Here’s an easy resolution: This stuff is all free as long as you have access to a computer, and the skills you learn will be invaluable in your career, and/or life in general.
1. Become awesome at Excel.
Chandoo is one of many gracious Excel experts who wants to share their knowledge with the world. Excel excellence is one of those skills that will improve your chances of getting a good job instantly, and it will continue to prove invaluable over the course of your career. What are you waiting for?
Perhaps no other skill you can learn for free online has as much potential to lead to a lucrative career. Want to build a site for your startup? Want to build the next big app? Want to get hired at a place like BuzzFeed? You should learn to code. There are a lot of places that offer free or cheap online coding tutorials, but I recommend Code Academy for their breadth and innovative program. If you want to try a more traditional route, Harvard offers its excellent Introduction to Computer Science course online for free.
3. Make a dynamic website.
You could use a pre-existing template or blogging service, or you could learn Ruby on Rails and probably change your life forever. Here’s an extremely helpful long list of free Ruby learning tools that includes everything from Rails for Zombies to Learn Ruby The Hard Way. Go! Ruby! Some basic programming experience, like one of the courses above, might be helpful (but not necessarily required if you’re patient with yourself).
4. Learn to make a mobile game.
If you’re not interested in coding anything other than fun game apps, you could trythis course from the University of Reading. It promises to teach you how to build a game in Java, even if you don’t have programming experience! If you want to make a truly great game, you might want to read/listen up on Game Theory first.
5. Start reading faster.
Spreeder is a free online program that will improve your reading skill and comprehension no matter how old you are. With enough practice, you could learn to double, triple, or even quadruple the speed at which you read passages currently, which is basically like adding years to your life.
6. Learn a language!
With Duolingo, you can learn Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, or English (from any of the above or more). There’s a mobile app and a website, and the extensive courses are completely free.
Full disclosure: BuzzFeed and other websites are in a partnership with DuoLingo, but they did not pay or ask for this placement.
7. Pickle your own vegetables.
Tired of your farmer’s market haul going bad before you use it all? Or do you just love tangy pickled veggies? You too can pickle like a pro thanks to SkillShare and Travis Grillo.
8. Improve your public speaking skills.
You can take the University of Washington’s Intro to Public Speaking for free online. Once you learn a few tricks of the trade, you’ll be able to go into situations like being asked to present at a company meeting or giving a presentation in class without nearly as much fear and loathing.
9. Get a basic handle of statistics.
UC Berkeley put a stats intro class on iTunes. Once you know how to understand the numbers yourself, you’ll never read a biased “news” article the same way again — 100% of authors of this post agree!
10. Understand basic psychology.
Knowing the basics of psych will bring context to your understanding of yourself, the dynamics of your family and friendships, what’s really going on with your coworkers, and the woes and wonders of society in general. Yale University has its Intro to Psychology lectures online for free.
11. Make your own music.
Step one: Learn how to play guitar: Justin Guitar is a fine and free place to start learning chords and the basic skills you’ll need to be able to play guitar — from there, it’s up to you, but once you know the basics, just looking up tabs for your favorite songs and learning them on your own is how many young guitar players get their start (plus it’s an excellent party trick).
Step two: A delightful free voice lesson from Berklee College Of Music.
Step three: Have you always thought you had an inner TSwift? Berklee College of Music offers an Introduction to Songwriting course completely for free online. The course is six weeks long, and by the end of the lesson you’ll have at least one completed song.
Step four: Lifehacker’s basics of music production will help you put it all together once you have the skills down! You’ll be recording your own music, ready to share with your valentine or the entire world, in no time!
12. Learn to negotiate.
Let Stanford’s Stan Christensen explain how to negotiate in business and your personal life, managing relationships for your personal gain and not letting yourself be steamrolled. There are a lot of football metaphors and it’s great.
13. Stop hating math.
If you struggled with math throughout school and now have trouble applying it in real-world situations when it crops up, try Saylor.org’s Real World Math course. It will reteach you basic math skills as they apply IRL. Very helpful!
14. Start drawing!
All kids draw — so why do we become so afraid of it as adults? Everyone should feel comfortable with a sketchbook and pencil, and sketching is a wonderful way to express your creativity. DrawSpace is a great place to start. (I also highly recommend the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain if you can drop a few dollars for a used copy.)
Have you never really “gotten” jazz? If you want to be able to participate in conversations at fancy parties and/or just add some context to your appreciation of all music, try this free online course from UT Austin.
Another invaluable skill that will get you places in your career, learning Photoshop can be as fun as watching the hilarious videos on You Suck At Photoshop or as serious as this extensive Udemy training course (focused on photo retouching).
Instructables has a great course by a woman who is herself an online-taught knitter. You’ll be making baby hats and cute scarves before this winter’s over!
21. Get started with investing in stocks.
If you are lucky enough to have a regular income, you should start learning about savings and investment now. Investopedia has a ton of online resources, including this free stocks basics course. Invest away!
Most cities have free community classes (try just searching Google or inquiring at your local yoga studio), or if you’re more comfortable trying yoga at home, YogaGlohas a great 15-day trial and Yome is a compendium of 100% free yoga videos. If you’re already familiar with basic yoga positions but you need an easy way to practice at home, I recommend YogaTailor’s free trial as well.
24. Tie your shoelaces more efficiently.
It’s simple and just imagine the minutes of your life you’ll save!
Now here´s a stupid idea. You know that trope where a character find out that someone is an immortal because they found an old black and white photo of them? What if it instead of being a regular picture it was vintage porn instead? Specifically victorian porn, gay even.
it would feel real awkward for would be discoverer/vampire hunter etc, having to confront them with this and the immortal would be like: Why are you so suprised. this? Fun times, Look,i get it you all think us victorians were prude and repressed back then. Oh babe, you have no idea.
I find the whole concept of being “tumblr famous” to be really weird, like I am aware I have a fairly large and consistent following for someone who isn’t running say, a community blog or a clickbaity style blog where the content is taken from elsewhere. But I don’t really think of it as…I don’t know.
I don’t really have the words for it.
I think perhaps because it was something I fell into, rather than planned, so it’s just this really surreal thing that’s happening in my life and I’m not really sure how to handle it, so I’m just…kind of carrying on like normal and pretending the numbers don’t exist? Like I don’t want that to be the focus of what I’m doing.
And then sometimes it hits me, oh, this is actually a thing. My words are everywhere on the internet, usually without credit, but they are there. I see my fear quote go past my dash every other day being misattributed to Dune. I’ve been approached for interviews, I’ve given quotes. People recognize me in the super market and shout “hi mom!” and wave. People have referenced me in their masters thesis.
Other people, high up people in publishing companies I could only ever dream of working at, have—when I’m introduced to them by a mutual—snapped their fingers in recognition and gone “oh right, you’re the online entertainer, I love your stuff! we actually used your disability in fantasy article to talk about…” and I have a brief out of body experience because how.
How is this my life? What did I ever do to deserve this?
I mean, apart from black out and recount the story of Crucifix Nail Nipples.
…
Yeah, no, actually.
That…that sounds about right.
the Crucifix Nail nipples were the best thing i have ever seen in this godforsaken site, so i thank you for that.
Everyone is panicking over TOS-es right now as they find a new home as Tumblr gets flushed down the toilet. I don’t like those random TOS breakdowns because the analysis is always wrong.
Anyway this is what people pay me to do and I will now do it for $0 because I’m tired of everyone spreading misinformation. This post is not a substitute for legal advice etc. Reblogs are appreciated because I literally see TOS nonsense on my dash every day.
Any more experienced copyright lawyers please feel free to weigh in – it’s part of my field yes, but my wheelhouse is more film production COT rather than derivative works.
Google doesn’t have rights to do whatever they want to files you upload to Google Drive
Their TOSes are annoyingly broad in drafting but essentially boilerplate clauses that they need to host your work, use google translate on it, make it searchable etc. They cannot steal your fanfic. They cannot modify your art and use it for whatever.
Your work MAY be threatened (that is, deleted) thanks to FOSTA/SESTA, which imo is a clown provision signed by a clown that sent safe harbour down the toilet. This and this has more information (I’ve skimmed but not perused both), but the tl;dr is: similar to Tumblr, there was a ham-fisted attempt to protect victims of sex trafficking and all it really did was make cloud based services start deleting user files whether relevant or not.
Uploading work to dA doesn’t give them a license to sell it to Hot Topic. This post is incorrect. Debunked here and corrected by the artist himself here. Your art is safe.
There’s a breakdown of the TOS in there that’s pretty much wrong on most points, if someone wants me to do a not-wrong version, ask. This may help.
All you really need to know is that like Google, I checked it over and nothing in there puts you at risk for dA asserting ownership over your work or selling it – they need those rights for thumbnails, search functions, resizing etc.
Yum. I like this one. Easy to read and clearly explained for most people with basic reading comprehension. Section G – What We Do With Content will tell you everything you need to know.
Basically, they have the same clauses about you granting AO3 a license to modify/etc your work, but they take the trouble to explain to you exactly what that means, and how they use it to improve accessibility etc.
No history of content purges as far as I know. Explicit content is allowed with limits eg. no child porn.
Same deal – you’re looking for 1. WordPress – Responsibility of Contributors, with the exact same thing as everybody else. They also do a decent job of explaining what they use the license for (though once again, it’s standard), albeit not as beautifully as AO3.
Same old standard licensing clause, again doesn’t let them steal your stuff.
Incredibly…open content policies…you can basically do whatever you want so long as you don’t break laws or commit fraud it seems? If I’m wrong, feel free to correct.
Hope this helps. Feel free to force me to read and explain any other site TOS documents. Again, more experienced copyright lawyers, feel free to correct me if I clowned up somewhere.
Now, the alarming aspect of this story is that the very same technology is probably what tumblr is using to identify porn. Now, if it can’t tell that an empty field is not, in fact, full of sheep, what hope do we have that it can’t tell an empty room isn’t full of writing human forms engaged in passionate coitus?
this really does sound like an episode of black mirror
Brookhill Village in Charlotte, NC, is being demolished. Hundreds of African-American families are going to be evicted, and their are no plans to offer them any sort of affordable alternative to their homes, which are now being demolished.
Developers like Shook Kelley are actively demolishing the neighborhood and replacing it with higher-end housing that will “attract millenials” without a second thought of what will become of Brookhill’s current residents.
In other words, this is another step in the process of gentrifying Charlotte, making it essentially unlivable for all of the communities that have lived here throughout its entire history.
The developers and architects of this project to displace an entire community have continued shamelessly and unchallenged, what little publicity this event has received has been glamorous news reels, talking of plans to “revitalize” a working-class community.
This Thursday, December 13th, I hope that I can help change that.
A small organization has gathered around the purpose of offering some kind of meaningful resistance – I am proud to say that I have been doing what I can to aid in these efforts.
The main goal of everyone involved has been to organize a community meeting this Thursday in order to rally the community to defend their homes.
However, as you can imagine, this is not as simple as handing out flyers and expecting everyone to be there – I must once again stress that the residents of Brookhill are working class families who work long hours, and need a material reason to show up in opposition to a developer who is literally burning down flyers and posters that mention the event.
The organization, STP Charlotte, has vowed to do their best to
provide transportation to and from the meeting as well as provide food
and child care at the meeting itself.
As you can imagine, this costs money.
If you have the money to spare, I ask that you send what you can to help organize this meeting. This really means a lot to me, but it would certainly mean a whole lot more to the families living in such a precarious housing situation.
Google Pay: ServeThePeopleCLT@Gmail.com
Venmo: @STP-CLT
If you can’t spare any money, consider reblogging this post, and if you know anyone in the area, be sure to let them know.
How the fuck is this shit even “legal”?
Brookhill Village is technically an ‘apartment complex’ – it was built in the 1950′s, and everyone living there is technically a tenant that can be evicted at any time. Brookhill has fallen into complete disrepair over time, but with rent as low as $300 a month, it’s really the best option for a lot of people who live in Charlotte.
However, “in 2016, the federal government filed
a complaint to begin the process of seizing the Brookhill Village
apartments on South Tryon Street, due to allegations of repeated drug
activity — marijuana, heroin, ecstasy and crack cocaine. Before the end
of the year, the federal government reached
a settlement with the owners of Brookhill Village. Part of the
agreement called for Brookhill Village Two to demolish or
“substantially” renovate the run-down apartments on the property. The
settlement also called for a system to screen tenants, provide on-site
patrols and monitoring to eliminate crime, improve lighting and
communicate often with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police about crime-fighting
measures.”
Not to take the blame off of the owners of Brookhill or the developers currently tearing the place down, but the federal government absolutely played a significant role in this. And if you want my opinion, I believe the government made this decision fully aware of the profitability involved in replacing low-income housing with expensive millenial homes.
And that “screening process” is absolutely going to be used for evil.
this is really it huh? millenials are old now. they can’t handle kids dancing just bc its from something they’re not into. bc its not aimed at them. congratulations you’re doing what you said you wouldn’t and are turning into your parents and grandparents. i know this is how it always goes but millenials were So Sure they’d break the cycle and look at them. mad at kids doing fun lil dances. shut up
Congratulations, you’ve reached the mature age at which you realize everyone is capable of hypocrisy. Including your generation. So in twenty years, I wonder what will happen. I can tell you many a millennial said essentially what you’re saying now.
And frankly, what’s said about Millennials now is what was said about my generation, and the generation before that, and the generation before that. If they don’t think what’s said about them now wasn’t said about Disco dancers, punk rockers, hippies, Elvis fans, flappers, etc, they really don’t pay attention to history.
They have a chance to break the cycle, but I don’t see them taking it.
then i guess im on my way on breaking it, i kind think its cute seeing t kids doing their fornite dances, envious even. i mean macarena for my generation is fun and all, but these new moves require a lot more effort in comparison. On the plus side the carlton dance is making a comeback. the only i hate is the fact the creators of fornite didnt gave credit to its original creators and used them without premission.
The DVD we have at the library is all scratched up and has circulated over 80 times. Which means we’re supposed to discard it. However, we can’t replace it because the people we have a contract with don’t sell it. We’d basically have to hope someone donates a copy.
So I checked it out, washed it because it had lots of sticky fingerprints on it too – honestly, parents, don’t let your little kids handle DVDs. I can’t tell you how many times a parent has complained about a DVD not working for me to flip it over and say, “Yeah, that’s because there’s peanut butter all over it.” Then show them tiny finger prints in peanut butter.
Anyway, I watched it – it plays fine so we can keep it.
But it got me to thinking.
First I thought about the differences between the Disney version and the fairy tale.
In the fairy tale what happens is this – the king wants to invite all the fairies in the land, of which there are 13, but he only has 12 gold plates. Instead of just buying or having another gold plate made, he assumes the 13th fairy is dead because she’s never seen anymore anyway so he only invites the 12. The 13th fairy, angry at being left out even though she’s such a hermit even the other fairies didn’t know she was alive, shows up anyway, gets angry she’s served on a silver plate, and curses the princess with the death curse, which is changed into a sleeping curse by the 12th fairy. (Some versions it’s only 7 fairies, but I like the one where it’s 12 fairies plus the evil one. 13 fairies sounds way more sinister because of the superstition that 13 is an unlucky number.) The princess grows up in the castle and only pricks her finger because, since her father had all spinning wheels destroyed – which had to suck for women for whom that was the only way to earn money – she was easily tricked into trying to catch the spindle.
Then she and the entire castle sleep for 100 years. At the end of the 100 years a prince happens by and since the curse is ending he’s the one who wakes her.
So fairy tale Sleeping Beauty has it bad in that she’s kept in ignorance of her curse and the existence of spinning wheels. But because there were more fairies she got way more gifts than just beauty and song. She also got intelligence and several other gifts. Still, she had to marry the first dude who kissed her. (And in the original telling it’s actually a married king who rapes her more than once while she’s still asleep, she gets pregnant, gives birth, and it’s one of her twins who happens to wake her up by sucking on her finger while looking for her nipple. And then it gets into jealous wives, infanticide, and cannibalism from there.)
Disney’s Aurora – renamed Briar Rose by the fairies – is only given two gifts, beauty and song. Like intelligence isn’t important? They also don’t tell her about the curse – which probably could’ve helped a LOT there in both cases.
However, she does have the benefit of being raised as a poor peasant, which means she’ll have more sympathy for her people as queen since she knows what it’s like to put in a hard days work. I bet since the fairies didn’t use any magic – even if Rose was sick – there were nights she went to bed hungry. She’s not even wearing shoes when we see her but running around the forest barefoot.
She also actually gets to meet and gets to know (somewhat) the dude she’s destined to marry.
So while she got screwed out of some good gifts – she does have it somewhat better than her fairytale counterpart.
But she’s still betrothed on the day of her birth – not good – and still cursed and no one has the decency to fucking tell her about the curse. So many troubles could’ve been avoided with a little communication.
Also, Flora and Merryweather should’ve just agreed to make the dress BOTH pink and blue. A blue bodice with pink sleeves and skirt and white trim would’ve looked lovely.
also the fact they made the evil fairy even more kickass. She can turn into a dragon, lives in this cool dark gothic castle with a bunch of minions, a great fashion sense and a pet raven.
Also i love how she wasnt really mad for not being invited, she just wanted to mess with people. They all some petty feud between her and the other fairies, just like any good fairy villain. If you know anything about folkore about the fae is that some of them like to mess with mortals just for the sake of it.
and the best part of this the prince actually had to be rescued by the 3 fairies and couldn’t have defeated maleficent without them.
Viking Asgardians blog 