A podcast about free software, free culture, and making things together
FOSS and Crafts is an interdisciplinary exploration of collaborative creation. We believe that all works (whether digital or traditional in nature) are informed by history as well as one's surrounding culture and community, whether directly or indirectly, and that everyone benefits from the expansion of the commons. We explore such topics as computer programming, craft production, user freedom and agency, especially informed by the principles of the F(L)OSS (Free, Libre, and Open Source Software) and free culture movements.
FOSS and Crafts's usual hosts are Morgan Lemmer-Webber and Christine Lemmer-Webber.
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Episodes and news
- 48: Sophie Jantak on pet portraits and Blender's Grease Pencil
- 47: What is Lisp?Thu 23 June 2022
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!
- 46: Mark S. Miller on Distributed Objects, Part 1Tue 31 May 2022
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!
- 45: A high level introduction to cryptographyWed 25 May 2022
In this episode we give a very (very) high level introduction to cryptography concepts. No math or programming background required!
- 44: Celebrating a Decade of GuixSat 30 April 2022
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!
- 43: Repetitive Strain InjuriesThu 31 March 2022
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.
- 42: Learning the Sewing MachineSun 06 March 2022
- 41: Learning EmacsSat 05 February 2022
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!
- 40: Interdisciplinarity and FOSS (SeaGL Keynote)Sun 09 January 2022
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!)
- 39: The TinyNES: An Open Hardware "Tiny Nostalgia Evocation Square"Thu 16 December 2021