Tunes from an alternative Victorian era: Sunday Driver

Sunday Driver were formed in the summer of 2000, though lead singer Chandrika "Chandy" Nath had earlier composed some of the songs whilst monitoring ice floes near the South Pole, during a field trip in Antarctica, collecting data for the British Antarctic Survey.

Chandy has a Ph.D. (in physics, I think), and the band's name "Sunday Driver" derives from the moniker of a gene (SYD) commonly found in mice; and the music mixes Indian (Carnatic) and English folk music, along with early 20th century classical music (Ravel, Glass, etc.) and West End musicals, topped off with a (originally unintentional, I believe) steampunky twist.

Their first album, "In the City of Dreadful Night", is available here: www.sundaydriver.co.uk. From their own description: "...inspiration from Victorian London and Raj-era Calcutta, the tracks range from hypnotic to bittersweet."

In any case, here's...

A nice sampler:

A few interviews:

• Beyond Victoriana: #10 An Interview with Sunday Driver
  
• Libby Bulloff (2010-04-15). "The Brady Bunch of Calcutta 1910 (an interview with Sunday Driver)". Steampunk Magazine #7. p.54
• "Bombay to London and Back Again: An Interview With Sunday Driver". Steamerstrunk blog.

And a few promotion photos suitable for wallpaper:

Clockworks: explanations and videos

Some interesting/educational videos on the workings of mechanical watches.

First, from 1949, a video produced by the Hamilton Watch Company:

Source: http://www.archive.org/details/HowaWatc1949

A simple demonstration of the basic design and operation of a watch. The inside "works" are shown in stop-motion animation using giant 7.5 foot, in-line movement, exact and to scale in every detail. [See the source for higher resolution versions.]

Second, a beautiful video showing some high resolution video shots of a mechanical pocket watch:

Source: http://theb-roll.com/day-186-time/

[See the source for a description.]

(More bits on clockworks here: http://blekko.com/ws/+/beslayed/clockworks .)

2D Goggles, Or, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace & Babbage: a webcomic

Something which, for some reason, I only came across just now:

A webcomic consisting of the chronicles of Charles Babbage (the inventor of the first computer, which, alas, was never built---but it might be soon: see here!) and Ada Lovelace (the first computer programmer) in an alternative world where Ada Lovelace didn't die at age of 36, and where Babbage and Lovelace successfully developed the first computer (giving humanity the necessary technological advantage to repel the alien invasion of 1898) and went on to use their combined powers to fight crime and have thrilling adventures.

Here's a taste:

See more here.

Part of what I really like about this comic is its footnotes. Yes, it has footnotes, references to various primary (and secondary) sources relevant to the comic, like Babbage's autobiography.

New Babbage Analytical Engine(?)

John Graham-Cumming proposes to build a working version of Babbage's Analytical Engine for public display [original article here and working project page here].

There's currently a Facebook and Twitter page, and a Pledgebank page.