ILX University - first course?

I took off the cornell labor class cause it appears to be a $=real credit course instead of just free online lectures/material

wld Intro to Computer Science teach me how to do things like 'have a simple understanding of my laptop' and 'make websites' or wld you have to come to the table w/ knowledge like that for a harvard course?

bible one is just baiting me, right? i will start exodus in full swing tomorrow, promise.

Oh man, we can't nominate anything else? That was too fast! I just spent an hour looking through all of them because I wanted to pick something really good. :(

maybe a nom thread first?

Moral Foundations of Politics FTW

wld Intro to Computer Science teach me how to do things like 'have a simple understanding of my laptop' and 'make websites' or wld you have to come to the table w/ knowledge like that for a harvard course?

it assumes zero knowledge--in the first lecture the prof takes pains to point out that 77% of the people in the room have no prior CS experience

tear down this poll

im prolly just gonna keep reading the Keith Richards biography because i'm a half-wit

haha I was **told** to start this before people forgot

if it's seems like it's working we can come up w/ some more options soon

I'm willing to turn this into a nom thread, the prob is if we end up w/ 30 nominations I expect a tie / lots of vote splitting within subjects? surely there's something here that would work?

let's just take one from this bunch and then do another one

if it* seems like

(votes for english 101)

i cast a vote for moral foundations of politics

Evolution, Ecology and Behavior (Yale)
European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present (Berkeley)
Moral Foundations of Politics (Yale)

top three

I feel like chemistry would make for a sort of boring thread? idk. It just doesn't seem like the kind of class that would be a good choice here even though I'd love to take it again.

yeah I was just trying to find a token hard science class and anything beyond basic would require background

i'd prefer something that i can kind of just listen to tbh--anything with important video or add'l materials is going to become annoying.

this is a really good idea

voted for 'moral foundations of politics' but would probably be up for any of these except the roman architecture. i'm not sure how 'science and cooking' would *work* but

Financial Markets (Yale)

taught by famous economist robert shiller btw

Financial Markets

Moral Foundations of Politics (Yale) sounds good, but I can imagine the discussion thread going pretty haywire.

Science and Cooking

Intro to CS probably won't teach you anything of practical use like HTML or how to fix your computer, it will be more about getting you into the zone for thinking analytically like a compsci. What's the fastest way to sort a list of numbers?, what's a variable? and that kind of thing.

it's the latter along with learning C, XHTML/CSS, and how to employ APIs.

Moral foundations of politics, assuming there's actually a section on critical thinking

voted for Evolution, Ecology and Behavior (Yale), that and Comp Sci are the only two I'm interested in

xp Is it this course? http://academicearth.org/courses/introduction-to-computer-science-i

That seems to cover a lot of material, way more than I expected.

no it is this, which is currently ongoing, but also previous semesters archived at harvard's distance learning

https://www.cs50.net/lectures/

oh sorry, yeah, that's the course

seems to have divided the lectures differently though?

financial markets one might be interesting if it's not dogmatic

robert shiller is a left-wing housing economist

science & cooking would normally be my first choice but it would be an easy a for me. i like the challenge of a good dry finance course.

xp, i've read shiller.

by dogmatic I thought you meant 'right-wing finance dogmatic'

in either sense; i'm more interested in learning than debating. the left-wing professors in my program could be hard to take when they had a political agenda to push.

Shouldn't the first course be a consomme?

bread, perhaps?

iirc I watched the first class or two of this one and 'good' and 'dry' are both adjectives I'd use...shiller's not a radical or very loud.

still looking at the wine list over here.

Financial Markets is the only one of these I feel genuinely insecure about not understanding very well, and i guess that's the whole idea behind this?

what is 77?

oh boy

intro to 77 (yale)

classes I've already basically taken:

General Chemistry (Berkeley)
European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present (Berkeley)
Intro to Computer Science (Harvard)

shit I would just, like, read a book about instead of taking a university-level class about it:

Intro to Roman Architecture (Yale)
Science and Cooking (Harvard)
Moral Foundations of Politics (Yale)
Evolution, Ecology and Behavior (Yale)

things I would prefer to study in a collegiate environment:

Intro to Hebrew Bible (Yale)
Financial Markets (Yale)

Financial Markets sounds awful to me which means it's probably the one that I should do but I don't wanna!

I prefer my university courses to be dry and information-dense rather than open-ended philosophical discussions

well none of them are going to be open-ended discussions; they're all lecture classes!

well the thread will be the open-ended discussion! ideally

"open-ended philosophical discussion" was mostly aimed at "Moral Foundations of Politics" since it has to do with morality

I just watch tons and tons of TED talks.

most interested in

Moral Foundations of Politics (Yale)

most in need of financial markets but it'd wreck me

don't forget advanced bikery

in what way do i need to know how to ride a bike

i am into all of them except for Evolution, Ecology and Behavior (Yale) b/c i think evolutionary biology is 99% poseur bullshit.

okay wait i typed the wrong word up there, meaning 'psychology' instead of 'biology' but i was kinda tempted to let it stand and let people think i was a closet creationist

lol yeah you scared me for a second

it was a proud decision on the side of maturity, but damn what a great opportunity it would have been to troll

"open-ended philosophical discussion" was mostly aimed at "Moral Foundations of Politics" since it has to do with morality

― I AM THE CROOT (crüt), Tuesday, September 27, 2011 12:49 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

y u hate fun

i am into all of them except for Evolution, Ecology and Behavior (Yale) b/c i think evolutionary psychology is 99% poseur bullshit.

I know the term "evolutionary psychology" is associated with tons of unscientific sexist/racist/etc bullshit but I'm inclined to think that human psychology is almost entirely based on how/under what conditions we evolved!

yeah I mean, considering the alternative explanations...

Intro to Roman Architecture....except I actually had it already!.

just a lazy vote here for not doing financial markets ones. like maybe it would be so great to do that at some point but i think the initial run should be something where getting used to the learning & lectures is offset by regaining a childlike sense of wonder at the world & its eternal questions.

Sorry, dudes, but I'm leaning heavily toward Moral Foundations.

I mean would take all this classes, but for poll purposes....

i think the most interesting ppl in academia are evolutionary psychologists of some sort (tho mostly they call themselves behavioral whatever or social psychologist whatever)

http://press.princeton.edu/images/k7040.gif

I gotta say all of these choices interest me on some level.

Financial markets sounds good too. I can't take any more philosophy, the internet has forever tainted my interest in it.

do financial markets imo, shiller is cool

voted for comp sci cause it was my nom but fully support financial markets or moral philosophy

we should just spin off the top two or top three

yeah I think we can make a decision based on the results.

I'd take any of these tbh, this is a great idea. Can't wait!

i don't know which to vote for! tempted to do CS just because i actually did start that one but never finished it but economics and architecture are two gigantic blind spots for me....hmmm.

Hebrew bible!

i frankly disbelieve a lot of the core(ish) evo-psych claims. they strike me as are specious and ultimately unsubstantiated, i.e. i don't countenance the assertion that in 2011 "gentleman prefer blondes" happens because younger healthier cavewomen with high chances of reproductive success tended to be more fair, and cavemen evolved a response to fair, slender, less-bearded ladies with a higher waist-to-hip ratio. i mistrust because, let's be honest, this is a highly culturally-based aesthetic, and innate psychological behaviors would tend to be applied with greater distribution and not just to substantiate current behaviors and preferences. a lot of of evo psych tends toward the teleological, and it's mostly non-falsifiable and non-testable. i don't doubt that in the whole field there are interesting and amazing things, but i also don't belief a lot of the chaff that's currently being bandied about. (i agree w/ crüt, for the most part).

let's play 'spot the typo' above.

surely there is, on some level, something that men find attractive about women that is related to evolution?

I think it's the vaginas.

don't forget the boobies!

obviously most (heterosexual-defined) men of reproductive age tend to be drawn toward women who indicate some potential for reproduction, even if there's no intention of reproducing. we're not attracted, by and large, to children and the elderly; to the sickly-skinny or morbidly obese. but the signifiers are many and varied, and individual, it benefits the continued success of the species to cultivate diversity in taste (and breeding partner) rather than depend on a few explicit indicators of beauty and reproductive readiness.

obv i am no expert in this stuff at all, i just took a course on it

I think this kind of caveman sociology gets a lot of attention but doesn't represent a lot of the field (at least in my experience). I also truck w/ the assertion that that kind of thing can sound a lot like, "1950s stereotypes of domesticity are actually authentic original human behavior!" But there's so much in behavioral psychology that doesn't make those claims and stuff like rationality/signaling/group dynamics are really interesting. Just stay away from the justifications for why women should stay in the kitchen.

Has anybody read 'Sex at Dawn'?

Tried to get it out of the lib the other day and they didn't have it, the bastards.

voted for financial markets

women should stay in the kitchen b/c their subcutaneous fat layer makes them better equipped to handle hot pans, clearly.

and men should spend as much time fishing as possible, because their beards are the perfect place to store a whole caboodle of lures and hooks.

<3

Voted excitedly for the chemistry - I think a science course would be best for the whole 'learning a thing that is true' aspect, plus it's harder to get that experience from a book?

remy otm about evo psych

I am kind of assuming that the "what kind of women do men prefer" branch of "evolutionary psychology" is not what's being taught in that course.

guys evolutionary bio is all about fruit flies iirc

fruit flies having s.e.x. though

will the chemistry class teach us how to make meth & bombs?

The class that practically pays for itself!

general chemistry b/c I did so awful in it in college

would actually be interested in taking any of these tbh

Science and Cooking (Harvard)
Intro to Hebrew Bible (Yale)
Financial Markets (Yale)
Moral Foundations of Politics (Yale)
Evolution, Ecology and Behavior (Yale)

so basically you're alright w/ anything as long as it's harvard or yale

oops, didn't mean to have a Harvard one on the list. Yale full-stop accept no substitutes!

General chemistry because I failed it twice in college.

i can see how all of these could possibly be interesting (or make me want to fall asleep and/or barf), but what resonates right now are Financial Markets and Moral Foundations of Politics

so this can also be used to suggests ways this can be run...I can 'run' the first class which means we pick a day and I'll post a link to the lecture on that day.

w/ some of these subjects there are people who know enough to answer questions. if you do, it'd be cool if you'd lurk the thread?

These are like podcasts, right? I can put it on my ipod and listen to it/watch it away from a computer?

If it ends up being comp sci I will be happy to TA.

yeah at least for the yale ones I know there are audio-only files

(there are video files too)

the comp sci one has video, audio & transcripts of lectures all avail

i might follow along w/it by myself lol

do these come with syllabi? the lectures are going to lean heavily on the reading I think, but knowing what some famous and respected professor has to say about Locke is probably just as useful as knowing the original text, probably more so

hoos I would join you

I think they all have syllabuses

The Bits course at Harvard is pretty interesting, and might be a better (more fitting?) option than the Intro to CS one . Bits is designed as a non-major perspective on the field, but not dumbed-down, and with heavy doses of theory and application to current events. The Intro to CS course is a prereq for a lot of later coursework, and tends to be a little drier/techier more intended as a gateway to a later CS career. (Says my girlfriend)

is it online?

all i saw on the harvard extended edu site was some excerpts from lectures, but i'd be down for that for sure

I did about 80% of Shiller's financial markets course. It's fascinating at times but parts are hard to understand without the textbook and homework (it's literally just a recording of him teaching his Yale class live). I think it's useful for general concepts if you're willing to just shrug at the techincal parts that you can't really learn without practice problems and such.

Also IIRC there are cool guest speakers, including the guy who manages Yale's endowment, and Carl Icahn (who is very entertaining and firebrandy).

In fact Carl Icahn goes on a tear about how the top executives at most companies are a bunch of idiot frat boys who got where they are by not making any waves.

yale's endowment guy was pretty legendary until he too got hammered in the 07 crash

Well, I mean him getting slammed in the crash like everyone else doesn't really do anything to discredit his methods.

I accidentally had votef for Intro to CS without having read the whole first post. And the class probably wouldn't be as helpful to me as something like intro to SQL. I'd also like to learn more about coding for websites

Here are the free Harvard courses:

http://www.extension.harvard.edu/open-learning-initiative

Here's the actual website for Bits:

http://cm.dce.harvard.edu/2011/02/22883/publicationListing.shtml

here's the entire list of MIT open courseware courses:

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/

what is wrong with me that i see 'abstract algebra' and go 'ooooo'

i was just thinking that a class in neural plasticity and learning seemed like a good thing to work out to

xps to hurting2, yeah, the class syllabus for Financial Markets oourse (2008) said: "Some facility with elementary algebra and calculus required. Course exams consist of roughly 50% math and theory problems and 50% facts and general understanding questions about financial markets." So i imagine a textbook would be pretty necessary there, i mean, for those of us who haven't done algebra or calculus since we were teenagers... But i'd be into it!

When I worked for Harvard I could take classes at the Extension school for $40 a pop so I did a few lit ones just for the hell of it and they were awesome. I can't praise the extension school enough tbh. Would have done my MA there (almost for free too) if they'd had a course of study I was really interested in.

bragging!

how do i get a job at harvard

maybe you have to wander around the hallways and solve equations for people?

That would prob help.

Job sucked tbh because my boss was a brilliant asshole who was impossible to work with. The tuition remission program was the main reason I took the position in the first place. I was gutted when I realized that they just didn't have the programs I was interested in. The couple classes I did take were pretty cool though.

Extension is wonderful, but too bad some business school grads sued them to make it impossibly hard for students to transfer into the college to finish the degree. I understand it's been really injurious to their completion numbers.

lol. the worst anti-competition stories I've heard about students have all involved b-school students.

A "close friend" of mine will be taking 7+ years to complete a 2 year degree finish b/c the ruling decided that extension students (functionally) can't take classes at the college, and many of the required sequences in the course are only offered in alternate years, and even then at the same time. The Extension - which is 100 years old - has traditionally allowed students to cross-enroll or transfer to the college, but this is no longer an option. Further, full-time extension students - many of whom work during the day - cannot receive ANY financial aid b/c the Federal allotment provided to the university is now forwarded to the "more worthy" schools.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Science and Cooking sounds fascinating, but Financial Markets is necessary.

shiller is prob the best person to learn about financial markets through too, recently reading about him in

http://i43.tower.com/images/mm117185549/myth-rational-market-history-risk-reward-delusion-on-justin-fox-paperback-cover-art.jpg

studied under God of Financial Economics modigliani at mit but was a critic of efficient market theory, prophet of us housing bubble/collapse. feel like disciplinary critique is best when it's coming from someone really entrenched in the theory & intellectual foundations of the discipline rather than people who are like "lol u assume ppl are rational." i'm tempted to take it w yall tho things are really picking up in my classes

I was in new haven recently and he was my celebrity sighting

i sold business cards to howard gardner last year. he was a huge dickhead!

ACADEMIC CELEBRITY SIGHTING THREAD

almost bought myth of the rational market the other day

so did billions of other people amirite?

:D

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

financial markets it is!

dope

ugh

wait - didn't we say we might do a couple at once? can't we do the euro one too?

maybe. when/where do we start this? and how? i'm okay w/ spinning this off onto some barely-used board (or creating a new one?), so that it won't clutter up the main board and we can keep a few different streams contained.

didn't we say we might do a couple at once

i don't see why we can't tbh

whiney's reading a keith richards book

spinning this off onto some barely-used board (or creating a new one?)

I Love Learning!!!!!!!!!

i kinda like that name

so when does this start?

So we ... start ILL as a board

• Create a master thread for each class?
• Create a weekly thread for each class, assuming we all agree on one (or two) lectures/week?

What are the two classes we'd like to do? The top two?

seems to me a weekly thread with two lectures a week would be a+

What are the two classes we'd like to do? The top two?

top two or three would probably suffice. maybe two for now?

two seems good

I will run financial markets, who wants to step up for euro civ? 'running it' just means 'make sure to post the lecture once a week at given time' but that still is a commitment of sorts.

I'll do for sure.

any nods for 2nd and 3rd mods?

do we really need em? considering it's gonna be like 2 threads atm

maybe just add em when someone wants to start a new course

fair fair, was just thinking we are both EST

almost bought myth of the rational market the other day

― thank you BIG HOOS, you brilliant god-man (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Thursday, 29 September 2011 11:54 (Yesterday) Bookmark

you should buy it!

will do this! just currently have a helluva stack to get thronow it's worth it though :)

so there are 26 lectures for financial markets and 28 for euro civ, so presumably they'll be twice a week?

maybe m-w one of them and tu-th the other?

wow that was supposed to say "helluva stack to get through, good to know it's worth it though"

lol @ computers xp

ILXniversity! this is gonna rock.

can't wait for the animosity & pranks between economics and history majors at ILX uni

NERRRRRRRRRRRRRRD
(works both ways)

panty bomb on the quad!!

gonna see how many of us we can squeeze into the phone booth

∞

^ what does it say about me that i have learned the keyboard shortcut for ∞

∞? I just cut and pasted it from yours.

too much time on ilx

xp

shortcut to infinity is already a scifi movie or s/t right?

Shitfucker, financial markets, you BASTARDS. This is going to be a total slog.

no *promises*

but my gf is a grad student at a place w/ all the reading material for financial markets and the library has a scanner. it is possible I can sneak in and if it doesn't take too long, could prob get most of the reading digital? while she's busy doing her grad school thing. soonest this would be would be like, the friday after next. and I'd need enough people to be 100% in it.

!

Wait so who is running the Euro course? That's the one I'm gonna do. Remy, is it you?

could also poss get some of the reading material off aaaarg.org?

looks like that doesn't exist anymore, but it's an interesting idea...kinda amazing it didn't happen sooner

ok just to share i googled aaaarg.org for my edification and first hit =

AAAARG
aaaarg.org/ -
AAAARG.ORG is now at A.AAAARG.ORG.

in fact a quick search suggests that yes, the big textbook w/ most of the material is already out there in pdf form

'big textbook' being the mcgraw-hill one?

F0undations 0f fin@ncial m@rkets and instituti0ns

yah

there are a shit ton of books on that reading list! wondering how particularly key each is

by F4bozzi?

can't see it on a a a a a r g (up to five as now!)

I just googled its name + 'pdf' and stuff came up. I imagine any major college textbook is ~out there~

A.AAAARG.ORG.

still around - if you took out that first dot you'd get there

so there are two versions of the euro history course up, only seeing the syllabus for one. most of the course material is publicly available stuff that won't take long to collect links to. there is a textbook too, we might be able to find it.

what is aaaarg?

n@pster for t3xtb00kz

absolutely no moral qualms w/ that, college textbook market is pretty indefensible

My wife has shovelled out something close to $500 in textbooks for the one class she is taking at community college this semester.

Just bein' maybe paranoid, but we might want to deindex or go more private if we're in the ahem grey areas of textbook acquisition. Prob no thing but academic publishers can be aggressive.

otm

That is sound advice, woof.

i think i might be interested in doing a course when another one picks up but i think i don't want to do any of the ones listed on the first round! does anyone want to take the class called "death" from yale? lol

I watched about 60% of that like a year ago

some interesting stuff and a cool professor tho unfortunately no answer w/r/t meaning of life