danthewireman
Joined 14 years ago
Karma
76
Submissions
38
Member since
Apr 23
Recent submissions
Comment · 3 years ago
Comment · 3 years ago
Please write more science articles/summaries. This is really well done—great combination of info-heavy while being interesting and readable.
Comment · 3 years ago
I've been learning Spanish using Comprehensible Input and it's been a complete game-changer for me. Oversimplified, it's learning a language by watching videos where you understand about 80% of what's going on without trying to analyze the vocabulary or grammar. No studying, no memorization. Your subconscious does the heavy lifting. Part of the goal is take conscious translation out of the picture. For example, if you hear "manzana," the ideal is that word directly connects to your image of what an apple is, not to the English world "apple."
It takes hundreds of hours, but for me, it's working, and I'm enjoying it. I'm using Dreaming Spanish [0] which is free for a while, and then pretty cheap if you want to keep going. Strongly recommended.
Comment · 4 years ago
Love this app. Turning it on in the morning for 10 hours really does help my productivity.
Comment · 4 years ago
I did web development and graphic design for a couple decades, and wrote a few technology books (one of them was on DHTML, so this was a while ago). I'm now writing fiction, mostly fantasy. The $$ isn't quite where I'd like it to be, but it's getting better, and I'm 100x happier. My brain works with stories much more easily than it does with programming, in a much more satisfying way, and it took a long time to learn this. It's crazy to make this switch in my 50s, but it'd be crazier not to.
Comment · 4 years ago
Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
This Book is Full of Spiders::: Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It by David Wong
Comment · 6 years ago
I've actually found this to be useful, especially in the evenings when I'm tired. It's helped me stay focused (I haven't used the meditation much and the sleep not at all). It feels like gentle assistance, not a adrenaline shot to the heart.
Comment · 6 years ago
You can also double click a word, keep the mouse button down, and drag. This will select whole words. I use this a lot.
Comment · 6 years ago
Choosing the wrong career. Finally moved from programming to writing fiction.
Comment · 7 years ago
After looking at a ton of youtube videos, taking art classes, and even an in-person atelier (drawing in a studio while being guided by a "master"), by far the best art teaching I've come across is Evolve Artist[0]. It focuses on taking small steps to get the fundamentals down solid. I expect it'll take me a few years to get through the whole course, but I can already tell my ability to draw from life and handle brushes and paint has improved dramatically. There's a lot of personal feedback based on what you do, and I've found that to be a really effective way to improve with art.
I'll put my pom-poms down now. I'm not affiliated with Evolve other than being a student. And my goal after 20 years of web dev work is to be a professional writer/illustrator, so I'm taking this art thing pretty seriously.
Comment · 9 years ago
Fake it 'till you make it.
Comment · 10 years ago
Terms of service page is a 404 error.
https://www.poetsknowit.com/terms-of-service/
Comment · 10 years ago
You might enjoy "Echopraxia", his sequel to "Blindsight."
Comment · 10 years ago
Have you tried cutting out more carbs? Dropping bread, pasta, rice, and white potatoes helped me a lot.
Comment · 10 years ago
Accelerando is currently blowing my mind. Very cool stuff.
I've done some math tutoring, and word problems are really boring, so I decided to spice them up a bit with monsters and mayhem. Scroll down on the home page to see all the problems (this site is new and a little unorganized right now).
The hope is to eventually write enough problems that they could be part of a real curriculum.