Duolingo

I've been amusing myself for the past few days over at Duolingo, where language learning becomes fun. Well, that's the theory anyway...


I linked to the Slate article that got me interested, but if you want to just cut to the chase, you can use your search engine of choice and just type in "Duolingo".


If I could say all of the above in Spanish, I would.

Brian Lehrer's NSA list

As we all put our minds to contemplate what effect a powerful security organization might have on our society (I know--you're not really thinking about it all that much, and I'm not either) I thought the list of what the NSA can currently do, compiled by Brian Lehrer and reposted on Slate, was an interesting way to make our thinking about these things a little less vague. You can find it HERE. It is almost certainly a partial list, but a good place to start. 

A thoughtful list by Ben Branstetter

I don't even know exactly how I stumbled on this short article listing Thirty Things You Should Do Right Now,  but I thought it was pretty good. Some of it will apply to you, some of it will not, but I think it has a little something for everyone. It's first precept seems pretty universal, at least if you still have your own teeth.


I don't know how he gets away with being twenty-five years old, but nobody's perfect. 

Wonkblog's graphs of the year

For some reason I've really been letting this blog languish. I suspect that it's because in the age of Twitter, it is largely redundant. But I still find many interesting things out there on the web, and I guess I will continue to link to them. In any case, I've been finding the Washington Post's Wonkblog's "Graphs of the Yea.r" accessible and sometimes eye-opening. Believe me when I tell you that I am no expert when it comes to graph reading, but these are interesting even to me. The first one that caught my eye was Jonathan Franzen's graph of Causes of Annual Bird Mortality, but there are many by other famous people in all fields. The latest update as of this writing is from Vaclav Smil, graphing the prices of oil vs. natural gas. It has links to some of the others at the end, and you can find it HERE. 

Tiny home--on wheels

Not keeping up very well with this blog lately for some reason, but it's not because there's lack of amazing stuff out there. This photo-story of the ultimate small home really caught my fancy. I found it through the website TakePart. Have a look.

Vladamir Putin's Regime--a Timeline of Repression

Vladimir Putin was nominated for Prime Minister in 1999. Amnesty International has a timeline up about just how bad that's been for Russian civil liberties ever since. Although we tend to get caught up in the latest infringement-- the imprisonment of the members of Pussy Riot or  the erosion of LGBT rights as highlighted by the upcoming Olympics, sometimes its instructive to see the broader context. Check it out HERE. 

Doctors Without Borders: The Fight for Affordable Treatment

Doctors Without Borders just made this video available of a live webcast they did last week and which I watched at the time. It's a panel discussion  centering around a documentary that's coming out now called Fire in the Blood, which is about how many millions of people died in Africa of HIV/AIDS when a treatment regimen was available. I really got a lot out of listening to this cosmopolitan, congenial, and dedicated group and I think you will too.

doctorswithoutborders on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free