This was a week for getting reminded of unconventional freedoms — and unconventional Outlawry (though some might call it just plain criminality).
First, we got fascinated with Christopher Knight (aka the Maine Hermit), whose solitary life some found irresistible. Imagine speaking only one word to another human in 27 years and sleeping outdoors through 27 northern winters. Imagine doing that, yet remaining so un-resourceful that you think stealing from a camp for handicapped kids is a legitimate way to survive.
Then yesterday afternoon, NPR interviewed Mike Brodie — not their usual sort of book author. At 27, Brodie is a freelance auto mechanic who disdains any claim to thinking of himself as a writer or photographer. But at 17, he started hopping freight trains, taking along a Polaroid camera. Now he’s published A Period of Juvenile Prosperity, a photo memoir of that Outlaw life.
Most of us are more respectful of property than the Maine Hermit and more settled than Mike Brodie’s friends. But tell the truth: Do you envy them a bit? Do you sometimes wish you could just walk away from the life of earning and spending and getting, the life of being responsible, filling out paperwork and carrying credit cards and IDs? Do you sometimes long even to give up some of your comforts? Do you think you could do it in the future? Or have you done something like that in your past?
I’m not asking if you’re ready to chuck it all, or if you approve of train-hopping hoboes or thieving hermits. Just wondering if you ever feel the urge, ever acted on it — or ever might.
Ending the police loophole. Great site for keeping track of the great companies who refuse to sell to governments that don’t allow their citizens to own the same equipment. (H/T to J and not sure who else.)
Chuckie Schumer and Tom Coburn plot to foist a national gun registry on us. For anyone still doubting that Ds and even the most “conservative” R’s are just two wings on the same carrion bird, there’s your evidence. (H/T C-B)
BTW: A couple of Commentariat members expressed a wish to have an email addy for me so they could send me good links. I really appreciate the thought and am not as secretive with my address as I used to be. Only thing is, I get overwhelmed by email and am more likely to lose track of links sent that way than links just dropped into comment sections (as many of the above were, thank you). Besides, dropping your link into a comment guarantees that lots of people will see it, while emailing it to me means it might fall victim to bad timing or who knows what else.
Still, I love that people want to send me so many good links. At some point maybe I should set up an addy especially for that purpose. As the above H/T’s make clear, you guys are excellent link-finders.
With even “safe” states contemplating monstrous anti-gun crap like this, it’s heartening to see firearms and equipment makers (who in the past, with rare exceptions like Barrett, have tended to be compromising weenies), responding like this. (H/T JB)
And here’s a book you don’t have to wait for. And that’s free. And online. Security Engineering. Endorsed by Bruce Schneier, who knows whereof he speaks. For both uber-geeks and we more simple-minded folk who just want to protect ourselves and our technology. (Another tip o’ the hat to JB)
Finally, take THAT, DiFi! And all your state-level statist ilk.
Thanks for continuing to put up with the “lite” posting. Posting will probably be on-and-off all this week but should be back to normal by next Monday.
If you have a knowledge or skill you want to share but don’t have the ability to edit your own video, he’ll even do that for you from your raw footage.
—–
I received my own KTD the other day via Scott’s ready-made drive business. Scott takes the tedious and technical work out of getting those 600+ preparedness documents into usable form. He’s currently selling KTDs for $35, which includes the price of the drive and shipping.
It’s a treasure trove of info. The only equivalent I can think of is Backwoods Home’s“Whole Sheebang” — which is probably better organized and more fun to read but also costs a bunch more.
The drive can be used as a bootable, complete with very simple Knoppix (Linux) operating system. Or the files can be accessed from whatever operating system you’re already using. The useful files are in two folders (KTD_extra_files and the original CD3WD_40). While some are academic papers or commercial advisories and a few aren’t wildly useful, there’s a ton of info on everything from water purification to raising rabbits.
—–
Though I pledged nothing but good (or at least productive) news for two weeks, I’m having trouble shaking the black mood engendered by the vultures over Newtown. I can’t even crack a smile observing the irony that the same people who long to do this to us, have no problem whatsoever with this.
I don’t want to live in a country that approves of (let alone does, or submits to) either. Some days I think the only thing keeping me in this Land of Dying Freedom is my passel of animals.
I’ll consider this to be at least productive, if not exactly good news. Something to think about: my ex-pat friends are happy.
—–
At least it’s good that more of the media is finally recognizing the perverse incentives of the snitching-for-profit racket.
Here’s Bruce Schneier on the subject. (Several people sent me that one.)
And here’s a handy interactive from USA Today, of all places. (With H/T to the Infamous Oregon Law Hobbit.)
And although this is rather melancholy, it’s also a gentle meditation on Truth and Beauty. And on thinking rather than screaming meaningless political slogans at one another. “Chiaroscuro Musings and Rantings” by novelist S.J. Griffo.
To close on a more cheery subject: puppies. Puppies and hunky guys. Together for a good cause.
Sorry, heterosexual guy readers. I don’t have any equivalent for you today. Surely there must still be tool companies producing calendars for you, even now that it’s become politically incorrect.
I usually avoid writing about the Israeli-Arab quagmire. But since I stuck a verbal toe in via today’s earlier post, I might as well bring this stunning — and too true — Nina Paley video forward from where I dropped it in a recent comment section.
That’s what governments are for… get in a man’s way. — Capt. Mal Reynolds
So I did some illustrations for Backwoods Home that used money as part of the image.
One was built around a $20. Got a public domain .jpg of an Andrew Jackson off Wikipedia (serial number already carefully obscured), then manipulated, altered, edited, truncated, artified it. AND I covered it with little drawn figures. Totally legal under every possible rule of use.
All was fine until editor Annie Tuttle attempted to import the illustration into Photoshop to do the final prep to make the art print ready. Here’s what Adobe, in its infinite lack of wisdom, had to say about that:
And that was Photoshop’s final word. No go. Get lost. Never mind that this is an absolutely legal use of an image. Never mind that U.S. currency is by definition public domain. We know better than you and we’re not going to let you do it.
Annie was laughing about it at first (and she’s the one who gave that screen capture the title “big_brother_hates_art”). Only days later, riiiiight before deadline, did she remember that there was a required step for which she needed Photoshop. Uh oh.
She shot me an email that sent me scrambling. I discovered (as one commentor had already implied here) that this theatrical anti-counterfeiting nannying is common and has been built into printers, scanners, and design programs for years.
Apparently the tech looks for certain graphical “codes” built into currency (this is one of them, though not the only one; it’s all very hush-hush, you know). And when it detects them, you’re out of luck even if you’re merely an innocent graphic designer or editor.
Unfortunately, my program, the GIMP, couldn’t do the work Annie needed. At least not without me going out and getting an advanced degree in computer science, finding plug-ins whose developers have done their utmost to hide them from prying eyes, and making multiple sacrifices to a particularly evil and demanding pack of voodoo gods.
But by that time, Annie herself had found another way to solve the problem. So 45,000 copies of a “counterfeit $20″ — that nobody but a brain-dead Little Brother acting as a government nanny could possibly mistake for an actual counterfeit $20 — will soon be heading to BHM subscribers and newsstands.
Now here’s the good part. Photoshop is made by Adobe. Photoshop says, “No, no, never!” to opening currency art. Right?
The workaround I found uses another Adobe product to persuade Photoshop to open the “counterfeit” art. The fix Annie found uses two other Adobe products to get the job done. (Annie: “Our publishing program, by the same company, let us import the bill just fine. Our pdf converter, also by the same company, converted the file fine.”)
So the takeaway from this is that Little Brothers can be just as obtrusive as the Big Brother on whose behalf they act. And just as short-sightedly incompetent at achieving what they say they want to achieve.
Reader just waiting put me on the Memory Lane Express. A link to Sean Gabb’s retrospective on the late, great Loompanics led him to take his copy of Loomps’ 2005 catalog off the shelf, where he discovered an old article of mine: “Dark Satanic Cubicles.”
I didn’t remember it. Only vaguely recalled the title. But it sounded brilliant. :-)
Took quite a bit of hunting to find. Had to go through some interesting byways.
just waiting also sent me .jpg copies (thank you), from which come the stark Nick Bougas artwork up there at the top.
The article gets off to a good start. Did you know that the old faux folk song “Sixteen Tons” got its original writer/performer branded a “commie sympathizer”? Just for writing a fable that didn’t speak highly of laboring for a boss? Oh well.
I had fun re-reading it and hope you do, too.
Then the Memory Express rolled on and led me to similar writings from the same time:
Now I’m just too darned busy working to think about it. But still and always … not laboring for “the man.” Nope. Just freelancing so I … get to crack the whip over my own back.
