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A list of changes and updates to our projects.
- RSS feed, regular updates.
- Newsletter, monthly updates.
- See log archives for 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018.
December 2023
- 100r.co, added solar cooking experiment, and board games.
News
IMPORTANT. As mentionned in last November's update, the service we use to send out our monthly newsletter is shutting down next year. We will now be using Sourcehut to send our monthly updates. With this new system our emails will be leaner than ever, using plain text and no html.
We cannot transfer accounts to this new list ourselves, so if you want to keep receiving updates by email please sign up again here. Clicking on the subscribe button will open your email client, you can leave the body and subject of the email blank.
We will keep sending newsletters with TinyLetter until the end of January 2024, so as to give people time to make the switch. If you sign up to this new list, unsuscribe from the old newsletter to avoid getting two emails with the same content for December and January.
November 2023
- Wiktopher, drawn some new art(Mastodon), finalized a few translations(Mastodon), and release it on Itchio!
- Thousand Rooms, translated the book(Mastodon) into Solresol.
- 100r.co, added a still map of our Pacific circumnavigation in where, added repair, effect of combining dissimilar metals, bikes on a boat, upholstery and updated lifelines.
- Busy Doing Nothing, added GPS coordinates(Mastodon) for every listed day of travel.
- Hakum, designed handwritten font for the comic and wrote a post about the process.
- Elmet Brae, released a collaborative album with members of the Merveilles community and friends. Made the album cover in collaboration with Rostiger, who also made the Varvara Zine.
- Solrela, released a Solresol translator website to replace the now defunct Sidosi translator.
News
Wiktopher is finally finished. We started this book in 2017 while in French Polynesia, constrained by power limitations and hardware failures. Writing demanded less energy than drawing digitally, Rek could use the Chromebook to work (see tools ecosystem). You can read the first two chapters of the finished story here[4.1 MiB] as a PDF. If you liked what you've read, we hope you'll consider reading the rest!
We treated ourselves this month to new saloon cushions(see upholstery). We sleep and live on these, it's so nice to have plump cushions again!
IMPORTANT. You may have heard but the service we use to send our newsletter(TinyLetter) is shutting down early next year (Feb 2024). We are in the process of setting up an alternative, we'll provide details on that in December's newsletter and on this website.
Pino book & movie club
We are reading Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, and enjoyed watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
October 2023
- Thousand Rooms, added a Brazilian Portuguese version.
- Wunderland Rabbits, traveled to a botanical garden, and went to pick apples.
- Uxn5, Alex W. is writing a Vanilla JS implementation, in which you can drag roms into the window(Mastodon) to play them. Eiríkr wrote an guide on how to use signed numbers.
- Hakum, added 3 pages.
- 100r.co, added 3 travel maps in western canada.
News
This month we got tattooed(Mastodon) by the very talented Lizbeth. Check out her tattoo art.
Devine's Strange Loop 2023 talk was released online, watch it here(YouTube). We also released the talk as a text version, Computing and sustainability, for those who prefer to read. We talked with the members of Frugarilla on their latest podcast(French), in which we finally admit that our whole thing is a sneaky way of getting programmers interested in food preservation.
Every year we carve halloween pumpkins, this year we made a Uxn pumpkin!
See Oquonie running on a linux handheld(Mastodon).
Pino book club
We are reading Selma Lagerlöf's The Wonderful Adventures of Nils.
September 2023
- Wiktopher, adapted Solresol, edited other conlangs.
- Niju, fixed a drawing bug.
- Oquonie, working on the Playdate version.
News
Pino returned to the Victoria docks a little early this year so Devine could go to Strange Loop 2023. We had a lovely sail that day, with clear skies, and 10 kts on the beam. Despite being a little food and sleep deprived, Devine's presentation went well, we will share the recording here once it is released.
Rek has been busy editing Wiktopher, finessing the conlangs featured in the story. One of the featured languages is Ilken, a whistled language, designed for long-distance communication, and playable with instruments. A few years ago Devine designed a language for it, but we decided to instead use a modern variation of Solresol, a musical language by Jean-François Sudre. Rek drew a fanart of the mascot of Solresol, and Devine a communication lantern.
Currently, Devine is working at translating Thousand Rooms(Famimi Remisolla) in Solresol as practice. We're also editing a Brazilian Portuguese version, to be released next month.
We've been toying with the idea of making an audiobook for the story, and asked Paul B. to use their voice synthesis tool Gesture to try and hear what a poem in Ilken(Solresol)(Mastodon) sounds like. The result was so lovely that it made Rek cry of joy.
Rek's sketch thread(Mastodon) is still going. Devine will be producing a lot more art next month for Drawtober!
Pino book club
We are reading J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, and B. F. Skinner's Walden Two.
August 2023
- 100r.co, added heriot bay, octopus islands, and updated hathayim marine park(2023.07.18), rain, and boom tent (2023.08.08).
- Oekaki, released a new drawing program.
- Varvara, began versioning.
News
Pino sailed a bit more northward this month and went all the way to the octopus islands. We visited this place during a very windy week, with winds blowing 30-35 kts the entire time. We got acquainted with a few northern rapids, like Hole in the Wall and Surge Narrows. It is a bit of a mindfuck to think that in these waters the tide ebbs north and floods south.
This summer has been especially arid, and because of it the province has seen a lot forest fires (see pictures of our smokey transit). Trails that we know and love on Cortes Island, that are usually wet and muddy, were bone dry this year. We had a few days of hard rain, during that time we collect rain water and go for walks to look for slugs and snails.
Both of us have been drawing a lot this month, see this Neoneve portrait(Mastodon) by Devine(drawn with Oekaki), and this sketch thread(Mastodon) by Rek.
Pino book club
We have read Adam Wisniewski-Snerg's Robot, George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, and Michael A. Hiltzik's Dealers of Lightning.
July 2023
- Slide Rule, released a little slide rule toy(Mastodon).
- 100r.co, added roscoe bay, ballet bay, updated lpg refit (2023.07.27).
- wiktopher, we finished doing the entire first pass of corrections.
- Left, made a couple of interface improvements, it's not only prettier now, but faster.
- Drifblim, added support for lambdas in Uxntal, now also supported in uxnasm.
News
We spent many quiet days in Roscoe Bay, and then wandered over to melanie cove(2023.07.18) for a few days before moving to our favorite anchorage in Desolation Sound, Hathayim Marine Park(2023.07.09). This inlet is quiet, and not overly busy, it is ideal for focusing on projects. We walk the 3 km trail to Squirrel Cove everyday. If we visit the same place multiple times, we like to append notes at the end of each page.
We have been hard at work reviewing Wiktopher, and we're happy to announce that we've finished the first pass of corrections! We'll be doing many more passes, but this was a very big step. Rek has been drawing(Mastodon) a lot, and Devine has been working on their presentation for Strange Loop 2023.
Check out this amazing Uxn cheat sheet by Nettie!
Pino book & movie club
We are reading Lewis Carrol's Bruno and Sylvie. We re-watched Vampire Hunter D for the hundredth time.
June 2023
- 100r.co, added propeller maintenance, maple bay, telegraph cove, smuggler cove and princess louisa inlet.
- wiktopher, added back the revised/corrected version of Chapter 10, back online, and Chapter 11 has been corrected but is not yet live.
- UxnFor, created an uxntal code formatter.
- Bicycle, added lots of little improvements.
- Adelie, added speaker's notes and a pen mode.
News
Pino spent the first few days of the month on land, having its bottom re-painted, and its various bits serviced and checked. We took our propeller apart for the first time.
We've added a few write-ups of our travels so far (see above entry with links under 100r.co), but the most significant one is our 46nmi sail up to princess louisa inlet, a long fjord on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast, with an incredible gem at the end. It is an amazing, and unique place. We're glad we finally got to go. As we write this, we are in Roscoe Bay on West Redonda Island, tethering off a phone hoisted up the mast (it works quite well).
This summer we are power stable. We had issues last year because of parisitic draws due to old wiring (see dc electrical refit), but now everything is working as it should. We're charging our computers without an inverter, and that too is working out quite well so far (see charging electronics).
Together, Hikari and Lynn made chibicc-uxn, a c compiler for Uxn, and with it also released a port of the classic software Neko(xneko, oneko sakura).
Pino book & movie club
We are reading Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic. We've been re-watching Kaamelott(series, book 1-6) for the hundredth time.
May 2023
- 100r.co, updated jib_cars (2023.05.08), and added new recommendations on the offshore checklist(new entries labelled with dates).
- Donsol, Asie made some 3DS and NDS roms(Mastodon).
- Wiktopher, added the revised and corrected version of Chapter 8, and Chapter 9, back online.
- Uxnbal, wrote a type-checker, it's still very experimental, but it can infer most imbalancing stack-effects.
- Bicycle, created a little interactive evaluator designed to be a teaching aid.
News
Pino is off the dock, and spending time at anchor. The weather has been excellent, and with days of full comes sun solar cooking! We baked some bread, and roasted some green coffee beans in the sun. We are enjoying some quiet days before we haul the boat out of the water at the start of June.
Devine's talk proposal to Strange Loop 2023 has been accepted, so parts of the summer will be collecting our notes and writing slides for the presentation in September.
The recording for the show Devine(Alicef) did with Anju Singh and Reylinn(visuals) last march for Biosonic on Galiano Island is online, watch it here.
We had a small impromptu logo jam event on Merveilles this month. Members of the community re-interpreted the logo, with illustrations, photo collages, and even food. See all of the entries so far. Nf just completed Fourtette, a block game. Devine provided guidance, Rek made the title screen art, and d6 provided music.
Pino book & movie club
We went to the theater for the first time in a long time, to see Suzume(2023). We have also finished reading Saint-Exupery's Courrier Sud.
April 2023
- 100r.co, added charging electronics, solar cooking and solar evacuated tube cooking, and updated insulation (2023.04.03), and thruhulls (2023.04.08).
- Oquonie, released the game for Uxn. We have a Windows95+ compatible version[Mastodon video].
- Left, various UX improvements, including negative length selection.
- Note Pad, ported the classic macintosh Note Pad(YouTube) application to Varvara, download it here.
- Turye, total redesign(YouTube).
- Beetbug, added support for comments(YouTube) in symbol files.
News
Oquonie is out and it is playable! A big thank you to those who helped us test the game on a variety of devices and systems all the way to Windows95. This version of Oquonie differs a little from the original, in that some of the puzzles and secrets have changed. We hope that those who played the original will too enjoy this one. We have a special build of the game on itchio with the emulator and rom combined, if you have a false-negative virus warning on Windows 10, you will need to use the standard uxn32 emulator and rom.
We have watched as people implemented their own emulators and were able to play Oquonie on a Varvara of their own making. The current implementation documentation might need to be improved, if you have feedback for things that could be clearer, please let us know!
We published our experiments with solar cooking this month, and wrote a more detailed post on solar evacuated tube cooking. The real test will happen this summer. We plan to keep a log of everything we cook, how long it takes, and the conditions(sun, overcast, temp etc).
We're still closing a few projects aboard Pino, to get it ready for some summer sailing. Our plans for now are loose, we're hauling the boat out of the water in early June, with plans to sail back towards Desolation Sound afterward, with a possible stop by Jervis Inlet.
Pino book & movie club
We're watching La Belle Verte by Coline Serreau.
March 2023
- Donsol, added 100r logo to splash screen on the rom.
- 100r.co, added a new page: diy carbonation system. Updated saving fuel, engine rebuild and sprouting.
- grimgrains, added two new recipes: Beet Sauce Pasta, and Mac and Faux Cheese.
- Left, added all sorts of fun new things like routine definition highlight and graphics support.
- Hakum, new comics named Who Did What and Disengaging.
- Orca, added $bpm command to the uxn version.
- Uxn, revamped Uxntal documentation based on the feedback from the community (thanks everyone).
- Interaction Nets, spent time in the deep-end of the pool.
News
We spent the first half of March on Galiano Island in the Salish Sea for BioSonic(by ActivePassive), an event series exploring the intersections of music, art and biodiversity. On March 10th we gave a talk titled What Are Computers For?, see the art from the talk. The next day, Devine and Anju Singh performed together using Orca, with Reylinn on visuals. A video of the perfomance and of the talk will be released soon, in the meantime, see photos of the talk and of the show, taken by photographer Dayna Szyndrowski.
We are still working on re-releasing Oquonie. We spent the month of March playing the game, finding bugs, and fixing them. Oquonie will be playable next month.
This month we've been experimenting with solar cooking, to try to save on cooking fuel this summer. We are currently making tests, gathering data, and hope to share this with you all end of April. In the meantime, enjoy this amazing music by Xsodect, made using Orca.
Pino book club
We're reading Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) by Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay and Julie Sussman.
February 2023
- Wiktopher, added back corrected chapters 1-7 to online.
- Left, made a ton of improvements including a new directory navigation, better navbar labels and performance.
- Orca, fixed an issue where copy/paste/drag would move characters off-screen.
- Catclock, ported to new opcodes and improved monochromatic mode.
- Beetbug, added an interactive mode that interprets uxntal on the fly.
- Hakum, added a comic sequence named Tracking.
- 100r.co, added updates to battery connections.
- Grimgrains, added some notes on Temperature for lacto-fermentation.
News
On February 14th, we celebrated our 7th year living aboard our beloved Pino. It's also around this time 10 years ago that we were still living in Odaiba(Japan), and beginning our work on what would be our first game collaboration: Oquonie.
The uxn port of Oquonie has advanced in incredible leaps this month. Rek has finished re-doing all of the assets. Devine is now working on the music, and finalizing some of the levels. We are testing the game as we go, and hope to release it sometime next month. Oquonie will be playable on a number of platforms, including the Nintendo DS(Mastodon), as well as the Playdate. See a small preview(Mastodon).
Early next month we are traveling to Galiano Island in the Salish Sea for BioSonic(by ActivePassive). We'll be part of an event series exploring the intersections of music, art and biodiversity. We'll give a talk on March 10th, and Devine will perform with Orca on the 11th at the Galiano South Hall.
Watch Devine's set for Lovebyte 2023.
Pino book club
We're reading Courrier Sud by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
January 2023
- 100r.co, added electrical refit(portal for AC & DC electrical refit), and updated lpg refit.
- Wiktopher, corrected chapter 8, and nearly done with lexicon.
- Weathering software winter, video(Vimeo) now has closed-captionning (same goes for YouTube version). Rek spent time cleaning up the auto-generated transcript.
- Uxn, Andrew released Uxn32 2.0.
- Potato, added updates, potato can now assemble roms from tal files.
News
This month, we started porting Oquonie to Uxn. This is a long time coming, but we weren't sure if it was possible to do, and we still had a lot to learn before even thinking of taking it on. Now, we think we are ready. We are re-drawing the sprites(Mastodon), and they look amazing. This is an important test for us, and for Uxn.
Here is a very adorable little Uxn sprite for Potato that comes up when a rom path was mistyped, see it also on the uxn page.
Pino book club
We're reading The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West by Edward Abbey.