Somehow I missed the sock thing when it happened in ds106. Or maybe I dismissed it since I’m more of a t-shirt person than a sock guy. Anyway, there was a Kickstarter reward level, but something unfortunately fell through and no one got their socks. I started paying attention when friend of ds106 and follower of the apocalypse David Kernohan started riding Jim about it. If my memory serves me correctly, they were having a Twitter discussion on the topic when Dr. Garcia interjected, “Screw you guys. Make your own socks.” I wondered if that would be doable. A relative did embroidery at the time, but she said she couldn’t do socks. Was it possible to get socks custom-printed at a reasonable price? Turned out the answer was “yes.”
Posting that picture led to MBS’s inspired video response.
It occurred to me that the ds106 logo was in a stencil font, so it shouldn’t be a complicated project to actually make my own. I printed out an appropriately-sized version of the logo and cut it out of a piece of clear mylar, got some fabric spray paint and a bulk pack of white socks and went to work. I gave a bunch of pairs away at the OpenEd16 conference.
One person called them cheap knock-offs, but I kinda like the lo-fi aesthetic. So while it was unfortunate that the Kickstarter promise went unrealized, that tragedy inspired some creativity, the #ds106 #4life way.
LoFi is goodFi to me. I only know the sock references, not the whole sock story. Neat.
Kevin
I never knew or fully understood the “sock” resentments, but I would all the same latch onto them and bring them up. Only to watch Reverend Jim Groom’s PTSD over failing to deliver said socks. Knowing there’s another path and joy can be had, I say no more blue monday. IT’s DS106 sock it to me time.
Just ask Jim about the socks 😉