FOSS and Crafts

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...

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: Utilita...

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...

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 Gole...

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 sou...

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...

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 mes...

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 an...

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...

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, bu...

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 F...

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 o...

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: Wikipedia summary of the Arts and Crafts movement