What is your approach to learn German?
I haven't tried since that one attempt. I've picked up a few words from learning German songs as part of my voice training, but otherwise it's not useful enough to me to take the time and effort.
Readit Newsthedanbob commented on The Whole App is a Blob drobinin.com/posts/the-wh... · Posted by u/valzevul
At least with Duolingo's Spanish course, the differences in grammar are among the first things they teach. Weird that it would be different with German.
It's been almost 10 years so maybe they do it differently now. I just remember they made a big deal about the gendered nouns but nothing about the fact that sentences weren't even close to correctly structured. And too be fair, maybe that was coming later and they didn't want to overwhelm people, but a quick explanation would have been nice.
I learned 5 foreign languages different ways, and the one I'm most proficient in, Italian, I learned the hardest way, doing grammar excercises, where for every of 31 paragraphs of the manual (each paragraph containing 2-3 grammatical phoenomena), I had to articulate ~200 sentences, each from scratch. I abandoned flashcards on the 2nd or 3rd month of learning. I also attended a discussion club, which gave that tiny bit of "coffeeshop" language the author speaks about. 1,5 years into learning, I passed CILS exam for level C (it would be C1 nowadays).
My worst language in is German, where every manual is well elaborated in terms of graphical design, but every exercise askss you to insert a word or two into a sentence. Or pick an answer from a set. Basically, Duolinguo sent to printer. So after couple of years of working with teachers and taking intensive courses, my level is B1..2. I can listen to radio and understand something, I can read something. I actually can speak in a shop -- they'll understand my level and speak accordingly -- but I can't do a normal conversation. I couldn't find a teacher that doesn't just drill you through these same fancy books.
"A friend who had been learning some language in Duolinguo and then couldn't say a sentence to a native", should be proverbial nowadays.
So, despite the app idea being interesting and compelling, this teaching approach, picking correct options from lists, are good for testing (if the subject is given little enough time), but futile at teaching.
> "A friend who had been learning some language in Duolinguo and then couldn't say a sentence to a native", should be proverbial nowadays.
I tried picking up some German via Duolingo once. I thought it was going great, pretty soon I was up to full sentences. Then one day I realized (because my voice teacher sometimes makes me translate the foreign language songs) that I wasn't learning German sentences, I was learning English sentences substituted with German words. German grammar is completely different. I haven't touched Duolingo since.
thedanbob commented on Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright bbc.com/news/articles/c1j... · Posted by u/YeGoblynQueenne
I understand that currently this is sort of a collective action problem, but I'm a bit baffled why people ever thought they needed brighter headlights in the first place. In the city, it's so bright that you don't even need headlights to see whatsoever. When cars started automatically dimming the dash via a light sensor, there was actually a period of time where I totally forgot to turn on my headlights because things were so well lit -- even at night -- that I didn't need them whatsoever.
Out in the country, you still don't really need brighter headlights. Other cars' headlights will always be visible and they have reflectors, so it's not as if you'll struggle to spot other cars. The road lines are actually reflective, so it's not as if you'll struggle to see the road lines. And generally speaking out in the country, there won't be pedestrian foot traffic, so it's not as if you need the bright lights for them.
So who are they for? I think broadly people may just not be able to avoid excess unless restricted by the facts of their environment. Allow people a plethora of calories, they'll get too fat. Allow them a plethora of entertainment, they'll drive themselves insane. And somehow .. allow them too many bright lights and they'll all just blind each other.
> And generally speaking out in the country, there won't be pedestrian foot traffic, so it's not as if you need the bright lights for them.
Animals, specifically deer. That said, you can use brights when no other cars are nearby, and when there is a car coming its worth a few seconds of extra risk to not blind the other guy and put him at risk.
thedanbob commented on A change of address led to our Wise accounts being shut down shaun.nz/why-were-never-u... · Posted by u/jemmyw
The right solution here is to take the telecom tax invoice, edit it in a PDF editor to say Telecom bill, and send it back.
The process is stupid enough that this will work 95% of the time. Is it fraud? No, not really, I'd argue. You're just conforming the document to an arbitrary standard, but all the relevant details are factual, not fraudulent.
That was my first thought as I was reading. Of course, I imagine almost every serious business would be extremely uncomfortable doing something like that. On the other hand, if the alternative is getting your account closed anyway, there's not much to lose.
thedanbob commented on FocusTube: A Chrome extension that hides YouTube Shorts github.com/CaptainYouz/Fo... · Posted by u/youz
It seems like Shorts keep getting worse, at least the Shorts that I get presented with. For a while the most popular format was a clip from a movie or TV show with annoying royalty-free music slapped on top and a badly chosen title. Now I'm seeing clips shrunk down into a tiny content box within the Short while the background is some guy watching you watch the clip. Why is that popular?!
thedanbob commented on Dark patterns: Buying a Bahncard at Deutsche Bahn ketzu.net/dark-patterns-b... · Posted by u/ketzu
Sorry, I have a hard time holding back my sarcasm when writing while being annoyed, I thought the link to the 1.2 trust pilot rating gave it away.
As this was mostly written as anger management, the writing is pretty poor. :)
Don't worry, some of us got it. That part made me chuckle.
I was trying to help a friend recently with a bizarre issue with a Dell laptop: the 2 key (and only the 2 key) is unreliable. Normally I'd say "hardware problem" but it acted more like a software bug. Among other signs, it's unreliable in Windows and the BIOS but not in Linux.
Unfortunately, I don't have the skills to even diagnose the problem, let alone fix it. And my friend isn't willing to put Linux on it since he wants to sell it.
File systems seem to be a particular weakness of Apple. HFS+ is pretty terrible. APFS is better, until something goes wrong and then it's just as terrible. Add "network" and the situation is 10x worse. I recently gave up on Time Machine (via Samba) entirely because it would regularly corrupt itself and destroy all my existing backups.
thedanbob commented on Setting up a home VPN server with WireGuard (2019) mikkel.hoegh.org/2019/11/... · Posted by u/kayaroberts
I am also one of those people who "don’t usually do a lot of networking stuff", so here's a question.
The article contains this:
#replace eth0 with the interface open to the internet (e.g might be wlan0 if wifi)
PostUp = iptables -A FORWARD -i %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -A FORWARD -o %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
PostDown = iptables -D FORWARD -i %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -D FORWARD -o %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -t nat -D POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
So, which one is right and why?
Those lines are only needed on the VPN server, not the client(s).