The Soulburn CG Education Page has been updated:
http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/cg_education.htm
* Added a new lesson called Procedural Noise.
* Someone has been kind enough to figure out a way to replicate the Blended Box Map technique inside maya (using mentalray). Go here for the youtube video, and click on "More Info" to get a script that creates the shader network for you.