I can’t believe how hard this was to wrap my head around:
“ If you're at a traffic light, in the rightmost lane with two lanes turning left, of course the demented tamagotchi on wheels thinks you are about to sideswipe the car to your left.”
To elaborate on my Duolingo critique… I find it too linear and strict. I can’t really get it to focus on the skills that I’m struggling with or most want to focus upon at a given time. This is especially true when you’re learning using a combined, multifaceted approach (eg YouTube videos + kindle stories + Duolingo + classroom instruction).
As a French language learner, one thing I’d love to see is more interesting ways of practicing a specific area/skill (eg in French that might be the passé composé or l’imparfait). There are tons of lessons on line, but they’re boring and uninteresting. They don’t motivate you like a short story or short film where you get both practice and pleasure. It seems very doable to use LLM technologies to transform a given short story to focus on specific language skills (eg rewrite to utilize mostly a specific tense). I know it’s possible because one of my first play experiments with ChatGPT was to have it write a letter to Santa using only specific tenses. In the end you get to reinforce your comprehension and recognition of specific facets of a language. I wish this was more widely available in language learning offerings Hint, hint Duolingo, please consider allowing me to choose the skill I want to learn at a given time, at least in some way. This might apply more to intermediate and advanced learners.
Has anyone figured a good way to account for time spent on asynchronous communication (ie email)? A lot my time goes there and it is sprinkled throughout my days and nights.
Ideally we wouldn’t bill hourly and wouldn’t have to care, but neither the world nor my contracts are ideal!
It really depends on where you live. Aside from the obvious electrical cost savings, you typically have state/federal incentives plus the opportunity to sell back excess power to the grid. In addition, and most importantly, there may be SREC markets that pay you to generate EVEN if you consume everything you produce. In Washington DC for example, my $30k traditional panel system should be paid off in about 5 years due to (ordered by magnitude): SREC sales, federal tax credits, excess power generation sold to the grid, electrical savings. Currently in year 3 and about 2/3 paid off.
As someone who first created an IG account in 2010, then deleted it in 2019 after watching it decline, I like how simply this summed up my reasoning :
« commercial, flat, vain «
For a company that isn’t making the economics work, how does one justify such a massive resource investment in a brand change like this?! Do the gains from the related PR (ie news coverage) make up for it? These are not meant to be rhetorical questions.
I hear your point, but the given example? GPS? Does anyone prefer an auto manufacturers software GUI over the GUI of their phone? CarPlay and the Android equivalent for the win.
The biggest shortcoming here, from what I can tell, is custom event tracking (eg, click tracking). That was a high priority for us when we moved some projects from GA/universal.
Can someone please explain the CBD market? I’m in Paris right now and it seems like every block has a high end (looking) CBD shop. How are these rents being covered? Who is buying? I have to believe that most people still want THC.
As a comparison, we just did a similar project in Washington DC for our ~105 year old row house. It cost us ~$2500 including permits and all materials except that actual EV charger unit (blanking on what that’s called). But that is BEFORE federal+DC tax credits worth about $1k.
Situations differ. Local policies and code differ. For a couple thousand dollars, my car will be fully sun powered (from our 11Kwh rooftop solar system). Gas savings over the life of the car should more than make up for it.
(We had previously upgraded our panel to handle more load and offer more slots when we renovated, but even that was under $3k.)
PSA for the younger reader and / or parents: Try being the janitor.
I was effectively the janitor for a public ice arena outside Detroit from the age of 14 to 16. I cleaned public restrooms, as well as hockey locker rooms. I emptied large trash bins (thankfully before recycling was mainstream). I cleaned below the bleachers. That was probably the worst. But, if I may say, that experience helped mold me, for the better. People were rude to me, but it wasn’t quite as consistently bad as I might have thought. Perhaps it was my age that softened the treatment and showed slightly more humanity. In any case, I wear the experience as a proud badge of honor (as if you can’t tell). And yes, just be nice.
I’m one of the ones that asked for a comparison. Thank you. I’m not sure I’ll appreciate the difference until I give it a try though. I know that when I look at my history in Last, I could clearly see what I discovered and what I obsessed over for a period of time. But let’s say your tool isn’t different in any fundamental way. So F’n what? :) Not the most tasteful examples, but where would Burger King or Wendy’s be if they had demurred to the big M?
Selfish, but possibly not alone in the following request…
I was a passionate, early user of last.fm. On its face, your service is similar in its goals. How does it differ? How do you think it’s better?
A good question to ask myself: why did I stop using last.fm? My quick response is life (becoming a father, the pandemic and a lack of live music) and possibly something to do with migrating from an ipod to Spotify. Also, I still use my account a bit to see historically what I’ve been listening to and what the ear’s of some friends have discovered. That is, I’m still scrobbling!
TLRTF (too long, read too fast): they were the greatest thing at the time (especially for cinephiles). Superior contrast, better viewing angles. Disclosure: Former Pioneer plasma TV owner
Grey Poupon (French Dijon) was readily available at our local grocery store in DC. I assume the incentives to divert the supplies from the US to France aren’t quite there yet.
Vacationing in France as I write (but still reading HN). It was a surreal moment when our French family called before our departure asking if we could pack a jar or two for them!
I guess I won’t fully understand until a peanut butter shortage hits the States. We nonetheless took their request seriously :)
Every year, while visiting family in France, we dedicate days to visiting these shops as well as brocantes (antique/vintage markets). I used to do the same in the US, starting as a child when I hopped around Salvation Army shops and garage sales with my mother. They are an incredibly important part of who I am and they have deeply shaped how I view things like commerce and consumption — and given my tech doings, they’ve tended to make me deeply cynical about modern e-commerce. But before I digress, I’ll agree that it seems gems are getting harder to come by. This is especially true in fashion where we’re starting to see the longer impact of fast fashion (see recent NY Times article entitled ~The end of the golden age in thrifting). I hope the world moves back in a direction where things we make will eventually hold real value past their first, second or even third owners.
“ I am almost tone deaf—only with great effort can I carry the simplest tune, and serious music was to me no more than an arrangement of noises. So I did what I always did when trapped: I sat down, and when the music started, I fixed my face in what I hoped was an expression of intelligent appreciation, closed my ears from the inside, and submerged myself in my own completely irrelevant thoughts.”
It’s exactly how I’ve managed my way through countless dinners with my wife’s French speaking family.
I’ve always imagined that an iPod-something would be my child’s first camera/media device. We’re not ready for that leap yet (at only 3 1/2 yo), but I’m curious — what are others opting for in this use case?
As a IA / UI guy, I have to say I’ve come around a bit on this. I used to share the opinion, but mobile has changed my view. A well implemented touch enabled, smooth sliding horizontal carousel is an excellent UI component on a handheld device. I say that as a user.