563 posts tagged with free.
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disquieting images that just feel 'off'
If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.So stated an anonymous 2019 thread on 4chan's /x/ imageboard -- a potent encapsulation of liminal-space horror that gave rise to a complex mythos, exploratory video games, and an acclaimed web series (previously; soon to become a major motion picture from A24!). In the five years since, the evolving "Backrooms" fandom has canonized a number of other dreamlike settings, from CGI creations like The Poolrooms and a darkened suburb with wrong stars to real places like the interior atrium of Heathrow's Terminal 4 Holliday Inn and a shuttered Borders bookstore. But the image that inspired the founding text -- an anonymous photo of a vaguely unnerving yellow room -- remained a mystery... until now. [more inside]
I could run forever, but I won't get far (free thread!)
Charly Bliss' new single/video, "Nineteen" From their upcoming album "Forever". It's your weekly free thread! Come on in, put on some tunes, kick up your heels and tell us what's up with you!
For when "Crusader Kings" is a bit much
Sort the Court is a charmingly addictive "kingdombuilder" of sorts that's perfect for a lazy Saturday. Designed and written by Graeme Borland in just 72 hours for Ludum Dare 34, the game casts you as a new monarch who must judiciously grow your realm's wealth, population, and happiness with an eye toward joining the illustrious Council of Crowns... all by giving flat yes-or-no answers to an endless parade of requests from dozens of whimsical subjects. It's possible to lose, and the more common asks can get a bit repetitive, but with hundreds of scenarios and a number of longer-term storylines, the game can be won in an hour or two while remaining funny and fresh.
See the forum or the wiki for help, enjoy the original art of Amy "amymja" Gerardy and the soundtrack by Bogdan Rybak, or check out some other fantasy decisionmaking games in this vein: Borland's spiritual prequel A Crown of My Own - the somewhat darker card-based REIGNS - the more expansive and story-driven pixel drama Yes, Your Grace (reviews), which has a sequel due out this year
It Free. It's a Thread. C'mon in.
A favorite moment of perfect comedic timing from The Muppets' Seven Deadly Sins/ Sex and Violence. it's safe for work. [more inside]
CareFREE drumming
Junna's drumcover of Babymetal's Doki Doki Morning (It's your weekly free thread!)
Lil Jon has a guided meditation YouTube stream
10 different 10-minute guided mediations by crunk progenitor Lil Jon. Lil Jon is very serious about meditation, and sharing its benefits. These 10 guided mediations include ones focusing on boosting focus, gratitude, grief, deep sleep, and much more.
Tintreach (AC/DC in Gaeilge)
Image generation as fast as you can type
While the generative AI scene is transfixed by trillion-scale chipmakers and bleeding-edge text-to-video models, there's plenty of work being done on simpler, more efficient open-source projects that don't require a datacenter to run. In addition to homebrew-friendly text options like Mistral, Llama, and Gemma, the makers of image generator Stable Diffusion have also experimented recently with SDXL Turbo, a lightweight, streamlined version that can generate complex images significantly faster. Previously, this required a decent graphics card and a complicated install process, or at least registration on a paid service -- but thanks to a free public demo from fal.ai, you can now generate and share constantly updating images yourself in real time, as fast as you can type. The quality may not be quite as good as the state-of-the-art stuff, but DALL-E Mini it ain't. No word on what it's costing the company to host or how long it might last, but for now the real-time responsiveness makes it easier than ever to get an intuitive feel for how modern image diffusers interpret text and what exactly they're capable of. [more inside]
I swim the seas between paranoia and disbelief - your weekly free thread
SPRINTS - Up and Comer It's your weekly free thread! Drop in, look around, let us know what's up with you.
The MeFite as reader ... it's your weekly free thread
What are you reading - something you wrote last week? A Valentine's day card from scarabic? A recipe? A blog? Tax filing instructions? Safety information? A novel? Techniques? A print newspaper? The ingredients on a food product? The weather forecast? A flight ticket? Song lyrics? A job advert? Ferry times? A diner menu? A trail guide? This post? A comment you wrote? A comment you regret writing? Or talk about anything and everything in your life and your world as this is your free thread.
The MeFite as writer ... it's your weekly free thread
What are you writing - a CV? A resignation letter? Reports? A spell? Academic papers? Job applications? A thesis? Letters to lovers? A book? A ransom note? Some code? A shopping list? Some interactive fiction? Erotic fiction? A journal or diary entry? Poetry (by Jessica Smith)? MetaFilter posts? And with what - a favorite pen? A pencil? The keyboard? Software? A stencil? A tablet? A paintbrush? A quill? Something else? Or talk about anything and everything in your life and your world as this is your free thread.
We're coming to a bend now, skidding 'round the hairpin
A week after its debut, The Smile (featuring Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood alongside drummer Tom Skinner and the London Contemporary Orchestra) has released their acclaimed sophomore album Wall of Eyes for free on YouTube, backing the record's subtle, languid, slow-burn melodies and towering crescendos with eclectic [music videos] and colorful collages: 1) Thom enjoys an unsettling night out with his selves on ["Wall of Eyes"] [lyrics] - 2) the undulating soundscapes of "Teleharmonic" [lyrics] - 3) jangling psychedelia contrasts with pockets of honey-sweetness on "Read the Room" [lyrics] - 4) silent ghosts usher in "Under Our Pillows" [lyrics] - 5) the lads perform a song about lockdowns and corruption to an unfiltered gaggle of artless children in ["Friend of a Friend"] [lyrics] - 6) the glitchy drifting landscapes of "I Quit" [lyrics] - 7) the gorgeously existential "to be or not to be" of "Bending Hectic" [lyrics] (or see the [fan video] based on the enigmatic animation of Vladimir Tarasov) - 8) ethereally beautiful closing ballad "You Know Me!" [lyrics]. More: lyrics and analysis - BBC interview with the band and Jonny - behind-the-scenes video - photos from the special edition [more inside]
You are the MeFite ... it's your weekly free thread
After last week's epic thread of The games MeFites play - which you can still contribute to - this week there's no optional topic. It's just ... you. Talk about anything and everything in your life and your world as this is your free thread.
The games MeFites play - it's your weekly free thread
Dungeons and Dragons? Scrabble? Wordle? Animal Crossing? Tabletop Role Playing Games? Board games? Chess? Go? Some other game of any kind? Or a game you've made, on your own or in a team, for work, fun or personal satisfaction? Or talk about anything and everything in your life and your world as this is your free thread. [more inside]
Who are the people who matter to you? It's your weekly free thread.
Who are the friends, the people (or sometimes non-people), who really matter to you? Your bestie from a long way back? Someone you met in middle age or at a record fair? A school friend? Your partner? A relative? Your pet? A work colleague or neighbour? A digital construct? A dispenser of advice? Or talk about anything and everything in your life and your world as this is your free thread.
A Free Thread for an early January day ... but how do you “Winter”?
In Wintering, Katherine May wrote “In winter, we are invited into a particular mode of sleep: not a regimented eight hours, but a slow, ambulatory process in which waking thoughts merge with dreams, and space is made in the blackest hours to repair the fragmented narratives of our days.” But how do you 'Winter', either seasonal or metaphorical? (applicable to MeFites in either hemisphere) Attitude? Meditation? Sleep and sun? Vitamin D? Noting “After Christmas, every day is getting longer. We’re in the second half of winter and soon enough it will start to get lighter and warmer”? Or write anything as this is your free thread.
Happy New Free Thread, MetaFilter ... what do you want from 2024?
'tis 2024 here, there, and everywhere, and welcome to a fresh slab of 365+1 days of calendar. Much will happen during this year, on earth and up in the sky; some sports in France, and the important vote in Sweden, but eventually eyes will turn to the USA to see who emerges victorious. But, sweet dear MeFites, what are your aspirations, hopes, desires, dreams for 2024?
Merry Free Thread, MeFites ... and a MetaFilter Christmas past
(This is a free thread. But it also complements the not-free-thread. So write in either. Or both.) While some enjoy fine dining on the 25th, and do other things (inaccurate list), so others go to mass or surf, or eat domcă or plachie. But what are you doing? And while December 1999 was a quite different place on the blue of MetaFilter, what were you doing (or how was your life back then) on Christmas Day 1999?
'tiswas the free thread before Christmas...
While we shove tartes of flesh into our mouths and read seasonal food reviews, we note that a week today 'twil be the birthdays of Humphrey Bogart (1899), Annie Lennox (1954) and Chef (1984). While invaluable goods continue to disappear, a new etiquette divider is those who ladle their gravy verses those who pour it from the boat, and the best peanut spread is Pindakaas, the question remains: what are you buying or making or planning to eat? Or ... just write about anything, because this is your Free Thread.
This is not a Free Thread, so don't leave off-topic comments here
...or perhaps it is a free thread, in which case do? If a MeFite makes an irrelevant comment on a front page post, does anyone read it? What is commenting, anyway? What is commenting... not? Will the many academics who keep studying what we write on MetaFilter ever tell us? Discuss. Or don't. Does anyone care? And is Cool Whip really edible?
It's our 101st free thread!
How long can a shooting star fly for? (apropos of nothing, Katherine Ho, from the Crazy Rich Asians soundtrack, live)
This post intentionally left blank
...to give you more 'room' to write in the weekly FREE THREAD. What's the point of 'intentionally blank pages' anyway? [previously, previouslyer]
Lovingly Crafted Puzzle Games Since 2013
Alan "Draknek" Hazelden is an industrious creator of charming, handcrafted, fiendishly difficult puzzle games with a retro 8-bit feel (most using the open-source, HTML5-compliant Puzzlescript engine). Highlights:
Sticky Candy Puzzle Saga -
Spikes 'n' Stuff -
Spooky Pumpkin Game -
Boxes Love Boxing Gloves -
Frog Wizard Gem Quest -
Train Braining -
A Sneeze a Day Keeps the Crates Away -
Cyber-Lasso -
Mirror Isles -
Slime Swap -
A Good Tunnel is Hard to Dig -
Mouse Wants Cheese -
You're Pulley-ing My Leg -
I Have No Mouth, And I Must Create Blocks On All Sides Of Me - More? Check out a list of all games (older ones may break), all Puzzlescript games, iOS and Android games. Also check out the homepage for gamedev partnerships, contact info, and more commercial offerings.
Here on Absurd Island, and everywhere else, it's Monday so...
...it's time for your weekly Free Thread where you can talk about wtf, or that the Christmas season has officially started, or news reporting of places to socially visit in Worcestershire, or that Easter Eggs will be in the shops in 8 weeks, or just anything.
I've got a gut f(r)eeling
Gravity-free (thread)
Fred Richard's Floor Exercise @ 2023 World Gymnastics Championships. Unfettered by earthly bonds (especially starting at :30). You might not be able to flip like Fred, but you can participate in this week's free thread! [more inside]
But when I stare at the girls as if I'm free
It's Monday!
the narrative unfolds with all the messy complexities of real life
Kentucky Route Zero: It took seven years for the three-person team at Cardboard Computer to finish their masterpiece about a sad, regretful man making one last delivery for his employer's failing antique shop. [more inside]
Free Bee
I think that I shall never see, a thread as lovely as a free
Free Online Browser tools: Big list of free In Browser, Single Use tools
You need to do a thing - NOW! For when you need to calculate a thing, or look up a thing, or be able to do the thing in your Browser without any faff.
Most of the tools listed are NOT from https://freetinytools.com/ but I had to put a link in the description.... [more inside]
Spaghettieis is the way to a Free Thread
BBC: "At ice cream parlours around Germany, you might come across a perplexing menu item, simply labelled Spaghettieis." Some pictures on Flickr. Metro: "5. Optional: grate some white chocolate over the top for ‘Parmesan’." (Previously) And what's your favourite regular or combo or speciality ice cream, or just talk about everything because it's your .
Dance like someone's ignoring you
Pizza Pizza Pizza Pizza oh and your Free Thread (comes with dough balls)
As a version of Chicago pizza comes to Leicester, people put raspberry mascarpone on top, England (history recap: invade nearly everywhere and take all the spices) makes the blandest pizza possible, pizza is stolen, pizza eaters get in the mood for lurve, we remember the president of Iceland previously clarifying that "I do not have the power to make laws which forbid people to put pineapples on their pizza", possible evidence of ancient pizza is revealed, and Sweden is Sweden and Ohio is Ohio, here's your weekly Free Thread...
As Christmas approaches, here's your weekly Free Thread
In only eight weeks time, Christmas puddings, mince pies and other seasonal foods, plus cards and wrapping paper, will start to fill the supermarket shelves. Christmas spirit? It's never too early as Boston hope to do better than last year, Fakenham reveal their plans, sensible people have completed shopping, and the Christmas birth is anticipated. Some tree advice and potato advice. So throw a log on the fire, put on your wooliest jumper, pour yourself a glass of mulled wine and type into the freethread, or Free Thread, or #FreeThread, for this week. Bonus: some pleasant Holst.
Ye Olde Free Threade is here, for inscription of wondrous thoughts
Come, fellow MeFites, and obnixely enter texts into this fiendish and ancient device. Of anecdotes and tales, baboonery lived, stories told and untold. Of travels to the underworld, of delicacies enjoyed, of a Yule of past or a Yule to come. Be not an agelast on reading, but be wakerife and stub not thy hallux on reaching for keyboard or quill, for this threade be free...
Frei! Freeeiiiiii!
Free time
School's out for summer. A friend graduated from high school this weekend, and I asked her what she was going to do with all her free time, and she said "sleep in!". And then proceeded to list all the things she had to do this week. Here's our Monday free thread!
Free + Food + Work = Bedlam
Once again, Ask A Manager's Alison Green has asked her readers for their crazy work stories - this time regarding free food at work, and what it does to people's minds. [more inside]
One of these days...
Free yourself!
Feel free to flop around a little
$0, same as in town
Happy freethread Monday!
It's gonna be sunny here in Seattle, which means more time on the bike saddle for me. I hope you all have a great week!
Love and a Peaceful World
LXX
Free thread! (I was planning on being more creative and going to metatalk and trying to set up a schedule, but I'm a little hungover and the morning is getting away from me. So here we are)
Free Thread #69
Belated Dyngus
Hello, it's Monday, and that means a new free thread, and so here we are. By the way, apologies for not pointing out observance of Śmigus-dyngus day last Monday. I guess it just snuck up on me. [more inside]
bunch of what, now?
Please don't be offended, but the universe, or the fates, or whoever controls this stuff seems to think that I should share Bacon Popper's "Free" in this free thread. [more inside]
Just your type
Hello, Monday, happy free thread! This week, I'm wondering ... does anyone remember typewriters? Weren't they fussy and fiddly and fun? And didn't they sound great? Well, if so, today I have another free thing (or two) in your free thing thing, that may be pertinent to your interests: 1) an online (type)writing app called Writer that offers "distraction-free focus" and saves your text, plus you can opt to have manual or electric typewriter key strike sounds accompany the composition of your deathless prose. Hemingwayesque! (don't be put off by the neon green text — you can change that; use the gear icon to adjust your preferences.) [more inside]