Category Archives: Uncategorized

Rebooting my studies – Day 1

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Duolingo Daily Goal
Nowhere to go but up.

In keeping with my Learning Plan 0.1, I tucked back into Duolingo today, and…eesh. Picking up after an absence of a couple months is a bit of a shock.

The good news is that starting from the very first lessons is easy enough…every time I have had to do it. Seems like Duolingo has also instituted a small but welcome change — skills that have weakened through neglect can now be tested out of rather than laboriously re-strengthened, with lingots as the reward.

Today, then, I celebrate my one-day streak; a little Memrise and some Codecademy will have me fully on track.

 

Duolingo Skill Tree
Two tests for tomorrow’s study.

Images: Duolingo.com

 

Drafting a personal learning plan

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I have never been better at accountability than when I was working three jobs and a volunteer gig seven days a week and taking two online college classes, all while trying to maintain something close to normal relationships with other human beings. (As Lucille Ball has said, “The more things you do, the more you can do.”)

Although I have effectively no desire to return to that particular state any time soon, some accountability would nevertheless be welcome in furthering my self-education goals.

To that end, I present version 0.1 of my personal learning plan, articulated for my own benefit and articulated publicly for my further benefit. The plan wants tinkering toward version 1.0, but anyhow is better said than sat on:

Learning Plan (March 2015)

Sign Mozilla’s Net Neutrality Petition

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“If you live or vote in the United States”, Mozilla would be much obliged if you would sign their pro-Net Neutrality petition, destined for the U.S. Congress, before February 26th.

Among other things, the petition affirms that:

[T]he Web is a global engine of innovation and entrepreneurship — a level playing field from which we can learn, connect and create.

As a general rule, I do not sign petitions, but made an exception for this one, because:

  • Mozilla is a generally respectable, solid organization
  • I value the principle of net neutrality from a civil rights but also a human rights perspective; I do not see it as a partisan issue
  • The birth of the Web is one of the most amazing things those alive today are privilege to witness — that is not meant to be hyperbolic or mawkish — but the Web is still young and can still be broken. In my opinion, it is not that those organizations in opposition to net neutrality are malicious or devious or reckless; they are short-sighted. Net neutrality supports a free and open Web, which benefits all individuals and organizations and businesses, large and small, incorporated and un-incorporated.