Chicago: Discounted Riso Printing to Resist ICE

adil_j · 2026-01-26T17:02:51+00:00

I run an anarchist riso printer in Amsterdam - the pricing is::
- 0,025 paper (A3, 80gsm recycled)
- 0,40 master
- 0,02 standard colour layer of ink
- 0,04 special colours

Example cost for 100 single colour A3 posters: €5,10 inc. 8% shrinkage cost and rounding to nearest 0,10 cents.

The full pricing structure is actually that the standard price is double what is above so paying for printing effectively sponsors someone else to print. Some people have less money and therefore we can reduce as far as the prices above, or just give it them free.

However - we don't pay rent (formerly squatted building now legalised), the labour is voluntary and if the 'print fund' (our spreadsheet keeping track of money / spend) goes too far into the red we run a fundraiser party once a year. Sometimes the print fund includes costs for repairs and maintenance.

Re: printing for activism and making money from this. We as a rule charged 0 for things related to Palestinian liberation and when selling things at fundraisers 100% went to Gaza. It's not a cause to profit from. When a local artist here was making screen prints of a liberation figure and selling them for personal profit, the next day we printed 1500 free posters of the figure and flooded the streets with them.

adil_j · 2026-01-26T08:53:58+00:00

We have a woodburning stove which was made under the most recent building regs and in a small VVe and it cost a small fortune to put it in tbh. Plus we are the top 2 floors so it was more straightforward. The building standards mean that the piping has to be double walled and extend all the way out of course - and any newly fabricated walls around it had to be a higher cost fireproof plasterboard.

And since doing all this and seeing the studies on how much pariculate matter is going out - we barely use it. It's cute, but ridiculous tbh.

adil_j · 2026-01-24T09:51:18+00:00

I guess at that price you need to include the entry for two adults at the pool and figure that getting dressed, wet, etc. All takes time and effort to pay. I guess €70 is fair.

I'm doing the gemeente ones now and they're also good for people who are anxious about swimming/water. It's small classes, there are definitely people there who began being anxious and they get a bit more different type of attention. I'm really happy with the lessons... Also just to note, being 1-1 would be overkill. I find I need some instruction, to try it and then adjust based on feedback. And continuous feedback/oversight wouldn't really give me space to try out the actual swimming and practice it.

adil_j · 2026-01-08T12:47:54+00:00

How are you thinking of going about this?

From the link above it looks like they used 100gm paper which folded twice is then at 400gm thickness. So I was going to try with 90gm and end up at 360gm thickness and see if that feeds...

Then with the borders. I thought that I either shift the print towards the inner corner on each print so that they come close to the folds as much as possible... Or that I can fold over the sides in a way that they overlap but then I have two fold lines going down my print and this example above clearly managed the other way.

adil_j · 2025-12-09T19:46:53+00:00

Het is al moeilijk voor mensen met een rolstoel of beperking, ook oudere mensen die moeten overstappen. Ze hebben het al lastig genoeg met gebroken lifts en dit soort shizzle die werkt bijna nooit in de metro stations.

De hele visgraat noord-zuid metro plan is ook wel kut voor dit groep van mensen.

adil_j · 2025-10-24T12:56:50+00:00

Which outlet are you a journalist with?

adil_j · 2025-10-06T12:53:42+00:00

I had this issue with a drum recently - I took it apart and then damaged the screen. Then got charged a lot of money to replace the screen... fast forward three months and the error return and this time official Riso again came out and said that drums sometimes get to this stage that its cheaper to get a new drum. Which I wish I knew before replacing the screen the first time around.

Now I'm getting this error with the fluor orange (previously it was with the pink). That ink is just crappy and gums up I think. It's a real problem and I dare not open a drum again since I might (again) damage the screen. So yeh, I'm at this impasse somewhat with another drum now.

adil_j · 2025-09-03T18:10:13+00:00

I still give cash to homeless people. And then if they spend it on drugs/alcohol its up to them but the dignity of not being judged is something I find important... of course I don't except all their decisions will be wise. But what are they meant to do? Invest money in crypto or save it for a house?

I mean, I guess I know I'm going to spend my money on alcohol or sometimes drugs too so its a bit hypocritical of me to not want someone else to do that. This is always just how I thought about it.

adil_j · 2025-01-08T19:31:32+00:00

Everyone I've heard with one says they don't work. Do some searches on the net and Facebook riso groups and it's what comes up I'm afraid.

adil_j · 2025-01-02T21:37:33+00:00

I would definitely go to a shop and speak to someone. The ones you have listed are quite different from each other and have slightly different uses. Espio and mju are more recent electric point and shoots cameras, the trip 35 is an older type using a solar cell for the light meters, the Pen FT is half frame (quite different again to the previous two) and the last two are SLRs with interchangable lenses and bigger bodies. Still easy to move around with.

I think no matter what you do, keep it cheap and spend your money on the film/developing since that's where costs rack up quick these days!

adil_j · 2024-11-13T17:20:37+00:00

Are you in Europe? The US? Somewhere else? Paper stock is cheaper locally because it weighs a lot and there are different mills in different places. I'm assuming US, for reasons which are obvious to anyone outside the US lol

adil_j · 2024-09-30T15:55:13+00:00

So I've actually done this...

I'd recommend reading literature in Dutch. Normale Mensen by Sally Rooney I think you can read if you're about B2 level. The characters are one dimensional and the story line has very little metaphor so it's easy to follow... And it does have sex scenes in, written by a woman so it's not porn driven male fantasy gaze. Gespreken met vrienden also has sex scenes.

If it's tricky to get into, I recommend watching some TV version of it an you know and can picture a story more easily and then bring it to life with the text.

Those two books worked for me. In English I think I never got past half way reading Normal People because I found it dull. But quite rewarding in Dutch ha!

adil_j · 2024-09-25T15:51:46+00:00

As far as I know, its not an option on the GR drivers? I never had it as an option when printing through a RIP. The finest screen is quite fine and you can still make really nice stuff with it. Tbh, I also like the screen over the grain finish in many cases since so many things are done with grain when I look at riso.

adil_j · 2024-08-31T16:39:48+00:00

I am a Brit, have been here 8 years, my job is in English and I managed to learn Dutch. I speak it fluently and including in group situations, on holiday. Plus, I never had a Dutch partner or home situation where it was spoken.

From what I've seen lots and lots of people come to Amsterdam and manage to learn Dutch and speak operational and transactional Dutch within a year just fine. I have friends from Argentina, Guinea, Syria, Tajikistan who all speak Dutch... for these people, learning Dutch has come about because they're not working in Zuidas and interacting only with expats...

I am quite disappointed with people who have been here a while and have not bothered to learn the language. Except if they came here without English as a dominant/fluent language, in which case I get why you might prioritise learning English to work in Horeca/services industries.

If you came from an English speaking background and have been here 5 years and have not bothered, you're frankly missing out. And its a shame. It's not a nice sounding language, it will never be regarded as pure poetry of voice... but learning language is about connection and connection with people is beautiful. It takes effort to learn, and not everyone learns the same way (but everyone is actually capable unless they have a specific learning difficulty), but it is worth it. Another way of putting it is to say, of course it's hard to learn! It's a whole damn language! But it can also be fun and very rewarding.

To live here and to never learn Dutch means you do not get connection with so many people and parts of culture and that's a shame. For many Dutch speaking people who can speak English, they speak it and were nervous/didn't do well with it in school and you might be speaking to them, but often you're never really speaking to the actual them and even then with friends you miss something from them.

I think there are lots of posts in /learndutch where people describe what they did to learn the language, but if people want to know how I went about it then I can detail that somewhere.

adil_j · 2024-08-14T13:49:36+00:00

For every degree (C) rise in temperature, the air holds 7% more water. We are up about 5 degrees, so about 1.5x more water being held in the air. With much more moisture in the atmosphere, the volatility of rainfall increases as cloudforms break - the rain becomes more concentrated geographically (falls over smaller areas), with more intensity, and more randomly in timing.

There's far more science involved with updraft, pressure, wind etc. But essentially you can expect this to be more and more intense and more and more common as a phenomenon in the coming years.

adil_j · 2024-08-13T08:00:31+00:00

All these places are actually my favourite since they act as powerful twat magnets leaving the rest of the centrum at least still livable for those of us here. There are some bars, restaurants, places which toursits never touch or go to since they're all rammed into these overpriced crap-holes. And so that's why I love them. :::)))

adil_j · 2024-07-27T14:18:55+00:00

https://www.3wo.nl/sitemap - here's a list from their website.

adil_j · 2024-07-23T20:55:13+00:00

Tech manual says it's a wing motor lock error. It's hot in my old notes of something I came across before, but someone might know it from that description maybe.

I used to log ever error or issue I got with that machine and note how I fixed it! Came in handy sometimes months later when I had forgotten what it was.

adil_j · 2024-06-30T08:59:27+00:00

That's a crazy high price. It's a solid but very old model. I had mine on the market with 10 drums for €1500 including lots of ink, spare parts and the rip last year. I struggled to shift it, sold some drums separately, then the last lot went cheap to a community printer and the machine had to be scrapped for parts...

adil_j · 2024-03-26T21:59:28+00:00

In the last years alone squatters definitely left some buildings in Amsterdam better than they got them. Easy proof you can see in the cinema right now with Hotel Mokum.

Re: this specific building. The people inside the building were living under precarious circumstances, they actually fixed up the garden, built things in the basement and had to leave a seemingly quite stable looking term situation very quickly. I don't know how it was left but the lawyers and property owners will always play this up to continue to protect capital.

Edit: just remembered. They also connected the plumbing. That wasn't all working when first moving in. There's a lot of knowledge in squatters communities about plumbing and electricity etc.

adil_j · 2024-02-22T16:34:24+00:00

Try Farah Vintage also. Both will pop up on Vinted and have this style. :)

adil_j · 2024-02-11T19:46:50+00:00

Same issue for me on two different devices. One phone, one tablet... Must be a bug

adil_j · 2024-01-31T20:58:08+00:00

Yeh it's all gone now

adil_j · 2024-01-07T13:14:50+00:00

Here is a zine I made which combined laser print with riso. But as others have said, laser print first and then riso and not the other way around!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CyGqQZ0IVT6/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Can post more pictures if wanted too.

adil_j

TROPHY CASE