| The Ghostmachine |
Page © 1996, Doug Peters, all rights reserved.
The Ghostmachine is authored by Doug Peters, "amiganaut", in an attempt to bring you examples of my original graphics and art, as well as support for interests and issues that concern me.
Free Graphics and Art:
Included within the confines of this site will be links to my CyberGallery, which samples my graphics, illustrations, cartoons, animations, video clips, and even a few of my traditional artworks. Though this website is small, it will be growing. However, it is currently located on my college server and will be moving. The Ghostmachine will always point to it's current location, if it doesn't wind-up here at GeoCities. Additionally, as a fledgeling world wide web graphic designer The Ghostmachine offers the Web Design CyberDock link page to tutorials on HTML and web graphics resources I find interesting and/or helpful.
The Ghostmachine will also see the spawn of Symbiotic Design, a collaberated effort of artists, designers and developers working together to provide solid marketing designs as an alternative to high-dollar browser crashing anti-advertisement.
Computer Related Links:
I currently work primarily with the Amiga, Video Toaster, and Macintosh platforms, and anticipate moving into other realms as well. Therefore I will be providing support for my home workstations (and the single-tasking Mac). In fact, The Ghostmachine hosts the local Amiga users support group lightheartedly named "Amigas Anonymous" and maintains the Amiga CyberDock and Mac CyberDock link stations and more is yet to come.
The Ghostmachine is also the unofficial support site for Slayer Programs, currently offering low cost quality games that will run on any 680x0 based Amiga (even a 1000!). Slayer Programs is currently attempting to contact one of the euromags to offer an exclusive release for the copyrighted freeware game YTZ. Look for more info at The Ghostmachine as it develops, Slayer Programs will eventually have a page dedicated to it.
Since I am also involved with teaching video graphics and Video Toaster operation at the University of Sioux Falls, I will be offering my own simple How-To tutorials for Toaster Paint and Video Toaster related products, as well as links to other tutorials and tips for Lightwave and Imagine users. Perhaps eventually I will throw in a few 3D tips of my own (should I gain more confidence with these amazing 3D packages and have the time).
Personal Stuff:
Yet, this microsite is still a personal one, and I fully intend to keep it that way. You will find little tidbits of information about me, what I am doing, and other neat stuff that makes home pages so personal. Included within are personal insights on a few of my interests, my artist's statement (though for an artist to make a statement about his work is risky, as an artist's work should make the statement on it's own) and my credentials in the form of my resume.
Miscellaneous:
The above subjects do not limit The Ghostmachine's direction it will take from here, either. Watch for new items in the What's New page as they develop. Look for upcomming things in the To-Do section of that document.
Why The Ghostmachine?
I have some sorta sentiment about "The ghost in the machine." This requires a little story. As it happened my mother, now a senior citizen and new to computers (within the past couple years her office has been PC-ed), told me that she thinks that whenever she is waiting on her Gateway 2000 to finish performing a task, she envisions tiny little men running around inside the computer getting things done (remember the game "Little People&qout; on the Commodore?). She wouldn't have revealed this, but she happened to confide this to her secretary, who asked her what kind they were. "Japanese!", she replied.
It seems that we often personalize our things. We refer to, and often treat our car as if it were a lady, and sometimes we seem to treasure momentos as if they were freindships. Animation is an industry which personalizes inanimate objects and even gives them personalities.
While I am aware of this phenomena, and understand it (as I am an animator/artist), I am quite a bit more computer literate than she is and understand computer technology quite differently. Yet I love the idea of the world wide web, it's like owning a world of information on ghost machines. And being a part of it by contributing (even minutely) by creating my own Ghostmachine just tickles me silly. Hence, the spirit of this site had to be The Ghostmachine.
Summary:
This is, of course, what I love to do. Note that I am looking for a career doing this exact same thing. Afterall, why work for a living when you can play with new technologies, graphics, video, and animation all day? ;)
What do I look Like?:
If you are interested in what I look like, I have provided a couple of scans of myself.
Take it Easy!
-dp
| The Ghostmachine |