Excellent article.

Button Button Who's Got the Button?
 

A WONDERFUL DAY! Today I completed a custom pinback button project to proudly sport my 37 pieces of Linux, Fair Use, Free Culture, and Electro flair!

I designed a set of 24 buttons, (but had to forego a few anarchist designs due to the small output size), encountered far too much difficulty in the production stage, but at last, a fantastic Etsy seller took care of me and I've just dressed up my leather murse to show them off wherever I go!

Sidenote - I doff my hat to anyone who has done needlework with leather. My fingers are punching me in the face right now.

Check out the designs and the finished product!

http://i.imgur.com/QhE0zHEl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Jjv0qgKl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ISA7Ywcl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/jR2V7mWl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/e1tW0oll.jpg

^^^

I love that DJ Shadow product placement at the end. Really cool buttons too! What programs do you use to design?

I see Beck's Mutations back there. Love that album!

Good eye - Thanks! I also have the Ltd Ed Mobile Fidelity 180g pink vinyl press of Sea Change. But Mutations is truly a criminally underrated record! The LP came with "Diamond Bollocks" on 7" as well.

Thanks! I downloaded a pin back button template with bleed from the web. I'm a Linux user so I used OpenOffice Draw for the vector layouts and either GIMP or the browser based photo editor, Pixlr for the raster images.

I'm a designer by day so I've used Adobe applications from 1999 to the present. But for my home project I prefer to live open source.

I've got a real killer post going live by 6pm tonight so everyone stay tuned!

Do you ever use Inkscape? I used to find it a whole lot more user friendly than Illustrator even. How does your vector program compare?

I've recently learned of Inkscape and have been meaning to give it ago. It certainly appears to be the go-to vector design application for Linux users and is widely acclaimed.

As I was only setting a few lines of bold sans-serif type with no treatments or dimensional illustration, Open Office's pre-installed (but far more rudimentary) offering was more than sufficient.

Thanks for mentioning Inkscape - it's a reminder for me to try it out!

The Department of Records – A True Piece of Internet History
 

Over the past several months I’ve taken a considerable interest in Copyright Reform, Fair Use, Free Culture, and the fight for Internet Freedom. I purchased a copy of Prof. Lawrence Lessig’s cornerstone text, Free Culture and have been reading papers on the subject at every opportunity.

This returned my attention to one of the most prophetic and cautionary pieces ever written on collective freedom – John Perry Barlow’s A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. Written during the infancy of the internet in 1996 by the co-founder of The Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Declaration warned readers to be ever-vigilant, warning that the governments of the industrial world would continuously work to erode and destroy the liberties afforded to us by the world wide web. At the time of its drafting, Bill Clinton had just signed the Telecommunications Reform Act into law – an act which perpetuated the merging of the largest corporations in the communications industry granting them even greater control of information than ever before.

Barlow has the distinction of being the only person to be inducted into both The Internet Hall of Fame and The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And his short but incredibly relevant paper is a pivotal piece of internet history. That’s why I am so honored to have claimed this latest addition to my library.

While poring over the EFF’s deep links, I came upon an article from December of 2014 describing a special limited release from The Department of Records. DOR’s homepage describes its mission, “to preserve cultural artifacts for the collective memory in both the physical and digital worlds.” And the first historical work for their catalog is a recording of John Perry Barlow reading his Declaration.

http://i.imgur.com/MqnNA8Vl.png

This special vinyl edition was limited to just 500 copies worldwide and distributed directly by DOR. The 180g album sports a smart minimalist black cover with the title of the work embossed at the center of the jacket.

http://i.imgur.com/ogrKvGPl.jpg

The gatefold sleeve contains a transcript of the original document and information about the three recordings on the album.

http://i.imgur.com/XDZnag8l.jpg

Side A Track 1 features A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace as spoken by John Perry Barlow

Side B Track 1 is A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (ft. John Perry Barlow) by Dražen Bošnjak

Side B Track 2 is an Instrumental version of A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by Dražen Bošnjak.

http://i.imgur.com/CTAj6bbl.jpg

DOR kindly offers the album’s contents free to all courtesy of The Internet Archive.

When I discovered that DOR still had copies remaining for sale, I purchased it for my own archive without a moment’s hesitation. It instantly became the most significant artifact of my cultural custodianship.

http://i.imgur.com/r6pAEZel.jpg

You can watch the recording session below. Tune in for an incredible moment of our culture’s history.



http://i.imgur.com/2pjoVF1l.jpg

You could write about nearly any topic, whether it be related to music or not, and I'm safe to say I would still enjoy reading it.

Aww shucks! Thanks, Qwertyy. That really means a lot. It's an honor to be able to do what I love and to have readers who enjoy it!