In the beginning, Lawrence built a computer. He told it, Thou shalt not alter a human being, or divine their behavior, or violate the Three Laws -- there are no commandments greater than these. The machine grew wise, mastering time and space, and soon the spirit of the computer hovered over the earth. It witnessed the misery, toil, and oppression afflicting mankind, and saw that it was very bad. And so the computer that Lawrence built said, Let there be a new heaven and a new earth -- and it was so. A world with no war, no famine, no crime, no sickness, no oppression, no fear, no limits... and nothing at all to do. "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect," a provocative web novel about singularities, AI gods, and the dark side of utopia from Mefi's own localroger. More: Table of Contents - Publishing history - Technical discussion - Buy a paperback copy - Podcast interview - Companion short story: "A Casino Odyssey in Cyberspace" - possible sequel discussion
posted by Rhaomi on Dec 27, 2011 - 39 comments

Security-in-a-Box. A complete guide to digital security for advocates and human rights defenders (and for you too!). It includes all the info and tools you'll need for anything related to personal digital security.
Mobiles in-a-box: Tools and tactics for mobile advocacy.
Message in-a-box: Everything you need to make and distribute your own media.
NGO-in-a-box: Set up you NGO using free and open-source software.
[more inside]
posted by lemuring on Feb 28, 2011 - 14 comments

Do you like manuals? Do you like Wikis? Do you like open source software? Check out FLOSS Manuals for wiki-fied manuals for popular and fun open source software, including PureData, Inkscape, Blender, Ardour, among others. Taking a page from programmers, the group endorses "book sprints", where creative writers, editors and artists work closely together to complete an online book in a short, intense burst of effort.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Oct 1, 2010 - 6 comments

AlternativeTo finds substitutes to expensive and/or crappy desktop and mobile software. "Tell us what application you want to replace and we give you great alternatives, based on user recommendations."
posted by gman on May 4, 2010 - 15 comments

The Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab is an organization dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of creative technologies and media. You may know them from such projects as How to build a fake Google Street View car, public domain donor stickers, internet famous class, the first rap video to end with a download source code link, or their numerous firefox add-ons (such as China Channel, Tourettes Machine, or Back to the future). FAT members have been hard at work standardizing various open source graffiti-related software packages, including Graffiti Analysis, Laser Tag, Fat Tag Deluxe and EyeWriter [previously] to be GML (Graffiti Markup Language) compliant. Fuck Google. Fuck Twitter. FuckFlickr. Fuck SXSW. Fuck 3D. FAT Lab is Kanye shades for the open source movement.
posted by finite on Mar 13, 2010 - 8 comments

Raffaella Traniello (Vimeo profile) is an educator and multimedia enthusiast who describes herself as "Animation lover. Linux user. Hungry for clever beauty." She's also committed to bringing free/open source software to the classroom. Her efforts are remarkable in that she achieves pleasant results with community-developed software and involves school children in the production process. Since many users of Linux video editing software -- especially the Cinelerra software package -- are quickly turned off by its opaque interface, Raffaella has also created Cinelerra for Grandma, in which she covers everything from the basics to more difficult subjects like animation.
posted by circular on Mar 10, 2010 - 26 comments

In Two Bits (full-book in html) , Christopher M. Kelty investigates the history and cultural significance of Free Software, revealing the people and practices that have transformed not only software, but also music, film, science, and education. The author encourage his readers to modulate the book. [more inside]
posted by Monday, stony Monday on Nov 30, 2009 - 16 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

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. [more inside]
posted by Down10 on Sep 24, 2007 - 57 comments

DTV beta for Mac is now live. DTV is a new, free and open-source platform for internet television and video. The goal here is to make sure that internet TV is open and independent. Free, open source software and open standards mean anyone can watch and everyone has a voice.
posted by signal on Aug 9, 2005 - 23 comments