Normal or not, the guy has excellent taste. The detail he puts into his machines are incredible.

cosmicrob

I was rooting for him to be normal but his "skillz" with that Leatherman tool are a bit too Napoleon Dynamite. Oh and screennames in real life is a problem too. Yikes.

The Lab

he said he was a technofile! call 911 and child care.

Husher

"[...] Just ship it off to the China replication factories and sell them to the masses back here."

@NZRUSS: While it may make it accessible to people who only shop at Wal-Mart, I think he wants his gadgets to both last, not be made out of lead, and be personally crafted by himself. And it was $700 - $1000 each keyboard, which takes a month to build. Besides, the original keyboard that he builds his steampunk designs from are most likely made in China anyway.

Awesome freaking laptop, though. Probably the best functioning steampunk sculpture I've seen. Now that's a laptop Grandma can associate with!

electrikecho

@NZRUSS: I doubt it's one full man-month per keyboard. It did look like there was a bit of parallel production going on there.

mcg1969

It's encouraging to see that even exceptional inventors find frequent opportunity to utilize the same multi purpose lubricant of amateur tinkerers everywhere - all hail WD40!

One can only hope that he shares an equal respect for duct tape and zip ties. :)

Vagabum

His stuff is freakin cool.

Not sure that he's charging enough... was that $1000 for a months work for one of those keyboards??? Perfect if they're a prototype. Just ship it off to the China replication factories and sell them to the masses back here.

NZRUSS

Those keyboards are fantastic.

Machines

You should see the stuff and instructions on his website wow. His stuff is amazing.

catndhat

that's so effin cool.....

trunk666

Um @thelab: I think steampunk is all about the "screenname" and mad skills and showmanship, as the era this is taken from is pretty much like that, flamboyant rich gentlemen creating impressively flamboyant machines. It's not mandatory to be eccentric, but it helps to cultivate an air of difference...

teddlesruss

Scotch Tape at 1:25... not super 'Steamy'.

jonny

I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but I find the name he gave to his "Difference Engine" to FAR too pretentious. Babbage didn't come up with some ridiculously long-winded title for his never built (at least by him) masterpiece. I'm a art appreciator par excellence, and I find his work to be strangely compelling, but I just get the feeling that he thinks he's better than us, and that's very off putting to me. I adore the art, but the attitude, not quite so much.

sonofmagicfact

those are some beautiful pieces. man. just amazing.

however... the guy says that the Victorian era was the last time a high-school graduate could have full mastery of the available technology of the time.

i couldn't help but think:

a. victorian era high school?
b. victorian era high school GRADUATES?
c. WHAT?

I'm pretty sure that the average person in the victorian era was not sitting around tinkering away in his mom's basement. he was burying his dead children before heading off to work in the fields so he could earn enough to bury his 34 year old brother who died of the flu.

disregarding the young man's ignorant arrogance, an average person now can work hard and create a grand product. it's called open source. women, too. not just men like the 'good old days'.

the luddite tech additude is a robot killer.

(hey, i just got all pissy and added nothing nice to the discussion over an article on gizmodo! i'm one of them now!)

nogod