posting to undo bad moderation

His little known nutella "Ratatouille with Reza"?

I have not. But I'm not really in the market for anything especially challenging at the moment. I'll keep it in mind for later, though. The toughest one I've had so far was a Stanford databases class. I thought that one was pretty challenging until a student pointed to a copy of a midterm from the traditional version of the class the same instructor teaches in person, and I was surprised by the much greater difference in difficulty. I got an 80% on the MOOC midterm without applying a lot of effort, but I couldn't have gotten more than 20% on the traditional midterm, if that.

I agree 100%. Many of the classes I've taken have been light to moderate, a couple fairly rigorous, but none of them matched the demands of any of my undergraduate courses (admittedly at a tough private college). The rigorous ones might have come close to a couple of big-lecture entry-level classes I audited at a state university which weren't particularly demanding, but even there I think the total amount of education and challenge still goes to the traditional school.

That said, it is still learning. Engaging, educational, entertaining, and satisfying. I do read nonfiction books on my own, but changing the pace with lectures and quizzes is refreshing. I'm getting a lot out of the experience. How it compares to a traditional college environment is mostly irrelevant for me now; in the future, if they're talking about accredited classes and full degrees in MOOCs, that may be a different issue.

I've taken about 10 courses, and haven't "completed" any of them by the traditional academic standard of doing all the homework and tests. But I don't care, I'm not worried about that. I'm at a busy period in my life, definitely don't have a good schedule, and tend to get behind. I'm still enjoying the lectures, doing readings as I feel like it, sometimes doing quizzes or assignments, and often wrapping up the class weeks after it's officially over. I'm still 100% satisfied with this process, still feel like I'm getting a lot out of the courses, and try to go out of my way if they give me the option in the post-course survey to explain how much I appreciate what I'm getting, even if I look like a "dropout" to the traditionalists.

If it's safe, why does the bag of diatomaceous earth I bought claim it's harmful and should be kept away from children, pets, and everything else? The sales guy told me the same thing about it being safe, but when I got it home and looked at the packaging it said otherwise?

I have no problem doing nothing. Or rather, given no requirements, I have no problem filling my time with constructive (well, mostly) things to keep myself occupied. I spent half a year unemployed after the dot-com bust, and other than plummeting into debt it was one of the best times of my life.

Naturally, this prediction comes when I'll be 68 and at full retirement age. That practically guarantees it'll come true, and I'll watch all the snotty kids enjoying the good life I had to earn for myself through decades of work.

I don't care about kids educational programming, but as an adult I'd like some. There was a brief window where I caught a lot of neat stuff on the History channel and loved it. Given the option I would gladly watch quite a bit of science or history on television, but it's hard to find. It's sad when a cooking show is the most educational, scientific, nonfiction you can find on air.

Roku with Hulu and Netflix is technically very easy with just one straightforward remote. No recording necessary, because you're streaming everything. Not sure about having a guide, but both give some hints and recommendations. Hulu may have some sort of favorites list to remind you to catch weekly shows: I'm not entirely sure, that's my wife's arena.

Sports is a difficult issue. You'll pay a lot for addon packages, though they exist. I've satisfied myself with paying for less expensive audio and listening via the laptop, but it's not quite the same.

Most of the ageism seems to come with the hiring company. If you're at a company that's already supporting you, and it appears they are, then you're not going to have problems as long as you stay. Obstacles may only start to crop up if/when you want to move. Even then I think the horror stories are exaggerated - we've got programmers in their 40's or 50's here who were relatively new hires, but we're a smaller and perhaps nontraditional company. I think you ought to still have plenty of options, but you may struggle if you try to pick certain large and established firms with a reputation for ageism, including most of the gaming industry.

Best of luck to you! I'm actually still pushing back my plans to reinvent myself as a programmer (trying to get through kids before changing career paths) and I know I won't get to it before I'm 40. Despite the general negativity about my prospects, I don't expect that to stop me from eventually making the transition.

Is there some cleanup that can be done after bedtime? Also, I know all kids are different, but ours doesn't seem to need that much of a cooldown period. Ten or fifteen minutes of reading right at the end sets the tone for bedtime. We can even have tickle fights after the bath, and by the time we're done with books she's okay. If yours doesn't work that way, I realize that won't help, but you might try condensing it a little and see if you get anything out of it?

That's almost exactly the schedule my daughter is on, and she's turning 2. Nobody gives us funny looks about it, though. It is true we don't get out much in the evenings anymore (each of us parents usually does something on our own once a week, but honestly we're pretty tired a lot of the time anyway so quiet time is good). It's one of the best things we did for her happiness and our sanity to get on a consistent and extensive sleep schedule.

She's a good sport if we have to push her a little now and then, but we've noticed a direct correlation between her going to bed later and then sleeping worse, waking up more often, waking up earlier (unintuitive, but true) and being worse at nap time, plus being crankier when awake of course.

"What for it"?

Wait are we whatting for?

Bottle conditioning just means letting the final bit of fermentation occur in the bottle, which carbonates it naturally. Homebrewers rely on this because they don't have ways to inject CO2 into the system. Some traditional breweries use this method still, mostly smaller or older operations, though there are other exceptions. I'm not really aware of any significant changes in the character of the beer based on bottle conditioning other than it does leave a bit of yeast behind as sediment in the bottle. Many drinkers find this mostly a detriment - you're leaving that last bit behind or getting a cloudier/yeastier beer if you pour it all out. It may be appealing to some, or in the case of some wheats or strongly flavored yeasts provide a little extra to the experience. I'm not sure if that's what Zod was talking about, or if he just meant that many of the places which still bottle condition have what he considers to be better beers in general.

The can may spoil it for you, but "skunk" is actually a technical term. It's a chemical process where some of the hop chemicals react with sunlight and convert into something else which literally provides a slightly skunky smell. If you want a good reference, Corona is a classic case of a heavily skunked beer. (I think that's why a lot of people drink it with the lime, to cover up the smell.) It's also part of the Mexican lager standard style - in their case they expose the beer to a burst of ultraviolet light during production specifically to create the effect, and can get away with clear bottles because additional skunking won't make much difference.

Miller, on the other hand, created a variation of the hop chemical which provides bitterness but doesn't react to light. That's how they can get away with clear bottles for one of their lines of beer - it won't skunk no matter what.