I am quite fond of the three molecular biology courses from MIT on edx [1][2][3]. Not only are the lectures great, but they also have spaced repetition built in. The exercises are often great counterfactual questions that encourage deep understanding.
I've started to watch this per your recommendation and one question that popped into my mind with the first few classes, is how does this theory of dualism that differs the soul from the body, withstands the ChatGPT era, where computers start to show signs of consciousness. ie- If consciousness is also a matter of physical matter that can be replicated by machines, is the human soul a real spiritual thing, or created by physical connections in the brain, which is recently simulated by vector and by the amount of parameters in the model.
I wrote something about consciousness as the result of computation (an idea I'm sure is not new, and somewhat related to attention schema theory, even if I disagree with the author of that on determinism), it's a little bit of a mess as I setup the assumptions, but I still think gets the idea across (as did Shelly to some degree, though his primary interest was the implication for the value of such a life, which I continue to fail entirely to make sense of in the continued text, which I don't recommend reading).
You might find it interesting because Shellys lectures inspired me a lot when writing it, and because it touches on the same subject as your are thinking about.
Big +1 to Cryptography I. I didn't finish it completely, but the first ~half satisfied my curiosity about the theory I wanted to know, without getting to a lot of the practical details that I don't need to remember day-to-day.
Learn about the science behind the current exploration of the solar system in this free class. Use principles from physics, chemistry, biology, and geology to understand the latest from Mars, comprehend the outer solar system, ponder planets outside our solar system, and search for habitability in our neighborhood and beyond. This course is generally taught at an advanced level assuming a prior knowledge of undergraduate math and physics, but the majority of the concepts and lectures can be understood without these prerequisites. The quizzes and final exam are designed to make you think critically about the material you have learned rather than to simply make you memorize facts. The class is expected to be challenging but rewarding.
gilbert strang's linear algebra https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL49CF3715CB9EF31D. he has a few other linear algebra themed courses on there. very good because (1) he’s an incredible teacher, and (2) linear algebra is beautiful
Came here to say this. Go through the actual course methodically though - readings, summaries, problems solutions. It's incredible. Miles ahead of coursera equiv.
Having taken his class in person, I would like to second this. The man is a beautiful thinker and he presents linear algebra in a way that is extremely comprehensive and approachable.
I am quite a fan of Andrew Ng's courses on machine learning. Well made, improved over time as he got more experienced, and he is just a likable guy frankly.
This is a bit of a cheat because these courses are not free ($50USD for California residents and around $400 for non-CA residents) but they are so good that I had to mention them.
I am nearing the end of the Level II course and have learned so much stuff. They
force you to do so many things that you otherwise would not do. Basically, ever week you have to post a video demonstrating what you learned from the previous week. And the video is in a public discussion forum with the other students so there is this incentive to do an extra good job. And he gives great feedback on your assignments.
Hey thanks, it is very hands on and focused more on performance than composition. It covers comping, soloing, playing in different substyles, pretty much everything if you take both courses. Sometimes the units fly by too quickly and you need to note to yourself to revisit a topic and apply it in all 12 keys or apply it to a bunch of Real Book tunes.
I knew I'd pay for recommending a paid course but it's really great and the price is a steal given that Berklee Online courses are around $1500 and private lessons w someone of this teacher's calibre might be $100/hr. I'm not affiliated w the teacher/college at all other than being a student.
I really liked The Theoretical Minimum lectures on classical and quantum mechanics by Leonard Susskind (suggestion: google up the guy, he’s cool) at Stanford. You can buy books, but the lectures are all free on YouTube.
ViaScience also has a great playlist on the 'story' of quantum mechanics. I don't have much background in the field or physics in general, but the presentation and explanations in the series are (to the degree possible) followable and an incredible example of straight-forward, no frills, presentation with excellent visualizations. There are long digressions into the actual math and equations as well, though if you're just interested in the history you can skip those. Simply as a story of problem solving and imagination the story of quantum mechanics is fascinating in its own rite.
I've heard only the best things about Andrew Ng's machine learning course but never came around to do it. It is pretty old by now and with the dramatic development in recent times I wonder how relevant it still is?
Apart from the programming exercises being in Matlab (which nobody uses for ML nowadays), the course is still solid. The theoretical concepts and math that the course covers are still relevant and provide a good foundation for someone starting out.
The good news is that someone converted the matlab/octave exercise templates into numpy, and published them as jupyter notebooks that can work with the course's auto-grader: https://github.com/dibgerge/ml-coursera-python-assignments
I really enjoyed the free content on Udacity (https://www.udacity.com/). I'm not sure if it's "university" but their content was presented well and I came away learning new things about math, python and ML.
I simply cannot recommend Sapolsky enough! The man is wonderful. And not just his course, his books are deliciously insightful as well. My only gripe with him is that he speaks continuously without enough pauses. Probably a sign that he knows the materials like the back of his hands but I wish he'd take some time to rest and allow the mortals to catch up.
Databases by prof. Widom, from Stanford. Currently the course is at edX, and split into 5 mini-courses. Everything in the course is well thought out and apparently polished and perfected over years of teaching practice and experience. There is nothing useless in the video lectures, and the course homework probes every topic from the lectures.
Songwriting, at Coursera, from Berklee College of Music. The guy just sits in a dark room, and explains the process of writing lyrics to songs. He just explains it very well.
Seconding Widom's course. It's a fantastic primer on databases. I did it during the first run, back in like 2011 or 2012 or so. I can't imagine it's gotten any less relevant in the intervening years.
I probably owe much of my 10 year software eng career to Jennifer Widom’s open courses on databases that I went through in 2011-2012. I was writing out unions and other queries on yellow notepads while working phones in tech support, devoured the courses, and really boosted my path.
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[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 180 ms ] thread[1] https://www.edx.org/course/molecular-biology-part-1-dna-repl...
[2] https://www.edx.org/course/molecular-biology-part-2-transcri...
[3] https://www.edx.org/course/molecular-biology-part-3-rna-proc...
Anybody in computational biology btw ? slack, irc.
Great for robotics, or anything where you need to control complex physical systems, from f1 cars to 3d characters in games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2J7wSuFRl8&list=PLEA18FAF1A...
http://dusted.dk/pages/thoughts/OnConsciousness.html
You might find it interesting because Shellys lectures inspired me a lot when writing it, and because it touches on the same subject as your are thinking about.
Programming Languages by Dan Grossman (University of Washington)
Both are on Coursera.
Dan and Victor also wrote a course book: http://toc.cryptobook.us/
ocw.mit.edu
CS3510 Algorithms Georgia Tech on Youtube.
by Caltech Professor Mike "plutokiller" Brown
https://www.coursera.org/learn/solar-system
I really liked this course. Here's the blurb:
Learn about the science behind the current exploration of the solar system in this free class. Use principles from physics, chemistry, biology, and geology to understand the latest from Mars, comprehend the outer solar system, ponder planets outside our solar system, and search for habitability in our neighborhood and beyond. This course is generally taught at an advanced level assuming a prior knowledge of undergraduate math and physics, but the majority of the concepts and lectures can be understood without these prerequisites. The quizzes and final exam are designed to make you think critically about the material you have learned rather than to simply make you memorize facts. The class is expected to be challenging but rewarding.
It is also taught at Caltech, see https://mikebrown.caltech.edu/teaching/science-solar-system
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-06sc-linear-algebra-fall-2011...
https://jeremysiskind.com/jazzclass/
This is a bit of a cheat because these courses are not free ($50USD for California residents and around $400 for non-CA residents) but they are so good that I had to mention them.
I am nearing the end of the Level II course and have learned so much stuff. They force you to do so many things that you otherwise would not do. Basically, ever week you have to post a video demonstrating what you learned from the previous week. And the video is in a public discussion forum with the other students so there is this incentive to do an extra good job. And he gives great feedback on your assignments.
Is this course more about composition or performance? I realize jazz is about improv which is a skill I'd like to have.
I knew I'd pay for recommending a paid course but it's really great and the price is a steal given that Berklee Online courses are around $1500 and private lessons w someone of this teacher's calibre might be $100/hr. I'm not affiliated w the teacher/college at all other than being a student.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNeyuvTEbD-Ei0JdM...
Classical mechanics playlist can be found here https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL47F408D36D4CF129 and then there’s quantum mechanics available too, should be easily discoverable. And also there’s just https://theoreticalminimum.com/
Not sure if they qualify to be a “true” uni course though, because in this case nobody’s gonna give you assignments and grades :)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL193BC0532FE7B02C
The good news is that someone converted the matlab/octave exercise templates into numpy, and published them as jupyter notebooks that can work with the course's auto-grader: https://github.com/dibgerge/ml-coursera-python-assignments
https://pll.harvard.edu/course/justice?delta=0
Innovation https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sts-081-innovation-systems-for-s...
https://oyc.yale.edu/death/phil-176
https://online.stanford.edu/courses/soe-ydatabases-databases
Songwriting, at Coursera, from Berklee College of Music. The guy just sits in a dark room, and explains the process of writing lyrics to songs. He just explains it very well.
https://www.coursera.org/learn/songwriting-lyrics
It's my go-to recommendation for anyone wanting a strong foundation in SQL.