Mustachians - What are your favorite online resources for gaining knowledge?

[hoyahoyasaxa]

This doesn't have to be just personal finance-related, but all things Mustachian.  From helping to learn a new language to repairing bicycles or learning programming code - what websites, Twitter feeds, subreddits, etc. continue to enrich your life and contribute to your personal development day in and day out?

[Zaga]

Whenever my husband or I want to learn something that would be better shown, we go straight to a YouTube search.  It's just amazing what people will post videos of!  Anything house related like plumbing, roofing, dry-walling, electrical, retaining walls, etc.  Sewing, cooking, finance, hair cutting, I could go on...  YouTube is such an amazing resource!  I even plan on adding things to it on personal finance over the summer, paying back some of the benefit I've gained.

[mensa]

I like http://www.memrise.com/ for languages. Haven't used it for any other courses though.

[Paul der Krake]

NOT Yahoo answers.

I am a big believer in learning by doing, which means that for all things manual, I will seek the help of an experienced "expert" who can walk me through a simple project, when possible, to get started. Otherwise I spend hours online trying to grok all the finer details at once, or stumble upon conflicting opinions which throws me off. Even stupid stuff like how "how often do I need to change my oil" will yield dozens of slightly different answers. Once you have a good understanding of how things work, it becomes a lot easier to weed out the bad resources.

Programming: trial & error, reading other people's code. You have nothing to lose but your time, the machine doesn't care if it takes you 1 try or 100 to get it to do what you want. It's like building anything, except there is no need to drive back to Lowe's to buy more supplies because you messed up.

[PolarBeer]

Wikipedia is number one for me. I try to read a bit every day, some times on completely random topics. Its just a fun thing that leads you to stuff you never expected. And some times I find myself actually using that knowledge not long afterwards just by random chance.

YouTube is great for finding guides to doing stuff but I avoid it for documentaries and historical/scientific stuff because its full of crackpots and conspiracy theorists.

[Sparafusile]

I second Wikipedia. It catches a lot of flack for being editable by anybody, but if you have half a brain you'll be able to tell what is credible and not. If nothing else I can amuse children with the weird trivia I have accumulated. I also have a list of tech related blogs that I read every morning because that's what I'm interested in and is my field of work. It's amazing how much knowledge you accumulate spending 30 minutes reading new things every day.

[Nords]

Believe it or not, Facebook crowdsourcing.

I've joined several groups there.  One of them is over 200 personal-finance bloggers (most of it oriented around FinCon, http://financialbloggerconference.com/details/) and another is the Cold War Submarine Veterans group.  The first is a place where I can ask just about any dumb question on blogging or plugins or financial products.  The second is full of the history we can't talk about by us actual people who don't discuss submarine operations... including members who may or may not be British, Australian, Canadian, Polish, and even Russian.

Second resource:  for many years, major decisions around Hale Nords only happened after seeking input from posters at Early-Retirement.org.  My first post there asked whether ER was really this good all the time or if I was missing something.  I wrote the book with the advice & stories (and brutal feedback) from over 50 military servicemembers, veterans, and families.  Another time several posters there persuaded us that it was worth flying 4000 miles (in an airplane) to visit a college campus... from which our daughter is graduating in 2014.  This forum is heading in that direction too (a knowledge resource like E-R.org, not a college referral).   

Third resource:  Linkedin.  I've joined over two dozen military-related groups there, and I've connected with many key people on military staffs and in their follow-on bridge careers.  Great answers to questions and even more material for blog posts.

[sherr]

Khan Academy videos are excellent. https://www.khanacademy.org/ (also available on youtube)

[GoStumpy]

If you're interested in actual courses to take, www.coursera.org has a ton of good content..

TED Talk about Coursera:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FvJ6jMGHU