Skip to content

When Is Software Too Indie?

Think about the size of an independent publisher when assessing your needs.

Robert Rackley
Robert Rackley
5 min read
When Is Software Too Indie?

When I was transitioning between high school and my first year of college, I created a zine. I was armed with a typewriter my great aunt had owned, a glue stick and some plain white letter paper. There was a Kinkos nearby for production of my little publication. I named the zine Martha Dumptruck, after the picked-on character in the movie Heathers. The cover was a picture of DIY lo-fi hero Lou Barlow that I lifted from the album The Freed Man (which later got warped from sitting too long in the sun — one of the perils of vinyl ownership). The contents consisted of a fake interview with the cover star conducted via a magic 8-ball, some record reviews and an address where anyone who shared the sensibilities of the zine could write to me.

During my second semester of college, I developed a lump in my chest that would initially be dismissed as just my sternum, but would later be diagnosed as lymphoma. I had to start treatment at Duke Medical Center immediately after my diagnosis and drop out of East Carolina University a few weeks short of the end of the semester. Grades had to wait while I got some unwanted spare time. I needed something to focus on, apart from my cancer treatment.


Related Posts

Members Public

A Cutting Egress

About a week ago, many bloggers were writing about the nightmare scenario of getting locked out of your iCloud account. Indeed, what could terrify a geek more? There was sense of panic at the realization this could occur. Nick Heer writes at Pixel Envy: What I am stunned by is

Members Public

Free The Bluebird

Cyrus Farivar writes for Ars Technica about a startup company that wants to reclaim the Twitter brand from the clutches of Elon Musk. Called Operation Bluebird, the company has filed a formal petition with the US Patent and Trademark Office on the premise that X Corporation has abandoned it. Elon

Members Public

The Demise of a Newsletter

Another Substack writer jettisons the platform.