MetaFilter posts tagged with free

Bullet to the head

Artw — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:52:09 -0800

The first four issues of Stray Bullets set the world on fire when they came out. Paper burns, you see, and a comic book as inflammatory as Stray Bullets just had to be burned. The religious right burned them. The Godless left burned them. The people in the middle felt left out and burned them too. Only a few copies survived and are probably worth millions by now. Inaccessible to the common man, the wonders of the digital universe have finally arrived to allow you—the average Joe—to see what the fuss was all about.

Did you know Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?

klangklangston — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:26:42 -0800

The Beatles never broke up.

Classic Cinema Online

Turtles all the way down — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:28:11 -0800

Classic Cinema Online. A ton of old movies watchable in an embedded player.

How To Program

grumblebee — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:37:36 -0800

A free computer-programming course on reddit. Click "prev" for more lessons. 113 lessons so far.

Freely available education resources -- The OER Commons

cog_nate — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:44:06 -0800

The OER Commons exists to help educators "find free-to-use teaching and learning content from around the world." Thousands of primary, secondary and post-secondary activities, labs, lecture notes, assignments and other educational materials are available by searching or browsing the OER site.

Michael J. Fox has no Elvis in him

cjorgensen — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:07:34 -0800

To promote his new CD Whiskey Rebellion one Mojo Nixon is giving away pretty much his entire catalog for free on Amazon. Get it while the gettin's good, since this celebration of all music Mojo lasts for "about three weeks." (previously)

The New Liberal Arts

srboisvert — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:27:37 -0800

The New Liberal Arts book is out. 47 pages of free pdf about things the various authors think will help prepare you for modern life. Earlier discussion about the planning phase of the book.

Damien Walters and Livewire's Free Running Shenanigans

LordSludge — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:41:59 -0800

Damien Walters and Tim "Livewire" Shieff: Choose Your Own Adventure. (previously)

Related to (and probably a viral vid-series for) their new-ish YouTube show, The Walters & Shieff Show -- ep1, ep2, ep3, & ep4. bonus pointless/amazing video: Livewire -- A Day in the Life (slightly NSFW -- brief man ass)

Library eBooks Have Arrived!

ZakDaddy — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:20:18 -0800

Wow. I was going to say something witty and clever, and I got nothin, so: "The new Web-based Sony Library Finder tool can be used to find e-books in the local library that can be checked out, downloaded onto a desktop computer and then loaded onto a Sony Reader device -- all without charge." [Note - Probably USian] Via Google News and this article. Money quote: "...the New York Public Library said it had 29,000 e-books available in its systems. 'Anything that promotes reading is a good thing,' said a spokeswoman for the library." Could this be a tipping point? I've already got my PRS-505 and love it. It's just good enough to do exactly what I want: be an electronic book that effectively simulates paper. All I need now is a NYPL membership card...

Ben Stiller and walking dino skeleton not included.

FunkyHelix — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 09:13:27 -0800

Saturday, September 26th, the Smithsonian museum family and their affiliates will be hosting a free admission event, if you go to their MUSEUM DAY site and print out the admission coupon. One coupon = 1+ admission. Which museums across the nation are participating? I'm glad you asked. Because there are three ways of finding a participating venue. This is free culture being thrown at you for free and is free. Did I mention free? TAKE IT AND RUN. Introduce your kids to something other than the television. They may like it. Take your boy/girlfriend on a romantic date though the ages. Impress out of town guests with an excellent field trip. Teachers, force your kids to go and bring back a pamphlet or report as extra credit in your class.

They're models, not toys!

gamera — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:37:28 -0800

Building and flying free flight model airplanes is a pastime so obscure it doesn't even register on the geek heirarchy. But in the period between Lindberg's flight across the Atlantic until the start of the Second World War, thousands of boys (and some girls) around the world succumbed to the allure of rubber, lube, and dope. Free flight was eclipsed in popularity by control-line models and later radio control, but a hard core of enthusiasts are still at work making wonderful flying things. It's now pretty much a pastime for old men, many of whom have returned to the hobby after retirement. It's likely that some of the kids in the newsreels linked above are still making models. Like many obscure enthusiasms, it has found a home on the web. Here are some highlights for your browsing pleasure: A gallery of rather small photos, and another. An extensive British site dedicated to free flight scale models, including lots of rocket-powered models. A gallery of antique gas-powered model planes. Twin pushers and other free flight oddities (previously on Metafilter). Unbelievably delicate and graceful indoor duration models. Actual flight starts at about 1:52. More Indoor Planes, including an ornithopter. Some of these planes are actually radio controled - Free flight designs and techniques are often well-suited for small radio control models. "The sport of kings" - 2005, Middle Wallop. An introduction (with music, alas) to the modern Wakefield class of high-tech rubber powered planes. A jewel-like V-12 CO2 Engine (more music, Steppenwolf this time). The Long Flight, a short 1968 amateur film about model aviation. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. The story offers a clue why the sport/hobby isn't more popular. There's a long sequence where the young protagonist painstakingly builds his model, only to have it crash and break on it's maiden flight. For most kids this would end their fling with model planes. Luckily, this is a movie and 1939 Wakefield Champion Dick Korda is on hand to initiate him into the mysteries of the model plane. The Plan Page has free plans and construction articles for classic models scanned from old model magazines. Finally, a bit about a personal favorite, Bob Copeland's streamlined Wakefield from 1939. Pictured here and in this forum thread.

Listen to baseball again

acro — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:37:02 -0800

FreeBaseballRadio.com is a site that was created to help find internet broadcasts of live baseball games. Specifically those that are available for free.

Jazz hands

klangklangston — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:48:08 -0800

Audio archive from Small's Jazz Club, searchable by instrument, then performer, then date, starting with September 27, 2007. Hours and hours and hours and hours of the some of the best jazz from New York's downtown scene. Stream and snap your fingers, man.

Yes, Sir, this Is War!

Muddler — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:00:48 -0800

Microsoft Office 2010 - for free, on the web. Yeah, you heard me right. "The company also announced that Office Web applications will be available in three ways: through Windows Live, where more than 400 million consumers will have access to Office Web applications at no cost; on-premises for all Office volume licensing customers including more than 90 million Office annuity customers; and via Microsoft Online Services, where customers will be able to purchase a subscription as part of a hosted offering." Not to be outdone by Google, who recently announced it was trying to take a bite out of Windows not to mention Office, Microsoft has decided to offer a web version of Office 2010 for free - and it will even support non-IE browsers.

Free nicks words from Wikipedia. Lots of them.

Diablevert — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:06:07 -0800

Waldo Jaquith of The Virginia Quarterly has discovered considerable evidence of plagiarism in Chris Anderson's new book, Free. Anderson, editor of Wired magazine and writer of The Long Tail, has a new book coming out, called Free. In a lengthy article previewing the book in Wired, Anderson argues that as the costs of broadband and storage dive ever lower, the value of many kinds of information plummets to zero, prompting the development of entirely new business and service models and spurring creativity. He lists Wikipedia among the strange new fauna of the zero bound --- calling it an example of a "Gift economy." It sure seems to have been a gift to Anderson --- Jaquith found "almost a dozen passages that are reproduced nearly verbatim from uncredited sources," including plenty from Wikipedia. Anderson says the apparent plagiarism occurred when passages formally included as footnotes were sloppy incorporated into the main body of the text. He has in the past been a bit of a stickler on media laziness (creating a blacklist of publicists who send him inappropriate pitches) and a defender of print, being quoted recently in the New York Times as saying (of Wired), “We need to do something that doesn’t exist online, and do it in a superior way. Otherwise we should just do it online.”

Doctor Who and the Terrence Dicks Novelisation of the Earth!

Artw — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:34:17 -0800

On The Outside It Looked Like An Old- Fashioned Police Box - Mark Gatiss presents a Radio 4 documentary on the Target novelisations of Doctor Who stories. Free Doctor Who eBooks.

Mmmmm Donuts.... glaaaaaaaaa Me/Drools

Mastercheddaar — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:11:13 -0800

Do you have any idea what day tomorrow is? Oh sure you could celebrate by going to: Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Kreme. But why not try someplace a little less mainstream?

Varg is free!

geos — Mon, 25 May 2009 08:36:20 -0800

Varg is free! But, will all the glitter girls go for black metal? (note: this post does not endorse nazism, murder, church burning, or bad music)

How about this stimulus package?

P.o.B. — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:37:51 -0800

Del The Funky Homosapien has two song packs available for free download. His newest album, Funk Man (the stimulus package), is available for the price of your email. All available at Bandcamp.

So put your good dress on

divabat — Sun, 17 May 2009 23:31:41 -0800

We Are Smug is the side project of former Savage Garden frontman turned electropop showman Darren Hayes and collaborator and fellow electronic musician Robert Conley. Hayes and Conley had been working on this project secretly for about two years before releasing it online for free on Hayes's birthday. There are no current plans to tour or sell this album, aside from the free download, but there are already official music videos. (Warning: last link potentially triggering.)

"My New Home. I think maybe a lot of people killed themselves here."

Artw — Sat, 02 May 2009 10:05:55 -0800

It's Free Comic Book Day, so don't forget to pop down to your local comicbooks store and score some swag. In the mean time Warren Ellis suggests you enjoy this free online copy of Fell issue #1, with art by Ben Templesmith.

"Buy art. It makes you feel good!"

progosk — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:29:21 -0800

Are times of recession good or bad for the contemporary art market and artists? "Affordable" is becoming a leitmotif: there are events, inter national fairs, as well as various galleries. Some collectors and artists are sharing survival tips and tricks; and there are plenty of special offers to be had: Josh Poehlein - screenshot collages, free ; Shepard Fairey - "Obey Eye" screen print, 18 x 24 inches, signed and numbered, at a random time on April 21st: $45.00 ; Michel Gondry - your portrait, signed: $19.95 (allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery); 'Damien Hirst' - "For the love of Paris" postcard, 10.5 x 14.8 cm, signed and sent: € 1,80 ; Banksy - original, freely usable, high-quality jpg files: free.

Filling up the city skies with righteous grooves

jammy — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:39:49 -0800

Four Hours of Free Funkiness Filter: Pretty Lights Derek Vincent Smith is a DJ with quite mad skills who weaves funky masterpieces of chill-hiphop-electronica. But, really, I can't say it any better than Kyle at Aurgasm (where I found this):

Organic, soulful, electronified and good-feeling vibes, freely shared by Colorado producer Derek Vincent Smith. Nearly four hours of this Pretty Lights sound is available for free on his website. It’s a vivid collage of continuity, enriched with robust beats, eloquently laced vocal samples that range from nostalgic to serene, both compelling and entertaining, with a diverse selection of instruments all aimed towards enjoyment.

We have books.

serazin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:37:08 -0800

Weee! Book scramble! (Single link Daily Mail article.)

Quake Live

Plutor — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:07:05 -0800

Prepare to feel old: Quake III Arena came out nearly ten years ago. Prepare to feel young again: Quake Live can be played in your browser for free. The long-anticipated beta opened to the public yesterday. John Carmack says that they hope to be improving and polishing the game for the next decade. It only works in Windows with either IE or Firefox, although they promise Linux, Mac, Safari, and Opera support will follow shortly. Prepare for a wait, there's a bit of a line to login (better than crashing the servers, I guess).