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Mar 2024

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A podcast about free software, free culture, and making things together.

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March 3, 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:<ul><li><a href="https://blender.org/">Blender</a></li><li><a href="https://www.blender.org/about/history/">Blender history</a></li><li><a href="https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/grease_pencil/index.html">Grease pencil</a></li><li>Some historical Blender videos from the NeoGeo and Not a Number days: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKAQNBaZ_I8">Did It, Done It</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AMubc7C1vw">Not a Number commercial</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qyVRFI0B6g">Come and See</a></li><li><a href="https://orange.blender.org/">Elephants Dream</a>, aka Project Orange</li><li><a href="https://peach.blender.org/">Big Buck Bunny</a></li><li>Previous episodes on blender:<ul><li><a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/16-bassam-kurdali-blender-open-movies-education.html">Blender for open movie productions and education</a></li><li><a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/48-sophie-jantak-pet-portraits-grease-pencil.html">Sophie Jantak on pet portraits and Blender's Grease Pencil</a></li></ul></li><li>Blender Conference videos mentioned:<ul><li><a href="https://conference.blender.org/2023/presentations/1928/">Inklines Across The Spiderverse</a></li><li><a href="https://conference.blender.org/2023/presentations/1823/">My Journey Across the Spider-Verse: from Hobbyist to Hollywood</a></li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWPdSJ1-Dvs">Forensic Architecture - spatial analysis for human rights cases</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsi_VyzbDrE">The MediaGoblin campaign video</a> (well, the second one)</li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUIMYnSbfPQ">14th anniversary animation gift to Morgan</a></li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88JUfWLJJ5g">In Unexpected Places</a></li><li><a href="http://thomaskole.nl/s2s/">Seams to Sewing Pattern</a> (a Blender plugin for making clothes and stuffed animals!) (could we make <a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/055-free-soft-wear.html">Free Soft Wear</a> patterns with it?)</li><li><a href="https://studio.blender.org/films/wing-it/">Wing It!</a></li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6ESaby2KDA&list=PLav47HAVZMjkgw-ueySUvvq1aynJ4s7ry">Wing It! Production Logs</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc5XEcHGIHU&list=PLa1F2ddGya_8I8QCMCKlQUOQpgOga2nZ-">Blenderheads</a></li><li>Episodes about lisp, because obviously Blender needs more lisp (who's going to do it):<ul><li><a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/47-what-is-lisp.html">What is Lisp?</a></li><li><a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/49-lisp-but-beautiful-lisp-for-everyone.html">Lisp but Beautiful, Lisp for Everyone</a></li></ul></li></ul>

December 10, 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:<ul><li>Morgan presented this as a (much shorter) talk at the <a href="https://dressconference.org/">Dress Conference 2023</a></li><li><a href="/static/images/blog/a-textile-historians-guide-to-making-clothing.pdf">Slides from the presentation</a></li><li><a href="https://mlemmer.org/dissertation/">Morgan's Dissertation</a>, which we <a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/34-women-and-wool-working-part1.html">also</a> <a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/35-women-and-wool-working-part2.html">covered</a></li><li><a href="https://mlemmer.org/blog/RSIgloves/">RSI Glove Pattern</a></li></ul>The quote that Morgan somewhat misremembered about a woman preparing wool before the winter:<blockquote>"A thrifty countrywoman had a small croft, she and her sturdy spouse. He tilled his own land, whether the work called for the plough, or the curved sickle, or the hoe. She would now sweep the cottage, supported on props; now she would set the eggs to be hatched under the plumage of the brooding hen; or she gathered green mallows or white mushrooms, or warmed the low hearth with welcome fire. And yet she diligently employed her hands at the loom, and armed herself against the threats of winter." -- Ovid, Fasti 4.687-714</blockquote>

October 1, 2023

60: Governance, part 2

Back again with governance... part two! (See also: <a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/059-governance-part1.html">part one</a>!) Here we talk about some organizations and how they can be seen as "templates" for certain governance archetypes.Links:<ul><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_Solutions">Cygnus</a>, <a href="https://www.cygwin.com/">Cygwin</a></li><li><a href="https://joinmastodon.org/">Mastodon</a></li><li><a href="https://www.android.com/">Android</a></li><li><a href="https://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>, <a href="https://www.gnu.org/">GNU</a></li><li><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software Freedom Conservancy</a>, <a href="https://www.outreachy.org/">Outreachy</a>, <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/">Conservancy's copyleft compliance projects</a></li><li><a href="https://commonsconservancy.org/">Commons Conservancy</a></li><li><a href="https://f-droid.org/">F-Droid</a></li><li><a href="https://opencollective.com/">Open Collective</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linuxfoundation.org/">Linux Foundation</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)(3)_organization">501(c)(3)</a> vs <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)_organization#501.28c.29.286.29">501(c)(6)</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stichting">Stitchting</a></li><li><a href="http://faif.us">Free as in Freedom</a></li><li><a href="https://lkml.org/">LKML</a> (the Linux Kernel Mailing List)</li><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20020214033203/http://www.kerneltrap.com/article.php?sid=513">Linus Doesn't Scale</a></li><li><a href="https://spritely.institute">Spritely Networked Communities Institute</a></li><li><a href="https://www.python.org/">Python</a> and the <a href="https://www.python.org/psf-landing/">Python Software Foundation</a>, <a href="https://us.pycon.org/">PyCon</a>, the <a href="https://pypi.org/">Python Package Index</a></li><li><a href="https://peps.python.org/pep-0000/">Python PEPs (Python Enhancement Proposals)</a>, <a href="https://xmpp.org/extensions/">XMPP XEPs</a>, <a href="https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep">Fediverse FEPs</a>, <a href="https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs">Rust RFCs</a></li><li><a href="https://www.blender.org/">Blender</a>, <a href="https://www.blender.org/about/foundation/">Blender Foundation</a>, <a href="https://www.blender.org/about/institute/">Blender Institute</a>, <a href="https://studio.blender.org/welcome/">Blender Studio</a></li><li><a href="https://www.blender.org/about/history/">Blender's history</a></li><li><a href="https://orange.blender.org/">Elephants Dream</a></li><li><a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/">Mozilla Foundation</a> and <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/moco/">Mozilla Corporation</a></li><li><a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, <a href="https://www.debian.org/intro/organization">Debian's organizational structure</a>, and <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution">Debian's constitution</a></li><li><a href="https://www.eff.org/">EFF</a></li><li>Oh yeah and I guess we should link the <a href="https://www.thewha.org/">World History Association</a>!</li></ul>

September 1, 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:<ul><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GiwoMkuSHg&t=8160s">Why We Need Code of Conducts, and Why They're Not Enough, by Aeva Black</a></li><li><a href="https://cloud.blender.org">Blender Cloud</a> and the <a href="https://fund.blender.org/">Blender Development Fund</a></li></ul>

June 16, 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:<ul><li><a href="https://webassembly.org/">WebAssembly</a></li><li><a href="https://gitlab.com/spritely/guile-hoot/">Hoot!</a> (and <a href="https://spritely.institute/news/guile-on-web-assembly-project-underway.html">Hoot announcement</a>, <a href="https://spritely.institute/news/andy-wingo-leads-g2W.html">Andy Wingo joining</a>, <a href="https://spritely.institute/news/robin-templeton-joins.html">Robin Templeton joining</a>)</li><li><a href="https://spritely.institute/news/hoot-wireworld-live-in-browser.html">Lisp Game Jam - "Wireworld" - Hoot's low level WASM tooling in action</a></li><li><a href="https://spritely.institute/news/scheme-to-wasm-lambdas-recursion.html">Directly compiling Scheme to WebAssembly: lambdas, recursion, iteration!</a></li><li><a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly/Understanding_the_text_format">Understanding the WebAssembly text format</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/WebAssembly/gc/blob/master/proposals/gc/Overview.md">WebAssembly GC proposal</a></li><li><a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/49-lisp-but-beautiful-lisp-for-everyone.html">Episode 49: Lisp but Beautiful; Lisp for Everyone</a></li><li><a href="https://wasi.dev/">WASI</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX">POSIX</a></li><li><a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/17-gardening-seedling-to-seasoned.html">Episode 17: Gardening, from seedling to seasoned</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life">Conway's Game of Life</a></li><li><a href="https://wasm4.org/">WASM-4</a></li><li><a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/46-mark-miller-on-distributed-objects-part-1.html">Episode 46: Mark S. Miller on Distributed Objects, Part 1</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/google/schism">Schism</a> by Eric Holk</li></ul>

May 15, 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:<ul><li><a href="https://f-droid.org/">F-Droid</a></li><li><a href="https://sylviavanos.nl/">Sylvia van Os</a></li><li><a href="https://at.or.at/">Hans-Christoph Steiner</a></li><li><a href="https://f-droid.org/2023/03/20/f-droid-board.html">F-Droid board announcement</a></li><li><a href="https://guardianproject.info/">Guardian Project</a></li><li><a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/01/google-play-bans-open-source-matrix-client-element-citing-abusive-content/">Google Play bans Matrix/Element</a></li><li><a href="https://catima.app/">Catima</a></li><li><a href="https://sylviavanos.nl/blog/2021/12/24/google_play_hell.html">Your app is not compliant with Google Play Policies: A story from hell</a></li></ul>

March 1, 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:<ul><li>Making dehydrated meals overview (Christine's Kitchen 0): [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaY8kryWBT4">YouTube</a>] [<a href="https://share.tube/w/2Cbxaw1kmzz1SXgkgTZesm">PeerTube</a>]</li><li><a href="https://www.backpackingchef.com/">Backpacking chef</a></li><li><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/08/25/214799882/dishwasher-cooking-make-your-dinner-while-cleaning-the-plates">Dishwasher cooking</a> (yes it is a thing)</li></ul>

February 1, 2023

55: Free Soft Wear

Morgan talks about "Free Soft Wear": textile processes under free culture licenses!Links:<ul><li><a href="https://peertube.linuxrocks.online/w/sp8gqwcxHAWQFuM2jcqkKn">Morgan's talk about Free Soft Wear at the Creative Freedom Summit</a></li><li><a href="https://www.trueelena.org/">Elena of Valhalla</a>’s <a href="https://sewing-patterns.trueelena.org/">repository of CC BY-SA sewing patterns</a></li><li><a href="https://mlemmer.org">Morgan's blog</a><ul><li><a href="https://mlemmer.org/free_soft_wear_index/">Free Soft Wear index</a></li><li><a href="https://mlemmer.org/blog/baskic_sewing_tutorial/">Dice bag and simple skirt tutorials</a></li><li><a href="https://mlemmer.org/blog/RSIgloves/">RSI Glove pattern</a></li><li><a href="https://mlemmer.org/blog/simple_sweater/">Simple sweater</a></li><li><a href="https://mlemmer.org/blog/layered_skirt_tutorial/">Layered Skirt</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="https://creativecommons.org/author/katwalshcreativecommons-org/">Kat Walsh</a> or <a href="https://stareinto.space/@kat">@kat@stareinto.space</a></li><li><a href="https://talldog.dozuki.com/Guide/How+to+make+a+respirator-style+face+mask/2">Tall Dog Electronics face mask</a> (You may recognize Dan and Tall Dog Electronics of <a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/39-tinynes.html">TinyNES fame</a>)</li><li><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org">Wikimedia Commons</a></li><li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a></li><li><a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/42-learning-the-sewing-machine.html">Learning the sewing machine</a></li><li><a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/43-repetitive-strain-injuries.html">RSI episode</a></li><li><a href="https://freesewing.org/">FreeSewing</a> (an open source software project that creates made-to-measure creative commons licensed sewing patterns)</li></ul>

December 28, 2022

54: Oops!

Everyone goofs sometimes. Today we talk accidents... some happy, some not!Links:<ul><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decaffeination">Decaf coffee</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_penicillin">history of penicillin</a>, your pop-sci "accidents of history" stories of the day. Look, this is admittedly kind of a fluff episode.</li><li>Have we linked to <a href="https://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html">Worse is Better</a> before? We did? In the <a href="/episodes/47-what-is-lisp.html">lisp episode</a>?</li><li>And here's the <a href="/episodes/052-terminal-phase.html">Terminal Phase episode</a></li></ul>

December 1, 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:<ul><li><a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/">ActivityPub</a>, the protocol which wires the federated social web together, of which Christine is co-author! Be sure to check out the <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#Overview">Overview section</a>... it's actually fairly easy to understand!</li><li>Some of the implementations discussed (though there are many more):<ul><li><a href="https://joinmastodon.org/">Mastodon</a></li><li><a href="https://joinpeertube.org/">Peertube</a></li><li><a href="https://pixelfed.org/">Pixelfed</a></li><li><a href="https://pleroma.social/">Pleroma</a></li></ul></li><li>A lot has been written about Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. Here's <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/timeline-elon-musks-tumultuous-twitter-acquisition-attempt/story?id=86611191">a pretty decent timeline</a> (though it's missing the <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/10/10/elon-musk-says-he-lost-transgender-daughter-because-of-neo-marxists/">transphobia</a> <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/elon-music-twitter-transgender-harassment-misinformation.html">stuff</a>).</li><li><a href="https://www.w3.org/wiki/Socialwg/">W3C Social Web Working Group</a> is where ActivityPub was standardized</li><li><a href="https://gitlab.com/spritely/ocappub/blob/master/README.org">OcapPub</a> (while not complete, it lays out a lot of the core problems with the way the fediverse has gone)</li><li><a href="https://spritely.institute/">The Spritely Institute</a></li><li>Previous episodes on Spritely: <a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/9-what-is-spritely.html">What is Spritely?</a>, <a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/38-spritely-updates-november-2021.html">Spritely Updates! (November 2021)</a>, and sorta kinda the <a href="https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/052-terminal-phase.html">Terminal Phase episode</a></li><li><a href="https://dr.amy.gy/">The Presentation of Self on a Decentralized Web</a> (PhD dissertation by ActivityPub co-author Amy Guy, partly covers its standardization)</li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_Protocol">SMTP</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP">XMPP</a> can be seen as decentralized "social networks" before that term took off</li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OStatus">OStatus</a></li><li><a href="http://pump.io/">pump.io</a> is where the <a href="https://github.com/e14n/pump.io/blob/master/API.md">pump.io API</a> came from, which is the direct predecessor to ActivityPub</li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_social">StatusNet / GNU Social</a></li><li><a href="https://diaspora.social/">Diaspora</a></li><li><a href="https://mediagoblin.org/">MediaGoblin</a></li><li><a href="https://conf.tube/video-channels/apconf_channel/videos">APConf videos</a></li><li><a href="https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2013/12/08/coining-context-collapse.html">Context Collapse</a></li><li>Early writeups from Christine some of these ideas, but are old:<ul><li><a href="https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rwot5-boston/blob/master/final-documents/activitypub-decentralized-distributed.md">ActivityPub: from decentralied to distributed social networks</a></li><li><a href="https://gitlab.com/dustyweb/magenc/blob/master/magenc/scribblings/intro.org">magenc</a></li><li><a href="https://gitlab.com/spritely/crystal/blob/master/crystal/scribblings/intro.org">crystal</a></li><li><a href="https://gitlab.com/spritely/golem/blob/master/README.org">golem</a></li></ul></li></ul>