[M]etabrain [E]ntry [L]og - Braindumps on things Mel Chua has found shiny lately.

Language learning, yoga, and thumbdrives

POSSE alumni Kristina Striegnitz and her student Kirk Winans are looking to do some linguistics-learning hacking (tools for language learners) and would love ideas for what to work on; they’d like to put the Leitner system (where the computer tracks your correct/incorrect answers and brings up things you answered incorrectly more frequently in the future) into something fun. Any suggestions? I left mine here (awaiting comment moderation as I type this).

Olin alumni Janet Tsai wrote a proposal for using yoga as a way to explain engineering. I think I need the reverse equivalent – engineering as a way to explain yoga (or running, or whatever) – I have very little physical awareness, but math and physics make things make more sense; I understood dancing much better once folks like Gui and Andrew began to explain what I should do in terms of adjusting spring constants and whatnot. I wonder if I can get someone to teach me some sport – almost any sport, but bonus points if it’s a martial art – with that sort of mentality. Too bad Janet lives in a different state…

Supertalent makes little flash drives that would make pretty awesome necklaces. Next time my mom insists I have some form of jewelry for some formal occasion, if given enough advance warning, I might just do that. (“What’s that on your necklace?” “Fedora 13. Want to install it on your computer?”) I do not like jewelry at all, but I keep on getting bothered to wear it, and figure that having one necklace and one set of earrings and perhaps one bracelet I can tolerate is better than constantly being forced to borrow stuff I don’t like. Too bad I didn’t get a set of white LED earrings when Alex Wheeler’s FBE class made them; they are ridiculously expensive when you get them online. Maybe I’ll ask her how to make them if I find out I will need this stuff again.