jliechti1 | 9 years ago | on: Show HN: Master Numbers in a Foreign Language
jliechti1's comments
jliechti1 | 9 years ago | on: Return of the Mac (2005)
"And open and good is what Macs are again, finally. The intervening years have created a situation that is, as far as I know, without precedent: Apple is popular at the low end and the high end, but not in the middle. My seventy year old mother has a Mac laptop. My friends with PhDs in computer science have Mac laptops. [2] And yet Apple's overall market share is still small.
Though unprecedented, I predict this situation is also temporary"
Did PG's prediction come true?
jliechti1 | 10 years ago | on: Ask HN: Why are you still at your current job?
Are you in the US? If so, not having a CS major shouldn't hold you back too much.
My major was not CS and I am working for a well-known technology company as a software engineer. Feel free to reach out to me privately (email in profile).
jliechti1 | 10 years ago | on: Ask HN: Best way to learn async development?
I would recommend this 22-part tutorial on async concepts:
It uses Python's Twisted framework. You don't need to use this for your development, but I would recommend working through and understanding the tutorial. Once you get the concepts, you'll be able to apply them to other libraries/concepts.
jliechti1 | 10 years ago | on: Ask HN: What non-trivial JavaScript app would you like explained in depth?
I would certainly pay for an in-depth break down of a popular open source JavaScript app/library.
jliechti1 | 10 years ago | on: Ask HN: Anyone in Berlin and free today to code a new iOS app with me?
I'd recommend at least adding contact info into the 'about' section of your profile. Right now you have none. (The email field is only shown to admins).
jliechti1 | 10 years ago | on: A Year of Spaced Repetition Software in the Classroom
What method did you use to initially learn the characters? If you just used Anki, I could see your result as making sense.
I used Heisig's Remembering the Hanzi to learn the characters and then would practice them in a space repetition system. A few years later I can still write most of them. His method has you create a story and make mental image associations for each character. Eventually you forget the stories over time, but the character usually sticks.
jliechti1 | 10 years ago | on: No Time to Be Nice at Work
Are you able to share a few?
jliechti1 | 11 years ago | on: Rent-a-Foreigner in China
But if you take a 2 hour train ride to Shijiazhuang, you'll get stares all day. :)
And for those that don't know, it's not a small city (urban population: 2.7 million, metro population: 4.7 million). I had some young kids there tell me I was the first westerner they had ever seen.
jliechti1 | 11 years ago | on: Reprimanded ex-teacher sweeps Batavia school board race
This was the previous discussion on this case.
jliechti1 | 11 years ago | on: The Worst Way to Fire Someone: I Was There
“Abel, put that camera down right now!” Armstrong screamed on the call. “Abel, you’re fired. Out!”
You can listen to the actual clip here (I wouldn't say he screamed at him, but it was forceful):
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/08/11/audio_reco...
And the HN discussion on this article:
jliechti1 | 11 years ago | on: Show HN: Learn Chinese Through Novels
I've done my own manual version of this kind of service to learn Chinese. Would definitely pay for something like this!
The biggest problem for me is the availability of Chinese audio books (specifically, non-abridged versions - anyone have recommended sources?) When your reading level is high enough to read novels, the English translation is no longer that important - if I could just get the Chinese audio and text I would be really happy. It looks like this is targeted at beginners. Not sure how helpful it will be for them, but I see a lot of potential for more intermediate/advanced learners. There's always that gap in language learning between text books and real texts that has to be overcome. I think this kind of service could be great for that.
Right now I'm reading Tian Long Ba Bu (天龍八部), and have gone through the first 200 pages like this (simultaneous reading/listening), and it's been really helpful.
Also, a feature request: give an option to display the text in Traditional or Simplified Chinese. There are browser extension to use this, but it'd me more convenient to not have to use it on every page.
jliechti1 | 11 years ago | on: Machine Learning Course by Tom Mitchell
My guess is that you won't find any course that explains all the prerequisite math. It's probably more useful to build a solid foundation in probability theory (and therefore calculus) before going on.
For machine learning, a good place to start is Andrew Ng's course on Coursera:
https://www.coursera.org/course/ml
It's pretty light on math, while at the same time giving you experience in implementing and understanding these techniques.
From there, I might recommend Learning from Data and the associated video lectures:
https://work.caltech.edu/telecourse.html
It is a bit of a jump, but it is a great course in presenting the field of machine learning and explaining the mathematical and statistical underpinnings in a systematic way.
jliechti1 | 11 years ago | on: Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University
Here's how I did it:
Listen a lot, as often as possible. Watch TV and movies - there are many on Youtube and Youku. I like to convert interviews from Youtube into mp3s and listen to them during the day during down time. Pick a character in these shows and try to imitate their accent (stick to someone your own gender). Try not to read the subtitles (even the Chinese subtitles).
If you want to go further, strip out voice clips from these TV and movies and put them into an SRS system (Anki, Mnemosyne, etc...).
jliechti1 | 11 years ago | on: Show HN: HN Overload (30 minute hack)
Nice work. Any chance you could expand this and make it customizable? I'd love to see these simple metrics on other frequent sties (Facebook, gmail, etc...) - even better if I can choose exactly which sites to show.
jliechti1 | 11 years ago | on: Show HN: CleverDeck – I built the spaced repetition app I always wanted
Have you tried Mnemosyne?
It may not have as many features as Anki, but it has a good plugin architecture and the UI is very simple.
jliechti1 | 11 years ago | on: American’s Star Power Unrivaled in Japan
大山 (Dashan), or Mark Roswell, a Canadian, is the Chinese equivalent. He's a TV personality in China and is known for his perfect Chinese and his ability to do certain comedic styles, that are difficult even for native Chinese speakers to do (a loose western equivalent might be something like Abbott & Costello Who's On First? - very rapid dialogues).
Like David Spector, he is known nearly everywhere in China and has been on TV for decades. Also, most Westerners have never heard of him. Does any know any equivalents like this in South Korea or any other Asian countries?
jliechti1 | 11 years ago | on: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)
> They key is to make the practice good practice, and not just mindless repetition.
This - it needs to be emphasized more. I feel a bit pedantic when I make this point, but I really think it's crucial.
If you read the original research, it's not 10000 hours of just practice. There is a reason many people can play golf for 30 years (and probably accumulate 10000+ hours of play), but still never even get close to shooting par. The term they use in the research is deliberate practice. The quality of the practice is just as important as the practice itself. Practice does not make perfect, practice makes things a habit. If you develop the wrong techniques in an area, you'll reach plateaus and hit a point where you can't progress. Deliberate practice requires tasks that are designed to stretch you in specific areas and have fast feedback loops so you are able to correct mistakes quickly. This is easier to apply in some domains (music, sports, etc...) than others.
jliechti1 | 11 years ago | on: Startup School 2014 applications are open
The lineup looks pretty good so far: Ron Conway, Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Danae Ringelmann (Indiegogo), Emmett Shear (Twitch).
Anyone know who else they might be bringing in? Does Zuckerberg do it every year?
jliechti1 | 11 years ago | on: Questions about Nasa's space drive answered
I asked a particle physicist to compare the validity of this to the faster than light neutrino claim that came up and his response was:
"Although several people are drawing that comparison, they're really not in the same class. OPERA did an extremely thorough analysis of the faster than light neutrino result before they published. In the end it turned out to be a very subtle experimental error that cause the problems.
In contrast, this is just junk science from start to finish. The initial claim was likely an outright lie to lure investors."
page 1
In Chinese, the number "100,000" is not read as "100 thousand", rather it is "10 ten-thousands". This makes translating numbers in the range of 100,000-10,000,000 a bit awkward if you are not used to it.