How to Start a Start-Up: A Free Online Course from Y Combinator Taught at Stanford

in Business, How to Learn for Free, Online Courses, Stanford, Technology | July 18th, 2016

If you have any entre­pre­neur­ial aspi­ra­tions, you’ve like­ly heard of Y Com­bi­na­tor (YC), an accel­er­a­tor based in Sil­i­con Val­ley that’s been called “the world’s most pow­er­ful start-up incu­ba­tor” (Fast Com­pa­ny) or “a spawn­ing ground for emerg­ing tech giants” (For­tune). Twice a year, YC care­ful­ly selects a batch of start-ups, gives them $120,000 of seed fund­ing each (in exchange for some equi­ty), and then helps nur­ture the fledg­ling ven­tures to the next stage of devel­op­ment. YC hosts din­ners where promi­nent entre­pre­neurs come to speak and offer advice. They hold “Demo Days,” where the start-ups can pitch their con­cepts and prod­ucts to investors, and they have “Office Hours,” where bud­ding entre­pre­neurs can work through prob­lems with the sea­soned entre­pre­neurs who run YC. Then, with a lit­tle luck, these new start-ups will expe­ri­ence the same suc­cess as pre­vi­ous YC com­pa­nies, Drop­box and Airbnb.

Giv­en Y Com­bi­na­tor’s mis­sion, it makes per­fect sense that YC has ties with Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, anoth­er insti­tu­tion that has hatched giant tech com­pa­nies–Google, Cis­co, Yahoo and more. Back in 2014, Sam Alt­man (the pres­i­dent of Y Com­bi­na­tor) put togeth­er a course at Stan­ford called “How to Start a Start-Up,” which essen­tial­ly offers stu­dents an intro­duc­tion to the key lessons taught to YC com­pa­nies. Alt­man presents the first two lec­tures. Then some of the biggest names in Sil­i­con Val­ley take over. Dustin Moskovitz (Face­book co-founder), Peter Thiel (Pay­Pal co-founder), Marc Andreessen (Netscape creator/general part­ner of Andreessen Horowitz), Maris­sa May­er (Yahoo CEO, promi­nent Googler), Reid Hoff­man (LinkedIn co-founder), Ron Con­way (Sil­i­con Val­ley super angel), Paul Gra­ham (YC founder)–they all make an appear­ance in the course.

You can watch the com­plete set of 20 lec­tures above, which cov­ers every­thing you need to start a start-up–from cre­at­ing a team, to build­ing prod­ucts users love, to rais­ing mon­ey, to cre­at­ing the right cul­ture and beyond. Alt­man’s site also fea­tures a rec­om­mend­ed read­ing list, plus a set of addi­tion­al resources. (Bonus: A George­town under­grad has cre­at­ed an ebook pulling togeth­er the class notes from the course. If you down­load it, please donate a few bucks so he can pick up some ramen.) The videos for “How to Start a Start-Up”–which will be added to our col­lec­tion of Free Online Busi­ness Cours­es–can be found on YouTube and iTunes U.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Entre­pre­neur­ship Through the Lens of Ven­ture Cap­i­tal: A Free Online Course from Stan­ford

Peter Thiel’s Stan­ford Course on Star­tups: Read the Lec­ture Notes Free Online

Start Your Start­up with Free Stan­ford Cours­es and Lec­tures

Down­load Marc Andreessen’s Influ­en­tial Blog (“Pmar­ca”) as a Free eBook

1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties

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Change Your Life! Learn the Japanese Art of Decluttering, Organizing & Tidying Things Up

in How to Learn for Free, Life, Random, Video - Politics/Society | July 4th, 2016

Cus­tom dic­tates that you should observe July 4th—Amer­i­ca’s Inde­pen­dence Day—out­doors, eat­ing hot dogs, drink­ing beer, wav­ing tiny flags on Main Street, and view­ing fire­works.

Why not lib­er­ate your­self from the tyran­ny of the tra­di­tion­al by spend­ing a por­tion of the day indoors, com­mu­ni­cat­ing affec­tion to your cloth­ing, as orga­ni­za­tion­al expert, Marie Kon­do, author of the best sell­ing book, The Life-Chang­ing Mag­ic of Tidy­ing Up, does in the instruc­tion­al video, above?

Most of us who dwell in small New York City apart­ments are already famil­iar with her teach­ings. Hers is a take-no-pris­on­ers approach to clut­ter con­trol. Any item that doesn’t “spark joy”—be it a pair of stretched-out sweat­pants, a long ago grad­u­a­tion present, a ream of children’s art­work, or a near­ly full bot­tle of slight­ly funky-smelling conditioner—must be dis­card­ed imme­di­ate­ly.

(Note to self: ask Mom what­ev­er became of my Spir­it of ’76 water­col­or. She had it framed because it won a prize. Best Bicen­ten­ni­al Obser­vance by a 4th Grad­er or some such. Things like that don’t just van­ish into thin air, unless…)

The total makeover Kon­do pro­pos­es is an ardu­ous, oft-emo­tion­al, week-long task. Don’t blow your entire July 4th hol­i­day try­ing to com­plete the job.

Instead, take an hour or two to refold your clothes. New York­ers’ draw­ers are where Kondo’s influ­ence is felt most deeply. Whether or not we sub­scribe to her prac­tice of treat­ing each gar­ment like a trea­sured friend, our under­wear def­i­nite­ly has more room to breathe, when not on active duty.

See below for a graph­ic demon­stra­tion of how to best fold shirts, pants, and sev­er­al species of undies, using Kondo’s Kon-Marie method.

And don’t be tempt­ed to decamp to the back­yard bar­be­cue when you run across chal­lenges like over­alls or baby one­sies. Watch below as Kon­do tack­les a shirt with kimono sleeves, a pair of Edo-style mata hike pants, and a sweater with a marked resem­blance to a Thneed.

If you’re begin­ning to feel like fire­works may be over­rat­ed, Kon­do deliv­ers a 45-minute overview of her phi­los­o­phy as part of the Talks at Google pro­gram below. Or lose your­self to an entire playlist of Kon­do fold­ing videos here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

53 New York Times Videos Teach Essen­tial Cook­ing Tech­niques: From Poach­ing Eggs to Shuck­ing Oys­ters

Moby Lets You Down­load 4 Hours of Ambi­ent Music to Help You Sleep, Med­i­tate, Do Yoga & Not Pan­ic

Free Col­or­ing Books from World-Class Libraries & Muse­ums: The New York Pub­lic Library, Bodleian, Smith­son­ian & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day, author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine, will be read­ing from her trav­el mem­oir, No Touch Mon­key! And Oth­er Trav­el Lessons Learned Too Late at Indy Reads Books in down­town Indi­anapo­lis, Thurs­day, July 7. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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How to Build Stuff: A Free Short Course on Making Prototypes by Entrepreneur Dan Gelbart

in How to Learn for Free, Technology | May 24th, 2016

Dan Gel­bart, a Van­cou­ver-based elec­tri­cal engi­neer, helped cre­ate a com­pa­ny called Creo, which Kodak bought in 2005 for rough­ly $1 bil­lion. If you read Gel­bart’s short auto­bi­og­ra­phy here, you can learn about the arc of his career: About how, dur­ing his ear­ly years, he start­ed work­ing for a tech com­pa­ny that pro­duced high-speed film recorders. And about how Gel­bart told the com­pa­ny that he could build a bet­ter film recorder, at a cheap­er price. And he could do it in the base­ment of his home. He explains:

After a crash course in optics, I changed the design [of the recorder], but sur­pris­ing­ly man­aged to deliv­er a ship­pable pro­to­type in 12 months with only one per­son work­ing with me. I had a small met­al­work­ing work­shop at home, many of the machines home-built, and this allowed me to fab­ri­cate most of the parts for the pro­to­type myself.

I now have a won­der­ful CNC machine shop at home, but I don’t have the bound­less enthu­si­asm of those days. How­ev­er, I still build all my pro­to­types myself, find­ing it to be faster than send­ing out draw­ings and wait­ing for parts.

Above, you can watch what Gel­bart calls “A Short Course on How to Build Stuff,” a series of 18 videos designed for stu­dents and sci­en­tists who want to build pro­to­types very quick­ly, using machines that are easy to mas­ter. Writes Make mag­a­zine, the “series begins by demon­strat­ing how to use and mod­i­fy his favorite shop tools, and reveals all kinds of enlight­en­ing short­cuts that make com­pli­cat­ed assem­blies triv­ial to pro­duce. There is a true art to uncom­pli­cat­ing things, a rar­i­ty for some engi­neers.”

You can access the com­plete playlist here. Indi­vid­ual top­ics include:

1. Intro­duc­tion
2. Safe­ty
3. Water­jet
4. Bend­ing
5. Spot Weld­ing
6. Coat­ings
7. Press­work
8. Enclo­sures
9. Mate­ri­als
10. Flex­ures
11. Non-met­als
12. Plas­tics Form­ing and Cast­ing
13. Large Struc­tures
14. Braz­ing
15. Mill and Lathe
16. Machin­ing
17. High Accu­ra­cy
18. Design

Gel­bart’s course will be added to our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

via Metafil­ter

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Learn Calligraphy from Lloyd Reynolds, the Teacher of Steve Jobs’ Own Famously Inspiring Calligraphy Teacher

in Art, How to Learn for Free, Television | May 9th, 2016

The sto­ry has, over time, solid­i­fied into one of the columns of Steve Jobs lore: in the ear­ly 1970s, the man who would found Apple left for Reed Col­lege. But before long, not want­i­ng to spend any more of his par­ents’ mon­ey on tuition (and per­haps not tem­pera­men­tal­ly com­pat­i­ble with the struc­ture of high­er edu­ca­tion any­way), he offi­cial­ly dropped out, couch-surfed through friends’ pads, lived on free meals ladled out by Hare Krish­nas, con­tin­ued to audit a vari­ety of class­es, and gen­er­al­ly lived the pro­to­type tech­no-neo-hip­pie lifestyle Sil­i­con Val­ley has con­tin­ued relent­less­ly to refine.

Per­haps the least like­ly of those class­es was one on cal­lig­ra­phy, taught by Trap­pist monk and cal­lig­ra­ph­er Robert Pal­ladi­no. More than thir­ty years lat­er, deliv­er­ing a now-famous Stan­ford com­mence­ment speech, Jobs recalled his time in the cal­lig­ra­phy class: “None of this had even a hope of any prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tion in my life. But 10 years lat­er, when we were design­ing the first Mac­in­tosh com­put­er, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first com­put­er with beau­ti­ful typog­ra­phy.”

And what of the cal­lig­ra­phy teacher who made that pos­si­ble? “Pal­ladi­no, who died in late Feb­ru­ary at 83, joined the Trap­pist order of monks in New Mex­i­co in 1950, accord­ing to a 2003 pro­file in Reed Mag­a­zine,” writes the Wash­ing­ton Post’s Niraj Chok­shi. “Just 17 at the time, his hand­writ­ing attract­ed the atten­tion of the monastery scribe, who worked with him on his art. Five years lat­er, Pal­ladi­no moved to Lafayette, Ore., where local artists brought news of a skilled ama­teur to Lloyd Reynolds, an icon in the field and the cre­ator of Reed’s cal­lig­ra­phy pro­gram.”

Now you, too, can receive instruc­tion from Reynolds, who in 1968 starred in a series on the Ore­gon Edu­ca­tion Tele­vi­sion Ser­vice’s pro­gram Men Who Teach, shoot­ing twen­ty half-hour broad­casts on ital­ic cal­lig­ra­phy and hand­writ­ing. Eight years lat­er — about the time Jobs co-found­ed Apple with Steve Woz­ni­ak — he re-shot the series in col­or, and you can watch that ver­sion almost in its entire­ty with the playlist at the top of the post. (Reed has also made some relat­ed instruc­tion­al mate­ri­als avail­able.) You may feel the temp­ta­tion to turn all of Reynolds’ lessons on the art of writ­ing toward your goal of becom­ing the next Steve Jobs. But try to resist that impulse and appre­ci­ate it for its own nature, which Jobs him­self described as “beau­ti­ful, his­tor­i­cal, artis­ti­cal­ly sub­tle in a way that sci­ence can’t cap­ture.”

We’ll add these vin­tage lessons to our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Steve Jobs on Life: “Stay Hun­gry, Stay Fool­ish”

Steve Jobs Nar­rates the First “Think Dif­fer­ent” Ad (Nev­er Aired)

Steve Jobs Mus­es on What’s Wrong with Amer­i­can Edu­ca­tion, 1995

The Art of Hand­writ­ing as Prac­ticed by Famous Artists: Geor­gia O’Keeffe, Jack­son Pol­lock, Mar­cel Duchamp, Willem de Koon­ing & More

Font Based on Sig­mund Freud’s Hand­writ­ing Com­ing Cour­tesy of Suc­cess­ful Kick­starter Cam­paign

One of World’s Old­est Books Print­ed in Mul­ti-Col­or Now Opened & Dig­i­tized for the First Time

Dis­cov­er What Shakespeare’s Hand­writ­ing Looked Like, and How It Solved a Mys­tery of Author­ship

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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How to Sound Smart in a TED Talk: A Funny Primer by Saturday Night Live’s Will Stephen

in Comedy, How to Learn for Free, Psychology, TED Talks | March 21st, 2016

Is there any sub­ject that can’t be cov­ered in a TED Talk?

Appar­ent­ly not. You can make a TED Talk about any­thing, even noth­ing, as vet­er­an impro­vis­er and rook­ie Sat­ur­day Night Live writer, Will Stephen, demon­strat­ed at a recent TEDx event in New York City.

What you shouldn’t do is devi­ate from TED’s estab­lished pre­sen­ta­tion tropes. Stephen may be punk­ing us with his How to Sound Smart in Your TEDx Talk, above, but aspi­rant TED speak­ers should take notes. One can’t prac­tice obser­va­tion­al humor with­out being a keen observ­er. Stephen’s insights are as good a play­book as any for that unmis­take­able TED-style deliv­ery:

Use your hands.

Engage the audi­ence by ask­ing them a ques­tion that will result in a show of hands…

By show of hands, how many of you have been asked a ques­tion before?

Hit ‘em with an endear­ing, per­son­al anec­dote.

Pro­jec­tions will enhance your cred­i­bil­i­ty.

Replay the clip with the sound down, as Stephen sug­gests, and it’s still obvi­ous what he’s doing — giv­ing a TED Talk.  (The famil­iar cam­era work and edit­ing don’t hurt either.)

Even if you’re not plan­ning on nom­i­nat­ing your­self to become a TED speak­er in the near future, Stephen’s les­son should prove handy next time you’re called upon to do some pub­lic speak­ing, whether run­ning for Pres­i­dent or deliv­er­ing the toast at your best friend’s wed­ding.

And noth­ing is cer­tain­ly not the only top­ic of sub­stance upon which Stephen can dis­course. Wit­ness his Tin­der Strat­e­gy Pow­er­point.

Hmm, maybe there are some TED-proof sub­jects  after all…

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ben­jamin Brat­ton Explains “What’s Wrong with TED Talks?” and Why They’re a “Recipe for Civ­i­liza­tion­al Dis­as­ter”

1756 TED Talks List­ed in a Neat Spread­sheet

Your Favorite TED Talk Ever?

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Learn How to Code for Free: A DIY Guide for Learning HTML, Python, Javascript & More

in Computer Science, How to Learn for Free | March 7th, 2016

free computer coding resources

This week, we’re launch­ing the begin­ning of a new, ongo­ing series. We’re cre­at­ing guides that will teach you how to learn impor­tant sub­jects on your own, using free resources avail­able on the web. Want an exam­ple? Just look below. Here you’ll find a list of free resources–online cours­es, instruc­tion­al videos, YouTube chan­nels, text­books, etc.–that will teach how to code for free. If we’re miss­ing great items, please add your sug­ges­tions in the com­ments below.

This col­lec­tion is just a start, and it will con­tin­ue to grow over time. In the mean­time, if there are oth­er guides you’d like to see us devel­op in the com­ing weeks, please let us know in the com­ments sec­tion too. We’re hap­py to get your feed­back.

How to Code (Soft­ware)

  • Codecad­e­my: A free site for learn­ing every­thing from Mak­ing a Web­site to Python in a “user active” style—meaning that users can use tuto­ri­als to design projects of their own choos­ing. The site also makes it easy to track your progress. Oth­er top­ics you can learn include: Cre­ate an Inter­ac­tive Web­site, Ruby, Javascript, HTML & CSS, SQL and more. Reg­is­ter and sign up for all class­es here. (See our post on Codecad­e­my here.)
  • Code School: Code School cours­es are built around a cre­ative theme and sto­ry­line so that it feels like you’re play­ing a game, not sit­ting in a class­room. The site offers a set of free cours­es cov­er­ing JavaScript, jQuery, Python, Ruby and more.
  • Free Code Camp: An open source com­mu­ni­ty that helps you learn to code. You can work through self-paced cod­ing chal­lenges, build projects, and earn cer­ti­fi­ca­tions. Accord­ing to Wired, the site “fea­tures a sequence of online tuto­ri­als to help the absolute begin­ner learn become a web devel­op­er, start­ing with build­ing a sim­ple web­page. Stu­dents move on to pro­gram­ming with JavaScript and, even­tu­al­ly, learn­ing to build com­plete web appli­ca­tions using mod­ern frame­works such as Angu­lar and Node.”
  • The Odin Project: Made by the cre­ators of Viking Code School, an online cod­ing boot­camp, the Odin Project offers free cod­ing lessons in web devel­op­ment. Top­ics include: HTML, CSS, JavaScript & jQuery, Ruby pro­gram­ming, Ruby on Rails. Find an intro­duc­tion to the cur­ricu­lum here.
  • YouTube Chan­nels for Learn­ing Cod­ing: Chan­nels you might want to vis­it include:
    • Coder’s Guide: Fea­tures videos on HTML web devel­op­ment, cross-plat­­form Java pro­gram­ming, begin­ner .net pro­gram­ming with Visu­al Basic and client side JavaScript web devel­op­ment.
    • Code Course: Learn to code and build things with easy to fol­low tuto­ri­als. A num­ber of videos focus on PHP. Find more mate­ri­als on the chan­nel’s web site.
    • LearnCode.academy: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, CSS Lay­outs, Respon­sive Design etc.
    • DevTips: Web design and web devel­op­ment.
    • The New Boston: Pro­gram­ming, web design, net­work­ing, video game devel­op­ment, graph­ic design, etc.
    • The Google Devel­op­ers Chan­nel: Offers lessons, talks, the lat­est news & best prac­tices in sub­jects like Android, Chrome, Web Devel­op­ment, Poly­mer, Per­for­mance, iOS & more.
    • You can find more YouTube Chan­nels here: 33 Use­ful Youtube-chan­nels for learn­ing Web Design and Devel­op­ment.
  • Free Pro­gram­ming Text­books from Github: Access 500+ “free pro­gram­ming books that cov­er more than 80 dif­fer­ent pro­gram­ming lan­guages on the pop­u­lar web-based Git repos­i­to­ry host­ing ser­vice.”
  • Free Com­put­er Sci­ence Text­books: On our site, find a list of free text­books (aka open text­books) writ­ten by knowl­edgable schol­ars.

Sources that helped us cre­ate this list above include: Inc., Learn to Code with Me, and Web­Build­De­sign.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Mark Bittman’s Most Loved Recipes from The New York Times: Learn to Cook Healthy, Earth-Friendly Meals

in Food & Drink, How to Learn for Free, Life | March 7th, 2016

Food writer and healthy eat­ing advo­cate Mark Bittman has “no patience” for those who say, “I’d love to cook but I have a lousy kitchen,” but that does­n’t make him a hec­tor­ing meanie in the Top Chef pan­elist mold:

To me the ques­tion was not, “Would I cook this as a native would?” but rather, “How would a native cook this if he had my ingre­di­ents, my kitchen, my back­ground?” It’s obvi­ous­ly a dif­fer­ent dish. But as Jacques Pépin once said to me, you nev­er cook a recipe the same way twice, even if you try. I nev­er main­tained that my way of cook­ing was the “best” way to cook, only that it’s a prac­ti­cal way to cook. (I’m lazy, I’m rushed, and I’m not all that skill­ful, and many peo­ple share those qual­i­ties.)

If you’ve made it to adult­hood with­out learn­ing how to cook, or for that mat­ter, how to eat for the good of your body and the plan­et, Bittman is your man.

With the excep­tion of his baroque, James Beard-inspired scram­bled eggs, his recipes are swift and sim­ple, and his well doc­u­ment­ed flex­i­bil­i­ty makes him a good fit for any num­ber of palates and dietary restric­tions.

Hav­ing intro­duced the world to the idea of eat­ing “veg­an before six,” he ditched his cushy New York Times colum­nist gig to start a plant-based meal kit ser­vice in San Fran­cis­co. The Pur­ple Car­rot’s stat­ed goal is not to get peo­ple to give up meat, but rather to up their intake of home cooked dish­es that are good for their health as well as the envi­ron­ment.

Ergo, he’s like­ly not too cha­grinned that this col­lec­tion of Bittman’s “most-loved recipes,” in a career span­ning more than 1500 bylines at the New York Times, includes such ingre­di­ents as chori­zo, may­on­naise, chick­en, and eggs.

Below you can find a selec­tion (a bak­er’s dozen) of favorite Bittman recipes for chefs at all lev­els, includ­ing absolute begin­ners, to try. (The com­plete list is here.) Their ingre­di­ents are fair­ly straight­for­ward, though Hol­ly Golight­ly types who store books in the oven, may have to upgrade the kitchen with some ramekins and a pas­try cut­ter.

  • Veg­etable Soup: This one pre­sumes a microwave. You can do it the old fash­ioned way by adding some water or boxed veg­etable stock to a stove­top pot. See? Cook­ing is easy!

Find all of Bittman’s New York Times recipes here. And even more on his web­site.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Michael Pol­lan Explains How Cook­ing Can Change Your Life; Rec­om­mends Cook­ing Books, Videos & Recipes

53 New York Times Videos Teach Essen­tial Cook­ing Tech­niques: From Poach­ing Eggs to Shuck­ing Oys­ters

MIT Teach­es You How to Speak Ital­ian & Cook Ital­ian Food All at Once (Free Online Course)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Take a Free Online Course on Making Animations from Pixar & Khan Academy

in Animation, How to Learn for Free, Online Courses | February 11th, 2016

It’s a good month for nur­tur­ing your cre­ativ­i­ty: the Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts just launched a free course on mak­ing comics. And now comes anoth­er free course that will teach you the basics of ani­ma­tion. Pixar and Khan Acad­e­my have teamed up to cre­ate “Pixar in a Box,” a free online cur­ricu­lum that shows how Pixar artists use com­put­er sci­ence and math con­cepts to cre­ate their inno­v­a­tive films. Top­ic include Rig­ging (how char­ac­ters are brought to life with con­trols), Ren­der­ing (how pix­els are paint­ed using alge­bra ), Char­ac­ter Mod­el­ing (how clay mod­els are trans­formed into dig­i­tal char­ac­ters using weight­ed aver­ages) and more. Enter the self-paced series of lessons, each filled with instruc­tive videos, here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Make

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pixar’s 22 Rules of Sto­ry­telling … Makes for an Addic­tive Par­lor Game

Take a Free Online Course on Mak­ing Com­ic Books, Com­pli­ments of the Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts

Lyn­da Barry’s Illus­trat­ed Syl­labus & Home­work Assign­ments from Her New UW-Madi­son Course, “Mak­ing Comics”

Down­load 15,000+ Free Gold­en Age Comics from the Dig­i­tal Com­ic Muse­um

1150 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.