Comments on: Open thread 3/3/23

By: Miguel cervantes

Miguel cervantes — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 15:01:37 +0000

Better than babelfish i remember i tried to use it with a dutch correspondent

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 12:16:56 +0000

https://jonathanturley.org/2023/03/04/should-universities-offer-black-bereavement-leave/comment-page-1/#comment-2267476

Shut the teachers’ colleges. Every last one.

By: AesopFan

AesopFan — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 08:37:39 +0000

@ Rufus > ” Even at its current level I could probably spend a few hours each day chatting with ChatGPT and feel good about the social interaction.”

Amazon Echo – SNL – Alexa Silver “specially designed for the Greatest Generation”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk

Funniest skit I’ve ever seen from SNL.

By: huxley

huxley — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 04:27:52 +0000

Steve Kaufmann, my current YouTube language learning guru, makes a distinction between “learning” language and “discovering” it.

In conventional language classes students “learn” grammar rules and vocabulary in lesson-sized chunks. It all builds nicely like a subject-topic-subtopic outline. Then one knows the language. That’s the theory.

Except most people don’t. They take years and years of language classes, pass the tests and then … they still can’t use the language in a meaningful way and whatever they have fades quickly.

Kaufmann’s approach is mostly to expose himself to the language — listening and reading intensively. He notices things, wonders about them and maybe “discovers” something.

Over time all those somethings build up. Gradually the language resolves into focus as he gets better and better. That’s his theory.

Mind you, Kaufmann is not above peeking at a grammar book while he is discovering. He prefers to do so when a question is fresh and real as opposed to “Today, class, we are learning the Partitive Article.” (Some/Any, if you’re curious.)

It seems to work for Kaufmann, a polyglot. Frankly, that’s how I’ve l learned about everything I know since sixth grade. I get interested, expose myself to as much as possible, notice things, ask questions, maybe discover … lather, rinse, repeat.

The problem with this is, What does the Teacher do?

By: huxley

huxley — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 03:45:41 +0000

AI has already made a big difference in language learning.

Google Translate is hardly perfect but its first raw cut at translating a passage is a real leg up in the early stages of learning a language.

I’m not sure how much AI goes into converting text to speech, but I suspect there is some and that is a boon as well.

Anyone who believes that learning a language is a lot of work is absolutely correct.

But computers and the internet do a great job of keeping one in the learning zone — instead of fumbling for a dead tree dictionary, trying to decipher linguistic glyphs for pronunciation, or jotting down notes one may study later.

By: PA+Cat

PA+Cat — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 03:19:07 +0000

Looks like the Trans Sec has another headache: Another openly gay mayor that he mentored was arrested yesterday on 56 counts of possession and distribution of child porn: “Patrick Wojahn, the mayor of College Park, Md., allegedly operated a social media account that possessed and distributed suspected child pornography . . . . The City of College Park issued a statement on Thursday, announcing that Wojahn had resigned ‘last night, after business hours,’ and that a special election will be held within the next 65 days as Mayor Pro Tem Denise Mitchell fills the position. Wojahn served as mayor since 2015 and was on city council since 2007.”

https://people.com/crime/maryland-mayor-resigns-after-child-pornography-arrest/

Details of Wojahn’s mentee/mentor relationship with Buttigieg at the link: https://nypost.com/2023/03/03/accused-pedo-mayor-patrick-wojahn-called-pete-buttigieg-his-buddy/

By: Banned Lizard

Banned Lizard — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 01:20:58 +0000

Good one: Disneyland quietly removes controversial (‘Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah’) lyric from new parade soundtrack "Wow! Top that!" you say. Don't worry, they will.

By: jwm

jwm — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 00:33:58 +0000

Late to the discussion. I’ll go OT, and talk about the video. Thanks, Neo. I work in stone myself, although my material of choice is the softer, and more easily shaped alabaster. I learned a lot today just watching how he handles the chisel and mallet. It’s refreshing to see art being made the old school way- stone+steel+skill. This is how I work: no power tools, no AI generated nothin’. But (*sigh*) Now I’m really going to have to get myself a piece of that marble.

JWM

By: David Foster

David Foster — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 23:05:49 +0000

(continuing) There is a long history of expectations for automation systems which turned out to be excessively optimistic (or excessively pessimistic, depending on one’s POV)…the characteristics of real work are often more complex and subtle than they appear at first glance. I write about some of this history in my three-post series Attack of the Job-Killing Robots:

https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/54252.html

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 23:01:45 +0000

Betsy Palmer arrives at 13:46

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J-rQ6kl2zA