1) Don’t Ask The Internet For Permission or Predictions Don’t ask the Internet for permission to try something. Don’t ask it whether it thinks your method will work. Do it and then tell it what happened. Don’t effing ask the Internet, TELL the Internet. Because you know who’s mostly on the Internet? Rectal orifices (there’s…
Artificial Intelligence and Learning Languages
by khatzumoto
“Artificial Intelligence is a little software and a lot of data.” Yorik Wilks quoted in David Levy’s Robots Unlimited, 2006 From Wilks’ quote, it looks like the AI people (all of them!) are closer and closer to finally “getting it”, as it were. I don’t mean to sound as though I had the answer all…
Ten Reasons Why Getting Used to Languages is Exactly Like Baking Cookies
by khatzumoto
“Textbooks prepare you for the real world as much as cookbooks prepare you for real cooking.” Chris W. Hubbard So…I like to bake. Cookies, that is. Big cookie fan. Got into cakes when I was 12, but that phase kind of passed after an extra helping of boarding school, so…cookies it was in college, and…
Cantodict Parser Bookmarklet
by khatzumoto
First of all, in case you don’t know what all bookmarklets are: Use bookmarklets to quickly perform common web page tasks | Firefox Help – is.gd/yxiWFB What is bookmarklet? – Definition from WhatIs.com – is.gd/hNWSHC Anyway, so, I just found out that CantoDict has a parser-style, “gangbang” batch lookup feature similar to MDBG‘s! This is…
What Golf Can Teach You About Getting Used to Languages
by khatzumoto
“The real reason why human beings play sports is to find out how to use our brains.” TOMABECHI Hideto This past summer, I tried a bunch of stuff. Including golf. All those “Cousin Tiger” jokes I used to tell in high school would appear to have finally come home to roost (inside joke…long story…not funny…
Big Is Heroic But Small Is Victorious
by khatzumoto
Slow and steady wins because slow and steady actually gets more done. Do the math…s: Tortoise: Six 5-minute sprints (total 30 minutes) per day, 7 days a week versus Hare: 2 hours in 1 session, every 10 days or so in an increasingly painful, guilt-laden, “bulimic studying” binges. Already that’s 210 minutes tortoise versus 120…