Posted by Ryan
February 6, 2008
I finished The Time Machine by H.G. Wells the other day. This is the second book I’ve read by him, the first being The War of the Worlds. I quite like his writing style. The Time Machine, as I understood it, is more of a political statement than a science fiction book about time travel. It’s a warning to humanity that this quest for the perfect world, the quest to remove all hardship will backfire if done in the way it’s currently being handled.
H.G. Wells wrote the book in the late 1800s and saw then this trend towards all play and no work. It’s worse now. Think about all our modern inventions: cars, planes, computers, microwave ovens, refrigerators, heating, air conditioning, TV, iPods, bread makers, etc. All these things can make life easier and can even allow us to spend more time on what matters most to us. But where does the luxury stop? If the current course follows it won’t be too long before everything is all taken care of for us. What happens when so much is done for us that we forget to do things any other way? What happens if it all goes away? With all the computerized advances cars are making, they’re getting harder to fix. I don’t even know how to fix a traditional car without any computers in it, let alone these new amazing pieces of machinery.
With all the technological and even biological advances we are making, we would be wise to learn how to live without it all. Life without all our present luxuries (for that is what they are) is not frightening if you’re prepared.
Posted by Ryan
November 23, 2007
About two weeks ago I described what I believe to be the real way to learn a language. I came across a very interesting (and wonderfully geeky) post today about how to not only learn a language, but how to pick a language to learn. Tim Ferriss claims you can learn a language (but not master it) in 1 hour.
How is it possible to become conversationally fluent in one of these languages in 2-12 months? It starts with deconstructing them, choosing wisely, and abandoning all but a few of them.
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In all cases, treat language as sport.
Learn the rules first, determine if it’s worth the investment of time (will you, at best, become mediocre?), then focus on the training. Picking your target is often more important than your method.
I really shouldn’t claim to have even tried learning them, but I have learned a very few basics about Italian and French. I’m now really curious about which one would be easier for me to learn. So I’m going to try deconstructing them, along with several other languages, and go from there.
Posted by Ryan
November 10, 2007
Most language learning resources I’ve seen make the same mistake: They start out teaching you how to say things like “hombre,” “mujer,” “Hola, cómo estás?” and “Dónde está el baño?” This is fine if you plan on going on vacation to Spain and just want to get around for a week or two. But if you want to actually, say, learn Spanish? It’s a good way to start out with a poor foundation. Really, how often do you really need to say “I am a man, you are a woman” in your daily conversations? Is that really the first thing you should learn?
It would be interesting if truth in advertising was actually enforced. Instead of “Learn Spanish in 15 minutes a day” you’d see things like “Learn how to say ‘I am a man, you are a woman’ in Spanish in 10 days!”
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