The Guardian for this meeting was Bruce Mowbray. The comments are by Bruce Mowbray.

Bruce Mowbray: Heya, Qt!
Qt Core: Hi Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: Welcome.
Qt Core: Completely forgot about pab b'day
Bruce Mowbray: Have you taken any MOOC's?
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, PaB bd was on the first of the month.
Qt Core: that's depends on what a MOOC is...
Bruce Mowbray: Massive Open On-line Course
Bruce Mowbray: as through Coursera or FutureLearn.
Bruce Mowbray: http://www.coursera.org
Qt Core: ah, no, something I'd like but almost fear
Bruce Mowbray: http://www.futurelearn.org
Bruce Mowbray: Well, the courses are both free and non-competitive.
Bruce Mowbray: One can take them in complete privacy,
Qt Core: could become an addiction ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: so, no embarrassment.
Bruce Mowbray: Oh yes!
Bruce Mowbray: I have taken several courses, and find that "addictive" thing to be real, for sure.
Bruce Mowbray: and it spreads to RL, too.
Bruce Mowbray: Before you arrived I was listening to video lectures in one of the courses I'm taking right now:
Bruce Mowbray: The Psychology of Buddhism.
Bruce Mowbray: taught by a prof at Princeton University.
Bruce Mowbray: Robert Wright.
Qt Core: there are a few things i like but avoid in the Net, trek games, ted and those courses
Bruce Mowbray: https://www.coursera.org/course/psychbuddhism
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: One needs to know one's preferences and limits, for sure.
Bruce Mowbray: I can spend a whole weekend just watching TED vids.
Qt Core: haven't even really looked at them, they are completely asynchronous, right, video to watch and material to read, right ?
Bruce Mowbray: ooops, I now see that I got the title of the course wrong,
Bruce Mowbray: it should have been
Bruce Mowbray: "Buddhism and Modern Psychology"
Bruce Mowbray: You mean the courses?
Qt Core: yes
Bruce Mowbray: (not TED).
Bruce Mowbray: well, each course is different.
Bruce Mowbray: Some of them rely heavily on social networking,
Bruce Mowbray: like FB and Twitter,

Bruce Mowbray: but I don't go there.
Bruce Mowbray: This Buddhism course has "Office Hours,"
Bruce Mowbray: where the prof reviews some of the social media input and responds to it,
Bruce Mowbray: very interesting, actually.

--BELL--

 
Qt Core: that's ok, but no live videos or specific time to do things
Bruce Mowbray: ooops, sry about the drop.
Bruce Mowbray: (I have my sounds turned off.)
Zon Kwan: heya
Bruce Mowbray: Heya, Zon.
Bruce Mowbray: kk.
Qt Core: more simply there are no lessons to attend
Qt Core: hi Zon
Bruce Mowbray: With this course,
Bruce Mowbray: so far,
Bruce Mowbray: no live lectures.
Bruce Mowbray: but I took a modern Poetry course that had live lectures every week,
Bruce Mowbray: of course, one did not have to attend those,
Qt Core: live lessons would hurt the massive and online part ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: One could watch the tapes....
Bruce Mowbray: I think everyone realizes that these courses are viewed all over the world,
Bruce Mowbray: and also that the world is round,
Bruce Mowbray: so,
Bruce Mowbray: all of the lectures are taped and made available whenever individuals can schedule them in.
Bruce Mowbray: We're talking about MOOC's, Zon.
Bruce Mowbray: specifically,
Zon Kwan: what's that?
Bruce Mowbray: one that I've been watching this afternoon:
Bruce Mowbray: https://www.coursera.org/course/psychbuddhism
Bruce Mowbray: MOOC = "Massive Open On-line Course"
Qt Core: as one of the first rule in power management is keep the knowledge to yourself one wonders if we are really past that or there is some more valuable knowledge hidden
Bruce Mowbray: Two major producers of MOOC's are
Zon Kwan: wow
Bruce Mowbray: http://www.coursera.org
Bruce Mowbray: and http://www.futurelearn.org
Bruce Mowbray: Yes!
Bruce Mowbray: It's a great opportunity.
Bruce Mowbray: If one has the time for it.
Bruce Mowbray: I sense no striving for "power management" in these courses -- at least so far.
Bruce Mowbray: And I've taken about a dozen of them.
Qt Core: i was thinking about human civilization at large
Bruce Mowbray: Hmmm.
Zon Kwan: what did you like themBruce?
Bruce Mowbray: Well, this course (Buddhism and Psychology) has talked a lot about human evolution (at large),
Bruce Mowbray: and there have been many references to how the brain processes desire and pleasure...
Bruce Mowbray: (rewards, etc)
Bruce Mowbray: dopamine, etc.
Bruce Mowbray: and it's fascinating to notice how "well" natural selection has worked its way....
Bruce Mowbray: given the chemical physiology of the brain.
Bruce Mowbray: which reminds me of another MOOC I took recently:
Bruce Mowbray: "Good Brain - Bad Brain"  https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/good-brain-bad-brain-basics
Bruce Mowbray: (through Future Learn)
Bruce Mowbray: There are literally hundreds of courses taught by really excellent profs.
Bruce Mowbray: The Buddhism and Psychology course is taught by a prof at Princeton University.
Bruce Mowbray: excellent.
Bruce Mowbray: (would love to know how Zen is responding to the prof, since he's also taking the course.)
Qt Core: I'll probably start with courses needing some homework, like some math and physics
Bruce Mowbray: https://www.coursera.org/courses
Bruce Mowbray: plenty of those here, Qt.
Qt Core: yeah, i suppose that's why i don't go there ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: When I was an under-graduate,
Bruce Mowbray: I used to crave more TIME to be able to read and investigate things that the course itself introduced.
Bruce Mowbray: Now that I'm retired,
Bruce Mowbray: I can actually do that!
Qt Core: (even if at the moment it was the right choice i sometimes regret not going to university)
Bruce Mowbray: Joy!
Bruce Mowbray: But now you have the whole world of knowledge at your fingertips, Qt.
Bruce Mowbray: Besides, there's no WAYYYY I could afford to go to college now!
Bruce Mowbray: and MOOC's are free!
Qt Core: yes, now it is the time that lacks
Bruce Mowbray: understood.
Zon Kwan: waves
Bruce Mowbray: and for moi, I have more time than I know what to do with -- wisely, anyway.
Bruce Mowbray: bye, Zon.

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray: I am looking forward to taking a course in JAVA starting in June.
Bruce Mowbray: although it's not really JAVA, per se,
Bruce Mowbray: it's a dialect of JAVA called "Processing"
Qt Core: OOP then ?
Bruce Mowbray: also free.
Bruce Mowbray: nope, I don't think so.
Bruce Mowbray: It's called "Processing"
Bruce Mowbray: I have the software and am enormously impressed by how straight-forward it is.
Bruce Mowbray: http://www.processing.org
Bruce Mowbray: Just their "Examples" page is very impressive.
Bruce Mowbray: http://www.processing.org/examples/
Bruce Mowbray: excellent tutorials, too.
Bruce Mowbray: I've written several programs with the software.... very simple ones, of course.
Qt Core: I'm getting a little interested (again) in android programming, maybe this time i really try something more than downloading the IDE :-)
Bruce Mowbray: Great!
Bruce Mowbray: I love the Android system.
Bruce Mowbray: There are courses available right now that teach one to write Android apps,
Bruce Mowbray: but you probably already know how to do that.
Qt Core: i have a smartphone, but stopped using it in December, too distracting, not android per se, obviously, but all the apps (especially the social ones)
Bruce Mowbray: https://www.coursera.org/courses?orderby=upcoming&search=Android
Qt Core: just a little bit of theory and the language used)
Bruce Mowbray: (never had a smart phone, myself. No internet towers close enough to my typist's hermitage, unfortunately.)
Bruce Mowbray: Tried a cell phone once, and it was a total dud.
Bruce Mowbray: (too far out into the boonies to receive the signal).
Bruce Mowbray: btw,
Qt Core: for using it only on your wifi network better to go with a tablet, if ever
Bruce Mowbray: a totally trivial point:
Bruce Mowbray: My typist's abode is the antipode of where they are now looking for the lost Malaysian airplane.
Qt Core: from the android course page: "What is a "trans-institution sequence of MOOCs?"... don't know, but it would sound good on a Star Trek episode! :-)
Bruce Mowbray: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=antipode+of+Clarksburg%2C+Ohio
Bruce Mowbray loves Star Trek.
Bruce Mowbray: Has all episodes from "The Next Generation" on his computer.
Bruce Mowbray: That antipode was the EARLIER search site -- now it has shifted to the north a bit.
Qt Core: today i had a realization about star trek, i realized that if i ever get a tattoo (an high improbable thing) it would probably be a trek communicator ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: (still seems remarkable, though.)

Bruce Mowbray: COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!

--BELL--
 
Bruce Mowbray: "Bean me up, Scotty."
Bruce Mowbray: Beam...
Bruce Mowbray: !!
Bruce Mowbray: Did you get a PaB t-shirt...?
Bruce Mowbray: the birthday one, I mean?
Bruce Mowbray: I think I might be able to give you one.....
Qt Core: no i haven't
Qt Core: got it, ty
Bruce Mowbray: yw.
Qt Core: today was strange, i even choose the sunny side of the street (i usually walk the shadows ;-)
Bruce Mowbray listens carefully.
Bruce Mowbray: Shadows remind me of Jungian depth psychology.....
Qt Core: i dislike the sun especially if/when i get it in my eyes and usually i avoid it almost on autopilot
Bruce Mowbray: I have a BIG problem with the sun.
Bruce Mowbray: at the moment, I have the shade drawn way down so that I'll be able to see the monitor.
Bruce Mowbray: (window facing south.)
Bruce Mowbray: and bright sunlight here.
Bruce Mowbray: in mid-summer, though, the sun gets high enough in the sky that this is not a problem.
Qt Core: obviously cloudy here today, as my friends of the amateur astronomers have a public observation nearby :-(
Bruce Mowbray: Have you considered wearing sunglasses?
Bruce Mowbray: ON NO.
Qt Core: i wear photo-chromatic glasses
Bruce Mowbray: a total eclipse of the moon is coming up,
Bruce Mowbray: on April 15th, I think it is.
Qt Core: probably not on this side of the planet as i haven't heard nothing being planned
Bruce Mowbray: https://www.google.com/#q=total+eclipse+of+the+moon&safe=off&tbm=nws
Bruce Mowbray: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/04/03/lunar-eclipse-april-15-blood-moon/7210901/
Bruce Mowbray: I guess it's just going to be in the Western Hemisphere, sry.
Qt Core: mars and a moon eclipse, that would be a nice shot
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: We're going to have FOUR total eclipses in a row - one every six months.
Bruce Mowbray: The first one is at 2 a.m. here, so I won't be watching it, not LIVE anyway.
Qt Core: then in 2017 there will be a full eclipse of the sun in the USA
Bruce Mowbray: WOW!
Bruce Mowbray: Do you know where it will be maximum?
Bruce Mowbray: http://www.eclipse2017.org/eclipse2017_main.htm
Qt Core: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEplot/SEplot2001/SE2017Aug21T.GIF
Bruce Mowbray: TY!
Bruce Mowbray: Just south of where my typist lives.
Bruce Mowbray: He should drive down there to see it.
Bruce Mowbray: (if he's still allowed to drive by then!)
Qt Core: nasa main webpage bout everything eclipse: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.html
Bruce Mowbray: THANKS for this info, Qt.
Bruce Mowbray: I'm going to have to be going now.
Bruce Mowbray: Look out for that sunshine, OK?
Qt Core: I'll probably come to the US to see it
Bruce Mowbray: GREAT!
Bruce Mowbray: kk, bye for now.
Qt Core: bye, have fun