HN Academy

I just posted this above, try

https://www.edx.org/course/sustainable-soil-management-soil-...

Seriously, try this:

https://www.edx.org/course/sustainable-soil-management-soil-...

Sustainable Soil Management: Soil for life

Learn why soil is so important, how it’s being threatened and what we can do to protect this natural resource so vital to our lives.

I don't have a TV and quit most news and replaced it with

- edx.org

- coursera.org (now less that it has changed)

There are others like Udacity but I found that I ended up taking almost all courses on only these two sites.

Over 70 courses thus far, most of them completely outside my own field (I'm an IT consultant with a CS masters). Currently open courses (all edX):

- Soil4Life: Sustainable Soil Management (https://www.edx.org/course/sustainable-soil-management-soil-... - I want to learn something substantial about agriculture, not a lot of courses compared to other subjects but this seems like a good start)

- MITs truly excellent Introduction to Biology - The Secret of Life (again, I had to stop in the middle last time I took it): https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-biology-secret-life-...

- First Nights: Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring: Modernism, Ballet, and Riots (https://www.edx.org/course/first-nights-igor-stravinskys-rit...)

Examples from the past: Western Civilization: Ancient and Medieval Europe, Pet Birds 101: Introduction to Avian Care and Medicine for the Pet Bird Enthusiast, Medical Neuroscience (huge course - >30 hours lecture videos, Coursera), A Global History of Architecture, Cellular mechanisms of brain function, Human Anatomy, Introduction to Physiology, Principles of Biochemistry, Solid State Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Statistics and R for the Life Sciences, Networks, Crowds and Markets, Introduction to Big Data with Apache Spark, Vocal Recording Technology, Horse Nutrition, and many more.

I think this is closer to what the article advocates. You just replaced relatively shallow news sources for others.

Try taking some courses. I have the advantage to work from home, I know if I worked 9-5 in an office I would be way too exhausted to do much of the above. But you can still find pleasurable easy courses like the History of Architecture or the entire First Nights series about five pieces of classical music which don't take much mental effort. Each time I read news now it feels like eating a McDonalds meal when you are actually used to real food. It keeps your mind occupied but it feels like there are no "nutrients" (in the news), nothing of substance.

⬐ octygen

I honestly find coursera and edx are by far the best use of my time too. Structured learning with a beginning, an end and a few individuals (professors) that specialize in a field. I'm doing things that ARE actually in my field (similar to yours) but set me apart completely at work where most people don't take the time to do any sort of learning and just focus on the daily grind.

As a side note, the other more fun yet still kinda learning use of my time has been to watch a few older Japanese shows - not the crazy all-over-the-place stuff they have today. For example, Musashi (2003). It's fun to watch and at the end of every episode they talk about a site in Japan where Musashi traveled in real life. I find this type of show enriching. Another good one is a show called Change (from 2008) which is again Japanese about a young man randomly becoming prime minister of Japan. The show again discusses the intricacies of Japanese politics in a funny way but with a big dose of the real issues in Japan (e.g., the small number of young people vs the old).