Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#81

Post by criddell » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 11:59 AM UTC

hackart wrote: post #80

criddell wrote: post #39

I'm looking for a course that uses tools like WinDbg and ETW and memory dumps to diagnose crashes, hangs, etc... It would need to include an introduction to basic assembly language because without that you don't get very far with WinDbg. I'd like to learn about some of the stuff that Bruce Dawson talks about on his blog: https://randomascii.wordpress.com/

There are 2 courses on WinDbg at : https://p.ost2.fyi/ I took the Architecture 1001: x86-64 Assembly course at https://p.ost2.fyi/ and enjoyed solving the last two labs.

Thanks for sharing this.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#82

Post by daviddaviddavid » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 12:35 PM UTC

savorypiano wrote: post #70

daviddaviddavid wrote: post #15

Jeremy Siskind's jazz piano courses taught out of Fullerton College. 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 wou…

Hey, I appreciate this post and gave a re-upvote. Is this course more about composition or performance? I realize jazz is about improv which is a skill I'd like to have.

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.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#83

Post by krembo » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 1:41 PM UTC

dusted wrote: post #5

The one I've enjoyed watching more than once: Death with Shelly Kagan, Yale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2J7wSuFRl8&list=PLEA18FAF1A...

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.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#84

Post by sorokod » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #71

criddell wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is related, but only in the sense that crypto currencies are built on cryptography primitives.

Adding to this, before "crypto" became a household term that meant, roughly, "blockchain stuff" it was instead a general term for "cryptography". It's what is (perhaps was) meant when people say not to "roll your own crypto"[0] because it's so easy to get wrong. [0] Since 2021 this phrase has been expanded to "roll your own crypto scam" and it's only used as an ethical statement. Don't "roll your own crypto scam" bec…

crypto on google trends:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=crypto&h...

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#85

Post by albrewer » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 3:10 PM UTC

gamedna wrote: post #64

MIT's 16.687 - Private pilot ground school. If you want to become a private pilot or start your career, this is the place to begin. The professors are approachable and the content is comprehensive. https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/16-687-private-pilot-ground-scho... all of the videos for the lectures are available on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63cUdAG3v31...

Thanks for this, I haven't flown in 14 years and was looking to get back into it. This is perfect for a refresher.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#86

Post by pocket_cheese » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 5:41 PM UTC

avinassh wrote: post #46

Intro to Database Systems by Andy Pavlo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeYBdghaIjc&list=PLSE8ODhjZX... MIT 6.824 Distributed Systems by Robert Morris - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQP8WApzIQQ&list=PLrw6a1wE39...

OMG I owe me pushing my career to the next level due to Pavlo's course! There's so many technical interviews where I've impressed my interviewer with explaining low-level details of how databases do things. Don't be fooled by the course name though, it's pretty rigorous but so rewarding and practical (especially if you are a data engineer). I give this course an A+ for teaching me about B+ trees in C++ :D

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#87

Post by uptownfunk » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #35

Herb Gross's ultra-classic old-school chalkboard delivery of "Calculus of Complex Variables, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra" should not be missed: https://youtu.be/BOx8LRyr8mU It turns out he also produced a complete series on the precursor material, "Single Variable Calculus" as well, which I only just now discovered: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/res-18-006-calculus-revisited-si... This professor has a gr…

Herb Gross! Love that series. Brings me back to my old days. I actually wrote him an email and he wrote back so kindly

>>

Thank you for taking the time to write to me. It is greatly appreciated. I am extremely pleased that work I did over 40 years ago is now available to help others. I hope you will keep me posted on your progress.

I wish I could be more helpful to you. However you might find it a bit strange to know that the five years I spent at MIT were a pleasant diversion from my career work. More specifically the rest of my teaching career was spent in helping “math phobic” adult learners at community colleges and in prisons learn to cope successfully with arithmetic and basic algebra.

I retired at the age of 75 in 2003 so that I could develop my own website where I am posting my videos, power point presentations and other written material in arithmetic and algebra for anyone to use free of charge. In fact I would be delighted if you found time to look at it and let me know what you think about it. You should feel free to comment in my guestbook if you so desire.

The bad news is that I have virtually no knowledge in the areas of more advanced mathematics. However part 3 of Calculus Revisited which was just posted last week by OCW does have introductory lectures in differential equations, complex variables and linear algebra.

I wish I could be more helpful to you but my hope is that the material that is posted on OCW will give you a good background in your pursuit of higher mathematics knowledge.

I wish you the very best and look forward to hearing from you again, especially if you ever feel that my input can be of help to you.

With warmest regards and best wishes,

Herb

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#88

Post by uptownfunk » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 6:43 PM UTC

uptownfunk wrote: post #87

photochemsyn wrote: post #35

Herb Gross's ultra-classic old-school chalkboard delivery of "Calculus of Complex Variables, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra" should not be missed: https://youtu.be/BOx8LRyr8mU It turns out he also produced a complete series on the precursor material, "Single Variable Calculus" as well, which I only just now discovered: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/res-18-006-calculus-revisited-si... This professor has a gr…

Herb Gross! Love that series. Brings me back to my old days. I actually wrote him an email and he wrote back so kindly >> Thank you for taking the time to write to me. It is greatly appreciated. I am extremely pleased that work I did over 40 years ago is now available to help others. I hope you will keep me posted on your progress. I wish I could be more helpful to you. However you might find it a bit strange to know…

Note the above mentioned website no longer works I removed it - I think it may be hacked, not sure what happened to it :(

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#89

Post by dusted » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 7:55 PM UTC

krembo wrote: post #83

dusted wrote: post #5

The one I've enjoyed watching more than once: Death with Shelly Kagan, Yale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2J7wSuFRl8&list=PLEA18FAF1A...

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…

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).

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.