If you want a good grade in this class, do the reading, go to lecture, and go to office hours! Jim is easy to talk to and answers pretty much all your questions about lecture and his own research during office hours. If you want to get an A in the class, make sure to not miss lecture (recording them is good idea).
Really interesting material, pay attention, even though its kind of hard to, he can be funny and witty at times. But overall, not that great of a lecturer, could have made it more interesting, but not horrible. Tests were 50% book, 50% lecture, but he posts all the slides up. Non-cumulative tests (2 midterms and a final) 33.3% of grade