Avatar

shikitohno

shikitohno@lemm.ee
Joined
0 posts • 42 comments
Direct message

Something like this to produce graded readers is a great idea, but I don’t see anything in the ad itself that indicates it’s for language learners. If this is for a general audience for native speakers, then it’s enabling people to avoid learning to read (and ultimately use) more complex and nuanced language, in favor of infantilizing consumers and spoon feeding them everything.

The only use case I could see this being a positive for when aimed at native speakers would be something like adult literacy programs, or maybe homeschooling for kids with difficulties learning to read who don’t have the trained, professional support that one would hope they might have in a more typical school setting. For adults who struggle with illiteracy, I could see this being quite beneficial, though. It’s something that people will often be embarrassed about to begin with, and somebody who’s feeling self-conscious about this could be demotivated by only being able to read books aimed at children. Even if they say “Screw it, I need to do this,” it can be difficult to maintain motivation and interest when the only content you can find at your reading level is written for little kids. If they could have adult materials adapted to a level that’s challenging but manageable for them, I could certainly see that being a good thing.

permalink
report
parent
reply

I can’t speak for everyone, but why exactly would I care about Trump’s age? It’s certainly a liability for him, but I was never going to vote Republican anyway, whereas my likelihood of voting Democrat has only risen now that Joe has stepped down. Why on earth would I want to potentially inspire Republicans to start pushing for a more competent candidate who might have a better chance of being elected, while also beingore competent and able to do more harm if they were to win?

For media outlets reporting on this, sure, but I think you’re being overly general when talking about individual voters expressing reservations about the candidate being pushed by the party they will, in all likelihood, wind up voting for.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Even cash breaks down pretty quickly in a hypothetical situation where you have something similar occur that lasts for an extended period. When banks’ systems are impacted, how do I get more cash from my account with them when whatever amount I had when the system went down runs out? I haven’t had a physical passbook for an account in a good 20 years.

permalink
report
reply

Zotero is awesome, and I’d also recommend the browser extension with an account. Account is free, but it’ll let you save any web sources with all the metadata you need and sync it to the main program.

Zotero in combination with LaTeX and Biber have saved me so much time. Especially when I had a crazy professor who would make last minute changes to style requirements. I remember we had a paper to write that they initially said “Just cite with whatever format you want, it’s fine as long as they info is there.” Cool, write my ten pages or whatever with footnotes containing short citations and full citations available in the bibliography at the end. The night before the paper was due, “Actually, I need all papers to use APA citations or you’ll be docked points.”. No problem, just change my citation style at the top of my LaTeX doc and tell it to reprocess the paper, all the citations fixed in about 5 seconds, without even needing to learn the ins and outs of APA formatting.

permalink
report
parent
reply

This depends entirely on where you are. This article is from last year, so it could have changed since then, but there is no federal prohibition on requesting your current pay in an interview, @AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world

permalink
report
parent
reply

X doesn’t seem to have any issue censoring accounts for Musk’s autocratic buddies like Erdogan, so let’s not try and pretend that he’s above caving in to government censorship. He’s just pissed off in this case that he’s being asked to do it in a way that would hurt his friends in Brazil. The site has been called out over the last several years multiple times for refusing to take any steps to moderate misinformation spread by Bolsonaro and his political allies in attempts to undermine democracy and influence the results of the last election, like the endless claims of electronic voting being insecure in the lead up to the last elections, Bolsonaro’s COVID denialism and many other examples.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Something similar, years back when I was taking Norwegian classes, my teacher was telling us about a relative of hers. According to our teacher, it was pretty common for families with the means to do so to send their kids off to an English-language immersion camp over the summer around the time they were 14 or so. She said most of the people would go to camps in the UK and come back with something of a posh British accent, but her one relative’s parents dropped the ball on signing up and missed the chance to send her there, as all the spaces were booked by the time they checked. They looked around and found another immersion camp that was still accepting applications, and sent this girl off to perfect her English, in Arkansas. She came back with quite the accent, leaving people she spoke to in English baffled at how she wound up picking it up.

permalink
report
parent
reply

When it comes to the Democrats and* the left* — from the Biden campaign on down to the activists

What’s with calling out the left on this, when the closest they get to a leftist organization they take issue with is a climate advocacy group. The left has been pretty clear that Biden is not the man for the moment since the go, and for our troubles, we’ve been called everything from stupid and naïve, to privileged white people who don’t care about insert minority group here (and ignore that not all leftists are rich, white people, there are plenty of POC active in leftist politics, though critics, often privileged white people themselves, do love to erase their existence in the same breath they claim to be looking out for them), to either useful idiots or fully cognizant agitators working on behalf of enemy states. Centrist Democrats and liberals have been the ones trying to tell anyone who will listen that the same old play will not just be good enough, but is actually our only option to win, and they’re trying to leave the left to take the fall for their mistake, yet again.

Some of it is political calculation. If the president steps aside, the logical candidate is Vice-President Kamala Harris, but Harris has struggled in office and her poor poll ratings mirror those of Biden. If the Democratic Party tries to sideline Harris and open the door to other candidates through an open convention, they risk alienating her and her supporters and opening up further wounds in the Democratic coalition.

What, risk all four of her supporters? Oh, darn, there go the chances of winning ever again.

Democrats are not going to win with a staid campaign by the usual corporate boot-licking line of candidates they’ve relied on up until now. The sooner they accept that and get behind a candidate who is pushing for systemic changes on issues that actually resonate with your average Americans and the problems they face in their daily lives, as opposed what matters only to their donors, the better for them this time around. Heck, if they actually follow through and make some of those changes, even better.

permalink
report
reply

At first, I thought this must be some abandoned barracks or aircraft hangar that got retrofitted into a private residence, but then I saw it was purpose built in 2004.

permalink
report
reply

On the other hand, that’s a pretty rough looking 27 year old. He looks like a 60s something bro who never stopped lifting.

permalink
report
parent
reply