What do you do on a rainy day?  Well, learn something, of course!   What has changed in the last several years is how easy it is to take quality classes online.  I have highlighted three online learning institutions above: edX, Khan Academy, and Udacity.  My first class was a Java programming class from Udacity a year ago.  In August I took a Solar Energy class from edX while we were in Mexico.  In the last couple of days I’ve worked my way through the first half of the Linux operating system class at edX.   While most of the edX classes are college level, much of the Khan Academy classes are along the line of Advanced Placement High School or Junior College (perfect for me to re-learn Calculus) on down to grade school.  While I’m mostly interested in technical subjects, courses in history, art, music, etc are available.  edX is a learning platform but most of the coursework comes from major universities all around the world such as Delft, U of Austin, MIT, and Harvard.  In addition, major companies such as Google, Nvidia,  & mongoDB have developed some of the classes because of their unique expertise in the field and a little self interest on their part.  Some of the classes are designed to be taken at any time in a solo environment, while others start on a specific date, have weekly lectures (that can be viewed at your leisure), regular homework and social media abilities to work with others in the same class.  You can take classes for free from all three institutions if your sole objective is to learn the subject.  If you want to be certified or get credit, there are nominal fees (compared to brick and mortar schools)  associated with the class.  Corporations are now beginning to recognize certifications from these classes, which in my view is an endorsement of their quality.  In any event, you can get a college level education for free or pay $30K plus a year to a university system more interested in your student loan money than your education.    In addition, you can make some real learning progress on a rainy day in Malta. -Dave