All posts tagged: featured

Duolingo’s Gamification: A Double-Edged Sword

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The author critiques Duolingo for being ineffective in teaching Spanish, arguing it prioritizes user engagement over genuine learning. Despite extensive use over two and a half years, progress is minimal. The app’s gamification strategies distract from actual language acquisition, turning learning into a race against time rather than meaningful education.

My Three Days in Ukraine

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In 2023, during a three-day trip to Ukraine, the author reflects on their experience, confronting the juxtaposition of life under war. They describe interactions at border checkpoints, cultural encounters, historical sites, and the resilience of Ukrainians amidst ongoing conflict. The trip highlights love and normalcy amidst adversity, inspiring admiration for Ukraine.

The Value of Travel Insurance, with Examples

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The Value of Travel Insurance, with Examples If you’re travelling abroad, you should buy travel insurance. It will not only possibly save you money, but it might also possibly save your trip. Those memories of your trip have a value greater than a plane ticket or a hotel in the long run, even if it doesn’t seem that way when you’re typing in your credit card numbers. Don’t believe it? Well, I’ve got a few examples from my personal life that might illustrate the value of travel insurance. Then we’ll get into how easy and cost effective it is to purchase. The first time was covid. I was in Ireland and preparing to leave for my trip home to the US. It was during the covid era, but it was after the vaccines came out. At that time, you still basically couldn’t travel if you weren’t vaccinated, with every country having requirements, including quarantines, that made travelling not really worth it for the unvaccinated. But if you were vaccinated it was almost back to normal. …

Luigi Mangione: America’s Rorschach Test

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It doesn’t mean anything On December 4th, 2024, Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, was shot and killed. After a brief hunt, officials have charged Luigi Mangione with the murder. Since the murder, and the arrest, the internet has been notably celebratory about the murder, with even some people who vote Republican apparently cheering it on. Aside from whether or not murder is a bad thing to do, there has been much speculation about what this means for healthcare, for income inequality, for everything ailing the American middle and working class. I don’t mean to be a bummer, but it doesn’t mean anything. The whole event has simply been a giant Rorschach test for America. By that I mean, everyone looking at it has their own interpretation of what this means, what the implications are for America going forward. The implications are: 1 guy is dead and 1 guy is going to jail, the end. Much like a Rorschach test, whatever your interpretation is, the actual meaning is nothing, and your assessment says more …

Why Democrats Lost: It’s the Memes Stupid

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As coastal media elites diagnose what went wrong for Democrats by analyzing self-reporting poll data of people they know little about, the rest of us already know what happened because we’ve been watching it happen for over a decade: Its the memes stupid. Remember 20 years ago when people would say things like: “I don’t know about politics”, “I don’t like politics”, “Politics is annoying”? People who never read WaPo or NYT or the Atlantic or the Economist would say those things and wouldn’t vote. Those people are gone. They can’t ignore politics now because it is non-stop shoved in their face on social media. Try to go on Facebook or Twitter, or whatever it is now, without encountering right wing memes. We all know that guy we went to high school with who shares 15 Trump memes a day. Social media is overwhelmed with right wing bots. Listen to a comedy podcast, you won’t laugh but you’ll hear endlessly about how sensitive people are. Look for a movie review and you won’t have to …