the-forbidden-fruit-project

[the-forbidden-fruit-project]

Open Access Resources

To kick off the project, here is a master list of open source archives, organizations, and other educational projects. I will frequently add to this over time and will gladly accept suggestions for more. These aren't in any organized order, they're just added as I think of them or are informed of more.

Disclaimer: I can't guarantee that everything in this master list will be totally accessible to everybody due to a disability, and I apologize if there is anything that isn't. If you notice an accessibility issue, or any other issues with what's on this list, tell me and I will add a disclaimer under it or fix it if it's an issue from me.

Everything on here is free, though.

Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.com)

Project Gutenberg is a completely volunteer-run online library founded by Michael Stern Hart in 1971. He was the inventor of e Books and believed in making books as easily accessible and distributable as possible. The website has over 70,000 public domain digital books and they add more very often. There are options to read their books on the website browser, through multiple downloadable file types, in plain text, without pictures, and some even have human or machine narrated reading options. There are many books on the website that are not in English or have non-English translations. You never need an account or are required to share any of your personal information with them to access anything on the website.

Open Library (www.openlibrary.org)

Open Library is another digital archive of online eBooks available for free. It is part of the broader Internet Archive. They share a similar goal of uploading every book published for easy and free access. Some of their books are public domain and others aren't. The ones that aren't you need to borrow from the site, either for one day or 14 hours depending on if the book is fully borrow-able or not. All the books they have also have audio versions, and their open access books are downloadable in either PDF or e Pub form. You need an account to borrow books from them, but not to read their open access books.

Crash Course (www.thecrashcourse.com)

Crash Course is a YouTube channel founded by Hank Green and John Green in 2012, initially created through the YouTube Original Channel Initiative and has since branched out into it's own company funded by community donations on Patreon. As stated on their website, "[The people at Crash Course] believe that high-quality educational videos should be available to everyone for free." They make fast-paced, easily understandable and processable educational videos on a broad range of topics ranging from science to humanities. They have over 45 published courses to date which include topics above a high school or primary school level. As far as I'm aware, all of their videos have closed captions and you don't need to have the ability to see the videos to understand any of their courses. They also have videos in Spanish and some directed towards children.

SciShow (www.scishow.com)

SciShow [pronounced Sigh Show], like Crash Course, was also founded by Hank Green in 2012 as part of the YouTube Original Channel Initiative. It's very similar to Crash Course, but they cover scientific topics exclusively. They have three separate YouTube channels currently alongside the original Sci Show channel: Sci Show Space, Sci Show Psych, and Sci Show Kids. Each respectively focuses on astronomy, psychology, and kid's content. The first two aren't currently making videos anymore, but they still have all their videos up on those channels. Most of their content is centered around more obscure topics that many people don't understand, have misconceptions about, or haven't heard of. Like Crash Course, I believe their videos all have captions and don't require the video footage to be seen in order to understand, but I would need somebody to verify that for me to say for sure. Unlike Crash Course I believe their videos are often shorter and more condensed because they don't normally cover broader topics.

Unfuck Your Habitat (www.unfuckyourhabitat.com)

Unfuck Your Habitat is an open source website full of information about cleaning and tips for doing so. The website has a strong focus on making cleaning easier for people that are mentally ill, physically or mentally disabled, or have a lot of trouble cleaning for personal or environmental reasons.

Their way of approaching things is very blunt and simple, and they use language that isn't complicated or confusing. It could potentially come off as not being serious, which some may like and some may not. They curse a lot so if you don't like cursing you might have a problem with it.

It's full of text based articles and as far as I'm aware there isn't any option for audio. Unfortunately I'm not very familiar with how screen readers work yet so I can't say for sure if it's possible to use one on their website. They also have two books written by Rachel Hoffman with similar names:

Unfuck Your Habitat: You're Better Than Your Mess

Cleaning Sucks: An Unfuck Your Habitat Guided Journal for Less Mess, Less Stress, and a Home You Don’t Hate

You need to pay for those, though, and I don't know if they have audio book versions or if you can read them with a screen reader.

[the-forbidden-fruit-project]

About

The Forbidden Fruit Project is an independently run, not-for-profit project with the goal of creating online educational content about basic life skills and important subjects at is [as much as is possibly] accessible to as many people as possible regardless of physical, mental, or financial ability.

The name is inspired by the story of "The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil," and rather than interpreting it as the "original sin" or "the fall of [wo]man", recognizing it as a message that it is an inherent human necessity to seek out knowledge that one thinks is forbidden and question anyone or anything that claims you shouldn't.

In the spirit of the name, this project will focus on a broad range of topics that fall into one or more of these categories:

Things a care giver or teacher should have taught you and didn't.

Things a care giver or teacher shouldn't have taught you and did.

Things that people expect you to already know and you don't.

Things that you think you know and you don't.

Things that are difficult regardless if you know them or not.

Every post will be titled with the word "forbidden" with the category and specific topic following it. It will also be tagged with the word "forbidden" and the category following it with a space in between them. Example:

If there is a post about how to clean an oven, it would tagged with "forbidden cleaning" and the title would say "Forbidden Cleaning - How To Clean An Oven".

As the project expands and I start making more posts, I will add direct links to the tags in this pinned post.

This is the only account that I have. If you see any other account with the same name, it's not me. I don't have an Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok and I don't want to for a lot of reasons, the main one being that those platforms just don't really work for what I'm trying to do. My ultimate goal is to create my own website but I don't know how to do that by myself, I don't have the money to pay somebody to, and I don't know enough about any of the free or paid website makers out there to make a judgement on that.

This whole project is run by one person. I am human and imperfect. I'm still learning a lot, too, and it's not possible for me to know or remember everything. I will do my best to address as many topics as I can and make things as easily understandable, accessible, accurate, objective, and unbiased as possible; but that's unfortunately impossible, especially for one person to do.

I am happy to take suggestions for topics, but I won't always do them for a few reasons. There are some topics that I believe are not in my jurisdiction to teach people about, are too complicated to fit in this format, aren't related to the main project goal, or I simply just don't know a lot about.

If there is incorrect information, an inaccessibility issue, something potentially harmful present on this blog, you want me to present a specific topic, or simply have a question about me or the project you can contact me here:

the-forbidden-fruit-project@protonmail.com

Or you can send me an ask. I don't and will not have anonymous asks on though, and I will not respond to questions that make me uncomfortable or aren't in good faith.

I unfortunately have a life outside of this and this is not intended to be a source of income for me since my main goal is for this to remain free, so that means I most likely won't be able to keep a consistent uploading schedule. I'm also Disabled physically and neurodevelopmentally and am usually either sick, tired, or in some level of pain, so please keep that in mind.

If you want to support the project or me as an individual, The Forbidden Fruit Project has a Ko-Fi: