7 ms·

Duolingo podcast: The kiddnapping of Luis von Ahn's aunt

49 points by imartin2k 9y ago

matt4077 9y ago
The idea of someone like this being deported with the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen is sickening.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  not to spoil your day but: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/02/04/a-chemistry-professor-got-his-kids-ready-for-school-then-ice-arrested-him-on-his-front-lawn/?utm_term=.feb31aab735a https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/02/0...
- gravis7777 9y ago
  The idea that people (especially those with criminal backgrounds) can willfully break the law and can enter the country without going through the proper channels that millions of others go through to become legal residents each year is sickening.
  - always_good 9y ago
    It's amazing how effective the media has been at painting people who agree with you as racists who hate all central/south americans.
    - rvo 9y ago
      Yea. As an Indian it's hard to believe people are propping up illegal immigration. It takes decades for an Indian to legally migrate here. Maybe we should just become illegals. Perhaps then we will get some sympathy from the media and the liberal class.
      - wrsh07 9y ago
        rvo: I want more immigrants, full stop. I want us to invest in identifying high-value immigrants and supporting their naturalization [I think Tyler Cowen argues in favor of many many more creative / non-service space immigrants, ie non-doctors/lawyers, and that seems right to me]. Don't make democrats choose between Latinx and Indian immigrants - we want both. We don't have any power in this country right now. Thus, democrats in Congress are trying to keep provisions that support Latinx immigrants - "Dreamers". From an economic perspective, that makes sense: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-13/-dreamer-migrants-make-u-s-economy-stronger https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-13/-dreamer-... Ideally, we would have better-design systems for immigration, but we don't. We have to be practical and work with what we've got. [and yes, in the distant future if the current form of the Democratic party controls Congress, hopefully it will remember its current desires to help immigrants (and refugees) from all countries]
        rvo 9y ago
        Why tolerate illegal immigration and make legal immigration so hard? Do you see how out of whack the incentives are? I did a BS and MS from good schools here... Pay tens of thousands in taxes every year due to my high income. But I am in constant worry as I am on a h1b and have a pending green card. In the mean time, I am seeing illegal aliens, hundreds of thousands of them, get EAD cards! I don't even have an EAD. I am enslaved to my company (good thing I like my job!). With EAD you don't even have that issue. Of course I don't have an issue with latin people. I got an issue with illegals being given preference over legals. There are many Indian illegal immigrats too. They overstay visa. I met a cab driver from India who described in detail how he illegally migrated via the Mexico border. Now he has an EAD card somehow. It's so bizzare. Do what Canada does. Use point system. And please remove the racist "national origin" quota for immigration. See the racially allocated dates here: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2018/visa-bulletin-for-february-2018.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v.... They are currently "processing" Indians who applied in 2008!! China is 2013. But Mexicans and everyone else, it's "current" (meaning no waiting). It selectively harm's Indians and Chinese, the most educated immigrants to this country. Literally, there is a special column for Indian, Chinese and Mexicans in the green card line. Make it country agonistic and use points that select for highly educated, English speaking immigrants. Then you can have such great quality of immigrants as Canada. I love this country but it hurts when my friends (all liberal Democrats ) continuously care more about illegals than their friend who has been in this country for 15 years and still in the queue for the greencard ...
  - wrsh07 9y ago
    Isn't it frequently easier for people to break the law than go through proper channels to accomplish a goal? Eg driving a car without a license, import goods, repair a tractor (shudder, obviously)
    - always_good 9y ago
      Since they are replying to a comment that thinks deportation is sickening, I think they are saying that it's sickening that someone to willfully break the law yet be immune to deportation. This is one of the hot topic controversies in the states right now. For example, deportation is now often rebranded as "breaking up families" in the media which now makes you that bad guy to suggest it.
      - wrsh07 9y ago
        Thanks for the response! It seems like one should be able to be against both: breaking up families is crappy and totally not fun. We also don't want people to think breaking the law is the best/only way to support [or be with] their family! But these problems don't have easy solutions. You can feel bad for [deporting] a model citizen who is also in a country illegally while simultaneously wanting to limit the number of people in the country illegally. Unfortunately, all decisions in this space have [sometimes surprising] consequences. One of my most brilliant colleagues will not be staying in the US for very long because he is an only child and wants to be closer to his parents as they age [there is a provision that allows naturalized citizens to obtain green cards for their parents for exactly this purpose, but it is reeeallly slow - and he has no guarantees it won't be shut down before his parents receive green cards]. On these paradoxes and contradictions, I can't help but think of Hamilton: "The Constitution's a mess" [so it needs Amendments] "It's full of contradictions" [so is independence!]
  - matt4077 9y ago
    This guy doesn't have a criminal background, nor did he cross the border illegally.
pacuna 9y ago
Does anyone know where I can find podcasts to improve German?
- dieg0 9y ago
  I second this
- freehunter 9y ago
  If you're a beginner, I'd listen to "Deutsch – Warum Nicht?" from DW. It's narrated in English but the main character speaks in German. Radio D is another podcast from DW at about the same level. From there I like Coffee Break German because it has a language expert and a native speaker discussing German words and grammar in a classroom/conversational setting. Again, this one is narrated in English but they're talking about the German language. DaZPod is also great for short little clips, completely in German. Once you're ready for the full-on German stuff, Langsam Gesprochene Nachrichten has a new podcast every day where they read world news, slowly and clearly articulated, completely in German. Of course most of these come with transcripts you can read along with to improve your German reading comprehension as well. -edit: check out DW.com and look for their German courses... they have a ton of podcasts for all levels, and they're really good.
  - jdietrich 9y ago
    >Deutsch – Warum Nicht? If you don't mind listening to a really weird drama about a hotel porter who's having some kind of psychotic episode. I'm not knocking it, but it's bloody strange.
    - freehunter 9y ago
      It really is. You have to have a sense of humor and a bit of imagination because boy them Germans don't mess around with their fairy tales.
- flicken 9y ago
  https://slowgerman.com/ https://slowgerman.com/
dieg0 9y ago
Would love to listen to this. But as a native spanish speaker, this is unbearable
- Avalaxy 9y ago
  Why is that?
  - jannes 9y ago
    They speak too slow
    - freehunter 9y ago
      I would expect a native to think language learning courses are spoken too slowly for their liking. The most common complaint among language learners is that natives speak too quickly, so of course learning material will be slowed down so students can hear every word being said.
      - danneu 9y ago
        Exactly. I thought it was a great speed, and there really aren't many slow-spanish resources online which makes it hard to transcend intermediate hell. The English sections work well to give you context for the Spanish sections. Losing track of context is definitely one of the hardest parts of listening to a different language. "Wait, I thought we were still talking about his aunt." The English also makes it more of a leisurely exposure. Another issue I have with most resources is that there's no way to easily replay chunks of audio. I'd prefer to be able to listen to bite-sized chunks until I understand them. I built https://www.danneu.com/slow-spanish/ https://www.danneu.com/slow-spanish/ (the three lil pigs) to prototype an idea where you listen to a story and can prev/next/replay any sentence.
        davidzweig 9y ago
        Your page works nicely. I am making the 'hardware' version, a sentence-based multilingual audio player, maybe you find it interesting: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPPzL7dZnJ9CzHblHCLtJJTiF-RzB9Os0bG8xYsIYRJOWBTE4THKAhhcei02OPQeg?key=N1loT1dmV3BXVnVQcWl3VTZSUmVuNHQ3amVNQXNn https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPPzL7dZnJ9CzHblHCLtJJT... Some more details about the software toolchain for preparing files here, the idea is to turn any native audio/video into bilingual, sentence-based materials for studying. https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=7169 https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=716... The toolchain will also prepare nice bilingual texts: http://smallworld.press/show_hn.html http://smallworld.press/show_hn.html There are social media links on http://smallworld.press/ http://smallworld.press/ if you want to be updated.
neves 9y ago
Terrible moments. And Guatemala paid the steepest price: lost a brilliant scientist that would be working there to make the country a better place.

49 points by imartin2k 9y ago

matt4077 9y ago

The idea of someone like this being deported with the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen is sickening.

jacquesm 9y ago
not to spoil your day but: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/02/04/a-chemistry-professor-got-his-kids-ready-for-school-then-ice-arrested-him-on-his-front-lawn/?utm_term=.feb31aab735a https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/02/0...
gravis7777 9y ago
The idea that people (especially those with criminal backgrounds) can willfully break the law and can enter the country without going through the proper channels that millions of others go through to become legal residents each year is sickening.
- always_good 9y ago
  It's amazing how effective the media has been at painting people who agree with you as racists who hate all central/south americans.
  - rvo 9y ago
    Yea. As an Indian it's hard to believe people are propping up illegal immigration. It takes decades for an Indian to legally migrate here. Maybe we should just become illegals. Perhaps then we will get some sympathy from the media and the liberal class.
    - wrsh07 9y ago
      rvo: I want more immigrants, full stop. I want us to invest in identifying high-value immigrants and supporting their naturalization [I think Tyler Cowen argues in favor of many many more creative / non-service space immigrants, ie non-doctors/lawyers, and that seems right to me]. Don't make democrats choose between Latinx and Indian immigrants - we want both. We don't have any power in this country right now. Thus, democrats in Congress are trying to keep provisions that support Latinx immigrants - "Dreamers". From an economic perspective, that makes sense: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-13/-dreamer-migrants-make-u-s-economy-stronger https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-13/-dreamer-... Ideally, we would have better-design systems for immigration, but we don't. We have to be practical and work with what we've got. [and yes, in the distant future if the current form of the Democratic party controls Congress, hopefully it will remember its current desires to help immigrants (and refugees) from all countries]
      - rvo 9y ago
        Why tolerate illegal immigration and make legal immigration so hard? Do you see how out of whack the incentives are? I did a BS and MS from good schools here... Pay tens of thousands in taxes every year due to my high income. But I am in constant worry as I am on a h1b and have a pending green card. In the mean time, I am seeing illegal aliens, hundreds of thousands of them, get EAD cards! I don't even have an EAD. I am enslaved to my company (good thing I like my job!). With EAD you don't even have that issue. Of course I don't have an issue with latin people. I got an issue with illegals being given preference over legals. There are many Indian illegal immigrats too. They overstay visa. I met a cab driver from India who described in detail how he illegally migrated via the Mexico border. Now he has an EAD card somehow. It's so bizzare. Do what Canada does. Use point system. And please remove the racist "national origin" quota for immigration. See the racially allocated dates here: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2018/visa-bulletin-for-february-2018.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v.... They are currently "processing" Indians who applied in 2008!! China is 2013. But Mexicans and everyone else, it's "current" (meaning no waiting). It selectively harm's Indians and Chinese, the most educated immigrants to this country. Literally, there is a special column for Indian, Chinese and Mexicans in the green card line. Make it country agonistic and use points that select for highly educated, English speaking immigrants. Then you can have such great quality of immigrants as Canada. I love this country but it hurts when my friends (all liberal Democrats ) continuously care more about illegals than their friend who has been in this country for 15 years and still in the queue for the greencard ...
- wrsh07 9y ago
  Isn't it frequently easier for people to break the law than go through proper channels to accomplish a goal? Eg driving a car without a license, import goods, repair a tractor (shudder, obviously)
  - always_good 9y ago
    Since they are replying to a comment that thinks deportation is sickening, I think they are saying that it's sickening that someone to willfully break the law yet be immune to deportation. This is one of the hot topic controversies in the states right now. For example, deportation is now often rebranded as "breaking up families" in the media which now makes you that bad guy to suggest it.
    - wrsh07 9y ago
      Thanks for the response! It seems like one should be able to be against both: breaking up families is crappy and totally not fun. We also don't want people to think breaking the law is the best/only way to support [or be with] their family! But these problems don't have easy solutions. You can feel bad for [deporting] a model citizen who is also in a country illegally while simultaneously wanting to limit the number of people in the country illegally. Unfortunately, all decisions in this space have [sometimes surprising] consequences. One of my most brilliant colleagues will not be staying in the US for very long because he is an only child and wants to be closer to his parents as they age [there is a provision that allows naturalized citizens to obtain green cards for their parents for exactly this purpose, but it is reeeallly slow - and he has no guarantees it won't be shut down before his parents receive green cards]. On these paradoxes and contradictions, I can't help but think of Hamilton: "The Constitution's a mess" [so it needs Amendments] "It's full of contradictions" [so is independence!]
- matt4077 9y ago
  This guy doesn't have a criminal background, nor did he cross the border illegally.

pacuna 9y ago

Does anyone know where I can find podcasts to improve German?

dieg0 9y ago
I second this
freehunter 9y ago
If you're a beginner, I'd listen to "Deutsch – Warum Nicht?" from DW. It's narrated in English but the main character speaks in German. Radio D is another podcast from DW at about the same level. From there I like Coffee Break German because it has a language expert and a native speaker discussing German words and grammar in a classroom/conversational setting. Again, this one is narrated in English but they're talking about the German language. DaZPod is also great for short little clips, completely in German. Once you're ready for the full-on German stuff, Langsam Gesprochene Nachrichten has a new podcast every day where they read world news, slowly and clearly articulated, completely in German. Of course most of these come with transcripts you can read along with to improve your German reading comprehension as well. -edit: check out DW.com and look for their German courses... they have a ton of podcasts for all levels, and they're really good.
- jdietrich 9y ago
  >Deutsch – Warum Nicht? If you don't mind listening to a really weird drama about a hotel porter who's having some kind of psychotic episode. I'm not knocking it, but it's bloody strange.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    It really is. You have to have a sense of humor and a bit of imagination because boy them Germans don't mess around with their fairy tales.
flicken 9y ago
https://slowgerman.com/ https://slowgerman.com/

dieg0 9y ago

Would love to listen to this. But as a native spanish speaker, this is unbearable

Avalaxy 9y ago
Why is that?
- jannes 9y ago
  They speak too slow
  - freehunter 9y ago
    I would expect a native to think language learning courses are spoken too slowly for their liking. The most common complaint among language learners is that natives speak too quickly, so of course learning material will be slowed down so students can hear every word being said.
    - danneu 9y ago
      Exactly. I thought it was a great speed, and there really aren't many slow-spanish resources online which makes it hard to transcend intermediate hell. The English sections work well to give you context for the Spanish sections. Losing track of context is definitely one of the hardest parts of listening to a different language. "Wait, I thought we were still talking about his aunt." The English also makes it more of a leisurely exposure. Another issue I have with most resources is that there's no way to easily replay chunks of audio. I'd prefer to be able to listen to bite-sized chunks until I understand them. I built https://www.danneu.com/slow-spanish/ https://www.danneu.com/slow-spanish/ (the three lil pigs) to prototype an idea where you listen to a story and can prev/next/replay any sentence.
      - davidzweig 9y ago
        Your page works nicely. I am making the 'hardware' version, a sentence-based multilingual audio player, maybe you find it interesting: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPPzL7dZnJ9CzHblHCLtJJTiF-RzB9Os0bG8xYsIYRJOWBTE4THKAhhcei02OPQeg?key=N1loT1dmV3BXVnVQcWl3VTZSUmVuNHQ3amVNQXNn https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPPzL7dZnJ9CzHblHCLtJJT... Some more details about the software toolchain for preparing files here, the idea is to turn any native audio/video into bilingual, sentence-based materials for studying. https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=7169 https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=716... The toolchain will also prepare nice bilingual texts: http://smallworld.press/show_hn.html http://smallworld.press/show_hn.html There are social media links on http://smallworld.press/ http://smallworld.press/ if you want to be updated.

neves 9y ago

Terrible moments. And Guatemala paid the steepest price: lost a brilliant scientist that would be working there to make the country a better place.