im gay and too pretty to know like, anything.

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Cooking with flavor bootcamp (used what I learned in this a LOT this year)

Beekeeping 101

Learn Interior Design from the British Academy of Interior Design (free to audit course - just choose the free option when you register)

Video on learning to read music that actually helped me??

How to use and sew with a sewing machine

How to ride a bike (listen. some of us never learned, and that's okay.)

How to cornrow-braid hair (I have it on good authority that this video is a godsend for doing your baby niece's black hair)

Making mead at home (I actually did this last summer and it was SO good)

How to garden

Basics of snowboarding (proceed with caution)

How to draw for people who (think they) suck at art (I know this website looks like a 2003 monstrosity, but the tutorials are excellent)

Pixel art for beginners so you can make the next great indie game

Go (back) to school

Introduction to Astronomy (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Principals of Economics (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Introduction to philosophy (free college course)

Computer science basics (full-semester Harvard course free online)

Learn a language

Japanese for Dummies (link fix from 2022)

Ukrainian

Portuguese (Brazil)

American Sign Language (as somebody who works with Deaf people professionally, I also strongly advise you to read up on Deaf/HoH culture and history!)

Chinese (Mandarin, Simplified)

Beginner-oriented video on how to sail

This guy has so many videos on baking different types of bread. SO very many.

Coding in Python - one of the most flexible and adaptable high-level programming languages out there - explained through projects making video games

Learn to swim! (for adult learners. I don’t care if you live in Kansas or Mali or wherever. LEARN TO SWIM.)

Learn how quantum mechanics works. Then read some more about it

[Learn about quantum mechanics again, but in a more advanced engineering/mathematics class. Then read more about the math and physics of it]

Poetry Handbook, by Mary Oliver

Something I learned this year: how to sew a quilt (Here’s a very easy beginning pattern that looks amazing and can be done with pre-cut fabric!)

How to hit the ball in softball

Tutorial video on what is under the hood of most (gas) cars + weird engine sounds and what they mean

Full beginner mechanics technical training, if you want to go more in depth

Playlist on how car engine physics work if you want to go ultra in depth

Lecture series on architecture design through study of buildings

How (American income) taxes & tax law work (choose “audit course” at checkout for free class)

Pickleball for beginners (so you can finally join your neighbor/friend/distant cousin who is always insisting you join their team)

+ Para-Pickleball for beginners (for mobility aid users!)

School is so much more fun when there’s no tests:

American Law - Contracts

Shakespeare’s Life and Plays

Fairy Tales: Meanings, Messages, and Morals

Modern Poetry

World History [Part 1, Part 2]

Learn a language:

Arabic + Resource Guide compiled from Reddit (includes info on different dialects)

Chinese (Cantonese) (audio)

Urdu (frequently recommended course on Reddit) + Resource Guide

“Who are you talking to?” Jayson replied.

“Shh,” he stroked his face, and studied his face like he was seeing it for the first time. “New speaker new line. They'll figure it out.”

He laughed nervously. “Are you seriously giving them a writing lesson right now?”

“Is it working?”

“I don't know,” he said. “Which one of us is speaking?”

“Obviously me,” Josh said. “It's not as if there's a third guy in this scene or anything.”

me: Okay!

The textile book: Clothes separate the vulnerable human body from the conditions of the outside world, and in doing so absorb the sweat and debris of human existence, accumulating wear and tear according to the lives we live. In this way, various lifestyles and professions are represented by clothing, and the clothing of a loved one retains the imprint of their physical body and their life being lived, as though the clothes absorb part of the wearer's soul

Me: ...oh

The textile book: The process of weaving a garment and the process of a child being formed in its mother's womb are often referred to using the same language. Likewise, when a baby is born, a blanket or other textile material is the first material object it encounters and protects it. Textiles can create the idea of two things being inextricable, as with being "woven together," or can create the sense of separateness, as with a curtain or veil that separates two rooms or spaces, even separating the living from the dead, or separating two realities, such as a performance ending when the curtain falls

Me: ...oh God

The textile book: Odysseus's wife Penelope undid her weaving in secret every night to delay the advances of her suitors. In this way she was able to turn back the passage of time to allow her husband to come home. Likewise the Lakota tell a story of an old woman embroidering time by embroidering a robe with porcupine quills. If she finishes the embroidery, the world will come to an end, but her faithful dog pulls out the quills whenever her back is turned, turning back the clock and allowing existence to continue.

me: ...is...is...is that why we refer to the fabric of space and time?

The textile book: The technological revolution of textile making is sadly underappreciated. The textile arts are possibly the most fundamental human technology, as once people created string and rope, they could create nets for catching fish and small animals, and bags and baskets for carrying food. In the earliest prehistoric times, the first string or cord perhaps came from sinew, found in the body of an animal. Because of this perhaps the body of a living being could be understood as made of a textile material. Indeed textiles have the function of preserving life, as with a surgeon stitching back together the human body or bandages being placed on a wound. Textile technologies are being used to create life-changing implants to restore function to injured parts of the body, as though a muscle or tendon can be woven and made in this way. Cloth can be used to create a parachute that will save a human's life as they plummet out of the sky. Ultimately, the textile technologies are used to enter new parts of the universe. [Photo of an astronaut and details explaining the astronaut's suit]

🌈🎶🤠

"Remember when they told us every computer was going to crash on 1/1/01 and there would be chaos and then nothing happened?"

We don't talk about acid rain because there isn't any more acid rain because when acid rain started happening and we learned that the cause was mainly sulphur oxide and carbon monooxide from car exhausts, countries all over the world made it a law that car companies had to produce cars that produced less exhaust with better effectivenes (burning the fuel all the way to CO2 instead of the halfassed CO) and oil rafineries to remove the sulphur from the gasoline in the first place.

We don't talk about computers crashing because of the turn of the century, because thousands of programmers worked very hard to write updates and patches for Every Single Program humanity as a whole used back in 1999 and then somehow managed to failtest, distribute, and update every single device and system, be it an online or offline one before the midnight of the 1st january of 2000.

On a much smaller scale, no one ever commenta or notices cleaners and housekeepers doing their job - be it at home or at whole buildings - because they always make sure that there's nothing to notice. But don't be fooled - at any point of your life you are one week of them not doing away from swimming in trash and filth with nothing to eat and nothing clean to wear. Only then you would notice.

Reply from verified user Derek Thompson (@/ DKThomp) reading: What happen is scientist discovered chlorofluorocarbons were bad for the ozone, countries believed them, the Montreal Protocol was signed, and CFC use feel by 99.7%, leading to the stabilization of the ozone layer, perhaps the greatest example of global cooperation in history. /End ID]