Courses on imaging often assume a huge amount of technical background that the participants do not have, and the course on SPM software used to be particularly bad in this respect. Here's a very funny email from long ago, sent to me by Appletree Rodden, about his experiences watching the videos of the SPM course:
Last Friday I got my copy of the video I had ordered of the London SPM course from May 2000. I spent 6 hours Sunday watching it. You suggested that it might be a bit difficult for me.
Despite your kind warning, I was utterly unprepared for the level of depression I reached after said viewing. Never had suicide seemed so sweet a thought. The informational content I retained from those six hours of watching was, maybe 2 minutes. What really wiped me out was how damn "nice" all the instructors were - as they continued to pour it on, talking in idiomatic English about things I understand significantly less well than I understand Medieval Sanskrit. It was probably only my death-urge that prompted me not to turn off my video-player-backer as soon as introductions were made and it was explained where coffee would be served at the break. “Let them eat Gauss …” I felt them saying. Smiling. Always smiling. And more depressing than the presentations themselves were the beautiful 'teen agers who would then ask what must have been meaningful questions. By the end of the day, I felt threatened by the mechanics of turning on my water tap.
Never again.
I gave the cassettes to my boss today - in the hope of evening up a few scores.
You were damn sure right - and with a vengeance: for me that whole presentation was a word salad made of thumb tacks.
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