Archive for the ‘Off Line and Off The Grid’ Category

Off-Line and Off-the-Grid: Rethink Ink

Monday, February 8th, 2010

This was as far as I got with paper before it went digital.

There’s a whole back story to the idea of going off-line and off the grid but that can wait until another day. Suffice to say that the experiment is a long time coming.

Everyone pretty much knows what “Off-Line” means but what is “Off-the-Grid”? I’m no expert on the subject but living off-the-grid can be defined as living a self-sustainable existence. Most people would automatically link the idea of living off-the-grid with being backwards mountain folk. Yes, most backward mountain folk live off-the-grid, but not all off-the-grid people are backwards mountain folk. Basically, the idea is not being hooked into government utilities and such. (And, just for your information, to backwards mountain folk, we urbanites are backwards city folk.)

In my (admittedly) utopian mindset, I can live without the need of any services from outside – not have to pay any bills per month. But I digress. Like I said, this all can wait for another day. Today I would like to talk about ink.

I recently purchased a Sony Vaio laptop and set up all the peripherals. I am having trouble with the software for my Wacom tablet. After an unproductive and frustrating morning of trying to get it to work properly, I realized that this event was what I had been asking for – an excuse to return to ink.

Using actual ink, you back-to-earth hippie!

My current process of creating Perk at Work and Attack Mimes involves a penciling by hand, a scan, then “inking” directly into the computer via the pen tablet and Adobe Photoshop. Much conditioning got me proficiency. Yet a big part of me wanted to have a physical final product, like Dave Kellett of Sheldon has. Plus I didn’t want my work to be dependent of a computer, a program, a pen tablet, nor electricity for that matter à la the essay “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer” by Wendell Berry.

So I did it. I took my pencils and inked them. It’s not like I’ve never used ink in the past and I recently hand-inked a few Attack Mimes Dogstradamus adventures (click here, here, or here). But there’s a safety from working with the pen tablet. I can easily re-ink lines I don’t like or erase mistakes. With ink, it’s not as easy. What’s more, I can re-size drawings if I need more place for text. Not so with ink. When placing ink to paper, I need prudence. Such prudence has gone dormant with editing programs. Even as I type, I’m using OpenOffice.org to edit the copy.

Now, I’m not totally over to the ink side. I still scan the inked paper into Photopshop and do some touch up as well as all the text work and formatting. But this is a step – the first step. Before long I’ll be farming my own land and knitting socks from wool I sheered from my own sheep.
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Off-Line and Off-the-Grid: Digital Detectives

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

I recently took a course in digital audio. The coursework was ok but what really grabbed the attention of the class was the instructors statements about two digital audio “Big Brother”

What's left of my once-vast CD collection of which I listen to only a few.

organizations: Digital Rights Media (DRM) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The instructor clams that these two organizations have received the right from the US government to access your computer if you happen to input digital media with it’s tags (for lack of a better term).

Is it true? I’m not sure. I spent a few minutes looking at a couple of different websites but there was way too much information for the few minutes I had allotted for research. Basically, I didn’t really want to look into it at all. The mere thought of it just pushes me further from digital media.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that digital media in and of itself is a bad thing. Just like anything it is amoral. It’s how we use it or, better (worse) yet, how we become attached to it. And the thought that we can purchase a CD, input it into our computer and, by just doing that, we grant access to some organization to view all our files give me pause. Just because we buy something doesn’t mean we have to let the producers of the product into our homes. When I buy a pizza, it doesn’t give the delivery guy the right to come into my place and see if I’m sharing my pizza with anyone. Maybe that’s a silly comparison but it’s along the same lines.

Do I pirate music? No. I rarely even listen to music anymore. There are some good internet radio stations, there’s also Pandora, there’s the old faithful radio, and, of course, there’s silence.

My vinyl record collection. I pulled out my favorite of the bunch. And yes that is Englebert Humperdinck in the background

And that’s where I’m headed: silence. If these companies are so concerned about who is listening to their music and if they have the right to listen, fine. I just won’t listen so I don’t get into the whole mess.

But I’ll still have my music. I have a bunch of vinyl records, I’ve got radio, and, best of all, there’s live music all over the place. That’s a good switchback: head to the corner gathering house and take in some live folk. Such a novel idea, eh? Let the digital overlords keep their digital insecurities and let’s all head down to the coffees hop for some real-life human, non-invasive, pirate-free fun!

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Off-Line and Off-The-Grid: Live Man Walking

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

The other day I had to take my car into the shop. There they told me it would be some time before a diagnostic could be run and even longer to fix whatever was diagnosed. I could have easily called for someone to pick me up and take me home but I decided to just walk home.

I love walking. If I had my druthers, I’d walk an hour in the morning and another hour in the evening. But druthers and responsibilities make strange bedfellows.

The walk (on a one of Las Cruces’ most beautiful days of the year) allowed me some time to look around at a step-by-step speed. We miss a lot when we travel by car at 35 mph. Walking lets us witness life around us at the speed of us – our actual non-mechanically enhanced speed. Though I could drone on about the minutia of observations, suffice to say I enjoyed myself. I especially enjoyed the breathtaking architecture of a new Federal Courthouse being built that was designed by world renowned architect Antoine Predock.

There was also time to take in the beauty of a tree-lined path in the midst of a cemetery. Morbid as it may sound, cemeteries are quite peaceful places. I don’t feel death but rather rememberence. There is a strange harmony of nature in the cemetery mentioned. I walk it often.

What does this have to do with being off-line and off-the-grid? Well, simply taking a step back slowing down allows us to reflect in a natural way; a way we just can’t do with the hustle and bustle of the information super highway. Taking a walk away from all that speed lets us focus on things that matter most in life.

In short, taking a stroll lets us stop and smell the roses. And, yes, contrary to popular belief, the cemetery does not stink. Nor does the new Federal Courthouse. Kudos Mr. Predock!

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