"I¡¯m Blake Watson. I¡¯ve been building websites since the early 2000s. Though I work professionally in the field, I feel strongly that anyone should be able to make a website with HTML if they want. This (free web) book will teach you how to do just that. It doesn¡¯t require any previous experience making websites or coding. I will cover everything you need to know to get started in an approachable and friendly way. Ready? Let¡¯s do it!" [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 2:16 AM Oct 11 2024 - 70 comments [186 favorites]

Election Day is finally here. (*gulp*) Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, after replacing a Biden campaign killed by an abysmal June debate, has run a historic sprint to the finish, promising (with Coach Tim Walz) "A New Way Forward" focused on reproductive rights, middle class economics, and protecting American democracy. Former President Donald Trump, saddled with myriad felonies, a historically unpopular running mate, and a platform that ranges from fascistic to incoherent, leads a darkly authoritarian counterculture that tried once to subvert the popular will and aims to do so again. Dozens of key House and Senate and ballot races hang in the balance, and the outcome has titanic implications for human rights, climate change, the international order, and the future of liberal democracy around the world. But despite the stark contrast, a lingering economic malaise (and suspiciously close polling) make this look like the closest contest in modern history. So let's give it a push in the right direction, yeah? Voting resources: ? Check your registration - ?? Find your polling place - ? Make your plan - ? States with same-day registration - ? See what's on your ballot - ??USA.gov voting guide - Volunteer to get out the vote: ?Knock on doors - ? Phonebank - ?Textbank - ? Carpool - ? Neighbor2Neighbor - ????Help cure ballots - Follow the returns: ? Poll closing times - ?DecisionDeskHQ results - ? 538 benchmarks - ? Live coverage - ? Politico Liveblog - ?Preparing for post-election subversion - ?Timeline through Inauguration Day [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 3:10 AM Nov 5 2024 - 2468 comments [165 favorites]

In the beginning, I thought Biden was going to do a second term. When doubt crept in, I began to sink into despair at an-all-but-unthinkable Trumpian future. But before I ever needed to really grapple with that possibility, Harris popped up. For a little while, I dreamt of a modern American presidency. Ugly doubt crept back in when her numbers started to stall. Early in the evening on election night, it was clear that Harris was a goner ¡ª and my mood sank in tandem. Ever a compulsive news reader, after Trump won I found far too much of it distressing, even maddening. Then I stumbled across an article on the democratic governors organizing to resist. For the first time in days, my mood lifted. [more inside]
posted by Violet Blue at 10:48 AM Jan 22 2025 - 166 comments [159 favorites]

What radio.garden did for radio, tv.garden is doing for... yes, tv. That is: Freely stream live tv stations from around the world!
posted by gwint at 4:58 PM Mar 28 2025 - 17 comments [122 favorites]

Here are the Internet forums that are still alive and kicking and full of information and interesting people. [more inside]
posted by jessamyn at 9:33 AM Oct 10 2024 - 73 comments [121 favorites]

After a series of foreign wars, a dysfunctional republic finds itself wracked by economic inequality, with property and wealth increasingly monopolized by greedy elites. A leading politician, newly elected on a platform of redistribution, social welfare, and political reform, bypasses Senate obstruction with a legislative loophole -- only to find his ambitious agenda blocked by a former ally on behalf of special interests. The leader: Tiberius Gracchus, tribune of the plebs. The year: 133 BC. What happened next would shatter longstanding norms, introduce political violence to the Roman forum, and lay the groundwork for the bloody collapse of the Republic, more than a generation before the birth of Julius Caesar and the rise of the Empire. [So much more inside] [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 1:44 PM Dec 30 2024 - 30 comments [119 favorites]

While it's self-proclaimed, it's easy to believe that this is the largest collection of links to free sites on the internet.
posted by JHarris at 9:02 PM Mar 12 2025 - 20 comments [118 favorites]

Between 1996 and 2002, VH1 had a show called Pop Up Video which paired music videos with trivia and jokes that "popped up" on screen, mostly without controversy. Most of it is unavailable today, but the Internet Archive has a number of episodes taped off televion. Here is a list: [more inside]
posted by Kattullus at 11:25 AM Jan 19 2025 - 44 comments [116 favorites]

In 2007, on my first trip to New York City, I grabbed a brand-new DSLR camera and photographed all the fonts I was supposed to love. I admired American Typewriter in all of the I <3 NYC logos, watched Akzidenz Grotesk and Helvetica fighting over the subway signs, and even caught an occasional appearance of the flawlessly-named Gotham, still a year before it skyrocketed in popularity via Barack Obama¡¯s first campaign. But there was one font I didn¡¯t even notice, even though it was everywhere around me.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:57 PM Feb 14 2025 - 33 comments [114 favorites]

Essential tools to make the modern web more bearable ¨C Because a lot of the internet is controlled by a very small number of companies, people have created tons of tools to make using services that lack viable competitors more bearable ... [Here] are a few tools that I think are pretty accessible and could make your internet experience a lot more enjoyable.
posted by Wolfdog at 7:04 AM Jan 6 2025 - 33 comments [105 favorites]

Transgender Reps Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell delivered powerful speeches on the Montana House floor on Thursday. ¡°When the sponsor closed on this bill, he said, this bill is needed¡­ and I quote his words¡­ ¡®because transgenderism is a fetish based on crossdressing.¡¯ And I am here to stand before the body and say that my life is not a fetish. My existence is not a fetish. I was proud within a month ago to have my son up in the gallery here. Many of you on the other side met him. When I go to walk him to school, that¡¯s not a lascivious display. That is not a fetish. That is my family. This is what these bills are trying to come after¡­ not obscene shows in front of children, we have the Miller test for that, we have laws for that. This is a way to target the trans community, and that is in my opinion, and in the speaker¡¯s own words.¡±
posted by toastyk at 7:15 AM Mar 7 2025 - 28 comments [101 favorites]

but the only way we're going to get there is to organize...
FINALLY: Jamie Raskin with MUST-SEE plan to DEFEAT Trump & Elon is filing amicus briefs, which may seem underwhelming? [link-heavy FPP] [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 11:59 PM Feb 17 2025 - 56 comments [100 favorites]

With a decent local GPU and some free open source software like ollama and open-webui you can try "open source" LLM models like Meta's llama, Mistral AI's mistral, or Alibaba's qwen entirely offline. [more inside]
posted by Lenie Clarke at 12:24 PM Nov 17 2024 - 19 comments [95 favorites]

AOC responds to Trump's Congressional Address - "It's all about Medicaid. It's all about what they're not saying. Don't you find it interesting that Donald Trump, if you listen to that speech, Donald Trump said a lot of things, he said a lot of random things about studies and waste and all this other stuff. He did not talk about Medicaid. Not once. And as a certain right-wing operative likes to say: MAGA's on Medicaid. And MAGA Trump is coming for your Medicaid. MAGA Republicans are coming for your Medicaid. And the reason they are rattling off all of these things because -- listen, where there is waste, we should address it, where there is corruption, we should address it, where there's fraud and abuse, we should address it -- but don't you think that if you found a bunch of money in the couch cushions that you would put that to expanding Medicaid, improving schools, fixing our roads, right, but that's not what they're planning on doing." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 11:59 PM Mar 9 2025 - 91 comments [93 favorites]

More than two millennia ago, a woman sat for hours on end in the ancient grasslands of a Siberian mountain range to have her body adorned with elaborate tattoos of creatures both real and mythical. When she died, her body was preserved under the permafrost for thousands of years, but her tattoos faded and became invisible to the naked eye. Now researchers have used high-resolution, near-infrared photography to bring those ancient tattoos back to life. [more inside]
posted by ShooBoo at 6:59 PM Aug 4 2025 - 18 comments [91 favorites]

A first hand report on homelessness in the US by someone who can really fucken' write.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:09 AM Nov 27 2024 - 50 comments [87 favorites]

A simple trick to keep google from putting AI slop before your search results.
posted by signal at 12:37 PM Jan 30 2025 - 57 comments [87 favorites]

"Fighting Back: A Citizen¡¯s Guide to Resistance" from the New Republic This is a lengthy article on what to do in the face of all things Trump. That being said, it also has many useful links. Among others, the article includes links to the following:

• Choose Democracy's What Can I Do To Stop This Coup?
  
• Peaceful Protest Opportunities at No Voice Unheard

And... "Flood the Office of Personnel Management¡¯s anti-DEI tip line at..." (Email address is in the article.) Fight on, everyone!
posted by dfm500 at 12:04 PM Apr 9 2025 - 15 comments [87 favorites]

Trumpism Has Deep Roots in American History, and It Will Outlast Trump [ungated] - "He's said he wants the Justice Department to target people and institutions he regards as opponents, and would unleash the military to round up American citizens he's labeled as the 'enemy from within.' He wants to deport more than 10 million immigrants. He plans to lock down trade channels with massive tariffs and turn his back on European and Asian allies. He's prepared to continue stocking the courts with jurists who allow legal precedent to be voided ¡ª at the expense of women's health and autonomy ¡ª and make presidents largely immune from the rule of law. He has called for the 'termination' of the Constitution to overturn election results that don't satisfy him (and has already fomented one insurrection). Some of this is cultural, economic and diplomatic warfare. Much of it ¡ª as many voters, historians, analysts, Republicans, former Trump White House advisers and military leaders like John Kelly and Mark Milley have noted ¡ª is fascism. All of it, collectively, is Trumpism." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 11:59 PM Nov 1 2024 - 47 comments [85 favorites]

THE NIGHTLY: "a web-based radio station for insomniac dreamers, wistful lonely hearts, and general appreciators of a sort of indescribable beautiful drearynes." I stumbled upon it because their instagram page chanced to send me a follow request. I hit play a few months ago and have barely paused it since. [more inside]
posted by deadbilly at 2:23 PM Apr 26 2025 - 20 comments [84 favorites]