Official "Hot-houri" thread

[kladner]

FBI and US marshals join Texas police in hunt for missing 'affluenza teen'

Federal authorities have joined the hunt for Texas teen Ethan Couch who has gone missing two years after getting probation for killing four people in a drunken driving crash.

A warrant for his arrest was issued on Wednesday after he failed to report to his probation officer. US marshals and the FBI are also searching for Couch’s mother, Tonya.

“I was not surprised. I predicted two years ago that something bad was going to happen of this. It didn’t shock me at all. I wasn’t surprised at all that he ran,” Dee Anderson, sheriff of Tarrant County in Texas, told CNN on Thursday.

Anderson said it is not out of realm of possibilities that Couch and his mother have made it out of the county, given that they have access to money and have the “ability to disappear”.

“I wouldn’t be surprised. They had a good start,” he said. “I don’t believe they are the kind of people that would have run a short distance. I believe they planned this.”

Anderson also had a message for Couch and his mother: “We’re going to find you, wherever you are.”

Interpol, anyone?

This story misstates his age at the time of the crimes. He was 16.

[only_human]

Originally Posted by kladner

FBI and US marshals join Texas police in hunt for missing 'affluenza teen'

Interpol, anyone?

This story misstates his age at the time of the crimes. He was 16.

But probation was taking over his whole day. It was ruining his life. It was hard. What about his needs?

[kladner]

Originally Posted by only_human

But probation was taking over his whole day. It was ruining his life. It was hard. What about his needs?

Can you hear me playing the world's tiniest violin in sympathy?

[kladner]

[Xyzzy]

http://www.bikebandit.com/blog/post/...le-commercials

[kladner]

Shades of Spaceballs! At least it isn't selling pangolin scales or rhinoceros horn.

This Company Is Bottling Air in Canada and Selling It to China

The second product Vitality Air sells is a bit less … conventional. Fresh Clean Air is air harvested, for lack of a better term, from the Canadian Rockies, and it comes in two flavors, Banff and Lake Louise. The product description for Banff bottled air reads: “In the setting of Banff National park in Alberta, Canada, we have painstakingly distilled and bottled the air in this pristine UNESCO World Heritage Site using our patented filtration technique. The air is collected over days, concentrating the essence of where it was captured.”

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by only_human

Duolingo...

Man, how do you make those weekly scores? Are you really investing so much time daily, or you know a trick to the big scores? Like working against the clock, for example, I found out that it gives two times more points per time unit (you get 20 instead of 10, if you do good, when the lesson ends). But I am only able to do that with English, and not with other languages I went through. So, are you really polyglot, able to race against the time in all those languages, or you really spend 25 hours per day there? (both will be worth my admiration!).

(Edit: yes, I am following you since Nov.23 when you posted here, and trying every day to beat you, in the limit of available time, and never succeed!)

[only_human]

Originally Posted by LaurV

But I am only able to do that with English, and not with other languages I went through. So, are you really polyglot, able to race against the time in all those languages, or you really spend 25 hours per day there? (both will be worth my admiration!).

(Edit: yes, I am following you since Nov.23 when you posted here, and trying every day to beat you, in the limit of available time, and never succeed!)

I never used the timed quizes because I'm doing everything on a tablet and I'm just not that quick. The truth is that while I was grieving over my sweetheart's passing, I discovered, quite accidentally, that language studies compel so much of my attention that I get relief from negative thoughts.

So during holidays or other times that I particularly want distraction I spend a bit of time there. Most other times I'm not there that much. I also visit when they add a new language to check it out - as I did recently with Esperanto and then Russian.

I found with Russian I am having difficulty hearing consonants embedded in clusters. So another reason I've spent more time there recently is I decided to advance my levels on a few languages to improve my listening comprehension. I'm hoping for synergistic improvements. And thus I spent time on French and Spanish and now German too; all quite recently. I'm slowing down a bit on the German at the moment. I intend to push that a few more levels before jumping to another language.

edit:
A good way to advance points is translation in the immersion section, but I just stick with the language lessons.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by only_human

and now German too.

The German course is extraordinary well written. Congrats to the people who did it, they invested a lot of time and talent there! I already went through most of it, in fact about 70-80 percent from the time I invested in duolingo was dedicated to learning German. Or well... trying to.... Doulingo German course is very good, and very easy to understand, the best I ever used.

But I have a big problem with German, it never sticks to me. I was working in German-owned companies for the last 18 years of my life, having German colleagues (most of them great guys), traveled to Germany many times for business, went through many books, CDs, online courses, etc. but I still can't say a sentence in that language. Or well, not enough long one, beside of "danke", "bitte", "auf wiedersehen", etc. When it is spoken around me, I can extract technical terms, numbers, very usual words, etc, and "make out" what the story is about. But ask me something and I am completely lost.

My mother was language teacher, in spite of the fact that she was totally outside of all that could mean physical phenomenon or real sciences, and she had no aptitude for numbers, she could speak fluently (beside of Romanian) French, Russian and Italian. She was teaching the first one for about 20 years and the second one for about 40, at all levels, in the communist Romania. Meantime, I studied English ("first foreign language") in school for 11 years (grade 2 to grade 12), and then Russian in the middle school for 4 years ("second foreign language", grade 5 to 8). When I went to high school, there was no Russian offered and we had to chose between French and German as a "second foreign" language (first was English, mandatory for a Computer Science high school - we learned Fortran and operating card-punchers, but that is another story which I repeatedly told here around). So, another 4 years of French.

Now guess what, the level of those "studies" were very low, and we only had two to four hours per week, the rest were filled with math, physics, politics, and other not so funny stuff. I mean, who wanted to learn, could learn a lot. But they were not pushing you for languages, like for math, or sciences, or literature/grammar. Teachers didn't really care, and they were not pushed either, by the "authorities", as the country was "needing workers not scientists". All language teachers up to and including middle school knew my mother, she had some "high" position in the "languages" circles there, she really liked her job, and she was coordinating some educational whatever. Some were good friends of her, some were afraid of her. I guess...

So I always got my "highest" marks at languages because the teachers knew my mother, and because I was very good with numbers and sciences. Not because I was good with languages. I was a total anti-talent, in fact. Totally opposite of my mother. But the "fashion" was so, when the language, music, geography, etc., teacher was not decided what mark to give you, he would look at the scores sheet of math, or grammar, or chemistry, and say "well, you are totally stupid at my object, but you are good at math"...

That is why when I finished the high school I could not speak any word in any foreign language. My English level was zero, and about Russian or French, c'mon, I was below zero. It took me another two-three-ten-twenty years to learn English up to an average level (during the university, most of it) and that was only because everything related to computers was/is in English.

But I am still a non-talent when it comes to it. I learned Mandarin and later Thai, enough for bargaining in the market, because the life is a bitch and dragged me to places I never dreamed I would be, and paths I never wished to walk, but that's it. I can understand a conversation in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, or even French, if it is not very complicate, due to their (big) similarities with Romanian language. I went (partially) through duolingo courses, but I am not very interested in those languages, not so much to go deeper. I can "read" Russian "fluently", because I learned the alphabet when I was very young, from my mother's books, like you learn Morse code, or any mathematical stuff, for which I have aptitudes, but I can't really understand what I am reading, because I have no vocabulary.

Yeah, BTW, I taught myself to read Romanian when I was 4, and I always was very good at it, and loved to study its grammar - but I was also lucky having a very good literature/grammar teacher in middle school, she was a wonderful lady which I still remember, and I wanted to visit her in July when I was home, to give her a bouquet of flowers, but I freaking couldn't find the time! I found out she was still alive, she was very old, and living in a nearby town. And she wasn't a friend of my mother, neither enemy, she was new in town at the time, coming from south with her family.

Well, same for Thai, I can read, knowing the alphabet, but I don't understand anything. Waiting for Duo to introduce a Thai course,

Esperanto seems interesting, but I don't see an application to it in the near future.

But I would freaking like to learn German. I would give my soul to the devil for it. Well.. the part which is not already sold to other different dark entities... Maybe the feeling is accentuated by the fact that I can't do it, you know, the temptation of the forbidden fruit, hehe...

Now, the conflict between generations reversed, the little miss LaurV is like my mother was: she already speaks 4 languages fluently, in order being English, Romanian, Thai and Chinese, and her affinity for numbers and sciences is much lower that her father would like it to be (SWMBO says I am absurd, but I know what I know!).

But well...sorry for my boring story, today is Xmas isn't it?

Merry merry of it, to you all!

[Dubslow]

English is her first language, Romanian second? What's SWMBO's first language? Where did the little one learn Mandarin (which is what I presume you mean by Chinese)?

In at least this respect, growing up in America really sucks lol. My Opa called some of my Dutch relatives today, first time I've spoken to them in 15 years, but I don't know an ounce of Dutch sadly...

[only_human]

I can't converse very much in anything other than American English. I had a few years of Spanish in high school, about four semesters of Japanese in college, a bit more than two semesters of sign language and one semester of Mandarin. Mandarin was the only language class that gave me an 'A' grade.