How To Own a Kindle and Not Be a Pretentious Moneywaster
Pictured: Probably not saving money
Monetary issues
- 1 Kindle costs $139 dollars plus shipping. Lets round this to 140 for simplicity’s sake.
- Kindle books cost around 10 dollars (Assuming you buy them from amazon), plus you can virtually any classic for free
- Your average paperback book goes for around 15 to 20 dollars, your average hardcover going for around 25 – 30 dollars
So it follows that if you only buy paperbacks that each purchase saves around 5 dollars.
Simple math would tell you that in order for the Kindle to break even you would have to read 28 books. It doesn’t seem like much, but this gets a bit complicated when you factor in that the cost of 28 paperback books (or a kindle with 28 books) is $420. However, if you read that many books it may be profitable for you to get a hold of a kindle.
You can, however get a huge number of classics for free. This is easily accomplished due to the fact that the kindle actually supports .txt files! And thanks to the existence of Project Gutenberg, Classics in .txt format are not difficult to come by.
Take, for example, Stoker’s Dracula. Because Dracula’s copyright has expired, Gutenberg can distribute a digitized version of it. Upon searching their website, I found that they not only had a .txt version, but a kindle ebook as well!
However certain books are not available in Gutenberg’s website. As an alternative, their branch located in Australia has many books that their US branch does not (e.g. Animal Farm, The Great Gatsby, 1984, etc.)
There’s no real way to get around the fact that the Kindle is pretty useless unless you read quite a bit. However, it can be useful and convenient for those who read a great deal.
How Manga Can Help You Learn a Language
I am a huge language learning fanatic. I’ve dabbled in Linguistics, and I’ve learned a bit of Spanish and Japanese. Perhaps the most important tool I’ve used in learning them has been the Spaced Repetition System, using Anki. Those of you who follow my blog may know that I’ve written about Anki before, but I’ve used it for learning a wide variety of skills, one of the most notable being foreign language.
I was introduced to Anki through All Japanese All The Time, which anyone interested in foreign language should check out. In his blog, Kazhumoto uses a number of ideas circulating in the language community. A key concept he details is the reaching of 10,000 sentences in spaced repetition. This, coupled with the spending of 10,000 hours of “doing stuff” in the target language should provide a reasonable depth in the language.
This is where manga comes in.
Manga, for those who do not know, is the Japanese form of comic books, which has a reasonably large following around the world. It goes hand in hand with anime, light novels, and visual novel games, and there is a sizable part of the world who consume translated forms of these.
It is not uncommon for fans of these mediums to take it upon themselves to translate manga, often scanning and replacing the Japanese text with their own, ergo “scanlations.”
While usually in English, there exists a sizable community for translations into other languages, for example Spanish. One of my favorite places to find manga in Spanish is animextremist (which, as a warning, is completely in Spanish.)
In addition to be a lot of fun to read, these translated comic books are an absolute gold mine for sentences to place in an SRS. If you know enough of a language to read basic phrases, its an incredibly great way to learn. Its like having a textbook that teaches you common speech and phrases, is fun to read, and learns at a pace optimal for you.
My personal strategy for using manga to learn languages is to simply read until I come across a phrase I am unfamiliar with. When I find one, I write it in a notebook, along with a translation (I like doing this in Cornell format so that I can use them as quick flashcards in case my laptop battery dies or my hard drive corrupts.) When I reach the end of a chapter (usually around 16 or so pages), I enter the phrases into Anki and learn from there.
If you can find a group that translates manga into another language, it can be an easy and amusing way to inch closer to fluency, and aside that a fun way to spend a few minutes.
How Manga Can Help You Learn a Language
I am a huge language learning fanatic. I’ve dabbled in Linguistics, and I’ve learned a bit of Spanish and Japanese. Perhaps the most important tool I’ve used in learning them has been the Spaced Repetition System, using Anki. Those of you who follow my blog may know that I’ve written about Anki before, but I’ve used it for learning a wide variety of skills, one of the most notable being foreign language.
I was introduced to Anki through All Japanese All The Time, which anyone interested in foreign language should check out. In his blog, Kazhumoto uses a number of ideas circulating in the language community. A key concept he details is the reaching of 10,000 sentences in spaced repetition. This, coupled with the spending of 10,000 hours of “doing stuff” in the target language should provide a reasonable depth in the language.
This is where manga comes in.
Manga, for those who do not know, is the Japanese form of comic books, which has a reasonably large following around the world. It goes hand in hand with anime, light novels, and visual novel games, and there is a sizable part of the world who consume translated forms of these.
It is not uncommon for fans of these mediums to take it upon themselves to translate manga, often scanning and replacing the Japanese text with their own, ergo “scanlations.”
While usually in English, there exists a sizable community for translations into other languages, for example Spanish. One of my favorite places to find manga in Spanish is animextremist (which, as a warning, is completely in Spanish.)
In addition to be a lot of fun to read, these translated comic books are an absolute gold mine for sentences to place in an SRS. If you know enough of a language to read basic phrases, its an incredibly great way to learn. Its like having a textbook that teaches you common speech and phrases, is fun to read, and learns at a pace optimal for you.
My personal strategy for using manga to learn languages is to simply read until I come across a phrase I am unfamiliar with. When I find one, I write it in a notebook, along with a translation (I like doing this in Cornell format so that I can use them as quick flashcards in case my laptop battery dies or my hard drive corrupts.) When I reach the end of a chapter (usually around 16 or so pages), I enter the phrases into Anki and learn from there.
If you can find a group that translates manga into another language, it can be an easy and amusing way to inch closer to fluency, and aside that a fun way to spend a few minutes.
The M-Net Study Plan
I developed this academic study plan over the course of three months in 2010, intending it to be used for myself and a friend. I developed this program by combining what I knew about learning foreign languages, productivity, and time management. Using this system, I raised my grade-point average from 4.1 to 4.3 in just a few months.
The way that this system works is by having multiple units which co-exist optimally, acting like a sort of butterfly net or mosquito net for information. If there is a small hole in the net, the net does not unravel due to the connections between the units. Hence, M-net.
The main ideas behind this system is as follows.
- Balancing understanding with memorization
- Using updated and more efficient tools and methods than is the current standard
- Using an efficient system that “auto-optimizes” for each individual
- Retaining academic knowledge in the long-term for exams, instead of re-learning it
- Organization and forward planning
- Using a system that naturally progress to a tool to review for midterms or finals
- Using a system that allows much more free time than one based on learning by rote
Ideally, this system takes around 25 minutes per day, although oftentimes the system takes up even less time than that.
The first and most effective unit in this system is a spaced repetition flashcard system. I can’t say I have much experience on which is best, but I’ve used anki for quite a long time.
Anki is a flashcard program which puts paper flashcards to shame. Instead of using a traditional learn-by-rote flashcard system to commit to short term memory for tests, it spaces each card out in order to commit the majority of the information to long term memory. This is incredibly invaluable.
The best part about this is that it spaces out the information in the most optimal way for you, the user, to learn. It doesn’t simply space everything until the end of time, assuming you will remember in a perfect manner. It lets you rank your success on each card, reviewing more difficult material before the easier material. This ensures that you will not waste any time learning.
Using this for school is relatively simple. You’ll want to enter your notes in as questions (which I will elaborate on further), enter your homework questions and enter your test questions into the subject deck. It can get a bit tedious to enter in everything, but even just a few a week becomes an incredible amount upon midterms and finals. Try thinking of 1000 questions on a given topic in a few days before the test, and then try thinking of 10 questions a day.
Most students should be familiar with the feeling of the day before a big test. Most students spend the days before a test essentially re-learning everything they need. This is an enormous waste of time. Using this system removes that phase altogether, thus turning your time spent studying actually studying instead of relearning.
Anki, however, requires a few minutes each day. Many people simply don’t have the drive to do something every single day. This is the single greatest roadblock in terms of studying. It is important to form a habit of reviewing these cards each day. Once a habit is formed, it greatly reduces the stress of pre-test cramming and makes studying almost eerily addicting.
The next object in this system is the use of mindmaps. Mindmaps are an extremely valuable tool for presenting a large amount of information in a visual format. These are excellent for summing up a chapter to study for a test, or taking general notes during “review days”. They are also very useful for taking notes using a teacher who doesn’t teach in a linear order (i.e. the teacher everyone had in high-school that nobody could understand.)
Its important that these not be taken formally. The purpose of mindmaps is that they create visual connections, causing the one who takes them to see the general shape of the object. Doodling is not only allowed, but beneficial, so long as you can create visual connections between pictures and ideas.
In addition to mindmaps and flashcards, another important unit in this system is Cornell note-taking. Generally, you divide the page into four sections – The header, the cue column, the notes and the summary. The idea is that you create a sort of flashcards in your notes, which make them easy to place into Anki. At the end of each class, you write about a paragraph summarizing the notes. This system is more difficult to explain than to use, and to learn how it is simply best to look at an example or two.
Finally, the last step is to create a summary sheet. In order to do this, you take the summaries from all of the Cornell notes and place them into one document, shrinking the font size and abbreviating until everything can fit on one page. Its is helpful to keep explanations to the maximum and examples to the minimum. This helps to read the entire course at a quick glance, as well as review the course quickly before finals or midterms.
So in summary, the system is entirely connected in order to commit as much as possible to memory and to simplify the study process. Spaced Repetition is an effective way to memorize the necessary information, Cornell Notes simplify the process of turning notes into flashcards, The summary sheet is made easier by the summary section of the Cornell system, and mindmaps present everything in a unit in a powerful and visually impacting way. The system is better at keeping your mind focused than that last cup of coffee.
40 Skills in 40 Weeks – A Crash Course into Everything
These are the results of a lifestyle experiment. I tried to learn a new skill each week for forty weeks. Most people, when they learn a skill, try to perfect it far beyond everyone else, becoming among the best in their certain area. While that’s not in any way a bad thing, I wanted to know what it was like to generalize a lot of skills, learning enough to be more skilled than the average person, but not nearly an expert, in a large amount of skills. Thus, I started an experiment. Learn 40 skills in 40 weeks, for each skill not becoming an expert, and only learning in free moments in the course of a week.
This plan makes use of many of the Principles of Practical Education
- Learning a skill quickly requires the learning of the essential parts (Principle 1)
- Learning a skill in a limited timeframe makes it difficult to become bored. (Principle 2)
- Learning a skill instead of advancing another. (principle 3)
- I doubt I can learn all 40, but trying to maximize the amount gained uses principle 4
- I don’t intend to take lessons on any of this, so it’s mostly self-taught (Principle 5)
- Keep yourself open to possibilities (Principle 6)
- I will be learning primarily alone or in a small group if the need arises (principle 7)
- Concentration is a must (Principle 8 )
The last two principles deal with others who would like to learn skills such as I did. Most lecture-style classes teach in that “Expertise” mindset. This isn’t a bad thing, however it is not effective with general learning of a large amount of skills, such as what I’ve done below. I’m sure I did not learn each skill in the most effective way, but I learned them. If I could go back, I’m sure I could’ve learned in a more effective way. This is why Practical Education is a Community effort.
Week 1 – Speed Reading
This was very easy. Almost Depressingly so. I was expecting a very high-effort high-reward thing that would be very difficult to reproduce by others. I did this in around 30 minutes and raised my reading speed from 462 Wpm to 924 WPM. Thanks to Tim Ferris for the Method I used. Success
Week 2 – Photoshop
This was also surprisingly easy, but much more difficult than Speed Reading. Assorted youtube tutorials taught me to extract objects, Whiten teeth, change hair, eye or skin color, and add or lose weight. Not a whole lot, but pretty good for a week. Success
Week 3 – Art
I really tried, but the farthest I ended up getting is copydrawing. Sure, its better than tracing, but it’s not drawing, so I’m saying this one is a failure
Week 4 – Astronomy
Refreshed my knowledge of the constellations. I also read “Pale Blue Dot”. Moderate Success.
Week 5 – Philosophy
I got a book on this and tried to read it, but it really wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be. Read about the life of Descartes. Didn’t get much further than that. Mild failure.
Week 6 – Magic Tricks
Learned a few basic Magic tricks. Nothing spectacular. Success.
Week 7 – Medical Diagnosis
Learned the top ten most common diseases and their symptoms and somewhere around 25 mental disorders. Success.
Week 8 – C++ programming
I didn’t seem to have enough time to start this, but I am taking a class on Visual Basic, so this goes On Hold.
Week 9 – Investing
Read through part of “The Intelligent Investor”. Moderate Success
Week 10 – Paper Airplanes & Origami
Learned to make a few very interesting paper Airplane and Origami designs. Most of the planes worked rather well.
Jet fighter, Stunt Plane, Reeve’s Floater, Some random plane, Classic Glider (Not the classic dart), Backwards plane, Boxoid, Paper Boomerang
Definite Success
Week 10 Summary -
10 Weeks into starting this journey, I have had 7 Successes, two failures and put one skill on hold. The skill I’ve gotten the best in at this point is Photoshop. Surprisingly, Speed Reading isn’t as useful as I thought it’d be, but nevertheless I’ve used it in quite a few situations.
At this rate at the end of the 40 weeks I’ll have aquired 30 skills. Not bad, but I want to see if I can get even more than that overall.
I’m sure I’ll end up writing posts about a few of these as well, considering they’re ease and entertainment value.
Week 11 – Music Remixing
I was really looking forward to this week, but my hard drive that I got a copy of FL studio on crashed and I lost it. I did, however, make a few mashups using Audacity. One came out nicely, the other came out decently. It wasn’t what I was going for, and I hope to revisit this someday, but it would qualify as a Relative Success.
Week 12 – Spreadsheets and Excel
I really thought this was going to be much more difficult than it turned out to be. I got the hang of the =SUM, =AVERAGE, =MAX, =MIN, and =IF functions, as well as the general layout, graphing, etc. Success.
Week 13 – Law
Researched the requirements and process for proving someone liable or guilty for a number of civil and criminal offenses. Success.
Week 14 – Cooking
I simply cannot cook. Failure
Week 15 – Photography
Learned about the rule of thirds, ISO settings and Macro Mode. Working on a photography project at the moment. Success
Week 16 – First Aid
Learned how to properly treat Bleeding, Choking, Shock and Broken Bones. Success
Week 17 – Sushi and Bento Crafting
Happy new year. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to do this, given the festivities, but I did extensive research into the recipe/preparation and if given the ingredients I’m almost 100% certain I could do this successfully Moderate success
Week 18 – Trebuchets
I learned how they worked, but I couldn’t get a hold of a kit to make one. I was disappointed, I was looking forward to this. Moderate Failure
Week 19 – Survival
Learned how to make a fire, how to make a shelter, how to make a signal fire, survival fishing, and so on. Success
Week 20 – Romhacking
Learned about and how to use Lunar Magic, which is a Super Mario World level editor. Success
Week 20 Summary
Very successful period of 10 weeks, with 8 successes and only two failures. So far, I’ve learned 15 skills, failed 4 skills, and put one on hold. Currently, at the rate I am going, I will have learned 33 out of 40 skills. While I am learning a lot every day, I am also having a lot of fun learning all of these new skills.
Week 21 – Game Mapping and Level Design
I made a few levels in Lunar Magic, which were not very good but were interesting to make and play through. Success
Week 22 – Martial Arts
Read through a book on Akido, which was very interesting! It was something that seemed very useful to know. The concept of the “fence” was especially interesting. Success
Week 23 – Juggling
I can now juggle two balls in one hand. I can now be considered “average”. Success
Week 24 – Neuro Linguistic Programming
Learned how to “Cure a phobia”. It had an air of psuedoscience about it, but it might come in handy one day. Relative Success.
Week 25 – Robotics
Absolute failure. I couldn’t get a hold of a kit, and I seriously doubt Lego MINDSTORMS counts as robotics. Failure.
Week 26 – Public Speaking
I couldn’t make heads or tails of this. Absolute Failure
Week 27 – Cup Stacking
Got the basic cycle down to about 25 seconds. Its a really terrible speed, but I learned how it works, and as such this one is a Moderate Success
Week 28 – Fighting Game Strategy
Did a bit of reading into the competitive scene of Super Smash Brothers. The relative lack of depth in Brawl meant that I was able to get pretty good at it relatively quickly, learning skills like Mortar Sliding as Snake. Melee, however, was a completely different game. The amount of depth and skill required for it was surprising, and it took a far longer period of time to learn than Brawl did. I did, however, manage to learn some of the crucial skills such as wavedashing and L-canceling, in addition to character-specific skills and approaches. I learned the approaches and strategies of Peach, the basics and chaingrabs of Sheik, certain strategies of Ganondorf, and basic Marth combos such as the Ken combo. Not competitive level by a longshot, but enough at least to beat most people in a friendly match. Success
Week 29 – Electronics and Modding
As a long time lurker of the Benheck forums, I was looking forward to this week almost more than any other. Sadly, a financial issue meant I was not able to get a hold of any components, systems, batteries, or controllers. Mod-wise, I have experience with homebrew and software modifications, however that was not my goal for this week, and thus this is a Failure.
Week 30 – First Person Shooter General Strategy
I showed no improvement in anything. It was a rather silly goal, but a Failure nonetheless
Week 30 Summary
I just managed to pass this week, with six successes and four failures. At this point, I’ve learned 21 skills, failed 8, and put one on hold. I’m learning more every day and have already passed a 50% success rate.
Week 31 – Bar Tricks
Learned a variety of pen tricks as well as a small amount of cutlery magic. Thanks again to Tim Ferris. Success.
Week 32 – American Sign Language Alphabet
I now have the ability to fingerspell. Success
Week 33 – Knot tying
Learned how to tie a Bowline and a Trucker’s Hitch. Success
Week 34 – Lock Picking and Other Assorted Espionage Skills
Learned how to create a padlock shim out of a soda can. Hardly “Espionage”, and not at all effecient, but plausible. Moderate Success
Week 35 – NATO alphabet
Learned A-Z of the NATO alphabet. Success
Week 36 – MUGEN Development
Learned to import stages, characters and menus. It seemed a lot more complicated than it had to be. Success
Week 37 – Linux Development
Considering I wrote the list 37 weeks ago, I don’t really remember what I was supposed to DO for this week. Java Compilers? Failure
Week 38 – Discerning Lies and Bias
Learned about Microexpressions, Distancing Language, and (My personal favorite from this week) “Eye movement”. Success.
Week 39 – Fung Shui
I had always thought that this was an interior design concept started in china (as in Reds go South, Blues go North, etc.)
It turns out its more like a spiritual concept. Who knew? Success.
Apparently there's more to it than this.
Week 40 – Computer Science (Networking, Hexidecimal, etc)
I didn’t forsee that the programming class I enrolled in was, in fact, a “Computer Science with Visual Basic” course. However, I learned what I wanted to learn, so I’d define this as a Success.
Final Summary and Results
After 40 weeks with admittedly very little effort invested in this experiment, I’ve become acquainted with 30 skills, failed 9 and placed one on hold due to other circumstances. Depending on how you view the “held” skill, my success rate was a comfortable 75% – 77%, very characteristic of the first principle of Practical Education.
Simply the action of wanting to learn skills or facts seemed to have manifested itself in a simple enough way, and as a result of this project I’ve gained valuable skills that I will no doubt continue to utilize.
I attended no private classes, spent no money, and hired no teacher. I simply went out and found information. It should not be difficult for others to replicate this experiment with similar results, as the goal is not mastery but familiarization with basics. If anything this was a jumping off point for mastering a wide number of the skills I am now familiar with.
And as such, overall, the 40 skills in 40 weeks experiment was a surefire Success
