Free Like GNU

 There are blue line riders and then there are The Blue Line Riders. Having been the former since moving to the Second City and now enjoying the latter while traveling to and from work as the former is only natural and so typically Chicago. If that were not enough, I’ve now been charged with building a new website for the most excellent Blue Line Riders! In case you’ve not had the pleasure of their sweet sounds upon your ears, you owe it to yourself to give a listen to the streaming mp3’s at bluelineriders.com.

So today I went to Khyber with a couple work buddies. On the way back we went down into the pedway and through the Millenium Park parking lots. From 222E Wacker to Monroe and Michigan underground. It was a very THX1138 feeling though at times I could swear there were Morlocks (Time Machine) peering at us through cracks in side doors..

Development of the Pedway began in 1951, when the City of Chicago built one-block tunnels connecting the Red Line and Blue Line subways at Washington Street and Jackson Boulevard. Since then, both public and private investment have expanded the Pedway, and the system now connects more than 50 buildings.

Chicago Pedway information at Chicago Walks

I’ve written a review of Elephants Dream, the first open-source movie and have published it on HyperEd.org. The following is the abstract from the review:

Elephants Dream (2006) is an Open-Source movie that challenges us to think about the way we produce artifacts of culture and the ways in which that culture may exist on our own open terms rather than dictated by proprietary, dominant and oppressive means. This document is a reflection on these ideas and explores the positionality of Elephants Dream, and the tools used and developed in its creation among the dominant media and media production cultures.

Enjoy!