resources
a selection of sites and software that I have found useful and/or neat! you may have heard of some of these before, particularly if you're working in the same fields as me, but I still think they're good to collect in one place.
jump to headings:
astronomy & physics
- free, open-source planetarium software
- good for planning observations & identifying stuff when stargazing
- web version exists as well
- weather forecasts for astronomers
- includes cloud cover, seeing, & transparency information
- older, independently-run site
- view images of galaxies in the Legacy Survey footprint
- I use it for my research, but neat to look at for a layperson
mathematics
Integral Calculator & its sibling Derivative Calculator
- very helpful for those pesky integrals & derivatives, or for when you just can't be assed
- only math resource I've found that's free and shows steps
- helpful for figuring out anything that isn't a derivative or integral
- you need to pay to show steps :/
- online graphing calculator
- you can do a lot of crazy shit with it
learning
- free note-taking software (alternative to Evernote & Notion)
- notes exist as Markdown files on your computer
- can visualize links between notes as a graph
- free downloads of textbooks and scientific papers
- link may be broken as site changes aliases somewhat often due to copyright strikes
- virtual library of books & other materials
- run by the same people as the Wayback Machine
- search engine for small, old, less-optimized websites
- good for finding obscure sources on a specific topic
webmastery
- HTML and CSS tutorials & references
- what I mainly used for learning to build this site!
- other helpful resources for building a website
- includes a layout maker, HTML & CSS help, and an idea generator
Lilac Lynx's responsive CSS tutorial
- simple & accessible even for a beginner
- makes responsive CSS less intimidating
fiber arts
- oodles of free guides & patterns for a bunch of crafts