I've studied a few languages and have long wished for / thought of making software roughly along the lines of what you're suggesting here. While tackling a text, looking up words one-at-a-time can be painfully inefficient and break the flow. Digital dictionaries are quicker than paper ones, but don't resolve the fundamental problem. Nothing as advanced as natural language processing crossed my mind, but I did imagine software that would take a target text and generate a vocabulary list that the user could then study efficiently, allowing the user to then read the text fluidly without need for looking up words. There is a long tradition of human-produced "readers" that do this, but software would allow generating this for any text the user wanted and with much greater flexibility and learning options (e.g. auto-generated Anki flashcard decks).
I looked into LingQ (mentioned in another comment here), which promises just this idea, but found that it failed pretty badly in execution, to the point that a paper dictionary and notebook just worked better.
I know you're seeking a cofounder, but here are some suggestions I hope you find useful:
- I think it's essential to use a top-quality dictionary for something like this. I've found Oxford to produce excellent bilingual dictionaries in the languages I've studied. Of course these are copyright-protected and so would require paid purchases or licensing of some kind to use. I think there's a tendency to use generic free-license dictionaries for software like this, and these really aren't good enough.
- There's also a tendency to bake into the software the false assumption that "a word is a word", when of course words can have many different meanings, words in different languages do not have one-to-one correspondence, and for most languages, learning a word requires also learning extra information such as gender, conjugation, declension, pronunciation/stress, etc. This goes hand-in-hand with using a top-quality dictionary, which lists multiple word meanings, phrases, and extra linguistic information that poorer-quality dictionaries omit or get wrong.
- I would suggest incorporating human-produced translations in the user's native language of the texts in the user's target language, at least as an option that the user could upload. Even the best machine translation software can miss quite a lot.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I completely agree on all points.
Yeah, my first idea was automatic Anki cards, but once you try to use sentences and track words, it's intractable for Anki. It's a complex graph problem even before you get to the level of word vs. form disambiguation.
For dictionaries, my initial source is Oxford bi-lingual dictionaries and a few others.
Re: words. Yup. This was one of the top technical challenges I needed to solve for this project to be possible. I separate each of the possible meanings and map them to a lemma or character that uniquely represents each.
For example, 見ました [Japanese to see (past tense)] maps to several things simultaneously:
みる - the lemma/dictionary form of the word
見る - the kanji representation of the lemma
見 - the kanji in the word
みました - the non-kanji conjugation of the word
Parallel texts are a feature that I hope to implement eventually, but aligning parallel texts isn't trivial, but even that (much simpler than machine translation) ends up being a many-to-many mapping.
I can see the difficulty of integrating with Anki if you're trying to implement a sophisticated system for tracking a user's progress, however I would definitely want some way of studying vocabulary with spaced-repetition flashcards I could have on my phone for something like this, Anki or otherwise. I've personally found traditional flashcards and (even more so) writing words with pen on paper to be the most effective ways of absorbing vocabulary. I've found that I don't ultimately absorb vocab as well using other self-quiz methods like multiple-choice / fill-in-the-blank / matching / etc. in Duolingo and similar apps (though I've had the false impression of learning from these methods). Just my personal experience.
It seems we're on the same page regarding specific word-meanings, comprehensive linguistic information provided along with a word, and using good dictionaries.
I would suggest including at least the option of viewing the full conjugation / declension / etc. associated with a word, and not just that used in the context of the text. I don't know any Japanese (though I recognize the example character you provided from the little Chinese I've studied), but something like this full conjugation of that verb is roughly what I'd want to see for any conjugated/declined language: http://www.japaneseverbconjugator.com/VerbDetails.asp?txtVer....
I understand parsing and matching up parallel texts is difficult, but I thought NLP would help with that, and if the software fails at matching up individual words, you could default to matching up clauses or sentences, which the user could study (with flashcards or something similar) alongside the individual words taken from the dictionary.
I took a look at the app, but I see the currently-available demo is only English-Japanese, and I'm also consistently getting "API Error: Request failed with status code 412" in multiple browsers.
Exactly what parts of the app are you looking for someone else to work on?
The current demo version of the app uses heavily cached 1 Gb data files at the limits of the instance's memory, so, unfortunately, it crashes a lot.
I've been waiting to update until I had UI for exercises implemented. They will be something like flashcards, including SRS for scheduling.
Well, two things mentioned in your reply are things that need to be implemented.
* Consuming and parsing the Oxford Dictionary's API and transforming that into Parsnip's data models is one thing.
* Building statistics pages showing a user's progress/knowledge. Instead of an information firehose, I'm leaning towards only showing conjugations in the user's library. That way, the user can immediately see usage examples for those forms.
Out of curiosity, did you get a microbiome test (e.g. from Viome) before and after removing each one of these elements from your diet, or did you make conclusions based on how you felt? Of course everyone is different, but I think published research supports your suggestion that sugar and alcohol are "bad" and fruits, vegetables, and resistant starch are "good", but disagrees on coffee. Here's a recent study showing association between high coffee intake and "good" gut microbiome [1]. I put good and bad in scare quotes because it seems the science around this is still pretty weak, mostly based on associations rather than clear and verified mechanisms.
[1] https://gi.org/media/press-info-scientific-meeting/featured-...
Sorry for the confusion. When I mentioned coffee I was referring to IBS symptoms, not microbiome. Caffeine increases digestive secretions and causes colonic motor activity. Even decaf coffee increases secretions. For a review, see:
If coffee is causing IBS symptoms (diarrhea), I would imagine that isn't good for your microbiome.
I haven't had any microbiome tests, and it's very difficult to robustly test for the effects of individual foods without doing a placebo controlled trial. However, after removing fizzy HFCS soda drinks, I seem to not have any symptoms that I would associate with an abnormal microbiome in the past year (smelly farts, followed by urgent need to poop, followed by large amount of soft poop after eating, during a period of long-term zero stress). I've made a number of other changes to my diet, such as not drinking tap water, but I suspect HFCS was the main culprit, as the scientific evidence strongly backs that up.
Stress is another main cause of IBS, due to its effects on gut motility.
Jason Fung explains his theory of type 2 diabetes / metabolic disorder, and how it is addressed by fasting, in detail in episode #59 of Peter Attia's "The Drive" podcast [1].
The review of Fung's "The Obesity Code" on Red Pen Reviews [2] details some serious flaws in the scientific claims in the book related to calories, insulin, and fasting, and their relation to obesity and fat loss.
Relating to nutrition/health/longevity, they aren't books, but I've found the podcasts, blogs, YouTube videos, and even tweets by Rhonda Patrick (FoundMyFitness), Peter Attia (The Drive), Stephan Guyenet, and Chris Masterjohn quite enlightening.
I hate to sound like a shill for an evil company, but I've read that even Roundup-Ready crops have an environmental advantage in allowing greater use of low- and no-till methods on industrial farms, which sufficiently reduces erosion of soil (with all the fertilizer that causes algae blooms and other problems) into public waterways. I was stunned to read that a majority of US industrial farms - not only permaculture hippies - now employ such methods.
The general concept is that tilling/plowing is used to mow over weeds, and killing weeds with chemicals is an alternative.
Your question is a good one. I don't know the answer. The articles listed above describe the environmental and health downsides.
A distinct problem - also described in these articles - that may spell doom for Roundup-Ready crops is the emergence of resistant weeds.
There are alternatives to industrial-scale weed control outside of tilling and herbicides. One way is to grow cover crops in the "off season", then cut them and leave them in a thick mat that starves weeds of sun while also gradually rotting and fertilizing the soil, then cut little holes in this mat where you plant seeds. The USDA NRCS promotes methods like this largely through educational programs. Farmers adopt them because they ultimately save costs on herbicides and fertilizer.
Who knows maybe in a few decades we'll produce all food through some industrial process resembling hydroponics, with energy from Nuclear Fusion replacing sunlight, and weeds will be a distant memory.
Your characterization better fits someone like Thomas Friedman, not Pinker. Pinker absolutely acknowledges the many problems of the current system and the need to devise solutions to these problems. His argument is that things have, on the whole, been improving, we've solved big problems in the past, and we can solve current problems so long as we hold with Enlightenment and humanist / liberal values and put the effort in. He's arguing against those who want to throw away liberalism and replace it with some form of mystical authoritarianism, whether that be socialist, fascist, or whatever. And there are many such people, who take the benefits brought from liberalism for granted and would throw them all away for some romantic wishful thinking. His argument reminds me of essays written by Albert Camus defending liberalism against fascism during WWII and against the communism that was en vogue in France after the war among Sartre and others that Stalin referred to as his "useful idiots".
By liberalism here, I mean the original (and only sensible) meaning of a system of individual freedom in social, religious, and economic spheres, equality before the law, and democratic representation, not the New Left's utter misappropriation of the term to represent tribal resentment and mob justice.
> If you don't feel like a criminal in today's society, you are complicit.
Which society exactly are you referring to? What crime are you claiming that every single member of this society is complicit in? How does feeling like a criminal itself absolve someone of complicity in this crime?
You seem to be saying we should take on guilt for something precisely in order to free ourselves of this guilt. This seems like a paradoxical admonition. Could you please clarify?
“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” - Lavrentiy Beria
Essentially, in modern society, if you do not feel like a criminal, it's because you are walking on eggshells around your government. Just about every modern government has laws on the books which are just plain ethically, morally, or constitutionally unjustified.
The DMCA, the PATRIOT act, the listing of cryptography under non-exportable munitions, the War on Drugs, the US foreign drone strike program, whistleblower laws, same-sex marriage laws or even death penalties, (soon to be) Article 13, social credit systems, mass surveillance, threat of ostracization/deplatformization if you fall outside of or in the middle of the now-split Overton window, the militarization of police in some developing countries coupled with a growing propaganda-driven movement to disarm citizens in order to increase the power gap, neoliberalist consumerist lifestyles propped up by military coups, dictatorships, and pollution sinks in developing countries.
I could keep going. But what it boils down to, is that if you don't find yourself at odds with the way things are being run in most parts of the developed world (not just the US) then you're either living under a rock, or complicit. If you're in the UK, it also means you like your sex without salt.
And, as ignorance is not an excuse in a society where you have plenty access to such information, you are still complicit.
I think a bit of guilt over the way our lifestyles impact the health of the earth and the lives of other people is certainly in order. I think some guilt over allowing our brand new rebel government to turn into the world's largest bully and largest perpetrator/denier of climate change, some guilt over not participating in activities which put you directly at odds against your government for the sake of knowledge or ethics, is entirely in order. Guilt gets things done.
You are projecting your personal framing of a particular problem space onto all other people and then further framing it as some kind of objective and irrefutable truth.
I spent a lot of time in therapy, so I don't suffer a lot of existential guilt. I've generally walked the walk on things I believe in, so I don't have a lot of guilt of the type you are describing.
I'm not unaware of the fact that anyone can potentially find themselves tossed in jail over basically bullshit reasons. This happens at times to tourists who are doing nothing wrong according to the law of their country, but it's a serious offense in the country they are visiting.
My last boyfriend spent three years in prison in his youth for his political activism. He also was trying to talk me into illegal activities that would have benefitted him and not particularly endangered him. He tried to justify this with reasoning similar to yours.
So I've had plenty of opportunity to think about such things and my mental framework is likely not anything I can adequately explain in a single comment on HN.
But perhaps an anecdote will have a modicum of value.
I had food stamps for part of the time that I was homeless. Food stamps cannot be used for non food items and it is illegal to convert them to cash by, for example, offering to buy groceries for someone in exchange for cash for a portion of the value.
There is one loophole that I know of: food stamps cover the CRV, a charge on cans and bottles in California. You can then take the cans and bottles back for a cash refund after consuming the contents.
A lot of homeless people break the law regularly as a matter of course merely to survive or merely by existing. I no doubt was breaking the law every single night by sleeping someplace I wasn't supposed to be.
But I didn't use that as an excuse to justify doing any damn thing I wanted and to hell with the law. I did my best to find legal ways to get my needs met to the best of my ability.
While homeless, I was repeatedly offered money for sex in a state where prostitution is illegal. I have zero moral qualms about the idea, but was celibate for medical reasons, so wasn't tempted to take the money. I also had it hinted to me that I could potentially get scads of money from some guy I knew if I would launder some of his money. I ended our so called friendship.
Among other things, I run several blogs to put out useful info for homeless Americans. I do this in part to try to point them to practical legal solutions that have some hope of actually working.
I also do my best to put out good information on what we can do to actually improve things in a way that will help address the issue of homelessness. I'm aware that it is a genuinely hard problem. I have done a lot of research and I try to educate people while keeping the information accessible in a way that conceptually simplifies a complex issue without distorting it or watering it down.
I believe the solution to the issue you are wrapped around the axel about is twofold:
1. Educate people about what they can do to get their needs met that is legal.
2. Increase the availability of viable, legal solutions.
I do my best to walk the walk on that conceptualization of the problem space. I'm aware I'm only one person and there is only so much I can do, so either the road rises up to meet me or I'm doomed anyway.
I'm plenty frustrated at the fact that the road mostly does not appear to be rising up to meet me when it comes to certain things. But that's not on me. That's mostly on other people and their shit.
My websites don't get a lot of traffic, nor do they make much money. Other people mostly are not promoting nor supporting my work.
In fact, I get actively stonewalled. For example, I was thrown off of Metafilter, nominally for "promoting my websites." It's basically a cesspit of classist asshats, so my real crime is probably something more like "having the ridiculous expectation of being treated like a human being."
The world has hung plenty of it's baggage on me already, thank you. I have no plans to agree to accept more of it. That includes yours.
If you worked on your framing, you might find that we agree on a lot of things. Of course, you aren't obligated to do that. I am equally not obligated to agree with how you choose to frame it.
I'm sure you weren't doing it on purpose, but your comments have crossed into personal attack in this thread. Lines like "That's why you will stay the exact same and never progress as a person" are not acceptable here. Calling someone "honey" is worse, and calling them both "honey" and "sweetie" is harassment and a bannable offense. I'm glad that you edited one of those out, but it's absolutely not ok to treat anyone like that here.
I just had to ask you not to break the site guidelines a couple days ago. If you post like this again we are going to have to ban you. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please adjust, we'd be grateful.
Here's one way to avoid that and do better on HN: let go of situations where someone else is commenting in a way that annoys you or pushes your buttons, and focus instead on places where your curiosity is being gratified. If you can't find that in one commenter's comments, there are many others to look at. That's the intended use of HN, and you can't go wrong that way.
Sorry again, dang. I know you don't like having to read an entire long-winded discussion because someone decided to flag every single comment they didn't agree with.
Any chance you can lift the posting limit you've placed on me? It's impossible to participate even in worthwhile discussions. This was just two strokes of bad luck, I promise that you won't be having future problems from me regarding unnecessary flaming. I will be more mindful of my language as well.
I'd guess it has something to do with the fact that human skin tones all fall within some range of orange. This is the reason behind the pervasive use of orange and teal color grading in TV and movies: it accentuates the contrast between people and the rest of the scene.
I came to the comment section to make this comment. I was surprised to find out that all skin is orange hue, even dark skinned people. This is one of the tricks of face detection algorithms, and it’s fun to take pictures of people and then extract the hue channel to see this in action. You can do it in any photo editing app by converting to HSV color space and then setting the S & V channels to 1.
I love this idea, but the only participating websites they list are Popular Mechanics and National Post, making this effectively vaporware for the time being. Launching this service without a significant set of participating sites is ridiculous, and seems to be asking for the service to fail.
There's at least a couple of studies [1][2] showing benefits of using a probiotic cleaner containing B. subtilis, B. pumilus and B. megaterium
made by Belgian company Chrisal [3] over just using bleach for surfaces in a hospital setting. I first read about this in the book "I Contain Multitudes" which is about the microbiome.
From [1]: "This concept has been designated as biocontrol when the application is antagonistic towards a certain pathogen [26], and has already successfully been applied to the abatement of Legionella in water systems [27]."
My impression is that "left" is used synonymously with the Democratic party and "right" with the Republican party in practically all American media. By this popular understanding, calling the New York Times right wing makes no sense, as it's very clearly allied itself with the Democratics.
The Democratic party has been just as dedicated to the corporate and military status quo as the Republican party. The two parties only differ practically on social wedge issues.
I looked into LingQ (mentioned in another comment here), which promises just this idea, but found that it failed pretty badly in execution, to the point that a paper dictionary and notebook just worked better.
I know you're seeking a cofounder, but here are some suggestions I hope you find useful:
- I think it's essential to use a top-quality dictionary for something like this. I've found Oxford to produce excellent bilingual dictionaries in the languages I've studied. Of course these are copyright-protected and so would require paid purchases or licensing of some kind to use. I think there's a tendency to use generic free-license dictionaries for software like this, and these really aren't good enough.
- There's also a tendency to bake into the software the false assumption that "a word is a word", when of course words can have many different meanings, words in different languages do not have one-to-one correspondence, and for most languages, learning a word requires also learning extra information such as gender, conjugation, declension, pronunciation/stress, etc. This goes hand-in-hand with using a top-quality dictionary, which lists multiple word meanings, phrases, and extra linguistic information that poorer-quality dictionaries omit or get wrong.
- I would suggest incorporating human-produced translations in the user's native language of the texts in the user's target language, at least as an option that the user could upload. Even the best machine translation software can miss quite a lot.