Yeah, Su's not just reading off a script. Her English has come really far; she's at the point of having enough vocabulary to feel like she can express what she wants to express once she picks the right words out of her dictionary. So she still has to do a translation of concepts into a smaller set of words (sort of like the book Thing Explainer) but she's got the confidence to do so.
November 24. A few people seem to have early copies though.
I would further recommend a pass through Thing Explainer for general knowledge with simple explanations. With reading through the BOFH stories to give you mind a place to go when knowledge fails because of someone elses lack of imagination.
I rarely buy books and just use publicly available information to setup and troubleshoot.
Random comment / thought on the whole "meme" label, forum humor, etc.
The original crayon eaters are the United States Marine Corps. Self-deprecating humor is in widespread use throughout the world's militaries, not just the US, and you would be hard pressed to find a politician or government official who'd dare say having a sense of humor makes you unprofessional, unintelligent, etc.
For example, ELIA - in the military, we'd call that "break it down Barney style", meaning describe something complex in terms simple enough for Barney to explain to a child. If you don't know who the fuck Barney is, well, I guess I'm old. Kids show, TV purple dinosaur, super annoying. Anyway.
This same concept is used to great success by XKCD, by all measures a highly intelligent and successful webcomic artist who delves into some pretty decently thorough mathematical hypotheticals for fun. He also wrote a book called The Thing Exlainer : Complicated Stuff in Simple Words, where among other things he breaks down the complete functions of a nuclear reactor using only the 1,000 or so most common words in the English language.
My point : SELF DEPRECATING HUMOR AND MEMES SHOULD BY NO MEANS BE AUTOMATICALLY ASSOCIATED WITH LOW INTELLIGENCE, UNPROFESSIONALISM, OR A LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY.
If we can trust our nation's military to think fart jokes are still funny on a nuclear submarine, we can trust retail investors to do whatever the fuck they want with their money when it comes to a stock that's been on the publicly traded exchange for over 2 decades.
While I haven't actually read it, I trust the author - both on the science and on the entertaining.
https://www.amazon.com/Thing-Explainer-Complicated-Stuff-Simple/dp/0544668251/
XDCD's Randall Monroe's "Thing Explainer." In it he explains interesting things using only his line drawings and the 1,000 most commonly used English words.
Should be reasonably accessible to a 5 year old niece, especially with their parents help. The concepts may be complicated but the language, at least, won't be. Though this, itself, is something of a downside because some words like "salt" aren't as commonly used as you might hope, so things like describing salt flats without using the word salt might fly over her head.
I'd say look in to pulling off something based on Thing Explainer. It's a book that explains complicated things using only the 1,000 most common words in english. You could probably turn it up a little to maybe 2,000 words so they don't sound as weird.
Yeah, he ate a lot of the front cover and destroyed the first 20-30 pages of my hardback HP and the Deathly Hallows. But he removed the dust jacket first without damaging it, so at least I can put that on and cover the damage.
He also destroyed the Thing Explainer by Randall Munroe, which I highly recommend as a gift for anyone, including kids, who likes cool drawings and nerdy things. Or maybe for dogs who eat hardback books. My dog found it extra tasty and super chewy.
Would be really cool to include who made this: it’s from “Thing Explainer”, a book by xkcd-author Randall Munroe.
https://www.amazon.com/Thing-Explainer-Complicated-Stuff-Simple/dp/0544668251
A Galileoscope and books. I currently like Thing Explainer, which seems really good for that age. Any space book will do though.
Update with Amazon link to book
Reminds me of this book from the xkcd guy. He uses only the top ten hundred most common words.
Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words Maybe he was one of the source materials for Randall Munroe's book (the guy who makes the XKCD comic)
And speaking of large books, Munroe's Thing Explainer is absolutely huge.
If the DM insists on only being able to repeat sounds that have been heard before, then you could take the time to expose the raven to a limited vocabularly.
For an example of what can be accomplished with a limited vocabularly, see https://www.amazon.com/Thing-Explainer-Complicated-Stuff-Simple/dp/0544668251 which explains complicated subjects using the common 10 hundred words in the english langauge. Here is an example: https://xkcd.com/1133/
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Someone get this dude a copy of the Thing Explainer book.
This is why I bought Thing Explainer Cannot wait until the toddler is old enough to have them.
If you want to just know buzzwords to throw around, spend a bunch of time clicking around on Wikipedia, and watch stuff like Crash Course on YouTube. It's easy to absorb, and you'll learn stuff, even if it's biased, but at least you'll be learning.
If you want to become SMARTER, one of my biggest pieces of advice is to either carry a notebook with you, or find a good note taking app you like on your phone. When someone makes a statement you don't understand, write it down and parse it up.
So for instance, write down "Social Democracy", and write down "The New Deal", and go look them up on simple.wikipedia.com (Put's all of it in simplest language possible), it's a great starting point for learning about any topic, and provides you a jumping board to look more deeply into it.
If you are really curious about starting an education, and you absolutely aren't a reader, some good books to start on are probably:
"Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words" by Randall Munroe
"A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
"Philosophy 101" by Paul Kleinman, in fact the ____ 101 books are all pretty good "starter" books for people that want an overview of a topic they are unfamiliar with.
"The World's Religions" by Huston Smith
"An Incomplete Education" by Judy Jones and Will Wilson
Those are all good jumping off points, but great books that I think everyone should read... "A History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell, "Western Canon" by Harold Bloom, "Education For Freedom" by Robert Hutchins, The Norton Anthology of English Literature; The Major Authors, The Bible.
Read anything you find critically, don't just swallow what someone else says, read into it and find out what their sources were, otherwise you'll find yourself quoting from Howard Zinn verbatim and thinking you're clever and original when you're just an asshole.
The thing explainer because he loves knowing about muggle stuff
Pure genius. Here's a book by the same: http://www.amazon.com/Thing-Explainer-Complicated-Stuff-Simple/dp/0544668251
He sounds like a younger version of myself! Technical and adventurous in equal measure. My girlfriend and I tend to organise surprise activities or adventures we can do together as gifts which I love - it doesn't have to be in any way extravegant but having someone put time and thought into something like that it amazing.
You could get something to do with nature and organise a trip or local walk that would suit his natural photography hobby. I love to learn about new things and how stuff works so if he's anything like me, something informative that fits his photography style like a guide to local wildflowers or bug guide. I don't know much about parkour but I do rock climb and a beginners bouldering or climbing session might also be fun and something you can do together.
For a more traditional gift Randall Munroe from the web comic XKCD has a couple of cool books that might be of interest - Thing Explainer and What If. Also the book CODE is a pretty good book for an inquisitive programmer and it isn't tied to any particular language, skillset or programming level.
Take out "slab" and "withstand" and I think you'll be giving Randall Munroe a run for his money. Great job!
This is a good example what you get in the most 1000 common words in English:
https://xkcd.com/1133/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0544668251/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0544668251&linkCode=as2&tag=thekcs-20&linkId=S4XRZJJKSMHOWEQU
It's probably something similar in Japanese.
That being said, by knowing 1000 words you'll understand a lot more than by knowing 0. Keep trying to learn 500 words and if you succeed try to learn 500 more. If you can keep it up over many years you'll learn a lot.
I like books - this year I've asked for Thing Explainer and Welcome to Night Vale, along with some linguistics books, but I'm a language nerd.
My boyfriend's family asks each other what they want for gift-giving holidays. It does kind of spoil the surprise, but I'll take knowing what I'm getting over getting a bunch of ugly-ass clothes or shitty soap gift sets. Again.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0544668251
The author's provided link was banned by AutoModerator bot. Please visit XKCD and use his amazon link so he gets an extra few cents.
See the page on "Tiny bags of water you're made of" in this book's preview