Freedom of Form Foundation

July 2023 newsletter - big news!

Hello to all of our esteemed Patreon Supporter folks! 

It's time for one of the more impactful newsletter issues in a while. We've gotten some serious engineering done with craniofacial anatomy in the Anatomy Reengineering Framework, and have also crystallized the most essential long-term technical decisions a la the Technical Roadmap that we have teased for over a year now!

Lathreas wrote the first article, the ARF update. A lot of this revolves around one of the more challe...

Tails and tales: June 2023 newsletter

June newsletter time!

- Lead article is written by Bleddyn, team lead of the Enhanced Tail project. He walks us through recent advances in the tail project, including work on active electrodes, custom circuit design, and software.

- Stories about the community, written by yours truly. There's honestly not that much about moderation *per se* (except for one story later on). There's just a lot of good, wholesome encounters that happen in our community and I wanted to spend some time...

May 2023 newsletter

Alrighty all you fine folks on Patreon, newsletter time! 

First up, scientific content: Tiltwolf put together an update concerning the integument project. The project is getting close to completion, and we're getting to the point where we understand most of the overarching concepts we need to deal with to create fur, feathers, and scales. 

Second, arguably more important though less exciting, is a financial update! We got our Form 990 for 2022 sent to the IRS, and have a...

April 2023 newsletter

Hi all you excellent Patreon Supporter folks, it's my pleasure to post this month's newsletter. This one's a big'n with research advancements and more detail about our coming research talks - the first 3 of which are coming up fast, on this coming Saturday the 6th!

1 - Lathreas wrote the lead article on this one. The Anatomy Re-engineering Framework is now graduating beyond elbow models (yay!!!), and expanding the anatomical modeling and customization to the hardest part - th...

March newsletter

Okay everyone, it's time for our March newsletter! 

 - First up, our new volunteer Coltyn made progress on planning for their project to summarize relevant portions of eye biology, list current and near-future ways of modifying eyes, and help us triage follow-up projects for in-house R&D.

 - Second, a refreshed profile for Lathreas, who has been with us for over 2 years now (!!!). Lots of progress since then!

 - Finally, an article giving m...

February newsletter

Alright folks, newsletter time! This one is admittedly lighter on content because some things didn't happen in time, but there's still some interesting topics of discussion  
- A view into what it's like at my day job, as well as a bit of my world view as a scientist
- Compliance update as we head into the charitable registration solicitation renewals season
- A refreshed profile for Moonbeam, since she joined us before we had a regular newsletter and she never got featured...

Kicking off a new year!

Alright folks, let's get off on the right foot in 2023 with our first newsletter of the year, put together by Ellie! It's chonky, too, a little over 4 pages :3 

 - First article gives a preview of our goals for 2023. This took a big team effort by a lot of us here to figure out, around half the people in the org. Special shoutouts to Bleddyn, Lathreas, Tiltwolf, and Hyper for especially proactively helping us plan.

 - Second article, written by Hyper, fea...

End-of-year newsletter updates!

Here's our last newsletter for 2022. In this issue:

 - Summary of our presentation at MFF, written by Lathreas. It was a lot of fun!

 - Lining up reagents for our first wet-lab research project, relating to Wnt10b. Written by Tiltwolf.

 - New volunteer intro for Rumi, joining the Integument Review project.

 - Update on board elections. Big updates: Tiltwolf is our new VP, Syralth our new Secretary, and Lathreas is joining the board as well.  2022-12-31 05:06:21 +0000 UTC View Post

November 2022 newsletter!

Exciting updates for this month! Big stuff:

 - Presentation at MFF on Friday, December 2nd. 3pm central time, in the Midway room. Details inside!

 - Research update by Tiltwolf talking about research related to the integument! Includes both our first wet-lab research project as well as the "OG" Integument Review project.

 - Volunteer introduction for Nalco, who joined our Tail Project a few weeks ago. He's already been knocking it out of the ballpark with elec...

October newsletter

Time now for our October newsletter! This month has been a busy one for all of us but we still managed to get it in on time (barely, shh!) thanks to some smooth coordination and contributions by Ellie, Serathin, Lathreas, and Hyper!

In this issue:

 - Lathreas - Lots of work getting done on the Anatomy Re-engineering Framework project. Main focus this time is on improving code quality and maintainability. Maybe less 'sexy' than some other updates (at least, less 'se...

September updates - Gender, tails, and more!

Dear Patreon Supporters, it's my pleasure to unveil another big set of updates!  

Biggest reveal this time is - I'm really thrilled about this - the Gender Resources Project team has completed their first version of the gender affirmation resources part of our website, and all of that info is now, as of tonight, available to people questioning their gender and starting their journey. So thankful for Nix, Moonbeam, Elapids, and other team members for getti...

FFF Newsletter for August 2022

Hi all, it's time for a new newsletter update!

This one's feature article has some excellent progress to report for the Anatomy Re-engineering Framework project - implementation of muscles in the model (taking the previous concept and actually implementing it), and improvement in editability of bones. Written by Lathreas and Ellie (QuestionablyHuman)!

We're also introducing three (relatively) new people to our team - we have a backlog of introductions to be honest, so we're introd...

FFF July newsletter - very important news this time!

Hi all,

This is a big update for all our patrons, especially the first two articles.
- We're thrilled to announce that we're moving forward on our first wet-lab research project!
- We also have an important message from Atha - they are stepping away from most of their roles with the FFF.
- Progress report on the Gender Resources project
- Introduction for a new volunteer, Birdy

Thanks so much for your support as always. You've made it possible for us to get where we...

It's time for our June newsletter!

June know what?
The puns get worse from here.

But the news gets better and better.
Check out the latest in our compilation of morphological freedom advancement goodness right here, right now!

* Craniofacial analysis
* Latest relevant science news
* Species dysphoria as a motivation is fine, but how do we make sure the body we have is safe to transform? We need to look after it...

The Otherkin and Therian's say on Wolf is worth the wait

Here's FFF Podcast Episode 16: Wolf.
First, I must apologise for forgetting to post it here sooner; Discord users already got this a week or so ago. But it's no worse for wear by being a little late, and in my defense, the lateness is also due to how much I've been working on FFF projects like Integument Review lately. Anyway, this episode is well worth the wait, it's a very interesting discussion between two Otherkin (myself and Alynna) and a therianthrope (Erin Wolfsune), concerning the ...

May we have your attention for our May newsletter?

Thank you for being awesome and helping to support our charity. This month's newsletter helps to give you a taste of not only what you're helping to fund in the form of not one, but two updates on our projects, but also the way our work is becoming more relevant in a wider context. Please, get yourself a nice hot beverage and relax in your favourite spot for reading newsletters and maybe also listening to podcasts.

What's inside:
* Watershed research results in both 3D Anatomy (or t...

FFF Podcast Episode 15: Prosthetics, Otherkinity and Maki

In a continuation from where we left off with the topic of prosthetics  in episode 10, we invited one of our friends from the Otherkin community  to talk about her views on arm prosthetics, how they might improve and  how they interact with her life and with her spiritual perspective as an  otherkin person with a deep connection to a few non-human forms, with a  nod to the healing power of art.

It's our delight to talk with the inimitable and wonderful Maki Hoo...

When 90% of the work is done, you only have the other 90% to do.

It's time for our April newsletter. This one's a tail of two arfs. On the one paw, we have excellent progress with modelling bones and subtitling. And another new volunteer intro! On the other, the new podcast episode and project updates are held up by little things that take a surprising amount of time. But only held up just enough to make it unrealistic to hold back the newsletter any longer to wait for them. They'll be here shortly after, you'll see.
This newsletter needed to be complet...

March-ing on

It's March, has been for weeks actually, and before you take even one more sip of coffee, here is your latest newsletter from the FFF!

From accounting to war to weddings, from 3D Anatomy to exciting new kinds of CRISPR to Tap and Vivi showing us how they're drawn, this newsletter has it all!

February Flies By

Such a short and quick month February is! But that doesn't mean we have any less news...

Check out this month's newsletter, with project news, interviews and our return to the convention where we met some of you...s!

FFF Podcast Episode 14: Interview with Temple Grandin

Your early access is here, wonderful patrons! Your support makes our work and our content possible!

The autism and animal behaviour expert, Professor Temple Grandin, kindly agreed to an online video call interview with Athamanatha Kitsune. We cover several interesting aspects of her work and how they relate to genetics, animal behaviour, autistic traits and who has them, and coping with being different. The interview was heavily edited and sometimes goes blank while audio continues due...

New year, new news!

It's our first newsletter for 2022 and we're off to a flying start! This year is going to see so much action from us, here's a look at what we have in store and a few more things besides! The keen eyed among you may notice the date the last article was written. It's not a typo, we're just super busy and fitting everything into each newsletter can be quite a challenge now!

2021 tax year donation records (wooo!)

Just a quick heads-up, we've sent out records for everyone's 2021 donations to the email address you use with your Patreon account. If you have any questions, or if you spot any errors, please reply to the email you received and let us know.

If for any reason you haven't gotten an email, please get in touch as well. 

Thanks everyone for a great 2021, and let's make 2022 even better!

Zennith

FFF Podcast Episode 13: Space For Learning

It's time for another podcast episode, this is our 13th. Featuring Tyler L. Jaynes from the Humanity & Beyond podcast, along with our very own Ondrik Birb and Serathin. Continuing the 'space' theme from our 12th episode, we look at how space travel and education will fit together, and how freedom of form will help make that experience more useful. This time, our host Athamanatha Kitsune has a strange case of Unknown-Cause Microphone Echo. It's not easy to remove with our editing  too...

The FFF's Interview with Dr Max More

AND as it's a time of year for giving, how about a double whammy? Here's our Tiltwolf in an interview with Dr Max More, the coiner of the term 'morphological freedom' and longevity and cryonics expert with Alcor, now all edited up with relevant images and manually corrected subtitles!

The FFF at MidWest Furfest 2021

Check out our talk at MidWest FurFest 2021! Zennith and Keiro bring you up to speed on our rapid progress and show a whole new crowd what the FFF is about, and even though the main camera failed, they still looked pretty good from this backup camera! There was a sign language interpretor present  but alas, just outside the backup camera's frame. We will add manually corrected subtitles in the coming months.

'Tis the season to read a bumper newsletter!

There's so much to be thankful for and so much more coming up!
The FFF could not be where we are today without you. This month's newsletter is just a small indication of our huge appreciation for you.
Check out our new mascots, our new board member, our new videos and a review of a movie very relevant to many of us!

And most of all, have a wholesome and happy holiday season and bring on a magnificent new year!

It's newsletter time again, November is flying past!

Our newsletter for November is out on time with plenty to show you!
Get the latest nice and early as thanks for being our esteemed patrons!
This month includes info on our latest Integument Review project update, our long awaited post-Covid return to convention events, and a faster way into our Discord server!

It's a huge month's newsletter!

The October 2021 newsletter is here for you, hot off the word processor. This month we have so much going on it's a challenge to keep track of, but we're making so much progress it's really awesome and I am so glad to see us able now to respond to events.
Check it out!

September newsletter time!

September has been going very quickly!
This newsletter is pretty chunky in terms of news this month, so be sure to check it out!