This is a speed design of a social image for my new page (Open Creative Toolkit) at http://bit.ly/2hphHd1 where I describe the software choices I make in my small design business.
open creative toolkit
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“Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity (published in paperback as Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity) is a 2004 book by law professor Lawrence Lessig that was released on the Internet under the Creative Commons Attribution/Non-commercial license (by-nc 1.0) on March 25, 2004. This book documents how copyright power has expanded substantially since 1974 in five critical dimensions: duration (from 32 to 95 years), scope (from publishers to virtually everyone), reach (to every view on a computer), control (including “derivative works” defined so broadly that virtually any new content could be sued by some copyright holder as a “derivative work” of something), and concentration and integration of the media industry. It also documents how this industry has successfully used the legal system to limit competition to the major media corporations through legal action against: College students for close to $100 billion, because their improvements of search engines made it easier for people in a university intranet to find copyrighted music placed by others in their “public” folder. Lawyers who advised MP3.com that they had reasonable grounds to believe streaming an MP3 uploaded by a customer only to computers that the customer has logged-in on for the service is legal, and Venture Capitalists who funded Napster. The result is a legal and economic environment that stifles “the Progress of Science and useful Arts”, exactly the opposite of the purpose cited in the US Constitution. It may not be possible today to produce another Mickey Mouse, because many of its early cartoon themes might be considered “derivative works” of some existing copyrighted material (as indicated in the subtitle to the hardback edition and in numerous examples in this book).” curated by lemasney from Free Culture (book) – Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book)
I wanted to illustrate what I thought the Google Home might be like in 10 years. I saw it as floating, hovering by way of low-energy drones. The device would be like an eye, always looking, listening, and recording. A disoriented human asks “Okay Google, what year is it?” in wonderment. This design is related to my concept for their future automated car.
open Inkscape, create a circle, duplicate it, add a linear pattern to the topmost dupe, convert to path, shape into a shadow, place over circle, done.
But when I started doing it, to test whether it was just that simple, I was surprised at how many steps were really involved. You have to find the right pattern, you have to try a few on, you have to realize that you can’t easily add color to your patterns. You get some neat benefits though — real, deep calls to pop-based modernism, paying ideological royalties to Warhol’s Brillo Boxen and Jasper Johns’ frisky template based stories. So I decided to take it somewhere. And this post is the result.
What am I doing here?
I wrote ‘To be honest,’ but I loathe when people say that. We may be honest always, but what a stark surprise that would be, and the resulting pain that would potentially be inflicted seems an easily avoidable horror. So here, I’ll offer some harmless honesty: I’m not sure what i am doing here. I want to be productive, create and publish things of value, but I think that the audience has to find the value in you doing what you love, if any value is to be found at all. This may the closest digital alternative we have to Busking, posting on tools like WordPress (or worse yet, Facebook). But today, as I write this, it feels right. This is what I feel I should be doing: Writing about, illustrating, and sharing my experiences and results and insights and outcomes in the hopes of feeding into the collective insight of humanity. I have no idea if anyone will care, or even respond. But maybe. Only by trying will we find out.
Okay Google, so, what year is it?
So I was working on the practice of creating cross hatching in Inkscape, finding the stark contrast of the linear elements a bright, sharp change in my style. I began to make the circle into a kind of orb. The cross hatching became a futuristic fin that both altered direction and provided thrust. Each overlapped circle added a new dimensional layer of electronics or protection, all perfectly interlocking and freely moving.
A pupil and iris emerged. A short story about the future that writes itself in one’s mind resulted. The title of that short story is “Okay Google, what year is it?”, and the orb you see is some nearby year’s equivalent to the amazing Amazon Echo, except it uses quiet drone and magnetic stops technologies to float about your house, answering any question, turning on and off million colored micro LEDs under your feet and overhead as you walk along the heavily corridored apartments of the future. All of our houses start as shipping containers in my version. The main character asks the title question and the orb responds “I don’t know how to answer that. “
At any rate, a fun trip in the mind and I hope you enjoyed it.
I teach college students, high-schoolers, grad students, seniors, and a diverse bunch of others. I love teaching because I often find myself in some of the most interesting discussions I’ve had in my life there in those quiet classrooms and community rooms.
I am often placed in the position of amateur philosopher because I get to ask people branding prompts, queries like “what kind of meal are you?” or “if you could change the world now, how would it be different?” and the answers I get are often less examined than, let’s say, their favorite football team. I love the thought that the next time they are asked the question, they may have had time to reflect on their original answer and develop their point of view.
Undergraduate students ask different kinds of questions in quiet after-class sidebars.
I most often answer questions about technology in my classes, but sometimes we veer off into more interesting and useful territories. In teaching undergrads recently, which I do not do as often as other groups, I’ve been asked about things like life-trajectory and intended outcomes. One student told me that he was not sure if it was an àpropos use of the term, but that he felt like he was having a ‘existential crisis’. I replied that it was certainly possible, even likely at this time in his life, and that he was in good company. I shared that it may be a sign that he was growing. His main question, and the question often asked when I have had these deeper philosophical conversations, is “What should I do with my life?” I like many of the answers I’ve collected in the discussions, and thought I might share them here.
10 recent answers to “What should I do with my life?”
These are 10 answers I gave recently, in no particular order of importance. Our mental and conscious state is the result of an amazingly complex number of holistic and systemic factors, including genetics, authoritative influence, culture, society, exposure to ideas, emotional and physical environment, diet, and body chemistry. To look at the effects of one while ignoring the effects of others is an easy route to false- or half-truths. I often assume that the conversant is already in-line with and subject to the standard barrage of media, educational, and political propaganda and ideologically coercive forces that our society imparts (our government loves and protects you, we don’t commit crimes world-wide, we are not slaves and slavery ended a long time ago, social media is not poisoning us, etc.), and so I try to sidestep major social, religious, political, or diversity oriented issues. Instead…
I try to remind them that we are all the same regardless of our sensed differences like age, gender, religion, or skin color: an ambulatory pile of chemically bonded universal elements with the miraculous evolutionary gift of self-awareness.
and then, I offer some of these ideas, useful for me personally, but hopefully adaptable to another’s philosophy as well.
Pursue what you love and have passion for. Set aside goals of money, fame, or recognition, which may or may not come while you enjoy your life.
Collect experiences, not stuff. Live small and save money. Live so small that money is unnecessary or less necessary.
Look to your ideological mentors, leaders, and heroes for answers. Consider their answers with a critical thought. Listen to your thought opponents for clues to a median truth.
Resist convenience and high technology where/when it removes your independence. In other words, financial credit is convenient, but it allows you to spend money you do not actually have, which replaces flexibility and independence with debt. A smartphone is convenient comparative to a land line, but given that your location, written & verbal communications, and other easily recorded sensor data becomes just as easily available to authorities, consider that the convenience costs you your privacy.
Learn to meditate and be mindful. Be open to different ideas. Question authority and assure its legitimacy for yourself. Avoid the constraints of silly rules or useless officials.
Imagine the public memory of your deceased self. Be missed. Have a legacy. Increase the number of people you have helped, forget how much you earned doing it.
Remove illusions and seek truths. Recognize, avoid, and ignore rat mazes and traps. Do this forever. Raise awareness of the losses or constrictions of rights. (Chomsky, et al.)
Recognize and beware addictions and vices. Ideas can be addictive and money is just an idea.
Realize the earth is only a sustainable resource if we slow down our consumption and plan sensible resource management. If we don’t, we will perish. Save room for nature.
Eat less; move more. Eat real food. Know what is in your food. (Pollan)
A supportive biblio/videography
What follows is an abridged bibliography and videography of influential thinkers and topics that is helping me to shape my ideas now, hopefully clearly related to my answers in the list above.
HighExistence: How to Escape the Rat Race and Live a Radically Free Life
I want to live simply (High Existence)
“Become very frugal and self-reliant and buy a cheap tiny home, cabin, boat, or van. Buy a modest patch of low-demand property somewhere for a good price, build a tiny home or some other low-cost, functional structure, and live very cheaply, perhaps growing some of your own food or doing other things to be as self-sufficient as possible.” excerpted from How to Escape the Rat Race and Live a Radically Free Life | High Existence at http://goo.gl/45p8jt
Michael Pollan: monocultures, food deserts, processed foods, and food politics.
Einstein: Relativity, absolutism, and nuclear energy.
“In 1905, Albert Einstein determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and that the speed of light in a vacuum was independent of the motion of all observers. This was the theory of special relativity. It introduced a new framework for all of physics and proposed new concepts of space and time.” excerpted from Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity: A Simplified Explanation at http://goo.gl/71qW0P
The grand circle theory, Shelter publications, Buckminster Fuller.
“Secondly, here are some personal aesthetic discoveries I’ve made in spending a few years around various plastic materials (I’d lived previously with more conventional materials such as wood, concrete, glass, brick, etc.) I’ve found that the less molecular rearranging a material has undergone, the better it feels to be around. Wood, rock, adobe as compared with polyurethane foam and polycarbonate resin windows.” excerpted from Domes — Shelter Publications at http://goo.gl/SMHETE
David Henry Thoreau: On the duty of Civil Disobedience
David Byrne with St. Vincent – I should watch TV
The Georgia Guidestones.
These are the kinds of things that are giving me insight into what I should be doing with my life, and I believe you can ask that question everyday in the hopes of a newly evolved answer.
LeMasney Consulting is now offering a branding starter package for individuals and companies
You keep seeing beautiful, informational web sites. What about your own site? Do you have one? Can you update it? Are you happy with your online presence? When you are just getting started with that presence, the answer is often no. Our small business starter package can help.
To feel supported in your online presence, you will need a few things for the digital side, and a few things on the real-life side. I have helped thousands of people with technology, and I have learned a lot about what my clients want. Take a look at the Testimonials page for more on what people are saying about their experience with me, then consider my Small Business Starter Package to get your own great online presence!
We want to make having a great online business presence easy! I’m excited to help you! If this package does not cover all that you need, fear not! Maybe you need a graphics package. Maybe you are looking for help with a podcast. Maybe you already have a site and just need to migrate to an easier system. I’m flexible, and we can do everything that you want at a reasonable price. Too much? Too little? Let us know what you need, and I assure you that I will do everything I can to get you set up at the right price.
Does this describe you?
You are building your idea somewhere in the world, but you need to build your online presence too.
You want to truly own the message you are putting out, down to the colors and fonts.
You are an individual who wants to focus on ideas, not technologies.
You have tried other solutions, and they were too expensive or too difficult.
You do not have an endless budget for your web presence, but you know it is important to be out there.
You just want it taken care of, and ASAP.
How long will it take, what will I get, and how much does it cost?
I want to help you in your new task. For just $500 (10 hours at the standard rate), you’ll get the following (20 hours estimated work — that’s half price!). I’ll help you to:
define your brand
purchase and set up your domain with a domain host and email
create a wordmark based logo
set up your new website with a great content management system
add a beautiful theme from a curated set for business owners like you
carry out SEO (search engine optimization) best practices
Responsive design for mobile audiences
5 edited photos/images of your location, products, or staff
Analytics so you can see who came to your site and what they did there
create a standard 10 page set, including
a home page
an about page,
a contact page with social media connections and contact form,
a portfolio/gallery page for your completed projects,
your first news post,
your first offer post
your first featured post
A testimonials page
A work philosophy page
An introduction post
and finally, I’ll teach you how to manage it all with a training session.
The average time from start to launch is about two weeks.
Examples coming soon!
Interested?
It starts with a free hour-long meeting that you set up in one of two ways:
What do I love about Inkscape? Why am I sharing it? I am committing myself to making one new video a week as part of a series. Each one will explore a different topic that I love, and hopefully effectively convey what I love about it. If you like them, please give them a thumbs-up on YouTube! If you like the series, go ahead and subscribe to the playlist on YouTube for more!
“Learn how to design your own original waveform tattoo with Inkscape, Audacity, and Linux! In this, the first of 52 planned videos for 2016, John LeMasney starts off the “What I love about…” series with a true love of his: Inkscape, the open source vector illustration application. Think Illustrator, but free as in freedom. In order to show his love, he’s going to share how to make your voice into a tattoo using free software like Ubuntu, Inkscape, and Audacity. It’s a fun time, and it would not be the same without you. Music: Chorale Prelude ‘Machs mit mir, Gott, nach deiner Güt’, BWV 957 (Bach, 1880)” found in What I love about… Inkscape! – YouTube at
About LeMasney Consulting
I want to help people. I typically do this in regards to technology, productivity, or living, but I like talking with people about just about anything. If you think I might be able to help you, please contact me at lemasney@gmail.com or 609 553 9498. I’d love to either help you directly, or help you to get the help that you need – lemasney@gmail.com. Try me!
