{"id":45076,"date":"2025-11-12T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=45076"},"modified":"2025-11-06T15:07:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T22:07:55","slug":"whats-in-my-now-rob-ray-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/whats-in-my-now-rob-ray-2\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s in my NOW? \u2014 Rob Ray"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"426\" src=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2025\/11\/robray1-1024x426.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-45078\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2025\/11\/robray1-1024x426.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2025\/11\/robray1-300x125.jpg 300w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2025\/11\/robray1-768x320.jpg 768w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2025\/11\/robray1.jpg 1100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Rob is a founding DJ at&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/kdzu.org\/\">KDZU<\/a><\/strong>, a tactical mythmaking radio station broadcasting from Los Angeles, Goldfield, and other undisclosed sites. Rob is also KDZU\u2019s primary investigator, researching the histories of OMSA [Our Magic Seeks Answers], a Memphis, Tennessee-based anarchist collective that disbanded in 1994. \u2014&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/kdzu_antisocial\/\">Rob Ray<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2025\/11\/robray2-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-45077\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2025\/11\/robray2-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2025\/11\/robray2-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2025\/11\/robray2-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2025\/11\/robray2.jpg 1100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h4><strong>PHYSICAL<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/jCA5j\">\u201cSeed Needs\u201d 5-pack of Morning Glory Seeds<\/a><\/strong>. Morning Glories have been very satisfying to grow. They grow quickly, are amazingly colorful, and have done an excellent job surviving in the Southern California heat. I have a terrible time growing things, but these have been great. They are the best $9 I\u2019ve spent all year.<\/li><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/3LAgYIz\">Lufkin 3m \/ 10\u2019 Power Tape<\/a><\/strong>. This small tape measure has been a great way for me to practice using the metric system more often. It features both inch and cm measurements, is very pocket-friendly, and costs just four dollars!<\/li><li>I teach a computer-aided design (CAD) course and use several&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bambulab.com\/en-us\/a1-mini\">Bambu Labs A1 Mini 3D printers<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;in my teaching. They have performed exceptionally well, and students are very enthusiastic about them. Over the past decade, I\u2019ve tried various 3D printers, and this one consistently surprises me with its reliability. It is priced inexpensively, at $250 on their website, making 3D printing more accessible for students after graduation.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h4><strong>DIGITAL<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.plasticity.xyz\/\">Plasticity<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;is a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tool I use for 3D modeling. It has a bridge tool to import from Blender and does not have the complexity of \u201cindustry standard\u201d CAD tools. It is also priced as a \u201cpay once\u201d software tool. No monthly fees. Students are eligible for a free academic license.<\/li><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/godotengine.org\/\">Godot<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;is an open-source 2D and 3D gaming engine that is growing rapidly. I use the tool for creating augmented-reality applications.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h4><strong>INVISIBLE<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>Drexciya is a mythic, Afrofuturist world imagined by Detroit\u2019s electronic musicians, James Stinson and Gerald Donald, in the early 1990s. They envisioned an underwater kingdom born from the Middle Passage, where the unborn children of enslaved women thrown or lost to the sea adapted to breathe underwater and created their own autonomous world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>For me, this mythology is incredibly powerful because it transforms a history of violence and loss into one of survival, resilience, and imagination. In a time of unrelenting crisis and uncertainty, Drexciya reminds me that we can dream and build new worlds while also living in an unrelenting nightmare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/whatsinmynow.substack.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Sign up here<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0to get\u00a0What\u2019s in my NOW?\u00a0a week early in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>issue #230<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[2303],"tags":[2389],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45076"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45079,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45076\/revisions\/45079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}