Andrew (R.S Admin) @ajroach42@retro.social

It has been brought to my attention that I haven't talked about Jupiter's Ghost recently enough for even people who know me well to know what the hell I am talking about so

It's time to talk about my pet project.

Not #newellijaytelevision

Not #expeditionsasquatch

Not the #zinestation or the #zinestation486

and not the #spacelarpcafe (although very nearly the space larp cafe)

Today, right now, and for the foreseeable future, I'm talking about #jupitersghost or #jg, what it is, what I want it to be, and how you can get involved.

I want a computer that runs on AA batteries, has an SD Card reader or microSD card reader, standard I/O (USB, HDMI or Display Port, wifi)

I currently keep my omnibook 300 in my Media Bag because it is the perfect machine for writing. It runs for weeks on 4 rechargeable AA batteries, it's blazing fast (as a writing machine and literally nothing else) and it has standard, if outdated, I/O making it easy to integrate in to the rest of my setup.

I use it to write scripts, make zines (#zinestation) and publish web pages.

But it certainly can't edit video, or audio, and can *barely* edit photos with a lot of patience.

(Yes, I own a computer that runs windows.

Three, actually. Well, no. Five.

One for printers and other Windows Only hardware at the maker space.

One for Win98.

One is my #zinestation running win31.

One is my wife's old laptop that we keep around in case I need old documents or whatever, that got pulled in to double duty as our media server.

And the last one is a GPD WIN 3 that I use for playing games.

I love the zinestation, and the GPD Win (although I'll probably install SteamOS on it, because Windows is pretty shit Outside of Steam on that formfactor), but otherwise, I am physically repulsed every time I have to touch one of these boxes.

Nothing works. Everything is broken and hidden and unfixable.

I think during the next show, we'll do a radio show read in front of the stage while the bands are tearing down between sets.

Something in the style of The Thrilling Adventure Hour.

Which means I need to write that, and also Flo's monolog.

I guess I'll be dusting off the #zinestation tomorrow.

I use my Omnibook as a wordprocessor, or specifically as a #zinestation connected to a dot matrix printer.

I use my mac plus as a development box in hypercard, I was previously using it as an email box.

I've used my c64 to connect to BBSs.

I have an amiga that I'm hoping to use as part of a video editing rig.

Do you design stickers? Do your friends?

I need a few dozen very small, weird, bizarre, artistic, or otherwise interesting stickers.

I was at an art show this weekend, and I got a bunch of stickers, but I need more.

I have too many pristine gadgets that I use on a daily or weekly basis. My #zinestation needs stickers. My Palm #m500 needs stickers.

It's time to sticker up the world.

Not having a real laptop with me is indeed frustrating. I have little palm top, and I think the #zinestation is here. Maybe I'll telnet in to the little box from the zinestation. Maybe I'll do something else entirely.

Personally, there's another facet to all of this:

I use and maintain computers professionally, and recreationaly.

Sometimes, I want to do something that doesn't feel or look like my day job. Unfortunately, most of my hobbies feel and look a lot like my day job.

To that end, I have some weird old computers that I keep around because they're useful and also because they're Vastly Different than the computers I use at work.

My #zinestation, mac plus, and palm pilots fall in this camp.

One thing that really frustrates me about this conversation is that it's basically the same one I have been having with myself for weeks/months.

So I need to add a couple of additional things:

- Printing. I print directly from my #zinestation from time to time, but mostly I prep documents in word on the zinestation and then transfer them to my windows 98 machine to print, or a prep them in markdown, then write CSS and print them from my main PC.

This can improve

So I'm seriously considering ... Converting all the pictures I want to use to bitmaps and doing the layout on my #zinestation

but the zinestation *really* sucks for working with images, and I don't love Publisher on Win31, but it outperforms the other options by a Wide Margin, and I also don't know how I/if I could migrate the files from whatever DTP I use on the zinestation to something more modern for print.

If it's not on that list, I'm probably not thinking about it right now.

I mean, except for my #zinestation, I'm always thinking about that.

And #fakedTV, I'm thinking about that too. But I can't make any progress on either of those until I get some other stuff off my plate.

@ajroach42 the mouse on this one is a lot more reliable than the mouse on my #zinestation, which will make using Windows 3.1 apps easier.

Now to find the best windows 3.1 apps that'll run in a low ram environment.

Suggestions welcome!

Alright, I wanna talk about my current projects for a second, so that I can keep a record of what I'm working on, and update anyone who's been following along.

Threaded for my ease of referencing. I'll try to keep it short.

Current projects:
#MountainTownToys
#JupitersGhost
#ZineStation (and accompanying omnibook work)
#ExpeditionSasquatch`
#fakedTV
Everything else

A friend found another omnibook, the same as the one I use in my #zinestation and is sending it to me.

Normally, I would not need a spare and I would give it away to someone else, but in this case I am keeping it for a few reasons: 1) It has some cosmetic and physical flaws which mean that I'm going to have to do some work on it, and once I've done that work I know I'm going to want to keep it. 2) It's a gift from someone I don't see much.

So I'm going to have a spare HP Omnibook 300. (thread)

Anyone have any leads on a version of SSH2DOS that supports modern encryption methods?

Or tips for any other way to make a secure internet connection from my #zinestation to home server? (I guess I could run a Tor proxy hotspot on my phone...)

I've noticed that I tend to take a lot of pictures and make a lot of posts during the early exploratory phases of a project, and not as many during the final implementation.

This is largely unintentional. It's just the way my brain works.

I haven't, for example, talked about the #ZineStation in a while (although I use it just about every day, it's what I write on at the coffee shop, and I print pamphlets and newsletters with it regularly.)

1 - Expedition Sasquatch: is going well. I have several episodes, a hat, t-shirts, and stickers for the show. Feedback has been largely positive.

2 - #ZineStation: is done? I have a good workflow. I can do wireless file transfer from Windows 3.1 and DOS to windows 98 or Linux. I can write a lay things out on my AA battery powered HP Omnibook, or I can do layout on Windows 98, or even on my modern linux rigs.

Alright, I'm getting ready to release some zines from the #zinestation and I have some thoughts that I want to explore:

Specifically:

- Newsletters
- Brochures
- Legal sized paper

I've done a few dozen individual issues of multi page zines on this setup, and it works pretty well. the results look good. It's not a *huge* amount of effort, and my error rate for misfed sheets is low enough that this is still the cheapest way I've ever printed anything.