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.
posted on Jul 15, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Jul 15, 2008 - View this thread

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.
posted on Jul 11, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Jul 7, 2008 - View this thread

Poolga: iPhone and iPod Touch wallpapers from a selection of designers and illustrators from around the world.
posted on Jul 6, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Jun 26, 2008 - View this thread

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.
posted on Jun 8, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Jun 1, 2008 - View this thread

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 on May 24, 2008 - View this thread

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.
posted on Apr 27, 2008 - View this thread

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

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.
posted on Apr 8, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Apr 4, 2008 - View this thread

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.
posted on Mar 25, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Mar 20, 2008 - View this thread

"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 on Mar 5, 2008 - View this thread

Barefiles: the premiere source for dubstep mixes
posted on Feb 28, 2008 - View this thread

Free math courses online, from very basic to brainiac.
posted on Feb 26, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Feb 25, 2008 - View this thread

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.
posted on Feb 22, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Feb 15, 2008 - View this thread

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.
posted on Feb 15, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Feb 9, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Feb 5, 2008 - View this thread

10 Universities Offering Free Writing Courses Online.
posted on Jan 29, 2008 - View this thread

Skip The Tuition: 100 Free Podcasts from the Best Colleges in the World
posted on Jan 29, 2008 - View this thread

last.fm has gotten a major upgrade. Full tracks stream on-demand without login. Easily get a peek into genre favorites.
posted on Jan 23, 2008 - View this thread

The Library of Congress, on Flickr.
posted on Jan 16, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Jan 4, 2008 - View this thread

10 Places to Get a Free Business Education Online
posted on Jan 2, 2008 - View this thread

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 on Dec 18, 2007 - View this thread

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.
posted on Dec 14, 2007 - View this thread

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.
posted on Dec 4, 2007 - View this thread

Trigger Happier "Trigger Happy is a book about the aesthetics of videogames — what they share with cinema, the history of painting, or literature; and what makes them different, in terms of form, psychology and semiotics. It’s offered under a CC license, for a limited time only. I’m not sure how limited that time will be, so grab it while it’s hot." [drm-free pdf]
posted on Nov 22, 2007 - View this thread

Munseys, formerly Blackmask, still my favorite free book site.
posted on Nov 12, 2007 - View this thread

AEROTONE. | Hello!
posted on Nov 10, 2007 - View this thread

Serein v3
posted on Nov 9, 2007 - View this thread

Mango is a new beta service offering free online language lessons. 11 languages available (each with 100 lessons). For English speakers there are lessons in French, German, Italian, Greek, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese and Pig Latin. For Polish and Spanish speakers, lessons in English.
posted on Nov 7, 2007 - View this thread

Looking some some ideas for cool jack o'lanterns? These free templates could help. From HP, Dremel (scroll down), eHow, DLTK, Pumpkin Masters, Hershey's , Reader's Digest and SpookMaster. Or watch the videos on the Do It Yourself Network for more carving tips and tricks.
posted on Oct 31, 2007 - View this thread

Twenty hard-boiled pulp stories from a revived Black Mask Magazine. (Unfortunately, stories are mostly in PDF form.)
posted on Oct 10, 2007 - View this thread

arhiva7
posted on Oct 6, 2007 - View this thread

"Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications" book is free for 60 days. Reader reviews give it 4-stars at Amazon. Like most first editions, there are a few typos to watch out for.
posted on Oct 3, 2007 - View this thread

Indiana's Sardina. The New Pornographers of the '90s, the Sardinas released two fantastic albums full of mixtape fodder. Now everything they've got, including some live gems, is up online.
posted on Sep 25, 2007 - View this thread

Halo 3? Phooey! Sure, Bungie's latest title in greatest series for the Xbox is released tomorrow, but for some perspective, take a look at Marathon: Aleph One — the free, open source engine to Bungie's first achievement, the Marathon Trilogy.
posted on Sep 24, 2007 - View this thread

Blog a Penguin Classic.
posted on Sep 21, 2007 - View this thread

Sick of beef jerky? "Trade it in" for a dark chocolate oatmeal cookie. Yes, it's a promo from Kashi, but at least their email is opt-in instead of opt-out. And they're mailing out free cookies, bless their souls.
posted on Sep 5, 2007 - View this thread

Several recent classics of PC gaming have been released for free. The first few are ad supported, including first person shooters Far Cry (89% rating) and Ghost Recon (82% rating), the action-adventure game Prince of Persia Sands of Time (89% rating) and the minigame extravaganza Rayman Raving Rabbids (55% rating). To go a bit further back, EA has also released its 12-year-old classic Command and Conquer Gold for free. And more very recent top-flight games look like they will be appearing for free in the near future. [Ad-supported games are for the US only, and the ads aren't that bad - they appear during loading and on menus, not in the game]
posted on Sep 4, 2007 - View this thread

Start Your Own News Web Site The Knight News Challenge is awarding up to $5 million for innovative news web site ideas that "transform community news." The contest is sponsored by the Knight Foundation, the folks originally behind Knight Ridder news.
posted on Sep 1, 2007 - View this thread

Since the US economy will soon explode and eat all our monies, I give you this: 100 Things You Can Make Yourself!
posted on Aug 17, 2007 - View this thread

As Image Comics prepares to resurrect Golden Age comics under the rubric of public domain, it may be worth revisiting heroes of yore, like Stardust (by Hank Fletcher), Fantomah and Titan. Even more can be found through the Pure Excitement reprint webzine, (unfortunately burdened with clumsy navigation— modify the final segment for all 36 issues).

Of course, a fair number of them do show up on the Stupid Comics page, like Fantomah versus the Weird Gorillas, alongside more modern mockeries of books like Man or Astroman and Superman meets the Quik Bunny.
posted on Jul 25, 2007 - View this thread