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Sep. 28th, 2014 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrotsvita
I'm so lazy it becomes ridiculous.
You know, two papers to write, a big and terribly difficult Latin translation (not saying anything about commentary on it), a whole lot of academic literature to read, student's work to criticize - and all I want to do is to lay in my bed reading fiction books and watching movies.
Well, there is also coursera. And edx.
Right now I'm going through MIT and Harvard's course "Visualizing Japan". In spite of "The chrysanthemum and the sword" by Ruth Benedict (and some classical literature, of course) it is my first encounter with Japanese culture, and it's just amazing! It is even more so, as lectors provide listeners with some illustrative materials which were absolutely unavailable to general public several years ago and now you can just visit MIT's web-page, their project "Visualizing Cultures", and study all of them by yourself or read commentaries of other researchers. Well, today I'm going to go through "The Hibiya Riot" part of the course: extremely interesting description of a moment from 1905.
There is also this course on archeology of the Hadrian's wall on FutureLearn. Do you know, it is possible to say where the Roman troops stay for a night (or two) basing just on density of the grass on the field?
It makes me feel even worse about our government's newest ideas on information security. You know, it is absolutely possible to read books in library (providing it has all the books you need and it is not too cold in winter or too hot in summer - and this is not the case of the majority of our libraries); it is possible to see pictures of old masters during international exhibitions (but not when they take place only in two capitals of your very big country with prices on plane or train tickets which can drive your mad); it is possible to learn something new from university lectors (we won't speak about adverse selection in academia, but recently they have prohibited non-students listen to lectures even if a professor is all for it). So to lose an opportunity to study from MOOCs, or use Google Books, or Duolingo, or Perseus Library will be a real tragedy.
Well, I guess, that means I should go and work for a while.
You know, two papers to write, a big and terribly difficult Latin translation (not saying anything about commentary on it), a whole lot of academic literature to read, student's work to criticize - and all I want to do is to lay in my bed reading fiction books and watching movies.
Well, there is also coursera. And edx.
Right now I'm going through MIT and Harvard's course "Visualizing Japan". In spite of "The chrysanthemum and the sword" by Ruth Benedict (and some classical literature, of course) it is my first encounter with Japanese culture, and it's just amazing! It is even more so, as lectors provide listeners with some illustrative materials which were absolutely unavailable to general public several years ago and now you can just visit MIT's web-page, their project "Visualizing Cultures", and study all of them by yourself or read commentaries of other researchers. Well, today I'm going to go through "The Hibiya Riot" part of the course: extremely interesting description of a moment from 1905.
There is also this course on archeology of the Hadrian's wall on FutureLearn. Do you know, it is possible to say where the Roman troops stay for a night (or two) basing just on density of the grass on the field?
It makes me feel even worse about our government's newest ideas on information security. You know, it is absolutely possible to read books in library (providing it has all the books you need and it is not too cold in winter or too hot in summer - and this is not the case of the majority of our libraries); it is possible to see pictures of old masters during international exhibitions (but not when they take place only in two capitals of your very big country with prices on plane or train tickets which can drive your mad); it is possible to learn something new from university lectors (we won't speak about adverse selection in academia, but recently they have prohibited non-students listen to lectures even if a professor is all for it). So to lose an opportunity to study from MOOCs, or use Google Books, or Duolingo, or Perseus Library will be a real tragedy.
Well, I guess, that means I should go and work for a while.