Marginal University

Today I just noticed that Time magazine selected 25 best blogs. 
techland.time.com/2013/08/05/the-25-best-bloggers-2013-edition/

Most of them, from my perspective, look like miscellanea.  But, one of them has attracted my attention.  That is Marignal University, which seem to provide free Economics courses online.  Economics participating in the university look great and lectures are also not bad.

mruniversity.com/

Free College Level Online Courses: More

It it very glad to know that more and more college level courses are provided online for free.  I have not examine the websites seriously.  I cannot say which one is better than others.  Nonetheless, edx seems to provide more maths and statistics classes that I have wanted to take than other sites.

https://www.coursera.org/

https://www.edx.org/

Free College Level Education

This website provides free college level education programs.  However, we cannot get a dilopma even though we finish the programs; wha we can get from it is a certificate with a modest fee.  Nonetheless, the quality is better than other free programs.

www.edx.org/

Another free academic courses: Open Learning Initiative of CMU

While reading an article written by Professor Daniel Nagin at Carnegie Mellon University, I ran into the Open Learning Initiative of CMU.  He did not mean to let readers of his article know the program.  I was just curious that what he is teaching at CMU and searched his lectures.  His associate instructor used the OLI site as his instruction material.  This site does not provide a wide range of academic courses yet.  It seems to be worthwhile to take some courses regarding statistics here.  Whereas students need to pay 25 dollars for each course, independent learners don't pay anything.  Thanks to CMU.

http://oli.cmu.edu/

How to choose books to read

While chatting with my colleagues, I realize that I am so ignorant of how nature, the world, and this society work.  I am stressed to read good books to catch up with my intelligent colleagues as soon as possible.  So, I established my own shortcut to select approprite books.  First, read books awarded.  I am going to keep updating a list of book awards.  But, I am not going to read books awarded in Nobel Prize for Literature; the books have been unreadable.  Second, utilize experts' shelves or recommendations.


Pulitzer Prizes

I am not interested in fiction.  Skip the fiction section and take a look at the general non-fiction section.  We can see not only prize winners but also final lists. 

http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/General-Nonfiction

Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year

This award seems to be made in 2007.  As you guess, most books awarded are finance books that are boring and full of numbers.

http://www.ft.com/intl/indepth/business-book-award-2012


Newbery Medal and Honor Books

This award is given to authors who contributed to children's books.  Now, I can buy some good books for my kids other than Magic Tree House series and Lord of the Rings.

http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberyhonors/newberymedal


Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books

This award is given to authors wrote science books for a non-specialist audience like me.  We can see that books written by Jared Diamond have been awarded twice.

http://royalsociety.org/awards/science-books/


25 Popular Science Books that have changed the world: New Scientist

Recently magazine New Scientist sorted out 25 popular science books that has changed the world.  Some books are familiar to me.  But, I have never heard most of them.  I believe that this short list plays a important role in selecting readable science books for laypersons.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2012/08/what-popular-science-books-changed-the-world.html


Arthur Ross Book Award

This book award is given to books regarding international relations.

http://www.cfr.org/about/arthur_ross-winners.html

I have not examine this website thoroughly yet.  But, it looks fun not only for kids but also adults.

http://www.woodwardenglish.com/

Learn Python the Hard Way

I wanted to develop my own software when I was a teenager.  Regardless of what I am now doing for a living, I still want to make a piece of software and show it to my kids.  I encountered a piece of news regarding Rapsberry Pi, which is a creditcard-size computer and designed for computer programming. 

Its developers claim that every body can learn computer languages with this tiny computer.  Really?  It sounds perfect for me.  Then, what kind of computer language should I learn first?  C++?  It souds too difficult.  Java?  It looks complicated too.  But, I don't want to come back to BASIC which I tried to learn 30 years ago.  The language looked goopy.  Python?  I have never heard about it.  So, it sounds nice.  But, I want to learn it for free because I may give it up all of sudden.  I don't want any sunk cost any more.  Who is a guru in the field of Python?  There are tons of people.  But, the name of Zed Shaw drew my attention.  He appears a guitarist.  He has his own paid audio lecture series and provides free HTML-based book.

http://learnpythonthehardway.org/

Human Intelligence Collection

I have been curious how to collect intelligence, especially human intelligence.  This is a good start to read.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/khadr/readings/humint.html

Quick and Dirty Tips in English writing: Grammar Girl

I have learned English grammar since middle school and have not much difficulty in communicating in English.  But, as a non-native English speaker, I have always troubled with writing something official in English.  I often encounter delicate usage issues.  I have received some help from Grammar Girl, even though it does not cover every issue in detail.  When we have spare time, it is worthwhile to skim the website because it provides short and quick tips about English writing.

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/

 

Science News

I subscribe to two American science magazines: Scientific American and Discover.  Some serious scientists seem to complain that Scientific American was filled with quite professional articles but now its articles are written by amateur-like freelancer writers.  However, I love this magazine because its editor and writers seem to try to avoid technical jargons and use plain English.  It is quite useful to encourage kids to have interest in science.  This magazine can be subscribed overseas with about 40 dollars.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/

Recently I began subscribing to Discover to complement Scientific American.  I am now regretting the decision.  Discover is less sleek than Scientific American in terms of its overall design and editing.  In particular, contributing writers of Discover look worse than those of Scientific American in terms of their academic background, depth of knowledge, and reputation.  Scientific American rarely has commercials, whereas Discover contains several cheesy commercials, such as watches, jewels, and hardware tools.  How funny in a commercial of hardware tools in a science magazine!


Sometimes I visit Live Science to get recently updated science news.  We are now living in such society that needs recent science information in order to have conversations with friends and colleagues.

http://www.livescience.com/

I guess that Popular Science is less academic than Scientific American but better than Discover.

www.popsci.com

Most science magazines concentrate on natural science, such as biology, chemistry, physics, and computer science.  However, unlike its title, Phys.org seems to cover various fields including social science, economics, and business management.

phys.org

Statistical Literacy

I believe that some people who did not major in statistics are also interested in statistics.  That is because even social science students need statistical knowledge to read journal articles and to conduct simple analyses on available datasets.  But, most people who do not have statistical background do not know what books they should read.  So did I.  The website provides useful information about statistical literacy, even though it looks quite ugly.

http://www.statlit.org/