This evening, I made a number of small donations to support freeware and free podcasts. The amount of excellent entertainment developed and put online "for free" these days is amazing. The products are freely available but you can voluntarily support them if you choose to, with whatever amount you wish. What amazes me is that people really do pay money, even when they don't have to. Somehow this is a movement and an attitude fundamentally different to standard capitalism. It makes me happy that people will voluntarily step up and pay for something that others can enjoy for free. The world will be filled with things that appeal to selfless people.
So most of the things fall in the geek category, as you can see:
- Wikipedia: Everyone knows this. I find all kinds of useful things here: from Gaussian Quadrature to X-men crossover story details. The science information I find has always been quite accurate. Pop culture information is very detailed. I am amazed at the quality of a resource which anyone can contribute to. Presumably the information on politics and religion can be more biased, although I have never seen anything egregious. I wonder how they manage competing views on a topic.
- Rachel and Miles X-plain the X-men podcast: The X-men is a long running comic series (well, several series with common characters) that began in 1963. It is a Marvel product, which means that it has a single continuity (well, except for changes due to time travel) for the fifty years of its run (well, there were a few early years when it was on hiatus). Rachel and Miles have a weekly podcast that is slowly working its way through the long history of the series, "X-plaining" some of the weirder plot twists and continuity revisions. Very entertaining.
- Welcome to Night Vale podcast: It is hard to describe this bi-weekly podcast in a way that will show why it is so entertaining. It is a radio show from a fictitious desert town full of "strange happenings". Imagine H.P. Lovecraft stories been told as news by a mellow radio show host.
- Simple Comic: This is a freeware comic reader for mac. Displays scanned on e-comics in .cbr and .cbz. There is a version for iPhone, so I can read comics on the bus...
- Thermal Expansion and Minefactory Reloaded: These are two excellent minecraft (a sandbox adventure and building game) mods (programs that modify the original game). Thermal Expansion adds engines, processing machines and automated item and energy transport. There are several other mods that aim to add similar content, but Thermal Expansion is very elegant and gives such great control over functionality. The blocks from this mod are just so nice to work with. Minefactory Reloaded provides a whole array of machines to automate repetitive tasks in the game (planting and harvesting, monster creation and killing for items, animal breeding, enchanting and disenchanting...). Again, there are mods that have some of these functions, but Minefactory just does it more elegantly. Both mods are now grouped together in a common site. I expect great things from the synergy.
- Twilight Forest: This is another minecraft mod. This one adds a whole new world to the game (well, the Twilight Forest). You make a 2 by 2 pool of water, surround it with flowers and throw in a diamond to make the portal. The world is filled with new creatures, structures, treasures and bosses. It is a very fun, fantasy themed addition.
- Chisel: Another minecraft mod. This is a very simple one, that allows you to "chisel" blocks into new, decorative patterns. It is useable early game on basic blocks and adds a lot of visual interest.
