eric_bullington

Exactly. The attacker would have to try a word-based attack to benefit from the ~7 hour time-to-crack.

So I disagree with the article's advice: "Don't use words in passwords. Ever." Yes, you should use caution when using words in a password, but even if you use a password manager, a 5- or 6-word diceware password is ideal. Even better if you stick on a 4-digit numeric "salt" to your diceware passwords.

But yes, I do agree that a 3-word password is too short (~33 bits of entropy[1]). It should be at least 5 words (~55 bits). And you really need at least 6 words (~66 bits, obviously) for a master password.

1. Using EFF's user-friendly, ~1200 word list for diceware.

Cryptography can solve social problems, but the problems need to be approached from a social perspective, not a computer science perspective. There's a hint of this type of approach in the work of Keybase.

Don't know if you're familiar with the Dragonbox apps (original for algebra and Dragonbox Elements for geometry). Those are incredible learning experiences that would not be possible on paper. Even a desktop w/mouse for those apps wouldn't be ideal, whereas a tablet or mobile phone is perfect.

> You're also most likely going to pay per word, so if you can figure out a good way to not send them sentences you've already had translated you can save some money

The typical process would be to send them the translated sentences in Trados or tmx format (translation memory) and ask for a discount for 100% matches (you may even be able to discounts for "fuzzy", or <100%, matches). These discounts are often referred to as "Trados" discounts. That said, not all agencies/translators offer such discounts.

> We once caught a translator (NOT of the above-mentioned companies) located somewhere in Europe inserting some choice political statements about a specific biotech/GMO company we had as a client.

What happened then? This stunt would be a grave offense for a professional translator. A certified/sworn translator would probably lose their certification for it. I'm guessing your translator was a cut-rate freelancer doing this work on the side with little connection to the professional translator community, which generally prides itself on its professionalism.

Also, no reputable translation agency that I know of gets their translators for UpWork. They either find them through word of mouth, translator associations, or sometimes translator communities like proz.com. They don't typically "post" jobs, rather they have a list of vetted translators who have signed their confidentiality and other contracts, and whom they then email individually to ask if they're interested in job X (usually attaching the job). And the more reputable ones have their own certification process or else only work with translators certified by a reputable body (ATA, ITI, etc.). Most reputable translation agencies will also have a second translator edit or proofread the document once it's been translated.

> Fiver and maybe Upwork If you're going that route of finding a translator for each language yourself, I strongly suggest a translator community like proz.com, translatorscafe.com, or linguaquote.com (founded by HNer luxpir). Or a translator association like the ATA (American Translators Association). They all have translator directories you can search, and the communities have places you can post projects for bidding/quotes.

Alternatively, if you want human translation as a service, there are companies like gengo.com or unbabel.com.

But I strongly recommend against Upwork or Fiver. You can find some qualified translators on those sites, but you're much more likely to find someone who really doesn't know what they're doing. There are some of the same in the translator communities and associations, but if you're judicious about your search criteria, you're much less likely to end up with such a translator.

I'm glad that you're integrating grammar into Chatterbug, even if it's implicit. I do believe that learning a foreign language's grammar implicitly (via immersion) is an inefficient way to pick up grammar. I tutored languages for 5 years in university and grad school, and I always saw the light bulb go off when I explained the rules why some word behaved in a certain way in a sentence. For most people, it's very enlightening and makes language learning easier and more enjoyable.

> I would caution against recommending that people pick up a grammar book unless it's an incredibly good one. Most are dry and difficult and assume you know the vocabulary of linguistics, which most people don't.

I strongly disagree. First, grammar books very rarely use any linguistics vocabulary. And learners can find totally adequate basic grammars in the back of introductory language learning books and textbooks. They do assume you know a little grammar vocab, but not linguistics (which is, of course, a field of study completely separate from language learning). For Indo-European languages, that includes things like "indirect object", "relative pronouns", "demonstrative pronouns", etc. And for declined languages like Russian and Greek, they may use terms like "nominative" and "accusative". But they often explain these terms first, and if not, that's why I recommend people first pick up a basic book on English grammar.

And yes, if your goal is simply to get by in a language, like to the level of a serious tourist, making frequent grammar mistakes is not a big deal.

But if your goal is to learn a language fluently, and particularly if your goal is to learn more than one language fluently, you should ask yourself if it's worth the initial investment of learning the basics of grammar, to the level that you're able to follow a basic introductory grammar. For most people reading HN, I'd think this is something they could pick up in several weeks part-time, or maybe a month or two if they have absolutely no background (like, you have no idea what the subject of a sentence is, or what verb tenses refer to). And then, based on my past multi-decade experience learning, teaching, and speaking multiple languages, I'd be willing to bet that things will "click" much more than if they had no idea what these things refer to.

Finally, I do agree that grammar should not be a major focus of foreign language learning -- maybe 10-20% of the time. But that 10-20% has the potential to make the other components of your language learning voyage much, much easier.

@schacon Interesting post. I agree that language-learning is more of a marathon than a sprint. As someone who speaks several languages[1], it was interesting to read about your perception of how polyglots learn languages. You picked up on some good things (flashcards and these days spaced repetition learning programs since vocab is critical, multiple different tools and books, online tutors) but you didn't mention a characteristic that most polyglots I know share[2]: an excellent foundation in the grammar of their own language, and the inclination to spend the time necessary to build a good foundation in the grammar of whatever language they are learning. I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule, but it seems to be enough of a trend that it's worth mentioning.

Some people promote the idea of learning a language "naturally" through an immersive environment. Although immersing yourself in the language is critical once you've picked up a strong foundation, I've personally known very few people who have learned a language to near-native fluency as an adult by simply jumping into a new language environment. Kids do this all the time, but the way most adults successfully learn a new language is different from the way children do it. I've watched some people waste a lot of time trying to speak to native speakers of a language they're learning without having any kind of foundation in vocabulary and grammar. They would have done well to spend at least a portion of that time picking up a basic vocab through flashcards and learning grammar fundamentals of the foreign language in question.

And although I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule, most polyglots I know are fascinated by grammar, in addition to having a strong interest in phonology and speech/accents.

So to anyone who has tried and failed to learn a foreign language as an adult and is thinking of giving it another try, I recommend picking up both a review book on the grammar of their native language, as well as a basic but complete grammar of the language they are targeting. Spend some time with these books along with Anki and the language-learning apps, and then go out and immerse yourself in another language environment, either through online language communities, or living/traveling abroad.

And one last type for new language learners: be sure to study idioms and phrases when you use Anki or whatever flashcard program, and not just simple words. Having a good stock of idioms is critical to fluent conversation.

1. At one time, fully fluent in 4 languages, now 2 are rusty but I'm picking them and another back up. I've also enjoyed an intermediate level of fluency in an additional 5-6 languages at one time or another. (I've also worked as a professional interpreter (2 years) and translator (10 years))

2. The only exceptions to this rule have been people who have learned 3-4 languages as children, but even they have a much better knowledge of grammar than most Americans I know.

When did you last use sanic? It's far from limited, and advancing quickly. However, it's a microframework, so it's true that you'll not get a full Django-like experience (and Meteor isn't even in the same class of web framework as Django or microframeworks like Sanic, so there's nothing to compare there either).

But with respect to microframeworks, Sanic is getting pretty close to feature parity with Flask, only asynchronously. I'm not sure what kind of plugin architecture you're looking for, but you can do middleware with Sanic. Also custom protocols. Also decorators (e.g., for auth). And for namespacing, there are blueprints. I'm not sure what you mean by "conf hooks".

It does help with Sanic if you're already familiar with Flask. Sanic is very close to an async version of Flask.

For a task queue, you can run async tasks with Sanic alone using `app.add_task(some_async_function)`.

It's also simple to use apscheduler if you want a more full-feature async scheduler. Example:

    from apscheduler.schedulers.asyncio import AsyncIOScheduler
    from sanic import Sanic

    app = Sanic()

    async def tick():
        print('Work!')

    @app.listener('before_server_start')
    async def initialize_scheduler(app, loop):
        scheduler = AsyncIOScheduler({'event_loop': loop})
        scheduler.add_job(tick, 'interval', seconds=1)
        scheduler.start()

    if __name__ == "__main__":
        app.run(host="0.0.0.0", port=8000, debug=True)

Finally, unless things have changed, you should be able to set event loop policy with `asyncio.set_event_loop_policy`, have you tried it?

> I do exactly this, AM(A)A.

Thanks! Do you do this kind of work as a contractor, presumably?

Do you also typically write documentation for the projects you're working on (inside from inline comments)?

How did you get started in this line of work?