RSS feeds via Morse code
(Credit: The Steampunk Workshop)This is one of the greatest technological anachronisms I've ever seen. The Victorian aesthetically-driven boys at the Steampunk Workshop have put together a telegraph clacker that sounds out RSS feeds. For those of you who were born after the death of the handlebar mustache, telegraphs were ways to electronically communicate information long before things like "computers" and "modems" were invented. Decades before even the telephone was invented, telegraphs were tapping out important information to important people in Morse code.
The Steampunk Workshop's RSS telegraph sounder brings the technology around full-circle. It converts the text in RSS feeds, like the ever-handy Crave RSS feed, into Morse code taps. Of course, those taps have to be translated back into text, so it's not the most useful device. Still, it's old-timey and looks cool, which is the entire raison d'etre of steampunk, anyway.
Like all Steampunk Workshop projects, the telegraph clacker was hand-made and isn't going to be sold anywhere. Fortunately, also like all Steampunk Workshop projects, the site contains detailed instructions on how to build your own. If you have industrial metalworking equipment and the training to use it, your own RSS-tapping telegraph clacker is just a few dozen hours of work away!
