You don't have to pay $1.99 for something that's totally easy to do for yourself for free. I wrote a bash script (running on a cron server on my desktop at my home) for my ex-girlfriend that would send her nice/silly/creative text messages at random times during daylight hours. I would periodically add to the list…

Of course, Donald Knuth's TeX is the best markup language of all time (it is widely used to create beautifully-typeset mathematics papers). :)

OK :) Then I'll also point out that HTML is not a programming language either. It is a markup language.

I hate to be that annoying person, but HTTP is not actually a programming language; it is a networking protocol.

I hate to be that annoying person, but HTTP is not actually a programming language; it is a networking protocol.

OMG there are so many misogynistic and victim-blaming comments down here in the grays. It's not OK to take advantage of vulnerable people and it's not OK to be silent when you witness such aggression!

That's very interesting—I would have thought that learning to read in a language is much easier than learning to speak or understand speech. I was able to get to the point where I could read math papers in French (admittedly that's not a very high hurdle, since the math-paper idioms are word-for-word translations and…

I've certainly had my struggles with depression and anxiety. A few years ago it got to the point at which I was suicidal. I was worried that I wasn't making enough progress in graduate school, that I was rude and worthless to friends, family, and society, and that I would never know what it was like to fall in love.…

Thanks, I am really excited (assuming I take the job, that is—I am waiting until the deadline to accept it to see if I get any other offers)! You said that you find that you are still rusty after years of learning it, but are you nevertheless able to comfortably have interesting conversations? I would probably want…

Do you think that vocabulary practice books are a good way of learning a lot of words towards the beginning of the process?

This is nice to hear! At this point, though, I can't even roll my r's for the life of me!

Hmm, I guess you're probably right. Thinking and communicating in English is like breathing for me, to the extent that the entire sentences seem to come into my head from nowhere, fully formed. I probably shouldn't expect that level of understanding of a completely new language, especially in only three years. I…

One of my friends told me the same thing—that the best way to learn a language is to fall in love with a native speaker. It sounds like it would be sort of awkward at first, although I guess it would provide the incentive to learn!

Does that mean that learning to think in another language as an adult is not really possible, or just that it would always be obvious that I am not a native speaker (e.g. having an accent or making mistakes from time to time)?

I like your username too! Math FTW!

Does anyone here have experience learning a new language as an adult (say, early-to-mid-twenties) starting with no knowledge? I have a really nice three-year postdoc job offer in Mexico that I am considering, but I am nervous about learning a new language so late in life... My plan would be to use tools like Duolingo…

Seriously, this post is the most frightening thing I have read for a while. I really have no idea what the victim of this evil man is going through, but my ex-girlfriend would coerce me into letting her inflict pain on my sensitive man-parts for her amusement, and I still occasionally have nightmares in which people…

From your username, I guess you are applying for a Ph.D. in mathematics? Good luck! I am in a similar boat, waiting for replies to the approximately 90 or 100 academic job applications I sent out, but I can't expect to hear back about postdocs until the middle of February. Argh, I can't wait any longer either. …

I had an NPR crush on Andrea Seabrook for a while. I miss the time when she was the host of Weekend All Things Considered.

You just made a mathematician's day over here :)

I usually feel bad when people ask me what type of math I do and I go on a five-minute monologue about harmonic analysis and Lie groups and stuff.