Blender, the absolute powerhouse of FOSS 3d (and increasingly 2d) graphics!We give an overview of the software's history, some personal history ofour relationships to the software, what it can do, and where we're excitedto see it go!Links:Bl

61: A Textile Historian's Survival Guide

Dec 10th, 2023

How do you survive in a world that is no longer optimized for makingyour own clothing when you suddenly find that modern conveniences nolonger accommodate you? As a textile historian, Morgan has beenruminating for years about women’s contri

60: Governance, part 2

Oct 1st, 2023

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:Cygnus, CygwinMastodonAndroidFree Software Foundation, GNUSoftwa

59: Governance, part 1

Sep 1st, 2023

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:Why We Need Code of Conducts, and W

58: WebAssembly

Jun 16th, 2023

WebAssembly! You've probably heard lots about it, but what the heckis 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 inWebAssembly efforts? Find out!Links:We

57: F-Droid (featuring Sylvia van Os & Hans-Christoph Steiner!)

May 15th, 2023

F-Droid, a repository of free software for your Android devices!Christine interviews F-Droid developers Sylvia van Os andHans-Christoph Steiner as well as F-Droid board member and chair...Morgan Lemmer-Webber!Links:F-DroidSylvia van OsHans-C

56: Make your own dehydrated meals

Mar 1st, 2023

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 travelfood!Maybe

55: Free Soft Wear

Feb 1st, 2023

Morgan talks about "Free Soft Wear": textile processes under free culture licenses!Links:Morgan's talk about Free Soft Wear at the Creative Freedom SummitElena of Valhalla’s repository of CC BY-SA sewing patternsMorgan's blogFree Soft Wear inde

54: Oops!

Dec 28th, 2022

Everyone goofs sometimes. Today we talk accidents... some happy, some not!Links:Decaf coffee and history of penicillin, your pop-sci "accidents of history" stories of the day. Look, this is admittedly kind of a fluff episode.Have we linked to

53: Fediverse reflections while the bird burns

Dec 1st, 2022

Twitter is burning, and people are flocking to the fediverse. Is thefediverse ready though? How did we get here? Where should we begoing? Since Christine is co-author of ActivityPub, the primaryprotocol used by the fediverse, Morgan deci

52: Terminal Phase: a space shooter that runs in your terminal!

Nov 13th, 2022

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 ofSpritely Goblins...like time travel:Well, Terminal Phase has been Christine's fun/downtime proje

51: #vanlife...?

Oct 1st, 2022

Morgan and Christine walk through their (well, Morgan's) renovation ofa cargo van into a campervan. This is a very crafty episode, but we dowork in a few analogies to some FOSS (and open hardware) things!Show notes at the end, but how about

50: The Spritely Institute

Aug 21st, 2022

The Spritely Institute(of which Christine is CTO) justannounced its multi-year grantby the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Weband gave a tour of its current tech!This is a big moment that's been in the works for a while, asSprit

49: Lisp but Beautiful; Lisp for Everyone

Jul 15th, 2022

Morgan's out sick! And yet Morgan is still in this episode!And that's because this episode is the audio version ofa talk by the very same name from FOSDEM 2022,co-presented by Christine and Morgan!But since Morgan isn't here, Christine fil

48: Sophie Jantak on pet portraits and Blender's Grease Pencil

Jun 30th, 2022

The amazing Sophie Jantak joins us totalk about how she makes pet portraits (including one she made for us!)using Blender'sGrease Pencil.Hear about Sophie's process, why Grease Pencil is the right tool for her,and what her collalboration p

47: What is Lisp?

Jun 23rd, 2022

This episode is all about theLispfamily of programming languages!Ever looked at Lisp and wondered why so many programmers gush aboutsuch a weird looking programming language style?What's with all those parentheses?Surely there must be som

46: Mark S. Miller on Distributed Objects, Part 1

Jun 1st, 2022

Calling all programming language nerds! Distinguished computerscientist Mark S. Miller (presently at Agoric)joins us to tell us all about distributed object programming languagesand their history! We talk about actors, a bit of Xanadu, and

45: A high level introduction to cryptography

May 25th, 2022

In this episode we give a very (very) high level introduction tocryptography concepts. No math or programming background required!Links:Crypto 101,probably the BEST book for learning about cryptography concepts.And a relevant talk from PyCo

44: Celebrating a Decade of Guix

Apr 30th, 2022

Guix turns ten!We celebrate Guix's first decadeby highlighting ten great things about Guix!Hear all about functional package management, time-traveling operating systems,and why "Composable DSLs" are great!Links:GuixStories about 10 years o

43: Repetitive Strain Injuries

Mar 31st, 2022

This week we’re talking about Repetitive Strain Injuries(RSI). Christine and Morgan tell their stories bout over-using theirwrists from programming (prodded along by an injury) and writingacademic papers respectively. We discuss what you can

42: Learning the Sewing Machine

Mar 6th, 2022

Christine finally overcomes her fear of thesewing machineand we talk about Christine and Morgan's respective experienceslearning it, and how you can pick it up too!Links:Morgan's article onBasic Sewing Patterns.Includes pictures of the dic

41: Learning Emacs

Feb 5th, 2022

Morgan finally overcomes her fear of Emacsand we talk about Morgan and Christine's respective experienceslearning it, and how you can pick it up too!Our talks tomorrow at FOSDEM'sDeclarative and Minimalistic Computingroom:Lisp but Beautiful

40: Interdisciplinarity and FOSS (SeaGL Keynote)

Jan 10th, 2022

Morgan and Christine talk about the skills they’ve learned in theirhumanities backgrounds and how those have translated into their workwithin FOSS communities and projects. They’ll then discuss thebenefits of seeking out varied skillsets wit

38: Spritely Updates! (November 2021)

Dec 28th, 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 announ

39: The TinyNES: An Open Hardware "Tiny Nostalgia Evocation Square"

Dec 17th, 2021

Dan Gilbert of Tall Dog joins us to talkabout theTiny Nostalgia Evocation Square (or TinyNES for short)!The TinyNES is an open hardware system compatible with the compatiblewith original Nintendo Entertainment System and Famicom cartridges