I spend my money where I spend my time, which means at/around my computer. I’m still working on budgeting for a handful of upgrades, but spending a pretty significant amount of my money on my desk setup is extremely well worth it to me.

My Toshiba Chromebook 2 (4GB) was delivered two days ago, and it’s far surpassed my expectations. I got a $200 refurb directly from Toshiba (free shipping!), and especially for that price (though regular retail still isn’t bad at all), it’s pretty amazing. The next time my family members ask for a laptop…

You know that comment was 2.5 years old, right?

They both verbs and nouns.

Counting in Mandarin was perhaps similarly bizarre, if not somewhat more logical. For example:

Christina Stürmer is fun. I actually give my intro students a list of bands and stuff that I like (and sometimes we listen to a song now and then at the end of class) and encourage them to find music, movies, books, websites, etc. that they enjoy and practice like that. I personally learned a TON from music, and it’s…

As someone who has taught German in a variety of contexts, I agree. Once you get used to it, German is actually very intuitive; many of my students start adding in more complex grammar before it’s ever taught explicitly, just because they hear me say it or read it in the textbook, and they manage to divine (some of)…

Norwegian might be even easier. Regardless, they’re extremely similar (might as well throw Danish into the mix too, since it’s super similar as well).

Learning by hearing/speaking first is always the ideal, even in language classrooms, and you’re right that you’re far more likely to get good results that way than if you have too much reading/writing compared to the listening/speaking (even worse if the reading/writing comes first). Like the guy in the video…

It’s actually fine for a 4-minute intro on the topic; there’s no real depth, but the things he says and the way he goes about talking about them are not at all inaccurate.

I think the major thing with child acquisition vs. adult learning is that children can learn to sound like a native speaker, but it’s very rare for adults to manage that. In terms of grammar, vocabulary, and idioms, you’re absolutely right that an adult can really zip their way through all of that given the…

Thanks! To be fair, my previous job was “grad student,” so it’s kind of hard not to out-earn that... I anticipate making more than double, though; possibly as high as 2.5x.

I’ve had mine since I got 5.0 on my Nexus 4, and still have it on 5.1.1

That’s going to be me in a week or two (assuming I actually get the job, though I think that’s pretty likely).

It doesn’t have Cherry MX Clears, so regardless of how mechanical it may or may not be, it’s not the right one for me.

I’d rather plug in my 60% form factor mechanical keyboard than use the keyboard cover. Not that I have any of the Surface iterations, but I have been lusting after a Surface Pro 3...

I turned 23 yesterday. Happy birthday, birthday buddy!

Speaking of Hangouts, why are there like a million different ways to use it? And why do they behave differently? The Chrome extension and the Chrome app are COMPLETELY different when it comes to how Hangouts works, and while the app is prettier, it’s certainly not always better.

For a lot of people, it’s a lot less about speed and more about comfort/general enjoyment of typing. There are a lot of different types of mechanical keyboards that feel quite different from one another. There are also a lot of different form factors (~60% like the Tex Yoda/KBP V60 Mini/Poker II/Pok3r, TKL [no…

% of your total monthly budget spent on food: 13-16% (~$350-375)