Ramblings – Page 10 – The Jake of All Trades

Zombies, Run! Part 2

Run: 1.58 miles, Time: 21:24

Where was I?

The hospital. I’d grabbed some supplies and some papers, and headed back out towards the tower. Sam is back on the radio. He sees me, and sees I have found something.

Guard it with your life, the Doctor says. I think that means if I see zombies not to drop the papers while i run for my life, but i’ll ask for clarification when I get there.

Maybe I am getting numb, I think, but it seems to be getting easier.

I have a way with timing, I have learned. Sure there are a thousand stories I could related about my poor timing events, but this one should demonstrate it. As soon as that thought was done two things happen. The first is that this pain starts up my left leg. It isn’t quite a cramp, but close. The second is that Sam’s voice comes back over the radio.

There are zombies coming. Great I think. They are catching up, he says. Fast zombies? Great. Fast zombies suck. Run, he says, run, and I do.

Runner 7 comes on the radio, tells me they are sending people with guns to provide cover, but whatever I do, don’t stop. She’s right behind me.

She? I hear Sam talking, through the mumbles and the “oh no”’s and my general panting and hard breaths I catch on who is behind me. The previous runner 5. You know, the one who I was told was really fast?

Apparently the pseudo-afterlife hadn’t taken that away from her yet.

My leg is on fire, and I have a simple realization: i can’t do this much longer. The gate opens and I see my fellow living emerge with guns, bringing me in.

Welcome to Abel, I hear. Let’s hope I’ve made the right choice.

I mention this game is great? Go get running shoes and go for it. iOS now, Android on the way.

On why I use Creative Commons with my Flickr pictures

I remember the day. I was in Venice Beach, California with some friends. We were walking along the canal, and I swiped my friend’s new Nikon DSLR and snapped a shot of a boat on the water. When we got home I looked at it over and thought how this picture was something that could be sold, something that I wanted to protect.

So it sat on my hard drive for years. I’d show it off every once in a while, but it stayed hidden. Later I took more pictures, some from Death Valley, others just from vacation. All the while hiding them away.

Then the Art 365 project started and I began posting pictures on my Flickr more often. At this point I had been making (or attempting to make) art for a while. I had been unsuccessfully submitting stories and poems to get published, taking pictures, making drawings and hiding and hoarding my works away to prevent someone “stealing” it.

As I posted more pictures and drawings on Flickr I began to think more and more about content and copyright. Specifically I thought about me as the Internet / content user rather than the creator. I had thought a bit at this point on copyright itself, and how I thought things should be with other creators: art, music and movies.

So I asked myself, self, what are you getting out of this all rights reserved thing anyway? The answer for my Flickr was “not a whole lot”. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that worse case was someone wanted to use something they saw but did not because of that impending c in the corner.

Not that I believed that had happened yet… But still. I decided I should align my art with the way I thought that others should have theirs.

At first I picked the CC BY-NC license. Use my stuff, but not to make money. Then I thought more and changed it to just CC BY. Use my stuff, anyway you want, just credit me for it.

I am not giving up my copyright on my work. Far from it. Creative commons uses the copyright laws to allow for this license. These drawings, pictures, are still mine. But now I have given them an open license. Now if someone is making an album cover for their band, or wants to make a website with desert pictures, or just wants to use a picture of a cherry tree on a flyer they made, they can, without worrying about a lawyer.

And what would I get out of that situation? Recognition, viewership, however you want to phrase it. What I get is my pictures, my drawings, out there in the world, seen.

More importantly, my perspective on my art had changed. No longer was I content with hiding this stuff on my hard drive just on this promise, this hope, that someone would pay me for it. I made it to be seen, read, and heard. There is no promise that someone will pay for any of it. But there is a promise that hidden on my hard drive, no one will know it exists.

And my writing? I’ll talk about that in another post, but my thoughts are coming along the same way.

Travel Pictures, March 2012

I have been on travel lately and came home with a collection of pictures with the new and old cameras. While the new DSLR is fantastic, I still have plenty of use for my P300 because of its size. I’ve got two galleries to post, one from my week in Finland, and one from a day walk through Virginia.

Finland, even at the end of march, was still covered in snow. The part of the harbor in Helsinki visible from my hotel was still covered in ice. As you can see, there were still ice fishermen out catching.

I spent my time in two locations: Helsinki and Tampere. The pictures are labeled for which town they are from. Both were fun, and the beer was good.

Oh, and Iron Sky premiered in Tampere the Monday I was there… Which i found out about as i was flying home. I mention I didn’t have anything to do that Monday?

The next trip was out to western Virginia for a wedding. Tucked out on highway 81, Winchester is not quite in the mountains, but is close. “Quaint” is a good description for this town. There was a walking mall for a few blocks, and I brought my camera with me.