FOSS and Crafts

FOSS and Crafts

By FOSS and CraftsTechnologyLeisureCrafts
Download on the App Store

FOSS and Crafts episodes

  • 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:

    • FOSS & Crafts Episode 1: Collabortive Storytelling with Dice

    introduces the idea of RPGs as a way of making narratives together.

  • See also Freeform Universal (the

    • RPG system used for this episode, explained in depth in Episode 1)!

  • And of course, see

    • Chapter 1 of the What Goblins Saga!

    0 min
  • 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:

    • Other philosophical systems mentioned:

      • Utilitarianism

      • Kantianism

      • Ethics of Care

    • Peter Singer's book

    Animal Liberation,
    and the argument for
    Equal consideration of interests.
    (Note that Peter Singer gets criticism from some disability circles;
    this is a good summary.
    In general it's our position to focus on "raising up" rights,
    including those of animals; pitting animal rights vs disabled rights need
    not be done in a society with as many resources as ours presently is.)

  • Amartya Sen, whose book

    • Development as Freedom
    had a bigger background influence than Chris probably realized in
    its treatment of the agency of people as the primary index by which
    we measure a country's development

  • The GNU Manifesto.

    • Search for "Kantian ethics" on the page.
    (Curiously its preceding sentence is described in
    an example that appears consequentialist! By the way, pretty much
    every decent ethical system claims that its foundation is the
    "golden rule", this isn't unique to Kantianism.)

  • The Free Software Definition.

    • Also note the pun on another speech called
    The Four Freedoms.

  • Free as in Freedom episode with the AGPL panel discussion

  • A FOSDEM talk in 2014, The Road Ahead for Network Freedom,

    • where "freedom for developers, but not for users" is mentioned as a
    phrase

  • Libre Lounge's subtitle: "a casual

    • podcast about user freedom", including
    mentioned episode with Karen Sandler

  • Some talks in 2018 by Molly DeBlanc (and Karen Sandler) using the term

    • "user freedom":

    • That's a free software issue!

    • User freedom: A love story

  • Molly DeBlanc has a wonderful article giving a personal definition of "user freedom"

  • Declaration of Digital Autonomy

  • OCap conference 2018,

    • source of the mentioned dinner between Chris, Mark Miller, Kate Sills

  • Chris's ActivityPub Conference 2019 keynote,

    • ActivityPub: past, present, future

    0 min
  • 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:

    • FOSS & Crafts Episode 1: Collabortive Storytelling with Dice

    introduces the idea of RPGs as a way of making narratives together.

  • See also Freeform Universal (the

    • RPG system used for this episode, explained in depth in Episode 1)!

    0 min
  • 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:

    • Spritely

      • Spritely Goblins (repo), the

    distributed programming language environment

  • The distributed storage demos: Magenc, Crystal, and Golem. Currently being explored as the Datashards project.

  • Where's the website? Not up at the time of episode release yet.

    • Get on that, Chris!

  • The E programming language

  • Rare video demonstrating Electric Communities Habitat

  • CapTP

  • Goblins demos

    • Terminal Phase time travel demo

    • A discussion about the

    • distributed chat demo
    mentioned in the episode

  • Interview where Chris first announced Spritely on We Distribute

  • Spritely IRC channel

    • 0 min
  • 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:

    • Software Heritage

      • Information on Software Heritage for developers

      • Support Software Heritage!

    • Inria

    • Debian

    • Guix

    • Software Heritage and GNU Guix join forces to enable long term reproducibility

    • Tragedy of the Commons

    • Free-rider problem

    • Rivalrous vs non-rivalrous goods

    0 min
  • 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!

    0 min
  • 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:

    • If you haven't already, perhaps listen to

    FOSS & Crafts Episode 1: Collabortive Storytelling with Dice
    which introduces the idea of narrative RPGs.
    (That's also where we floated the idea to listeners of doing live RPG
    episodes as a way of generating new free culture content, to which we
    got an enthusiastic response, leading to this new sub-show!)

  • See also Freeform Universal (the

    • RPG system used for this episode, explained in depth in Episode 1)!

    0 min
  • 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:

    • Milkytracker

    • sfxr

    • drpetter's sound theory and synthesis page

    • musagi and the

    musagi tutorial

  • The Impulse Project

  • The Commodore 64

    • computer and its famous SID chip

  • c64.com, an archive of Commodore 64 games/programs

    • (pretty much all proprietary though).
    Many of these have interesting cracked demos that are as interesting as
    the programs themselves.

  • Monty on the Run

    • with its music by the famous Commodore 64 composer,
    Rob Hubbard

    • Listen to the Monty on the Run main theme

    • Rob Hubbard's Music: Disassembled, Commented and Explained

    • Not shown in the podcast but you really also ought to listen to the

    Commando theme for the Commodore 64

  • Moments by Mr. Lou (mp3)

    • and the original XM file (zipped)
    Really worth listening to the XM in Milkytracker so you can see
    how things work.

  • More cool music on the bottom of

    • Milkytracker's downloads page
    and especially on The Mod Archive.

  • The demoscene

  • Chiptunes

  • Music trackers

  • Famitracker

    • (Free software so why the heck is it Windows-only still?
    Someone finish porting it!)

  • Milkytracker's documentation page

    • has of course its own manual
    but also a number of interesting historical music tracking guides

  • Brandon Walsh's milkytracker / chiptune tutorials

    • (Content warning in that he does say an ablist slur somewhere in those videos.)

  • Music theory stuff

    • Open Music Theory

    • 8-bit Music Theory

    • Learn music theory in half an hour

    • (well, some of it)

  • freesound, amazing commons of useful samples

    • for your music composition needs

  • I guess maybe you want to look at Chris's sound file sources (but probably not)

    • (All CC BY-SA 3.0, like the show)

    • Conversations with a Computer

    • Dollhouse

    • Ecto House

    • the arpeggio example shown in the show

    • And yes, the FOSS and Crafts intro theme

    Made it all the way to the end of the podcast and this blogpost?

    I guess you really did stay awhile...

    0 min
  • 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:

    • MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research

    • An article about the Eight Kinds of Fun, oriented at RPG GMs

    • Ludology episode about fun in board games, including the Eight Kinds of Fun

    • Chris's keynote from last year's ActivityPub conference:

    ActivityPub: past, present future

    0 min
  • 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:

    • Suetonius, Life of Augustus;

    scroll down to section 73 for the secton on his humble furnishings and
    home-made clothing.

  • Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

    • The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth. New York: Vintage Books, 2001.
    Or a shorter
    article
    sourced from this book.

  • Trivedi, Lisa. Clothing Gandhi's Nation : Homespun and Modern India.

    • Bloomington :Indiana University Press, 2007. Or a shorter
    article
    sourced from this book.

  • Obniski, Monica. “The Arts and Crafts Movement in America.”

    • In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan
    Museum of Art, (June 2008)

  • Washing Fleece

  • Carding Fiber

  • Combing Fiber

  • Spinning, Spinning with a drop spindle and distaff

  • Yarn Bombing

  • Pussy Hat Project's official website.

    • The Wikipedia
    article addresses the raised issues of transphobia and racism and
    links to further sources.

  • Tiny Pricks Project

  • The mask pattern

    • that Morgan uses, made by our friend Dan Gilbert,
    who makes cool open things, check them out.

    0 min

About FOSS and Crafts

From the publisher's feed

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