Education Goes Online: 25 Free Online Education Resources

We learned on Friday that you can now select a YouTube-related course
through Pitzer College. But while a course about YouTube is surprising
to some, the web is actually a treasure trove of education-related
resources, including lots of video lectures, educational wikis and
podcasts. The key sites for modern, web-based learning are outlined
below - feel free to add more in the comments.

Un plastique biodégradable?

The quest for impermanence

In the mid-1990s, a certain mail-order computer retailer
announced that it was abandoning Styrofoam (polystyrene) packing
peanuts in its shipments and switching to environmentally friendly
cornstarch peanuts instead. The new filler material, they explained,
was not merely biodegradable, it would dissolve almost instantly in
water.

The Tao of Screen

In search of the distraction-free desktop.

By Jeffrey MacIntyre

If your computer desktop is anything like mine—and, brother, it
is—you’ve paved over every spare pixel in an iconistan of clutter.
Desktop design originated in a wistful visual metaphor,
the clean, still work surface, encouraging users to productive ends.
Leaps forward in computing horsepower and the rise of constant Internet
use has transformed the tabletop terra firma into a cockpit, an antic terminal
for the networked self. Our desktops are now a thick impasto of tabbed
windows, pull-down menus, dashboard widgets, and application alerts. No
possible distraction gets left behind, no link, feed, IM, twitter, or
poke unheeded.

It’s Time To Drink Toilet Water

Recycling sewage is safe and efficient, so why aren’t we doing it?

By Eilene Zimmerman

Officials in Orange County, Calif., will attend opening ceremonies
today for the world’s largest water-purification project, among the
first “toilet-to-tap” systems in America. The Groundwater Replenishment System
is designed to take sewage water straight from bathrooms in places like
Costa Mesa, Fullerton, and Newport Beach and—after an initial cleansing
treatment—send it through $490 million worth of pipes, filters, and
tanks for purification. The water then flows into lakes in nearby
Anaheim, where it seeps through clay, sand, and rock into aquifers in
the groundwater basin. Months later, it will travel back into the homes
of half a million Orange County residents, through their kitchen taps
and showerheads.