Signal boosting

Many of you know my apprentice ladysprite. She and tpau are going to be doing the Susan Komen 3-day walk next year as a fundraiser, and they've set themselves some pretty serious fundraising goals. So if you've got a little money (even just a few bucks), I commend checking it out and making a donation -- it's a good cause, dealing with something that has affected our lives directly...

Signal boosting

Many of you know my apprentice ladysprite. She and tpau are going to be doing the Susan Komen 3-day walk next year as a fundraiser, and they've set themselves some pretty serious fundraising goals. So if you've got a little money (even just a few bucks), I commend checking it out and making a donation -- it's a good cause, dealing with something that has affected our lives directly...

Disrecommendation: The Long 19th Century

I spend a lot of time enthusiastically recommending courses from The Teaching Company: I've got dozens of them, and have enjoyed most of them greatly. But in the interest of intellectual honesty, I should admit that they're not all great. Today's entry in the list sums it up:

The Long 19th Century: European History from 1789 to 1917 -- 18 CDs: IMO, the worst course I've bought from teachco. The teacher's style can best be described as unctuous, and the material is astonishingly badly-organized. (Especially if, from the sound of things, he's reading from deeply prepared notes.) He claims at the very beginning to not expect the student to know any background, and then immediately puts the lie to that -- the way jumps from topic to topic leaves me barely hanging on by my fingernails, and I do know at least a little about the subject. Gave up after 4 discs, because I found it too annoying and dull, and I have better things to spend my time on.

Quite disappointing -- I'm usually fond of their history courses, but decent organization does matter, especially for a history-survey course like this. It's possible that it improves further on, but I lost patience...

Disrecommendation: The Long 19th Century

I spend a lot of time enthusiastically recommending courses from The Teaching Company: I've got dozens of them, and have enjoyed most of them greatly. But in the interest of intellectual honesty, I should admit that they're not all great. Today's entry in the list sums it up:

The Long 19th Century: European History from 1789 to 1917 -- 18 CDs: IMO, the worst course I've bought from teachco. The teacher's style can best be described as unctuous, and the material is astonishingly badly-organized. (Especially if, from the sound of things, he's reading from deeply prepared notes.) He claims at the very beginning to not expect the student to know any background, and then immediately puts the lie to that -- the way jumps from topic to topic leaves me barely hanging on by my fingernails, and I do know at least a little about the subject. Gave up after 4 discs, because I found it too annoying and dull, and I have better things to spend my time on.

Quite disappointing -- I'm usually fond of their history courses, but decent organization does matter, especially for a history-survey course like this. It's possible that it improves further on, but I lost patience...