FOSS and Crafts (FOSS and Crafts)
Explore every episode of FOSS and Crafts
| Pub. Date | Title | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Aug 2022 | 50: The Spritely Institute | ||
The Spritely Institute (of which Christine is CTO) just announced its multi-year grant by the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web and gave a tour of its current tech! This is a big moment that's been in the works for a while, as Spritely moves hands towards real stewardship by a real nonprofit! Also also! The video recording of the Lisp/Scheme workshop (based on A Scheme Primer) is released! Unlock Lisp / Scheme's magic: beginner to Scheme-written-in-Scheme in one hour! (PeerTube, YouTube, ) Links:
| |||
| 01 Oct 2022 | 51: #vanlife...? | ||
Morgan and Christine walk through their (well, Morgan's) renovation of a cargo van into a campervan. This is a very crafty episode, but we do work in a few analogies to some FOSS (and open hardware) things! Show notes at the end, but how about a quick visual van tour? Back of the van, wide open!
A closer look...
Actually, let's move that solar panel aside...
Here's a better view of the cabinet with all the equipment attached:
Here's what the van looks like if you come in the side door:
Another, more diagonal view:
Safety first!
Window covers, custom fit! Reflectix goes out, fabric goes in.
The cabinet with the cargo net off...
And one more view!
Links: | |||
| 13 Nov 2022 | 52: Terminal Phase: a space shooter that runs in your terminal! | ||
Terminal Phase! A space shooter that runs in your terminal!!! Who wouldn't be excited about that? Not to mention that it shows off cool features of Spritely Goblins... like time travel:
Well, Terminal Phase has been Christine's fun/downtime project for the last few years, and one of the bonuses you can get for the reward tiers of donating to this podcast! And yet we've never done an episode about it! Given that a brand new (and much easier to install) release of Terminal Phase is coming out really soon, we figured now's a good time to talk about it! Links:
| |||
| 01 Dec 2022 | 53: Fediverse reflections while the bird burns | ||
Twitter is burning, and people are flocking to the fediverse. Is the fediverse ready though? How did we get here? Where should we be going? Since Christine is co-author of ActivityPub, the primary protocol used by the fediverse, Morgan decides it's time to get Christine's thoughts recorded and out there... so we hop in the car as we talk all about it! Links:
| |||
| 28 Dec 2022 | 54: Oops! | ||
Everyone goofs sometimes. Today we talk accidents... some happy, some not! Links:
| |||
| 01 Feb 2023 | 55: Free Soft Wear | ||
Morgan talks about "Free Soft Wear": textile processes under free culture licenses! Links:
| |||
| 01 Mar 2023 | 56: Make your own dehydrated meals | ||
In yet another deep dive into yet another weird hobby of Christine's, we talk about how to make your own dehydrated meals! Why the heck would you want to do this? Well, maybe you want more consistent or dietary needs friendly travel food! Maybe you want to go camping or hiking! Maybe you're sick of deciding what's for lunch and you just want to scoop a cup of meal out of a jar on your desk every day! Maybe you want to weird out your fellow conference-goers as you turn a dry powder into a fully cooked meal with hot water and hot water alone! Links:
| |||
| 15 May 2023 | 57: F-Droid (featuring Sylvia van Os & Hans-Christoph Steiner!) | ||
F-Droid, a repository of free software for your Android devices! Christine interviews F-Droid developers Sylvia van Os and Hans-Christoph Steiner as well as F-Droid board member and chair... Morgan Lemmer-Webber! Links: | |||
| 16 Jun 2023 | 58: WebAssembly | ||
WebAssembly! You've probably heard lots about it, but what the heck is it? Is it just for C and Rust programs? Can you write it by hand? (Do you want to?) And wait, how is Spritely getting involved in WebAssembly efforts? Find out! Links:
| |||
| 01 Sep 2023 | 59: Governance, part 1 | ||
Governance of FOSS projects, a two parter, and this is part one! Here we talk about general considerations applicable to FOSS projects! (And heck, these apply to collaborative free culture projects too!) Links: | |||
| 01 Oct 2023 | 60: Governance, part 2 | ||
Back again with governance... part two! (See also: part one!) Here we talk about some organizations and how they can be seen as "templates" for certain governance archetypes. Links:
| |||
| 10 Dec 2023 | 61: A Textile Historian's Survival Guide | ||
How do you survive in a world that is no longer optimized for making your own clothing when you suddenly find that modern conveniences no longer accommodate you? As a textile historian, Morgan has been ruminating for years about women’s contributions to the domestic economy, the massive time investment of producing clothing for a family, and the comparative properties of different textile fibers. These research interests were informed by a lifetime of sewing and other fiber crafts. None of this experience, however, properly prepared her to face the reality of needing to rely on her own hands to provide large portions of her own wardrobe. Guest co-host Juliana Sims sits down with Morgan to talk about how, in the wake of a recently developed allergy to synthetic fabrics, she now finds herself putting that knowledge of historical textile production to use to produce clothing that she can wear. Links and other notes:
The quote that Morgan somewhat misremembered about a woman preparing wool before the winter:
| |||
| 03 Mar 2024 | 62: Blender | ||
Blender, the absolute powerhouse of FOSS 3d (and increasingly 2d) graphics! We give an overview of the software's history, some personal history of our relationships to the software, what it can do, and where we're excited to see it go! Links:
| |||
| 16 Jul 2020 | 1: Collaborative Storytelling with Dice | ||
You've probably heard of "tabletop Role Playing Games" (or, tabletop RPGs) before, but what are they? In this episode, Chris and Morgan introduce a subset of RPGs called "Narrative RPGs" whose mechanics are focused primarily around storytelling (as opposed to tactical combat).2 Hear about how narrative RPGs can be used as "collaborative storytelling with dice", some of the narrative RPG systems that exist, as well as an in-depth look at one particular RPG system, Freeform Universal. Freeform Universal is so simple and easy to pick up that by the end of this episode, you should have enough information to use it for weaving stories with your friends! Links:
Still reading this? Wow, okay, some bonus content... We mentioned that Morgan did a class assignment for her intro-to-German class about needing to make a German fairytale... here's the assignment, as turned into the class: Hilda die Hexe (be nice enough to remember this is an intro-to-German class). Additionally, Chris simultaneously wrote a slightly-more-elaborated-upon version called The Witch and the Carriage. The process of playing the game and then writing up both of these took about an hour and a half so set your expectations accordingly. Still want more? Okay, not claiming this is a "great" story, but here's a kind of fun writeup of a session called Santa's Little Uprising. (Not very serious, could use more polish.) Maybe we'll take up our own advice and more seriously publish some of the stories we've constructed together sometime! | |||
| 24 Sep 2020 | 10: [Theatre] The What Goblins Saga, Chapter 1: What Are Goblins? | ||
On this episode of FOSS and Crafts Theatre, we begin exploring "The What Goblins Saga". While the claim of "our goblins are different" is hardly new, these goblins seem to stand apart more than most... even their fellow goblins seem to think so. What is the nature of goblins, and what about The What Goblins in particular? Through little planning or foresight, our motley crew is about to find more answers than they expected... which only opens up more questions, of course... Links:
| |||
| 01 Oct 2020 | 11: An Ethics of Agency | ||
Chris and Morgan discuss an ethical framework Chris has been workshopping for the last few years, "An Ethics of Agency", with the foundation of maximizing agency "for you, for me, for everyone" and minimizing subjection. CW: Note that Chris talks about an incident involving them experiencing suicidal depression at one point. Links:
| |||
| 08 Oct 2020 | 12: [Theatre] The What Goblins Saga, Chapter 2: Trees, Friends, and Static | ||
On this episode of FOSS and Crafts Theatre, we continue the What Goblins Saga. The What Goblins saga continues as the characters continue to learn about themselves and their ever-changing environment. If you haven't listened to Chapter 1, maybe stop reading now to avoid spoilers from that episode! Having discovered that they are are sapient beings emergent from a networked video game, and having accidentally stumbled into administrative powers, the What Goblins discover the consequences of using those powers without knowing how the world around them might react to that. Links:
| |||
| 15 Oct 2020 | 13: ActivityPub Conference 2020 with Sebastian Lasse | ||
This week we are joined by Sebastian Lasse, author of the Redaktor ActivityPub powered CMS, and co-host of both ActivityPub Conference 2020 and ActivityPub Conference 2019 along with Morgan. Lots of retrospective, especially on the difference between APConf as an online conference in 2020 vs an in person conference in 2019. Links:
| |||
| 31 Oct 2020 | 14: Digital Humanities Workshops | ||
Morgan and Chris discuss the Digital Humanities workshops they ran introducing non-programmers to Racket and Scribble.
Links:
| |||
| 06 Nov 2020 | 15: Scribble and the Open Document Format | ||
Morgan and Chris talk about the Scribble document authoring format, with Morgan talking about authoring her dissertation in it and Chris talking about writing an OpenDocument Format (sometimes shortened to "ODF" or "ODT") exporter. (That code is now a merge request which will hopefully become part of Scribble itself!) Links:
Clarification: At one point we talk about whether or not Scribble includes support for "image lists". It has the relevant building blocks with support for images and figures, we were talking a bit more specifically about fitting a particular document formatting and organizational pattern used in art history papers. | |||
| 12 Nov 2020 | 16: Bassam Kurdali on using Blender for open movie productions and education | ||
Bassam Kurdali (Fediverse, Twitter) talks about using Blender (a free and open source software suite for making 3d artwork) for open movie projects such as Elephants Dream (the world's first open movie project, which Bassam directed!) and Wires for Empathy, as well as use in teaching it to college students studying animation. Links:
| |||
| 28 Nov 2020 | 17: Gardening, from seedling to seasoned | ||
We're joined by our friend Tristan to talk about gardening experiences, from newbies (us) to the wise (Tristan and others who are not us). We (Morgan and Chris) have just started seriously gardening this year, and have learned a lot about what works and what doesn't. And it turns out that people who have been doing it for years (such as Tristan) still have a lot of successes but also a lot of failures. But those can be fun too!
Links:
| |||
| 06 Dec 2020 | 18: Sumana Harihareswara on sketching, standup, and maintainership | ||
We're joined by Sumana Harihareswara, a FOSS advocate yes, but also a person of so many other talents! We talk about sketching, standup comedy, and maintainership for the long life of free software projects. (Did you know you can hire Sumana to help on your FOSS project maintainership btw? Sumana runs Changeset Consulting!) We also talk about representation in the FOSS community within the arts (especially narrative arts), and about learning new skills within "no big deal" contexts. Links:
| |||
| 17 Dec 2020 | 19: Mallory Knodel on bits and bytes and human rights | ||
With computing technology becoming integrated with every aspect of our lives, many issues are simultaneously human rights issues and technical issues. Thus, how are organizations concerned with human rights and social justice engaging with technological authorship and policy-making? Mallory Knodel, presently Chief Technology Officer for the Center for Democracy and Technology, explains her work as a Public Interest Technologist. Mallory is also heavily engaged in a wide number of technical standards-making organizations, and explains not only how technical standards are of interest to human rights organizations, but how the origin in work to define human rights overlaps with the emergence of standards-making efforts. Links:
| |||
| 23 Jul 2020 | 2: The impact of machines that "learn" and produce | ||
The results from machine learning have been getting better and better and the results seen so far from OpenAI's GPT-3 model look stunningly good. But unlike GPT-2 (which was publicly released under a free license), so far GPT-3 is accessible via API-only. What's the reasoning and possible impact of that decision? For that matter, what kind of impacts could machine learning advancements make on FOSS, programming in general, art production, and civic society? Links:
| |||
| 03 Jan 2021 | 20: Hygiene for a computing pandemic | ||
Chris and Morgan, driving in the Covid-19 pandemic, reflect on lessons of hygiene and a separation of concerns from the past (seen through the retroactively surprising struggle for handwashing acceptance) while analyzing how to bring safety to today's computing security pandemic via object capability discipline. As said in the episode, there's a lot of research and evidence for the object capability security approach! Please do scour the links below (with significant commentary attached). Links:
| |||
| 18 Jan 2021 | 21: Vicky Steeves on Reproducibility, Open Research, & Librarians (... and game modding) | ||
We're joined by Vicky Steeves, a hyper-talented librarian specializing in data management, open and reproducible research, and the overlap between FOSS, free culture, and library sciences! We dive into all of that... plus a bit of crafting... and even... what's this? A discussion of what the FOSS world can learn from the world of game modding (and vice versa)! Links:
| |||
| 29 Jan 2021 | 22: Crafting the past... or trying to | ||
There's all sorts of reasons to pursue historical crafting techniques: for the experience of recreating them or learning new techniques, for education, or for entertainment and immersion. Morgan and Chris explore these paths under the terms "experiential historical crafts", "experimental archaeology", and "historical reenactment". What is important, useful, and fun about each of these? What pitfalls might we want to avoid? What can be gained by what we might find, how might we bring more people in... and what do we risk by what (or who) we might miss or leave out? Links and references:
Special note here: we aren't saying Townsends is bad; we enjoy the show and from a standpoint of production, what it does present is very good. But it does seem like the show makes an intentional dodge on important issues or chooses to only present a limited and fun subset of history... which can be disappointing at the least and at the worst can result in a kind of nostalgia that erases real problems. All history is suffused with things to celebrate and things which are disturbing and disappointing, but recognizing only the former sets us up to repeat the latter. | |||
| 13 Feb 2021 | 23: Nerdout! Fuzzy and crisp systems | ||
Morgan is in the final crunch of finishing her dissertation draft, so Chris's brother Steve Webber joins us for a special "nerdout": analyzing the dual nature of fuzzy vs crisp systems! From physics to biology, from programming languages to human languages, the duality of fuzzy and crisp is everpresent. Yes, this really is what Chris and Steve sound like whenever they get together... Links:
| |||
| 12 Mar 2021 | 24: Get Organized! | ||
Morgan returns from handing in her dissertation! Very topically, Morgan and Chris talk about organizational systems which can help you stay on track... even when you're working from home or trying to finish your PhD during a global pandemic. Links:
| |||
| 28 Mar 2021 | 25: Governance, Leadership, and Founder's Syndrome | ||
What story does an institution tell about itself? To whom does a governance structure and its leadership serve? To what degree are leaders within a governing institution subject or exempt to the rules of the governed? We use this framework to discuss the unexpected announcement of Richard Stallman's re-appointment to the FSF board, by the FSF board. Content warning: depression and sexual harassment are both mentioned in this episode. Links:
| |||
| 23 Apr 2021 | 26: Dr. Morgan Lemmer-Webber, an academic journey | ||
Remember how we've been saying the entire run of this show "Morgan's hard at work at finishing her PhD dissertation?" Well guess what! She finally got it handed in and defended it... Morgan is now officially Dr. Morgan Lemmer-Webber! (She still has to wrap up a few edits but hey it's official now!) Morgan walks us through her experiences of the graduate school process, from applying (and re-applying) to schools, to a masters program, to a PhD program, and the many fun steps, bumps, and adventures in-between. Not much in terms of show notes this episode, but here are some pictures!
Congratulations again, Morgan! | |||
| 06 May 2021 | 27: Nerdout! Game Design and Social Systems | ||
Steve is back, talking with Chris about viewing social systems through the lens of game design. How do game mechanics, uncertainty, and narrative map onto governance, society, and citizen participation? Thanks to Kate and Ricky for participating in a pre-show discussion which generated many of the ideas explored in this episode. Links:
| |||
| 23 May 2021 | 28: FOSS Stitch w/ Elana Hashman and Katie McLaughlin | ||
Elana Hashman (Python Software Foundation Fellow and open source hacker) and Katie McLaughlin (Python Software Foundation Fellow and crafter) join us to talk about F(L)OSS meets embroidery and cross stitching (FOSS stitching?) including a significant conversation about FLOSS vs embroidery floss. Much is also conversed about ih, a project started by Katie with contributions from Elana, a python project which helps generate embroidery patterns from images. Links:
Still here? How about some extra images? Morgan's needlework of an alpaca, made with alpaca fiber:
Kirby quilt that Morgan did for a babby:
| |||
| 12 Jun 2021 | 29: Building Blocks for User Freedom | ||
Any skillset has basic foundational elements or building blocks. In this recording of Chris and Morgan's talk at ÖzgürKon, we discuss the way that access to those basic elements is limited in modern society. This can be seen in any number of fields from actual building blocks increasingly being sold in sets to make specific toys as opposed to generic buckets of blocks that allow kids to develop their creativity to the way that access to the source code and hardware in our technology is increasingly restricted. Also! In this episode we announce Hack and Craft, a new companion "stitch and bitch" style usergroup to FOSS & Crafts. (Any crafting is welcome... including computer programming, as long as it's a fun project!) Feel free to bring your own project and hang out at inagural meeting on June 19th! Links: | |||
| 30 Jul 2020 | 3: Textile production and a nostalgic past | ||
These days textile production is mostly automated aside from some niche markets and craft production. Craft production of textiles today taps into a vision of a nostalgic past, often evoking memories of a time the audience member wasn't there for. It turns out this potent imagery has been used not just for inspiring hobbyist crafters everywhere to pull out the drop spindle and knitting needles, but also by political participants going back all the way to (at least) Ancient Rome to try to steer a particular narrative. Follow some of that history from past to present, and hear from Morgan about how the whole process of textile production works starting from raw materials... from sheep to sweater! Links and references:
| |||
| 28 Jun 2021 | 30: Gender and Sexuality, A Personal Perspective | ||
On this episode, Chris talks about being nonbinary trans-femme and Morgan talks about being demisexual (and briefly about both being pansexual) and how they have both navigated these experiences in their lives and relationship.
Links:
| |||
| 11 Jul 2021 | 31: Talking Pressbooks and OER with Steel Wagstaff | ||
Steel Wagstaff joins us to talk about their work at Pressbooks, a FOSS based book publishing suite particularly focused on Open Educational Resources (OER), as well as talking about OER generally, open access, and education as a fundamental human right!
| |||
| 20 Jul 2021 | 32: Happy FOSS & Crafts anniversary! | ||
Chris and Morgan reflect on one year of FOSS & Crafts, as well as announcing... FOSS & Crafts Studios! Links:
| |||
| 01 Aug 2021 | 33: Which Color Should We Paint This Episode? | ||
In this episode, we discuss "bikeshedding" (also known as the Law of Triviality), the famous proposition that complex contributions and ideas (such as plans to build a nuclear power plant), often of high impact and importance, move forward with relatively little interference, whereas simple contributions and conversations (such as which color to paint a bikeshed) get caught up in committee and high-volume debate, and how this tends to impact FOSS communities. We do a (slightly dramatic) reading of the original email, hold a conversation about it, and then come back to the topic with a twist right after everyone (including ourselves) thought the episode was over. Links:
| |||
| 19 Aug 2021 | 34: Women and Wool Working in the Ancient Roman Empire, Part 1 | ||
In the first of two episodes on Morgan's dissertation we introduce the topic of women and textile production in the Roman Empire. Scholars have often viewed the domestic and commercial divide in textile production along gendered lines, associating domestic production with women in the context of the ideal of feminine virtue and commercial production with men working in centralized production centers. Here we use the cottage industry model to contextualize the role of women’s labor in the Roman textile industry, exploring the links between domestic production and commercial distribution. Links:
| |||
| 30 Aug 2021 | 35: Women and Wool Working in the Ancient Roman Empire, Part 2 | ||
In Part 1 of Women and Wool Working in the Ancient Roman Empire, we discussed the practical matters of textile production in domestic and commercial contexts. In this second episode, we look at the performative ways that textile production was used to construct women's identities. This includes the incorporation of textile tools and production into rites of passage such as marriage, childbirth, and death as a symbol of the virtuous matron. We further discuss religious use and association of textile production through the stories of the Fates, Arachne, and the Virgin Mary. We then come around to weave the rest of the narrative together: could the piece that fits in the women-shaped hole of textile production in ancient Rome be... women? This episode is dedicated in loving memory of Laura Callahan-Hazard and Sigrid Steinbock, both enthusiastic supporters of Morgan's dissertation, themselves both textile artists, and who both had wanted to read Morgan's dissertation but left this world too soon. Links:
| |||
| 11 Sep 2021 | 36: Topics of interest! | ||
Lightning round! Morgan and Christine blast through a bunch of snack-sized topics they're currently interested in, ranging from an actual FOSS video game made for the NES, to "Free Soft Wear" clothing, to compiler towers!
above image from Morgan's blogpost on "free soft wear" Links:
| |||
| 03 Nov 2021 | 37: Salt on Resilience in FOSS | ||
Wm Salt Hale joins us to talk about his dissertation on resilience in FOSS communities (especially after crisis events), the kind of impacts founder decisions can have on long-term community development, especially as seen through reactions to software vulnerabilities and license decisions. Also! Salt mentions that we're keynoting at SeaGL this weekend! It's an online conference, so maybe we'll see you there! Links: | |||
| 28 Nov 2021 | 38: Spritely Updates! (November 2021) | ||
It's time for some updates on Spritely, the project Christine founded to advance decentralized networking technology! A lot has happened since our episode about Spritely from last year (which is really where Spritely got its main public announcement)! Most notably, Jessica Tallon has joined the project thanks to a generous grant from NLNet and NGI Zero! But there's a lot more that has happened too, so listen in! ALSO! As mentioned at the end of this episode, starting with the NEXT episode, we'll begin signing off every episode by thanking donors to FOSS & Crafts Studios' Patreon! By donating you both support this podcast AND Christine's work on Spritely! Links:
| |||
| 17 Dec 2021 | 39: The TinyNES: An Open Hardware "Tiny Nostalgia Evocation Square" | ||
Dan Gilbert of Tall Dog joins us to talk about the Tiny Nostalgia Evocation Square (or TinyNES for short)! The TinyNES is an open hardware system compatible with the compatible with original Nintendo Entertainment System and Famicom cartridges and controllers. Instead of being just an emulator or FPGA-based implementation, the TinyNES uses the original 6502-derived chips and a custom circuit board, preserving and carrying forward computing history! Oh yeah, and it's also running a crowdfunding campaign, so you can order your own and support open hardware in the best way possible: by playing video games! By the way, we mentioned that FOSS & Crafts Studios would be launching its first collaboration... we're helping to run the crowdfunding campaign on this one (and couldn't be more excited about it)! Links:
| |||
| 06 Aug 2020 | 4: The Eight Kinds of Fun | ||
Morgan and Chris look at the domains of FOSS and crafts from the lens of the Eight Kinds of Fun, traditionally used to analyze game design. What kinds of ways do different people enjoy participating in creative activities? How can examining those help us understand how to grow our communities to accomodate different participants with different styles of interests? Links:
| |||
| 10 Jan 2022 | 40: Interdisciplinarity and FOSS (SeaGL Keynote) | ||
Morgan and Christine talk about the skills they’ve learned in their humanities backgrounds and how those have translated into their work within FOSS communities and projects. They’ll then discuss the benefits of seeking out varied skillsets within your communities, the value of looking at problems from multiple lenses, and how to use all of the tools we’ve got to promote our projects. (This episode is the audio from our SeaGL keynote of the same name!) Oh yeah, and as we said in the intro, the TinyNES campaign is going strong (see our last episode)! We met the minimum goal which means it's happening! Still a couple of weeks left (at time of writing) to get yourself an open hardware NES, but over half of the "genuine chip" ones are now sold out, so get yours while you can! Links:
| |||
| 05 Feb 2022 | 41: Learning Emacs | ||
Morgan finally overcomes her fear of Emacs and we talk about Morgan and Christine's respective experiences learning it, and how you can pick it up too! Our talks tomorrow at FOSDEM's Declarative and Minimalistic Computing room: Switching capslock and ctrl stuff: (it's a great idea even if you don't use Emacs; many keyboards used to have ctrl key where capslock now is, and much advanced program use benefits from keyboard shortcuts):
Links:
| |||
| 06 Mar 2022 | 42: Learning the Sewing Machine | ||
Christine finally overcomes her fear of the sewing machine and we talk about Christine and Morgan's respective experiences learning it, and how you can pick it up too! Links:
| |||
| 31 Mar 2022 | 43: Repetitive Strain Injuries | ||
This week we’re talking about Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI). Christine and Morgan tell their stories bout over-using their wrists from programming (prodded along by an injury) and writing academic papers respectively. We discuss what you can do to treat or minimize the effects of these injuries then cap it off with a discussion of RSI gloves including Morgan's Free Soft Wear RSI glove pattern.
| |||
| 30 Apr 2022 | 44: Celebrating a Decade of Guix | ||
Guix turns ten! We celebrate Guix's first decade by highlighting ten great things about Guix! Hear all about functional package management, time-traveling operating systems, and why "Composable DSLs" are great! Links:
| |||
| 25 May 2022 | 45: A high level introduction to cryptography | ||
In this episode we give a very (very) high level introduction to cryptography concepts. No math or programming background required! Links:
| |||
| 01 Jun 2022 | 46: Mark S. Miller on Distributed Objects, Part 1 | ||
Calling all programming language nerds! Distinguished computer scientist Mark S. Miller (presently at Agoric) joins us to tell us all about distributed object programming languages and their history! We talk about actors, a bit of Xanadu, and little known but incredibly influential programming languages like Flat Concurrent Prolog, Joule, and E! Actually there's so much to talk about that this episode is just part one! There's more to come! Links:
| |||
| 23 Jun 2022 | 47: What is Lisp? | ||
This episode is all about the Lisp family of programming languages! Ever looked at Lisp and wondered why so many programmers gush about such a weird looking programming language style? What's with all those parentheses? Surely there must be something you get out of them for so many programming nerds to gush about the language! We do a light dive into Lisp's history, talk about what makes Lisp so powerful, and nerd out about the many, many kinds of Lisps out there! Announcement: Christine is gonna give an intro-to-Scheme tutorial at our next Hack & Craft! Saturday July 2nd, 2022 at 20:00-22:00 ET! Come and learn some Scheme with us! Links:
| |||
| 30 Jun 2022 | 48: Sophie Jantak on pet portraits and Blender's Grease Pencil | ||
The amazing Sophie Jantak joins us to talk about how she makes pet portraits (including one she made for us!) using Blender's Grease Pencil. Hear about Sophie's process, why Grease Pencil is the right tool for her, and what her collalboration process is like on pet portrait commissions! (And yes, you can commission Sophie tool!) BONUS FREE CULTURAL SOURCE CONTENT! We've collectively decided to release this artwork's source code as a free cultural work! Get the .blend (CC BY-SA 4.0)! HACK AND CRAFT SCHEME TUTORIALS! Also a reminder, we'll be hosting two versions of a "Intro to Scheme" tutorial during the two Hack & Craft meetings this month!
Links:
| |||
| 15 Jul 2022 | 49: Lisp but Beautiful; Lisp for Everyone | ||
Morgan's out sick! And yet Morgan is still in this episode! And that's because this episode is the audio version of a talk by the very same name from FOSDEM 2022, co-presented by Christine and Morgan! But since Morgan isn't here, Christine fills in, and also gets a bit silly. HACK AND CRAFT SCHEME TUTORIALS! The last live scheme tutorial went really well! And relatedly, Christine and the Spritely Institute just published A Scheme Primer, which is more or less the text version of that presentation! The next live verison of the sheme tutorial will be hosted at Hack & Craft! Come this Saturday, July 16, 2pm-4pm ET (6pm-8pm UTC)! We're planning to record this one! Oh, and bonus Fructure gif:
Links:
| |||
| 13 Aug 2020 | 5: Milkytracker, chiptunes, and that intro music | ||
Chris's journey of making the intro music is used as a backdrop to explore how to make music in Milkytracker, a FOSS program for making tracker music, as well as to explore a bit of sound theory, what chiptunes and tracker music are, and even a bit of exploring what it's like to learn something new even when you aren't necessarily very good yet. Links:
Made it all the way to the end of the podcast and this blogpost? I guess you really did stay awhile... | |||
| 20 Aug 2020 | 6: [Theatre] What Escaped from the Demonic Z.O.O.O.O. (part 1) | ||
On the first ever episode of FOSS and Crafts Theatre (a new subshow of FOSS and Crafts), Chris and Morgan are joined by veteran role playing game players Nick and LP to bring everyone a story of three demonic employees of the international conglomerate, Demonstrative Industries. Something has escaped from the Demonic Z.O.O.O.O. to the human realm, and its up to our demon heroes to clean up the mess before anyone finds out. Can they succeed in their mission and keep their corporate overlords pleased with them, or will things get dramatically out of hand... or perhaps something in-between? Find out on today's episode (part one of two)! Links:
| |||
| 27 Aug 2020 | 7: [Theatre] What Escaped from the Demonic Z.O.O.O.O. (part 2) | ||
Leaving off from part 1, the office demons of Styx, Hexia, and Gummy Bear (or is it Gerumphy or perhaps Gzeumphi Behr?) track down and confront the mysterious lampmorel creature directly. What dangers await them? And just what secrets are the corporate overlords of Demonstrative Industries and Plentimint Industries both keeping (perhaps even from each other)? Find out in this thrilling conclusion! | |||
| 03 Sep 2020 | 8: Stefano Zacchiroli on preserving source code at Software Heritage | ||
We are extremely excited to have on our first FOSS & Crafts guest: Stefano Zacchiroli! (Also known on some corners of the FOSS world as just "zack".) Stefano has a long history of FOSS advocacy, most famously for his role in Debian where he served three well-regarded terms as Debian Project Leader. These days zack works on Software Heritage, an archival institution for software source code. We talk about how Software Heritage plays a role in common with other GLAM institutions (which stands for "Galleries, Libraries Archives and Museums"). . o O (Could we possibly have a more appropriate FOSS & Crafts first guest episode?) Links: | |||
| 10 Sep 2020 | 9: What is Spritely? | ||
What is this Spritely project that's taken up most of Chris's time for the last several years? Something about advancing distributed/decentralized social networks, but what does that mean? Chris and Morgan talk about it while they drive to the bank!
Links:
| |||
| 15 Jul 2020 | Episode 0: Welcome to FOSS and Crafts! | ||
Here it is, the very first episode of FOSS and Crafts! Co-hosts Chris and Morgan introduce themselves, their backgrounds, and give some sense of what to expect from the show. Links: | |||
