There's more to the net than pr0n?

Who would have thunk it. The last week has seen a mess of remarkably cool learning initiatives pop up online, so now you can expand your mind while you surf. If tech is your thang, then you'll want to see what the Massachusetts Institute of

Who would have thunk it. The last week has seen a mess of remarkably cool learning initiatives pop up online, so now you can expand your mind while you surf. If tech is your thang, then you'll want to see what the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is doing with its course work, and if sheer masses of information float your boat, then the Egypt's Bibliotheca Alexandrina project might be more your thing. And finally, for the more holistically minded, there's some herbal stirrings from China.

Boston's MIT announced last week that it was going to place all of its course work online - for anyone to access and use around the world. This was met with instant praise, and reassurances from MIT staff that merely studying the various papers and projects is no substitute for a face to face education. And while not a purely online proposition, Egypt's decision to rebuild the famed Library of Alexandria (just down the road from atomic's Redfern, offices, so I hear) is without doubt a high point of the information age. Documents from around the world are being offered to the project, many of which will be digitised and indexed for a massive search engine covering the widest breadth of human knowledge, and with a mind to its distribution via the Internet - truly, information for all.

Finally, for the alternatively medicined amongst you (damn hippies - you know who you are), the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Greater China Technologies have entered into a joint partnership to bring traditional Chinese medicine to the online masses though online courses in the ancient techniques. At the moment the greatest work is in establishing a standard to pass on to prospective students; when the program starts it will be available in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean.
MIT
Bibliotecha Alexandrina
Chinese University of Hong Kong