We Recommend: Your Friday Freebies

Each Friday, our contributors send in a bunch of (legally) free stuff they’ve come across this week to help you waste your weekend. You’re welcome.

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Song: ‘Stranger In Moscow’ (Michael Jackson cover), by Tame Impala

Recommended by: Kyran Wheatley (‘20 Young Australian Comedians You Should Know About‘)

Ever wanted to know what Michael Jackson sounds like if you are Kevin Parker from Tame Impala? Well, wonder no more! Overnight, Parker uploaded his cover of MJ’s 1996 (not quite) hit ‘Stranger In Moscow‘, and it’s awesome and new and free and already on my iPod.

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Article: Reaching My Autistic Son Through disney, by Ron Suskind

Recommended by: Steph Harmon (‘A Chat With Senator Ludlam‘)

“I have not heard this voice, natural and easy, with the traditional rhythm of common speech, since he was two. I’m talking to my son for the first time in five years.”

This article is about a father learning to communicate with his son Owen through the voices of Disney films, which Owen — who has suffered from severe regressive autism since he was an infant — watches obsessively. If that sounds exactly like the sort of thing that will make you cry and also fill you with hope, click here.

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Video: ’73 Questions With Sarah Jessica Parker’

Recommended by: Glenn Dunks (‘Love, Melancholy, And The Golden Girls: Looking‘s Season Finale Hit Close To Home‘)

Say what you will about Sarah Jessica Parker — and, trust me, I know you do — but I’d still love to be friends with her. She seems so nice! We could dish on clothes, Flight Of The Navigator (1986), and play ping pong in her New York apartment’s drawing room. Wait, what’s that you ask? “Sarah Jessica Parker has a ping pong table in her drawing room?” Why yes, she does.

This is just one of many amusing take-aways from Vogue’s ’73 Questions With Sarah Jessica Parker’ featurette. She also has a fantastic stair rug, didn’t go to her prom, her favourite band is Parliament, she has fantastic hair and a collection of globes, hates parsley, really likes Greece, and her favourite film of the last five years was Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia (now there’s a collaboration I’d be dying to see realised). SJP, can we be friends?

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Website: Hackertyper.com

Recommended by: Ben Jenkins

Do you want to hack the mainframe? Of course you do, who doesn’t want to hack the mainframe? The problem, of course, is that the mainframe is difficult to hack, and requires years of hacker training at hacker academies. This site gives you the appearance of being a sick hacker, without any sweet hacker skills required. Get some Jolt Cola and a dirty black t-shirt and get hacking, friends.

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Article: ‘Meet The Most Connected Man In The World’, from Mashable

Recommended by: Katie Booth

Do you ever have those days when you feel inundated with information, checking your email, Facebook, Twitter, mobile, (add preferred system here)? Just take a minute to remember this guy: Chris Dancy.

With between 300 and 700 systems running all at the same time and endlessly capturing “real-time data about his life”, it’s little wonder he’s known as ‘the most connected man in the world’. “I’ve lost 100 pounds and learned to meditate,” he says. Maybe the key to de-stressing is hooking yourself up to more things that make you stressed?

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Mixtape: ‘Fact Mix’, by Slowdive

Recommended by: Rob Moran (‘Vampire Academy Isn’t As Bad As Everyone Says It Is‘)

Lovers of poppy shoegaze and droopy fringes will be familiar with Slowdive, the UK band led by Neil Halstead, whose terribly titled 1993 album Souvlaki remains a high point for the genre. Earlier this week, the band — who’ve recently reformed and hinted at a new album — created a mix for FACT Magazine, and its a lovely collection of their melancholy influences and dreamy contemporaries, including My Bloody Valentine, AR Kane, Cocteau Twins, Nick Drake, and more. Stream it or download the whole thing, and hope for a weekend of grey clouds and pearly dewdrops.

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