CLLCT - The Collective Family An online community of indipendent musicians who have made their music free to download. No, it's not myspace. [more inside]
posted by robotot on Dec 1, 2008 - 21 comments

A 4-star rated book on CSS: The Art & Science of CSS is a FREE DOWNLOAD for 14 days from the folks at Sitepoint. Reader reviews give it 4 stars at Amazon. 208 pages. [more inside]
posted by spock on Nov 19, 2008 - 32 comments

20 Useful Visualization Libraries from the excellent A Beautiful WWW. Well, not entirely limited to libraries. Useful stuff for visualization practitioners sounded a little non-specific, though. These are all freely available. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Nov 6, 2008 - 11 comments

EduChoices offers some good free stuff online: 25 Places to Read Free Books Online l 50 Online Writing Websites for New Writers l Ranking of 20 Universities that Offer Free Courses Online (with links to the free courses), as well as information about university courses etc. l Great Reference Sites Other Than Wikipedia l Free Linux Tutorials for Beginners l Useful Online Calculators For Almost Every Educational and Life Need. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Nov 3, 2008 - 7 comments

Codeweavers is offering their product line for free until midnight Central time tonight. They implement versions of WINE, which allows one to run Windows programs under Mac OSX and Linux, including implementations focused on running games. [more inside]
posted by Kwine on Oct 28, 2008 - 40 comments

African Swim is the newest free album being offered by Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. This time the album features South African hip hop groups.
posted by drezdn on Oct 21, 2008 - 12 comments

200+ Tools for Surviving the Economic Crisis l Free printable Basic Budgeting Worksheet l Building Your First Budget l How To Create a Budget l How to Make a Budget and Stick to It l Frugal Family Recipes. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Oct 20, 2008 - 37 comments

Celebrating 120 years, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is offering 10 symphonies as free downloads, available until November 24! [more inside]
posted by LooseFilter on Oct 20, 2008 - 17 comments

AssaultCube is a free first-person-shooter. Set in a realistic looking environment, it's fast and arcade-like. Available for Windows, OS X, and Linux (via)
posted by blue_beetle on Oct 12, 2008 - 27 comments

Neil Gaiman's latest work, The Graveyard Book, is a kind of undead Jungle Book, with a man-child being raised by various ghosts and ghouls rather than animals. He's been the whole thing a chapter at a time on each stop of his American promotional tour, and posting the videos online (and blogging about it of course), which means that with tonights reading the entire thing will be available online.
posted by Artw on Oct 8, 2008 - 38 comments

Aether: lonely boy befriends a mysterious monster, leaves Earth to explore the galaxy. A quick, relaxing, hypnotic, motion-aftereffect-inducing flash game. Programming/music/design by Tyler Glaiel with further art/design by Edmund McMillen. [more inside]
posted by Korou on Oct 7, 2008 - 14 comments

CNet's Music site is one of my favorite sources of often surprisingly good independent music. As I write this, I'm listening to Zo Wanti Music's Lost Ship, a mellow New Age environmental piece that is very nice and relaxing. They have an enormous selection of music here, but one of the oddest and sometimes most rewarding to pick through is the game soundtracks/musical scores section. The artists listed here all compose music for video games (or have in the past). It's strangely fun to listen to some of their pieces and wonder what game that could belong to.
posted by Reverend Robbie on Oct 7, 2008 - 1 comment

FairyTaleFilter: SurLaLune Fairy Tales features 49 annotated fairy tales, including their histories, similar tales across cultures, modern interpretations and over 1,500 illustrations, 1,600 folktales & fairy tales from around the world in more than 40 full-text eBooks. Fairy Tale timeline. l Women Children's Book Illustrators l The Evolution of the Illustrated Children's Book l Some really beautiful free graphics and clipart from Grandma's Graphics. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Oct 1, 2008 - 11 comments

CBS has made full episodes of Twin Peaks available online. [more inside]
posted by PM on Sep 10, 2008 - 68 comments

Muslim Massacre. Satire or just for shock value? You decide. Windows only.
posted by pancreas on Sep 9, 2008 - 57 comments

Who needs Photoshop when you can have Pixlr ? [more inside]
posted by sgt.serenity on Aug 23, 2008 - 64 comments

Superstruct: An alternate reality game of future survival from the woman who brought you I Love Bees. Starting soon.
posted by klangklangston on Aug 14, 2008 - 10 comments

myopenbar.com (Chicago link) is a dandy little site that lets you know where to score free and/or cheap eats and/or drinks on any given night in your area (assuming 'your area' = NYC, SF, LA, Honolulu, Miami, or the aforementioned Chi-town). The places are rated, and visited personally by the website's bloggers, but who cares? It's free booze. [more inside]
posted by shakespeherian on Jul 15, 2008 - 6 comments

WFMU's Free Music Archive, "an online digital library of music that will allow music fans, webcasters and podcasters to listen, download, and stream for free, with no restrictions, registration or fees. And it will all be legal." Still pre-launch, but there's already quite a bit of music available on the site, including a sampler CD.
posted by cog_nate on Jul 15, 2008 - 18 comments

Today is July 11th. In the Gregorian Calendar, that is the eleventh day of the Seventh month. The free world celebrates it as Free Slurpee Day. [more inside]
posted by indiebass on Jul 11, 2008 - 28 comments

Free Government is a directly-controlled, open-source, entirely transparent political "meta-party" in the United States that intends to field candidates guided exclusively by online polling and user-drafted bills. Recruiting of candidates has already begun.
posted by setanor on Jul 7, 2008 - 23 comments

Poolga: iPhone and iPod Touch wallpapers from a selection of designers and illustrators from around the world.
posted by defenestration on Jul 6, 2008 - 26 comments

toneshared is a library of free mobile phone ringtones made by electronica/alternative musicians. From the subtle to the mashed to the downright annoying.
posted by nthdegx on Jun 26, 2008 - 18 comments

you've got new postcrossed mail You have heard of geocaching. You have heard of Bookcrossing. Here comes Postcrossing. The main idea is that: if you send a postcard, you'll receive at least one back, from a random Postcrosser from somewhere in the world. [more inside]
posted by Baud on Jun 8, 2008 - 19 comments

Self Made Scholar hosts a comprehensive collection of links to online classes in over 80 subjects. They also link to collections of free books and audiobooks.
posted by Upton O'Good on Jun 1, 2008 - 7 comments

Developers Helm, Fuzzpilz, Ptoing, DarkStalkey, Lackey and Ghormak formed indie game development team, Umlautgames, around the 85% completion mark of Thrustburst. A stylish and beautiful take on an old game called UrthWurm (scroll down), Thrustburst is now complete.
posted by pancreas on May 24, 2008 - 4 comments

New Jersey high school student Matthew LaClair has been at the center of controversy before, challenging his U.S. History teacher for proselytizing in class. He's in the news again, bringing attention to conservative bias in his American history textbook. [more inside]
posted by LooseFilter on Apr 27, 2008 - 123 comments

Once a week high quality digital recordings of cassette tapes purchased at the Dalston Oxfam Shop in East London.
posted by klangklangston on Apr 14, 2008 - 14 comments

Music is good. Free is good. So free music must be double good. With over 1000 albums listed from netlabels and other sources, Free Albums Galore (mentioned a while ago) is a well-curated collection of links to some of the best free full-length releases on the 'net. Of course, there are a lot more netlabel resources out there. [more inside]
posted by Shepherd on Apr 8, 2008 - 9 comments

303, 909, FX, MIXER = ACID VARSITY. In other words, two virtual 303s, a 909, effects and a mixer running for free right in your browser.
posted by 6am on Apr 4, 2008 - 41 comments

Idle nostalgia led me to check on the mp3 page for Bulb Records (early home of Quintron and Andrew WK).

That all reminded me of space/noise rockers Gravitar, whose drummer Ben Cook has put up a fair amount their music (and other music he's made) for free. Oh, and he has a (rarely updated) music blog, which mentioned the Weird Sound Generator and Noizehole. [more inside]
posted by klangklangston on Mar 25, 2008 - 10 comments

ElfQuest for free...gradually. The complete ElfQuest comic oeuvre (about 6000 pages) is being released online in batches every friday. The first five issues (a complete 150 page arc in itself), along with some other EQ series's first issues, are already up.
posted by Sparx on Mar 20, 2008 - 54 comments

"When copies are free, you need to sell things which cannot be copied." Kevin Kelly (previously) describes eight "generative" values that increase in value as the price tag on making copies goes down. He also has some advice for creators who want to make money off the long tail. Via
posted by ErWenn on Mar 5, 2008 - 20 comments

Barefiles: the premiere source for dubstep mixes [more inside]
posted by prostyle on Feb 28, 2008 - 30 comments

Free math courses online, from very basic to brainiac. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Feb 26, 2008 - 19 comments

Anglo-Finnish artist Sanna Annukka's vibrant, flat design work (especially her Icons series) got me curious about her, well, iconography.

She mentioned The Kalevala previously, the Finnish national epic poem (in Finnish here), a tale of creation and heroism that arguably spurred the Finns to independence from the Russians.

Like so much else epic and awesome, it spawned a '70s prog band, with three albums.
posted by klangklangston on Feb 25, 2008 - 23 comments

Improvisations on modified banjo and guitar by Paul Metzger. Please click through to his videos first, then to his recordings. His use of java means that I can't link directly to them. [more inside]
posted by klangklangston on Feb 22, 2008 - 24 comments

His Career Is In Your Hands. Musician / Producer Butch Walker (formerly of Marvelous 3) had a rough autumn in 2007. He was renting a home from a Chili Pepper, a home into which he had moved all of his personal and professional belongings. Unfortunately, Flea's Malibu rental property was directly in the path of California's November batch of wildfires. Tough break indeed. So how does an artist recover from such a devastating loss? He gives away his newest live double-album for free. Or $5.99. The choice is yours. Why? The domain name says it all.
posted by grabbingsand on Feb 15, 2008 - 18 comments

One Thousand Monkeys, One Thousand Typewriters is the largest online source of free role playing and story games. With so many choices, you may want to look at the winners of the 2006 Game Chef contest, with its interesting rules: Crime and Punishment, the RPG about being a writer for a crime procedural TV show; Liquid Crystal, about a robot with no memory; Time Traitor with its mysterious Factors; and the haunted house story Merryweather. [more inside]
posted by blahblahblah on Feb 15, 2008 - 5 comments

Perepiteia. Thane Heins, who named his invention after a Greek word meaning an action that "has the opposite effect to that intended," has perhaps created a...perpetual motion machine. His 20-year obsession has broken up his marriage and lost him custody of his two young daughters. Contraption stumps MIT professor. Is it a hysteresis brake? Or a scam. YOU decide.
posted by wallstreet1929 on Feb 9, 2008 - 76 comments

There is no word on whether IHOP has asked the Vatican to shift the timing of Lent.

As mentioned previously, today is not only Super Tuesday, but also Fat Tuesday, otherwise known as Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, or...International Pancake Day. IHOP is not a happy camper that the biggest payday in its calendar (when it admittedly not only gives away free pancakes but raises money for charity in the process) has to compete with our pesky American democracy. As they say in their press release: “Super Tuesday, set for February 5, 2008, encroaches upon the centuries-old celebration of Pancake Day, traditionally held the Tuesday preceding Lent to rid iceboxes of forbidden dairy products.” So it decided to thumb its nose at the Catholics and declare next Tuesday "National Pancake Day," even though it's during Lent, which defeats the entire purpose. Except for those whose religion's highest priority is the consumption of free pancakes.
posted by ericbop on Feb 5, 2008 - 77 comments

10 Universities Offering Free Writing Courses Online.
posted by nickyskye on Jan 29, 2008 - 15 comments

Skip The Tuition: 100 Free Podcasts from the Best Colleges in the World
posted by anastasiav on Jan 29, 2008 - 20 comments

last.fm has gotten a major upgrade. Full tracks stream on-demand without login. Easily get a peek into genre favorites. [more inside]
posted by cowbellemoo on Jan 23, 2008 - 64 comments

The Library of Congress, on Flickr. [more inside]
posted by chunking express on Jan 16, 2008 - 23 comments

The National Academies release their new book Science, Evolution, and Creationism, targeted at the public, which summarizes the "scientific understanding of evolution and its importance in the science classroom." Download the 89-page book free in PDF format (you will be asked for your e-mail address, location, and employment sector first). Other resources on evolution from the National Academies, including other free online books (previously on MetaFilter). There's a brief NYT story about it as well.
posted by grouse on Jan 4, 2008 - 66 comments

10 Places to Get a Free Business Education Online
posted by nickyskye on Jan 2, 2008 - 12 comments

Pages Unbound is a portal for serialized web novels, similar to web comic portals such as Buzz Comix and Top Web Comics, if not nearly as fancy. It is a new project by Tales of MU author Alexandra Erin. Note: Tales of MU and some of the novels found on Pages Unbound may be NSFW, as they contain explicit material of various sorts. MU, specifically, is concerned with LGBT issues and racism in a fantasy setting.
posted by Caduceus on Dec 18, 2007 - 9 comments

Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to seven introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University:Astronomy, English, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Religious Studies: a full set of class lectures produced in high-quality video, syllabi, suggested readings, and problem sets. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Dec 14, 2007 - 30 comments

Straight from the Department of Things Everybody But Me Probably Knew About Two Years Ago, it was only yesterday that I discovered the mind-boggling usefulness of the Amazon Filler Item Finder, which allows you to enter the exact price of the item you need to pad your order up to $25.00 for free shipping. Happy postage-free holidays. [more inside]
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Dec 4, 2007 - 54 comments