It probably is a cheap way to get points but I (as someone who has never gotten points off it) don't mind that. There are certain items that are of such immense value that I think it's ok that they get submitted over and over again. The way I see it every point represents someone who missed it before or who had forgotten about it. Either way its delivering new value even though it's the same item.
Saw this earlier today on Reddit as well - this is truly a goldmine of useful information. The range of topics he covers is simply amazing, with everything from basic chemistry to fractional reserve banking. This man even quit his job as a hedge fund manager to pursue this non-profit full time, so it's definitely a worthwhile cause to donate to if you're capable.
Personally I'm going to try to watch a video or two every day, even for material I already know. His videos are short and they do a great job of refreshing old knowledge.
I've had a few interesting conversations with fellow IT students recently. One, a very multi-lingual individual, said he wasn't picking any programming modules because 'as soon as the dots and dashes start coming out, forget it, it all looks like Greek to me.' During a lecture on research a slide of statistical formulas came up, and it all looked like Greek to me. In fact, it was Greek (Greek alphabet). This got me thinking that maybe my aversion to maths is needless - if I can program, shouldn't I be able to learn new mathematic techniques too?
My next conversation was with someone who used to be a maths teacher, held a maths degree, yet seriously struggled with the programming coursework, even though she thought her maths would make it easy. I was surprised too. I suggested that maths only seems easy to her because of the extensive schooling one gets in arithmetic from an early age; she suggested it was because programming was 'a male way of thinking' (!).
What's the link between maths and programming as skills? I mean, is maths the 'source code of reality' - just like code with unhelpful variable names? Or is it really a different kettle of fish. I did well in maths at school... I just hated it. Trying to make sense of the mathematical notation in Wirth's 'Algorithms and Data Structures' reminds me why I hated it.
I think mathematical notation is a big part of it. It just seems optimized for writing, not reading, and especially not teaching.
Feynman talks about inventing his own notation in his autobiography. He then had to give it up, because he had to communicate with other people. Reading that made me abandon thoughts of doing the same, and realize I'm not the only one having trouble with it.
Well, another aspect is that there is so much information conveyed with a mathematical statement. Consider the distributive property:
a (b+c) = ab + ac
It's quite simple but has some major consequences. These consequences aren't obvious either until someone acquires the skill at being able to understand what a formula really is saying. For instance, the distributive property is why
x - 3x is the same as -2x
It takes most people a bit of effort and time to understand this though.
As of a few days ago now the videos are also free (not just gratis) released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, the same one used for Wikipedia, see http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/1378
I predict education to finally start changing in the next decade or so. What's the value of having students fall asleep in lecture? Interactive education with a computer, even if done in a class-like environment, seems much more engaging and personalized. Stuck on a particular point? Find the video that details that point from a different perspective, or slower pace.
I'm currently working my way through his financial/banking series. Although he doesn't delve much into detail, he does a really great job at explaining general concepts and how systems work.
So to increase my karma, I could just find a few high ranking stories on HN from a few months ago and resubmit them with a ? at the end of the URL. Just as a social experiment, I'm gonna see if it works :D
I watched his thermodynamics videos and was quite impressed. It's actually difficult to find approachable course material in that topic, but he thoroughly explains it, all the way down to Boltzmann's H-theorem. How one guy manages to cover all this material is incredible—he's going to become the Max Headroom of Internet education!
And it sounds like his plans for the future are ambitious: can you imagine the day when every lesson from an entire K-12 + 4 college years of education can be watched on Youtube? Just fast-forward or rewind to wherever you are and learn at your own pace.
It's also a clever inversion to achieve an optimization we programmers can appreciate. If students are basically learning 90% identical content, then instead of every student having a separate teacher, just record one really, really exceptional teacher covering everything, and all students use that teacher. I guess this means the world needs a lot fewer teachers, but everything gets balanced, so those teaching resources could be applied to more complicated lessons that cannot be learned rote from video recordings. The incredible end result being basic education levels are lifted for everyone. Now that's a plan!
We used to do this (record instructors teaching) at my previous company, however the videos were only available to registered (paid) students.
Making education freely available to everyone was the style of early Greek philosophers. Then the sophists came along. They were a group of educators who travelled around and would only teach those who paid for it. It's a pity (albeit unsurprising) that this was the pattern that survived.
