Welcome to Incremental Social! Learn more about this project here!
Check out lemmyverse to find more communities to join from here!

gramie

@gramie@lemmy.ca

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

France mobilises police to regain control of New Caledonia airport road (www.reuters.com)

French police trying to restore order in the island territory of New Caledonia after days of deadly unrest have cleared dozens of barricades that had been blocking the main road linking the airport to the capital, Noumea, a French official said on Sunday....

gramie ,

You should be aware that the people who have been rioting and burning are French citizens, but they are actually the local people of New Caledonia, known as Kanaks. There have been three referenda to decide whether the island should declare independence from France, all of which failed. The separatists, after losing three times, have been trained and assisted by Azerbaijan, who are angry at France's support of Armenia.

Source: I have a family member on New Caledonia.

gramie ,

Hopefully good

Polictics

Well, when one of the three words (one of which is a number) in the title is spelled wrong, I'd have to give it a thumbs down.

gramie ,

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that "polictics" is a valid alternative spelling of "politics"? Or that, as in the video, misspellings are not your fault, they're the fault of English?

Perhaps you live in a world where first impressions don't matter, where what you do is not subject to quality control, and attention to detail doesn't matter. Still, is it too much to ask that people pay attention to spell check?

I'm not saying that everyone should be perfect all the time, but gracefully admitting mistakes and being slightly abashed, resolving to do better next time, would be a positive response.

gramie ,

Language Transfer is much, much better than Duolingo for learning a language.

I am learning Spanish using language transfer after having learned four other languages in more traditional ways. Obviously, immersion is the best way to learn. But if you have to learn any other way, this is the one. Far, far better than Duolingo.

It's made up of MP3s, usually about 10 minutes each. You just listen to them and respond to the instructor.

You can use SoundCloud, or YouTube, or the simple but practical smartphone app. The whole thing is run by one guy, and there is no charge but he asks for donations. I have been paying $10 per month on Patreon for several years now, and consider it well worth it.

You can learn French, Spanish, Italian, German, Greek, Turkish, and Swahili.

gramie ,

Yes, Language Transfer doesn't have as many languages as Duolingo. Hardly surprising, since the entire system and all the language lessons were created by one man!

For me, the most important thing is to learn to think in the other language. Everything else follows from that.

Language Transfer makes a conscious effort not to get you to memorize things, but to internalize them and understand the system. That works perfectly with my own way of learning.

gramie ,

It doesn't look like it. It might be worth suggesting it to the man behind Language Transfer, he probably just doesn't know about f-droid.

After announcing increased prices, Spotify to Pay Songwriters About $150 Million Less Next Year (www.billboard.com)

When Bloomberg reported that Spotify would be upping the cost of its premium subscription from $9.99 to $10.99, and including 15 hours of audiobooks per month in the U.S., the change sounded like a win for songwriters and publishers. Higher subscription prices typically equate to a bump in U.S. mechanical royalties — but not...

gramie ,

I think that you are off by about an order of magnitude. Spotify pays $0.003 per stream, and title apparently pays $0.01 -0.05.

Speakatoo Introduces Italian Text-to-Speech Converter: Enhancing Communication with Natural AI Voices (lemmings.world)

Speakatoo, a leader in language technology solutions, has unveiled its latest offering: the Italian Text-to-Speech Converter. This innovative tool marks a significant step forward in digital communication, providing users with the ability to effortlessly convert written Italian text into natural-sounding vocal expressions....

gramie ,

If it doesn't include expressive hand gestures, then it's worthless. 🤣

gramie ,

Language Transfer is hands down the best language learning system I've ever used. Completely free, although I have a monthly patreon donation set up.

It has 10 or 12 languages, although some of them only offer a beginner course. Still, not bad considering that it was all done by one guy!

Each course is done as MP3s with a conversation between the teacher and student. You can play them on YouTube, SoundCloud, download the mp3s, or use the extremely convenient app.

gramie ,

I'm working on an application right now that requires the ability to load and save data to the local file system. Firefox does not allow this, whereas Chrome does. The whole application runs from the local file system, so I don't think there is much of a security issue.

But I actually do is test for the existence of the function to open the save or load dialog. That way, if Firefox does implement it, Firefox will work as well.

gramie ,

The best one is Language Transfer. Completely free (I'm a patron, though) and speaking as someone who has learned five languages aside from English, this is the best system outside of full immersion.

gramie ,

It is simply an HTML page with local JavaScript files. Nothing else. It has to run on as many platforms as possible, and be totally isolated from the outside world.

gramie ,

All it can do is open a dialogue to load or save a file. The action must also be initiated by the user (e.g. clicking a button). It's not randomly allowing a page to load and save on its own.

gramie ,

Using JavaScript to open a save or load dialog is not possible on Firefox. It lacks the methods showOpenFilePicker() and showSaveFilePicker().

gramie ,

I could see UV light also causing plastics to oxidize and become brittle much faster, because they might not be made for that kind of exposure. So using UV light might mean having to replace a lot of plastic things too.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • incremental_games
  • meta
  • All magazines
    •