Cool Free Stuff That I've Discovered On the Internet and You Should, Too

Ivy Donegal’s Interwebbed Guide to Free Knowledge...

Remember that discovery channel song that came out a year or so ago, the one about “loving the whole world” and being fascinated with all the amazingness of nature and humanity?

The world is a fascinating, beautiful, brilliant place. To be fair, it’s also a horrible, caustic, nightmarish hellscape which forces humans and animals into unthinkable situations as a matter of course. Suffering is everywhere. But the brilliance and beauty does not have to overwhelmed by the bleakness. And discovery, or learning, about anything, really, is one of the most powerful things that we can do, as human beings, to cope with all of the inhumanity that we’ve inflicted on the world.

Because, without ignoring colonialism and cash crops and the gushing oil spill in the gulf of Mexico (that’s still happening, right?), the world is still full of some really cool stuff. And the advent of the internet has made so much of that available to everyone with a decent bandwidth, everywhere, all the time, for free.

So, I present, Cool Free Stuff That I’ve Discovered On the Internet and You Should Too, a guide to all of the fascinating (and not too depressing) stuff that I’ve been amusing myself with over the past several months as a part of my lifelong learning.

(Note... “learning” may not sound like very much fun to you, and that’s probably because you’ve recently been in some sort of educational institution, and are still coping through the residual terror that high schools and universities tend to inspire. Be not afraid. It may take a long time for your brain to recover and that spark of curiosity you once had as a four year old to return - I still have occasional nightmares and panic attacks - but, two years after dropping out of university, I’ve found I can read again. For pleasure. And if I can pick up a book without curling up into the fetal position with blinding-white petrification, there’s hope for you, too.)


Discover...Literature!

Like books, but hate to read? Do you love the idea of free books at your local library, but feel far too lazy to trek out to your local branch? Fear not! Audiobooks are here, often read by famous actors, along with electronic ebooks - which anyone in British Columbia (and many, many other places) can download to their computer for free (using your local library card, which you may have to actually leave the house to get).

Library to Go is, to me, the gold standard in free audiobooks. So go get your library card from your local branch and then login with that number, and have free access to thousands of audiobooks, from “Moby Dick” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” to Stephen Colbert’s “I am America and So Can You,” “Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters,” “The Art of Mindful Living,” and many, many more. Some of books are ‘always’ available, while others have a limited number of ‘copies,’ and a wait-list. But the ability to clean your room or pack whilst listening to Leo Tolstoy is an amazing experience, and the ability to add said books to your MP3 player or ipod, and then spend long commutes or boring business meetings listening to “Ella Enchanted” - it’s enough to make classic literature seem cool.


Discover...Foreign Languages!

So, you’ve always thought of yourself as the sort of person who would speak seven languages, but actually only know passable english and un peut de francais? Fear not.

Rosetta Stone is here, considered the gold standard of language learning - without any of annoying verb tables, tyrannical instructors, and social anxiety. Learning is via repetition and easily labelled pictures, along with voice-recognition software, which will have you saying “Hola” like a spaniard in no time, if you’re so inclined. Languages offered include Arabic, Dutch, Filipino, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Vietnamese.

But Ivy, you ask, isn’t Rosetta Stone notoriously expensive? Doesn’t their website indicate that an entire Spanish Language course costs no less than $700, plus tax?

Enter socialized education. It appears that, in BC at least, any adult can take any high school course at any time, for free. And, due to the miracles of distance education, this means that any British Columbian, in their own home, has access to Rosetta Stone language licenses offered throughout the province. This is the provincial website, which has a searchable database of courses.

My current Spanish course in via the North Island Distance Education School and a lovely instructor, Derek, who sometimes sends me emails of encouragement after I finish a unit. I work at my own pace, which is sporadic, have 30 weeks to complete the course (all online). Also, after I registered (online), I was sent a Spanish-English dictionary in the mail, for free. Just because they’re nice people like that.

Sign-up is easy...You could be speaking Tagalog in no time.


Discover...Theatre!

I was raised in a culture of musical theatre, and the experience of watching My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music, on repeat throughout my formative years, had many effects on my adult self. One of which was a love of Neil Patrick Harris and Glee.

A recent viewing of Sweeney Todd: In Concert has rekindled by love for the stage and distaste for all things Tim Burton (except for Big Fish). And many of the best musicals of the stage and DVD can be found online, with some of my favourite links included below. (If the links appear broken, a google video search usually yields similar results.)

Stephen Sondheim’s mastery (starring Neil Patrick Harris and Patty Lupone, among others) - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (in concert version, 2003)

Doctor Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, directed by the incomparable Joss Whedon, also starring the amazing Neil Patrick Harris. (2008)

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers - the 1954 Technicolour film which, while incredibly sexist in its plot and characterizations, is also amazing in so many ways. And hilarious. And the dancing and music is very well done. Some of you may judge me - I don’t care.

There’s lots more...but, for me, those three links would be good for about six months of impromptu dance sequences and endless annoying of my family and friends, so it’s probably best for society that I quit now.


Discover...Documentaries!

Want to learn about the autistic woman who used her disability to connect with animals and revolutionize American slaughterhouse design? (It’s a happy story, I swear!) Watch the inspiring BBC documentary on Temple Grandin, available through youtube. (HBO is soon coming out with a film Temple Grand’s young adult life, starring Claire Daines.)

There are a LOT of other documentaries out there, and a lot of them are beautiful and earth-shattering...but they’re fairly depressing, too. One group of films which manages to stay inspiring and beautiful is BBC’s Planet Earth, which I’d recommend to anyone who hasn’t seen the series.


And now...I’m hungry. That was a lot of writing. I think I’m going to eat a bagel. Peace out, world.