
The No Excuse List: The Best Place On The Web To Learn Anything - joelrunyon
http://www.noexcuselist.com/
======
lix2333
Hey guys, I'm the creator of the site. Thanks for posting it Joel!

I've been trying to delicately balance the line between too many links versus
not enough links. I created this site in the first place because I had seen
tons of these "best places to learn online" compilations, but all of them had
about 200 links. Way too many to actually be useful.

So I sought out to create something where there were only a few websites per
category, but you could trust that they were all the best the web has to
offer. As you can see from some of the comments on here, it's a fine line
between too many and too few. I keep finding new ones that I think are too
good not to include.

I've been thinking lately about how I can make this site more useful to my
users. It seems like most people come once or twice, see a link they like and
don't come back until the next time they want to learn something. Although you
could argue that's basically what the site is designed to do, I would like to
see more repeat users. Any ideas? I have a few in mind already, but I wanted
to see what the general consensus was.

~~~
joelrunyon
You could pull together different courses and show how they complement each
other to create tracts.

Sure, you can just organize them and leave them as they are right now and let
people pick what they want, but if you vetted the courses and had suggested
tracts to send people through, that could be pretty valuable.

~~~
lix2333
This is basically what I was thinking about doing earlier.

"This is actually something I was thinking about. For instance, say someone
wants to learn Ruby. They could go to noexcuselist and find a step-by-step
process that someone has made using only free resources. Does that sound like
something that would be useful? The hard part is, I'd have to expand the site
and make it social, so people can post their own guides. I definitely don't
have the technical expertise for that."

Is that what you had in mind?

~~~
joelrunyon
I'm thinking of it as a guidebook or as a course, for all the courses out
there (if that makes any sense).

So, wow, there are a ton of free resources out there - here's how to aggregate
them, and utilize each of them most effectively with all the other free
resources out there.

------
saint-loup
This is great, and I like the "no excuse" angle, but the list is a little
overwhelming. The problem of self-learning today is not to find ressources,
it's to find a good one and stick to it until you mastered the subject. If
there are several good ones, just pick one of them. On this subject, see The
Paradox of choice[1] and Buridan's donkey[2].

Sidenote: For me, "Windows 7, OneNote + more for students" and Dreamspark go
to the same link.

[1] <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6127548813950043200>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass>

~~~
joelrunyon
I thought it could have actually been built out a bit more. If they created a
few more categories (and sub-categories), they could really have something
very cool on their hands.

~~~
rodolphoarruda
I've got the same feeling. I'd add categories for education level,
accreditation and course length. Having a "starting soon" section would also
be fine, listing the courses starting between now and the next two weeks.

------
mattmaroon
As someone who took up this hobby a couple years ago, I can attest that the
collection of cooking links is awful. There's a difference between learning
how to cook and a recipe, and these sites aren't even good at either.

I've heard good things about chefhangout.com and rouxbe.com. And sadly most of
the best cooking information still exists in printed books. Ruhlman's 20 is a
great place to start.

~~~
breckinloggins
I, too, have been really disappointed with cooking education online. This is
an area ripe for a good startup (that someone else can do, I have my hands
full). :)

Some ideas:

\- Leverage Google Hangout for some interactive classes

\- Use gamification to help users learn some of the more boring fundamentals
(basic cooking terms, substitution guidelines, units and measurements, basic
baking chemistry guidelines, etc.)

\- A better instruction format geared toward using your iPad or other tablet
propped up in the kitchen. For example, make sure the user can navigate with
the nub of a knuckle or some other clumsy way, so they don't have to touch
their iPad with fingers that just got through tenderizing raw chicken.

\- That instruction format should probably incorporate a hybrid text-audio-
video approach. And by that I don't mean a blog post with an embedded video at
the top. I mean a way to constantly review just that part of the video that
talks about what you're doing.

\- Start with videos about things that are obvious but are useful to see. For
example, what EXACTLY should olive oil look and smell like before you add the
food to it? On a typical gas stove or electric range, where approximately
should the knob be? I'm starting to get nervous about this pan-fry step. Are
you sure I shouldn't go ahead and flip the chicken? I think I'm burning it!
Those kind of things are currently best learned with the assistance of a REAL
cook alongside you in the kitchen. He or she can say "don't you DARE touch
that portobello; it's SO not done!" There needs to be a way for the more
moment-by-moment learning experiences to be available online.

TL;DR - thinking of doing a cooking startup? PLEASE don't give us another
"recipes with an embedded video" site. Please.

~~~
mattmaroon
I think voice would be a better method of navigation in the kitchen. I don't
want to touch my tablet at all when cooking, and I'd love to keep my hands
free to do other things. I'd rather say "pause" or "continue" or "go back a
step" than try swiping when I've got things going.

Chef hangout is pretty much what you described. It's a live video lesson using
Google Hangout. I haven't done it but hear good things.

Also I think a lot of what you want is just being taught the basics. Many of
those you can pick up just from a video or in some of the simpler cases even a
text description. Your oil (preferably canola if you're cooking with it, olive
has too low of a smoke point and is better suited for other uses) looks a
certain way (sorta shimmery) when it's ready. Once you know that it's pretty
much the same for every recipe.

Some a chef would have to be present for. I don't think you can tell by sight
when the alcohol has evaporated when cooking with wine, you just have to
smell. You can't tell by sight when meat is done or a bean you're blanching is
crisp-tender, you have to touch it or bite it.

For that reason I don't think online instruction will ever totally negate
offline the way it can in many disciplines. But it definitely can do a lot
better than it is.

~~~
lattepiu
Olive oil is actually excellent for frying. Extra virgin olive oil has a
smoking point of 405 deg. F, which is similar to canola.

~~~
mattmaroon
Um, no. There's a lot of misinformation on oil smoke points on the net
unfortunately. Going way off topic here for HN, but see
<http://whatscookingamerica.net/Q-A/SmokePointOil.htm> for an accurate chart.
It's ~320F for EVOO vs ~400F for canola.

That makes a noticeable difference in the kitchen. Using olive oil you'll find
yourself overheating more often. It's also more expensive, and imparts a
flavor, which you typically don't want in your oil when sauteing or pan
frying. If you want that flavor, pour a little high quality olive oil on at
the end. I do that with something like a pan seared halibut, it's heavenly.

Thomas Keller mentions in his books (I believe both Ad Hoc and Bouchon) that
he uses canola for sauteing and pan frying for exactly those reasons.
(Grapeseed oil is great, he mentions, but very expensive. Peanut oil is
typically used for deep frying.) He's probably the most technical of the chefs
with numerous Michelin-starred restaurants so I'm inclined to take his advice.

~~~
msg
From the same chart:

Extra Light (Olive Oil) - 468°F

Maybe that's what GP was referring to. I would put the oils with higher smoke
points in the chart closer to exotic territory (avocado, ghee, rice bran, tea
seed). I buy my Extra Light OO in jugs at Costco.

Short takeaway: I use EVOO for dressing/cold applications, Extra Light for
frying.

~~~
mattmaroon
Extra light olive oil is garbage. One should not use it for anything. It is "a
mixture of refined olive oils that are derived from the lowest quality olive
oils available through chemical processing."

Do yourself a favor and buy jugs of canola instead. (Really you should buy
small batches, as oil does degrade over time, but it's arguably worth the cost
tradeoff.)

------
rauljara
Memrise (under the languages section) is pretty amazing. Or, at least seems
amazing from 15 minutes of going through the Chinese stuff. I hate memorizing
things, but the interface and visual cues for learning characters, and way
they track your progress actually makes the process enjoyable for me.

So far, at least.

As with all these tools, you could teach yourself this stuff before, it'd just
require more work and discipline for you to find the necessary books and make
your own teaching plan. The advantage of these services is that they lower the
friction to learn. Hopefully they reduce the friction enough so that there is
a much higher ratio of enjoyment/reward to effort, making you more likely to
stick with it. But you still have to stick with it to learn anything.

Here's hoping I will.

~~~
rickdale
Check out skritter.com for learning Chinese. These guys are incredible.

~~~
tomku
Seconding Skritter, they're amazing. I'd also like to add that they support
Japanese kanji as well, and that their iOS apps are brilliant. The Chinese iOS
app is out, and the Japanese one is in beta. I own a Wacom tablet that works
great with the website, but more and more I find myself using the mobile app
because it feels even more natural than writing with a pen, and I can do it
anywhere.

~~~
philsnow
Skritter seems pretty sweet, but has no love for Cantonese; it supports
traditional characters (so they're most of the way there), but the tone
selection is mandarin-only and they only display pinyin and not some cantonese
phoneticization like jyutping.

Pretty slick, though.

------
danso
This is a nice comprehensive list, but I think sites that focus on aggregation
need to step it up beyond a simple text-listing. There needs to be some other
metric/gauge beyond just the title of the course. It could even be as simple
as icon(s) for whether the resource is a text-based site, available as an
e-book, or taught mostly through videos. Or: a complexity level
(beginner/intermediate/expert)...Or hell, just a 15 word summary of why you
included the link.

It's tough to design good taxonomies of course, but resources like this would
greatly benefit from _anything_ that would keep someone from having to click-
through each link to discover the usefulness of each resource.

Not trying to sound ungrateful, but a lot of these link-sites come up on HN
(there are several based on just programming books, for instance)...It'd be
great to see such things evolve into something more.

~~~
lix2333
Thanks for the suggestions. I agree with you on all of those points. I think
for the next version, it would be great to have icons and more of a
description.

As of right now, if you hover over the link, it'll explain what the website is
focused on and what it generally covers.

------
unreal37
A couple of good sites for this, that list not just the source website, but
the actual courses themselves:

<http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses>

<http://www.class-central.com/>

------
johnbenwoo
When in doubt, there's always Reddit to crowd-source this kind of thing -
[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tmtd4/what_are_th...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tmtd4/what_are_the_most_intellectually_stimulating/c4o3csl)

~~~
santigepigon
Don't forget the continued discussion on HN -
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4240007>

------
m_ke
Programming ebooks: <http://hackershelf.com> <http://freecomputerbooks.com>

Video Lectures: <https://www.coursera.org> <http://www.udacity.com>
<http://www.academicearth.org/> <http://www.learnerstv.com>
<http://lecturefox.com> <http://thecodeplayer.com>
<http://www.cosmolearning.com> <http://www.class-central.com>
<http://videolectures.net>

------
hrydgard
Some good links, but something like this really needs search and filtering,
and some sort of category overview - as it is, on most monitors you need to
scroll to even see all the main categories...

------
omaranto
The description of the arXiv is a little off, it says "Cornell's library of
published academic research papers", while really the arXiv is mainly for
preprints, i.e., papers that have not yet been published. It is true, however,
that in some fields it is common for journals to let you keep a (non-final)
version of your paper on the arXiv.

~~~
lix2333
Thanks. I will update.

------
jordn
From those that have taken them, which of the coursera/udacity/EdX courses are
really really good? I go to the sites, get excited and register for everything
but I know focus would mean I'd stick with them.

~~~
stordoff
6.002x is an amazing course (it's the only EdX course that has run so far, but
they have a great platform).

The Udacity courses are generally slightly easier (e.g. they avoid the low-
level details of the maths), but I really enjoyed CS373 (Programming a Robotic
Car) and CS212 (Design of Computer Programs).

The Coursera courses are a little hit and miss in terms of quality, but
Quantum Computing and Design and Analysis of Algorithms are both very good.

------
cshenoy
What about Code School (<http://www.codeschool.com>)? I'm pretty sure that
it's a well known place to learn programming, etc.

~~~
captaintacos
I think he didn't include it because there is a (monthly) fee on this one. But
some courses are free and I agree, I definitely endorse this one to be on the
lilst. I am one of those learn-by-doing people and codeschool is just great.
Like codecademy on steroids.

------
sown
You need feedback on whether you are doing well or not. That's the other part
of on-line education that is missing.

------
bezaorj
Cool site, simple and with great links

------
iamyohann
I would also like to add <http://net.tutsplus.com> <http://www.djangobook.com>
<http://www.w3schools.com> <http://www.stackoverflow.com>

~~~
chasingtheflow
you had me until w3schools ... see <http://w3fools.com/>

~~~
captaintacos
Yea, came to say the same. Change that link to w3schools for the good one:
<https://developer-new.mozilla.org/en-US/>

------
klez
This reminds me of dmoz, centered on learning and without external
suggestions.

------
january14n
I love the simplicity of this site. The site is very precise and easy to use.

------
wtvanhest
strobist.com for photography

~~~
jordn
<http://cambridgeincolour.com> for photography too. Particularly excellent
guide on all the related concepts.

------
praveenhm
Good one

------
sb1752
Include Treehouse

~~~
wallawe
Treehouse is a great resource but it isn't free

------
Juuumanji
very nice aggregate you've created there.

------
gubatron
Let's help Li with a list of resources to learn how to Draw, Paint,
Illustrate, Graffiti, Stencil, etc.

So far we only have this one: <http://www.drawspace.com/>

If you know of any other links please leave a comment

~~~
lix2333
Yes, that happens to be the only one I have at the moment. I have 2-3
photography ones that fit under art as well... I was also looking for art
history for my own interests, and that seems to be hard to come by too.

