England history is the Industrial Revolution, from which Steampunk draws a lot of its aesthetic.
So, here I am in a museum dedicated to the Industrial Revolution located right in the heart of Ground Zero of the Industrial Revolution at a Steampunk Festival. The museum, which had been badly damaged in last month's flooding along the Charles and is closed opened its doors specifically for the festival.
Now, yes, parts of the museum were inaccessible due to the flood damage, but there were also a lot of exhibits that were still in place and could be easily perused by visitors.
Like, for example, actual steam-powered and belt-powered equipment, and the huuuuuuuuuuge exhibit about clockworks. We're talking the real deal that's bigger than life, some which is hands-on, you-can-operate-it type exhibits.
A marriage made in heaven, right? You'd think the exhibits that were accessible would be packed with Steampunkers geeking out over having access to the actual equipment that was used in the actual Victorian era.
And if you thought that, you'd be wrong.
Maybe a quarter of the people bothered to even look at the real deal. An even smaller percentage (me included) were geeking out over the real deal. The vast majority of attendees couldn't even be bothered, even though they were spending money hand-over-fist in the dealer's room for the fake stuff. What's more? Most of the fake stuff looked fake when compared to the real the thing.
*sighs*
I do not understand this. At all.
In any case, the museum itself was very cool. I plan to go back when it re-opens its doors in October so that I can spend a few hours falling in love with 19th Century machinery. As it was, I read every placard I could find on the U.S. Patent Office and the process of filing patents.
What? Stop looking at me like that.
Other than that bit that drove me crazy, most of the attendees were friendly and nice. I would even argue that they were a better-behaved lot than you'd find at your standard SF convention.
Of course, I got sucked into watching the blacksmith for almost two hours. I have a fascination with blacksmithing that I honestly can't explain. I can watch a blacksmith work for hours as they turn bits of metal into something truly beautiful. Would I want to do it myself? Not a chance. But get me near an actual forge and you've pretty much lost me for the duration.
All and all, it was a fun kind of different with bonus cheap entry fee. Other than the blatant ignoring of history going on, the Steampunk Festival was actually a pretty good time.
ETA: Aaaaaand the MWRA is getting slammed, so the page is down. However, the homepage has a map of the affected communities, and the MWRA also has an alternate link. Beware the ridiculous load times.
Crap. My town is on the list. I've got a pot on the stove now to boil up some water. Crap. Crap. Crap.
Apparently the whole thing was triggered by a water main break that's dumping 8 million gallons of water an hour into the Charles River. So, the system's been shut down, and emergency water supplies have been brought online. The backup water supply is safe for bathing, flushing the toilet, and putting out forest fires, but not much else.
Perfect news after coming home from the Steampunk Festival, which turned out to be a reminder of why Steampunkers sometimes drive me bonkers.
Lemme explain.
First off, I'm a history nut. I love history. All of it. But New England history really gives me heart-pounding, palm-sweaty love. A big part of New England history is the Industrial Revolution, from which Steampunk draws a lot of its aesthetic.
So, here I am in a museum dedicated to the Industrial Revolution located right in the heart of Ground Zero of the Industrial Revolution at a Steampunk Festival. The museum, which had been badly damaged in last month's flooding along the Charles and is closed opened its doors specifically for the festival.
Now, yes, parts of the museum were inaccessible due to the flood damage, but there were also a lot of exhibits that were still in place and could be easily perused by visitors.
Like, for example, actual steam-powered and belt-powered equipment, and the huuuuuuuuuuge exhibit about clockworks. We're talking the real deal that's bigger than life, some which is hands-on, you-can-operate-it type exhibits.
A marriage made in heaven, right? You'd think the exhibits that were accessible would be packed with Steampunkers geeking out over having access to the actual equipment that was used in the actual Victorian era.
And if you thought that, you'd be wrong.
Maybe a quarter of the people bothered to even look at the real deal. An even smaller percentage (me included) were geeking out over the real deal. The vast majority of attendees couldn't even be bothered, even though they were spending money hand-over-fist in the dealer's room for the fake stuff. What's more? Most of the fake stuff looked fake when compared to the real the thing.
*sighs*
I do not understand this. At all.
In any case, the museum itself was very cool. I plan to go back when it re-opens its doors in October so that I can spend a few hours falling in love with 19th Century machinery. As it was, I read every placard I could find on the U.S. Patent Office and the process of filing patents.
What? Stop looking at me like that.
Other than that bit that drove me crazy, most of the attendees were friendly and nice. I would even argue that they were a better-behaved lot than you'd find at your standard SF convention.
Of course, I got sucked into watching the blacksmith for almost two hours. I have a fascination with blacksmithing that I honestly can't explain. I can watch a blacksmith work for hours as they turn bits of metal into something truly beautiful. Would I want to do it myself? Not a chance. But get me near an actual forge and you've pretty much lost me for the duration.
All and all, it was a fun kind of different with bonus cheap entry fee. Other than the blatant ignoring of history going on, the Steampunk Festival was actually a pretty good time.
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The photos of the women hunched over these benches as they assembled teeny-tiny pocket watches with their only light coming from the overly large factory windows was a real dayum kind of moment today. It's no wonder so many women hired to do close work went near-blind.
Still, the actual machinery is very cool to look at, as are the innards of the actual pocket watches that were manufactured right here in New England. The gear work is so ridiculously delicate that it's a marvel they were able to make this stuff in the 1830s without computer guidance or precision equipment.
Like I said: dayum.
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Here's hoping you're not under the boil water notice. I just boiled some tap water, and I weirdly have a box of Italian mineral water that I bought from Costco's before my layoff, so I'm set for fluids.
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Of course, if you get me anywhere near a forge, you could possibly lose me for the day...
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You'd love our farrier..he makes all his own horseshoes and it's so neat to see a little bar of steel get all redhot on his forge and then turn into a real work of horseshoe art. He's actually won some huge international competitions, so he's the real deal when it comes to farriers.
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And, yeah on your farrier. There's something about turning hunks of metal into beautiful works of art that just makes me happy.
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I'm like that with glass blowing. Corning Museum of Glass is one of my most favorite places ever, partly because they usually have someone demonstrating one or another of their amazing techniques.
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To put it charitably, though, steampunk seems to be more about the alternate reality subculture than historical recreation.
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Then again, I admit that I may be interrogating Steampunk from the wrong perspective. *laughs*
Like I said, there was a minority geeking out over the real deal, so my eye-rolling rant is certainly not universal to all Steampunkers.
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(but yeah, it's also little like going to a scifi con and spending all your time in the hotel business center because they have 'real computers'. It's...not exactly the point of the experience.)
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I always liked historical fic because it's a painless way to learn things. I think the instant gratification/gimmee culture--feedlots for the entertainment industry--has incubated a lot of intellectual laziness.
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Did you notice Dr. Wang's computer behind the Higgins Armoury table?
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And did you see the DEC word processing computer? It was slightly before my time, but that floppy disk it used was epic.
Hey, did you get a chance to see the sword-fighting demonstration from Higgins? I talked to the folks from Higgins and apparently it was thrown together at the last moment.
Their re-enactment group was supposed to be there, but when the date was postponed due to the flooding they couldn't come. Apparently the Waltham museum found out that some of them were involved with Higgins and basically asked if Higgins could take the spot that was vacated by the re-enactors and Higgins agreed. They were a nice group. I especially loved trying on gauntlets, although once of them was actually too small for my hand.
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I do not understand your fellow attendees; that sounds like an amazing opportunity to explore such a fascinating and topical museum.
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Hope it's not too much of a hassle for you!
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Science programming tends to be well-attended, but that actually means a smallish proportion of the attendees.
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Did they have any clockwork toys at the museum? I love them. I once saw a working clockwork doll from Victorian times. It could "draw" a picture.
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I've thought about making jewelry for it, but so much of it is "ooh, cool, I just stuck a bunch of gears together with some clock hands and some black ribbon", plus, not so fond of Victorian costuming. But it is pretty to look at.
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http://www.makerfaire.com/
It looks as if you just missed the Cambridge Mini Maker Faire, but the first World Maker Faire is happening in New York in September! I think you'd like it.
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If you enjoy watching blacksmithing, you'd like the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. Actually, it's a very cool and eclectic museum in general, but they have a nice small blacksmith's shop. Stopped by the last time the family was in VT, and we all decided we'd need to stop by the next time we passed through.