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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Livestream: The Abbey Road Pedestrian Crossing

Recommended by: Rebecca Shaw

This is probably the best thing The Beatles have ever given us, invention of Rock n’ Roll or whatever be damned. A live feed of the famous zebra crossing outside the Abbey Road Studios in London (depicted on the imaginatively-titled album Abbey Road) has been very helpful in letting me procrastinate easily for the past 24 hours.

Wait for daytime hours to witness the live glory of furious people in their cars waiting for tourists to replicate the famous photo, see people almost get hit by cars, and see others try to be funny in the middle of a busy road. Tally ho!

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Article — “Why I Feel Bad For — And Understand — The Angry #GamerGate Gamers” by Devin Faraci

 Recommended by: Lee Zachariah (“Doctor Who Recap: The Doctor Got Dark”)

One of the reasons I regularly read the pop culture website Badass Digest is that it has the outward appearance of being staffed by angry nerds, but angry nerds with a zero tolerance towards racism, sexism, homophobia, and so on. After this great piece on the site by Andrew Todd about the whole #GamerGate issue — if you’re unfamiliar, the short explanation is it’s a lot of video game players being abhorrently sexist towards women who point out how abhorrently sexist many video games are — the site’s editor Devin Faraci tackled the issue from a different angle: what, precisely, is wrong with these nerds? Faraci took the time to explain exactly why he thinks these guys can be so sexist. It’s a thoughtful, insightful, articulate piece, and if the only way to change someone’s mind is to understand theirs first, then this is one of the most important articles written about the whole controversy.

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Album: Banoffee’s Debut EP

Recommended by: Sinead Stubbins

I’m not very cool so I often stumble upon music that I think is new, only to find out that it has already been chewed up and spat out by the triple j crowd like, MONTHS ago. However Melbourne-based artist Banoffee only released her debut EP in late August, so I think I’m pretty safe in recommending that you go to her Soundcloud page and get lost in the synth-drenched harmonies.

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Website: Broke Tourist

Recommended by: Michelle See-Tho (“You Need To Watch ‘How To Talk Australians’”)

If you’re a keen traveller but are low on cashola (hello every twentysomething-year-old), you’ll love this site. It’s got articles and lists of free/cheap things to do all over the world. Most recently they did a series on the Galápagos Islands with travel porn aplenty.

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Vine: Look At This Tiny Pig

Recommended by: Elmo Keep

Turn on your sound to best experience this tiny pig.

A fun game is how many times you can watch it in a row before you remember you have a job.

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YouTube: This Dancing Royal Guardsman Is Going To Get His Head Chopped Off

Recommended by: Alex McKinnon (“Don’t Look At Nude Pictures That Aren’t Meant For You, And Don’t Click On Articles That Promise Them”)

You fool, Royal Guardsman! I’m fairly sure the penalty for dancing on duty at Buckingham Palace is still technically getting launched from a catapult in the direction of Calais.