Language learning and translation

Just saw a TED talk from Carnegie Mellon, about work being done on large scale human computing....  Okay, that part was interesting too....

But what caught me is a free way to learn a new language.  They are in beta testing at http://duolingo.com/.  The idea is to learn a new language by translating words.  The original learn to do by doing...  But structured so that what you are doing is something that also helps translate web pages.

Here's another book that sounds like it's worth looking up when i've got a few hours....



http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/11/23/f-vp-stewart.html

Samantha Nutt and the 'Damned Nations' of guns and aid

By Brian Stewart, special to CBC News 

Posted: Nov 23, 2011 8:09 PM ET

Every so often a new book arrives with the force of a much-needed whack over the head.

That's the jolting effect of Samantha Nutt'sDamned Nations: Greed, Guns, Armies and Aid, which is causing a sensation within the increasingly troubled world of humanitarian aid.

Written by one of Canada's most influential humanitarian activists, it's the clearest examination I've read in quite a while of the economic incentives — and our own Western inadequacies — that fuel the seemingly intractable violence in so many war-torn countries, particularly in mineral-rich Africa.

A medical doctor and the co-founder of War Child Canada, Nutt is someone who speaks with remarkable moral authority, after spending more than 16 years struggling to help the most vulnerable targets, children and women, in the world's most dangerous conflict areas.

A different take on the Pareto principle

Okay, here's a different thought. You've probably heard of the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule.  The original idea came from the observation that 20% of the people in Italy owned 80% of the land, and that in a certain garden, 80% of the peas came from 20% of the pods.  The general concept is that most of the productive output is the result of relatively few of the input factors.  In business it is generally considered that one should focus on the 20% that are causing the large effect, in order to achieve significant improvement.

Abe Lincoln made an interesting comment:

“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax”

This suggests that most of the 80% "non-productive time" he would spend on preparing well for the actual productive time he did spend.  It seems he was aware of the need to prepare well, so that when the time came for the 20%, he was ready and could work effectively.

Okay, that's enough for a late night musing....