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gwern comments on Learn Power Searching with Google - Less Wrong Discussion

18 [deleted] 02 July 2012 07:09PM

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Comment author: gwern 22 July 2012 07:35:17PM 4 points [-]

I finished the final exam just now. It was harder than the exercises, which was a good thing (although I still don't see how one could answer one of the book questions).

Overall, my opinion remains the same. Good for beginners, for power users who already know Boolean operators and site: etc, not such a good use of time. Also, probably everyone should skip the videos and read the documents instead (unless they're very fond of videos). It was a nice touch that they tried to teach about confirmation bias.

Comment author: Pablo_Stafforini 08 August 2012 02:39:49AM *  1 point [-]

I signed up for the course, without ever watching the videos or reading the transcripts. A few minutes ago, I thought this might be a good time to finally get started. So I came back to the original LessWrong post to find the link to the course. But after reading gwern's comments, it's become clear to me that the course is not worth it.

Lesson: unless you have strong reasons for committing immediately to some time-consuming course or activity, wait until others whose judgment you trust have reviewed the course or activity.