@bbbhltz@beehaw.org
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

bbbhltz

@bbbhltz@beehaw.org

Music lover and English teacher with an interest in slightly geeky things

mastodon / blog / listenbrainz

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Study and learning tips

I never really managed to get into the habit of studying for school, and even when i tried and sat down somehow always in like half an hour i caught myself thinking about or doing something completely different. Now that im about to enter university im afraid that i will not be able to continue like this without heavy...

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Hi. This is a very good question. I am a professor myself, and all of our students are now required to take a course with a name like "Learning to Learn". You are not the only one worrying or thinking about this. Most of your cohorts and peers will be in the same boat as you.

20 years ago when I was a student, my first year at uni was a waste of money and time. By second year I had it figured out:

  • Take notes, by hand. It will hurt at first, but that will pass. Some schools copy the Cornell method
  • Do homework as soon as possible so the theory from class is still fresh.
  • Read notes out loud when you can, as if you are practising a speech.
  • Don't cram or study until the last minute.
  • If you are very serious, be prepared to lose sleep (I had 38 hours of class and 4 jobs that added up to about 50 hours... I slept 3 hours a night) or get a new rhythm like going to bed very early and getting up before everyone else.
  • Use the library as a study place, or a café. Seeing others work helps you get in the mood.

My students have the same troubles I did, but with the added distraction of phones! Mute them, airplane mode, whatever. Study time and school come first if you actually care about grades. Weekends are the worst for distractions, but don't feel bad for having fun.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Rockbox is great. Used to have a Sansa Clip mp3 player with Rockbox and it was perfect. Replaced it with a Shanling Q1 (which can run Rockbox) and I don't leave home without it.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

The reason is quality. Many smartphones have poor audio output quality. It's all about the DAC (for digital to analogue conversion) and finding a phone you want (and can afford) that also has a good DAC leads people to invest in a stand-alone device. There are some LG devices, Sony obviously, but with phones dropping 3.5mm jacks they are becoming rarer.

If you look at the comparisons here you'll also notice that the prices get up there. Now, once you go hi-res DAP, you don't go back. I am a bit of an audiophile, but I'm also a cheapskate. When I finally decided to get an OK DAP I went for entry-level device and entry-level in-ear (hi-res) buds and now I realise that I was not, in fact, an audiophile because now I notice the difference between lossy and lossless audio.

Also, battery! I want to save my phone battery for phone stuff. My DAP lasts 7 or 8 days of going back and forth to work. Maybe more. It has a 20h battery. It also functions as a USB DAC, so I can plug it into a computer and it replaces the sound card so it is multifunction.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Welllllll...

This drama spreads out over 2 years or so so I will try to give you something interesting to read.

Our former superintendent in our apartment complex was a piece of work. Her and her husband were always going at it. They also liked to pry and peak and know what's happening in the building. They would root through the trash if someone put styrofoam in the wrong bin and then come yell at them. So, we complained to the people in charge via email.

You know what those cretins did?

They just forwarded the email to the superintendent so I don't need to tell you what kind of hate my partner and I were getting. Some peace was made but then Mrs. Superintendent was diagnosed with the big C and was basically on medical leave (it's France so she was covered and paid so no bankruptcy). Mr. Superintendent continued to do the duties and then, she passed away. That was over a year ago.

At that point we had nobody taking out the bins or keeping shit working or even calling when the lift was out of service. We called. We complained. Nothing was happening. They hired a service to take care of the garbage but stopped paying them in December 2022. They got a new service after about a month.

Still, we complained. Lights weren't working. Doors were broken. Cars were getting robbed in the underground parking. The people in charge didn't give a damn...until...

One day a homeless fellow decided to start sleeping in our garbage area. This was towards the end of winter. We decided not to say anything and let this guy have a few warmer nights before making any calls.

Finally, the day came. All I had to say was "someone is getting something for free".

Now comes the funny part of the drama. Legally speaking, this person can only be asked to leave. The police can ask them to leave, we can ask, but that guy can come back at no legal risk.

First, they installed cameras. That obviously is no deterrent. Now they need to change all the codes. Except they posted the codes on all the doors. So now he has the codes again. The guy keeps coming back.

The agency in charge has grown wise, so they don't answer when I call anymore. So we got the landlord hounding them. And we've lived in 3 apartments in this complex, so we called the old landlords too. Now those landlords got all the landlords together and did the math that they have been paying for a superintendent and an empty apartment for over a year and they are threatening to fire the agency. The landlords showed up the other day and guess who they met? The dude in the trash area Oscar the Grouch-ing it taking a shower using the water they pay for.

All this BS has caused the new cleaning agency to quit so the landlords are taking turns cleaning the hallways and making sure there are lights and stuff. And, the agency cannot find anyone to be the superintendent because word has spread that it is out of hand here.

And that's it. Not really a lot of drama, but enough to keep you busy for 5 minutes.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Bandcamp and very rarely SLSK.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Similarly, if you are looking for different front-ends for other services:

farside.link has a large selection and I’ve seen librereads (librereads.vercel.app) making the rounds today

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar
  • Inkscape as well for all of the Adobe stuff
  • Pandoc and Pympress for all my presentations
  • Claws Email
  • Khard + Khal + todoman + vdirsyncer for the rest of the PIM stuff
  • Zathura is my PDF reader
  • Syncthing replaced GDrive more or less
  • qutebrowser

I switched to Linux in 2006.

Calibre is excellent for ebook management. If you are just using it to sync with your ereader you might be able to do without. I have a Kobo and use Calibre but will likely stop doing that because there are now tools that are a lot lighter to convert epub to kepub and add covers, etc.

I keep a list of software I like to use, I need to update it.

What distro did you choose?

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Yep, I live in France (and this YouTuber is French, which is why he is talking about the case). This whole story passed under the radar here because it is the type of thing that French people would be up in arms about.

I think at some point they will likely pass a law related to encryption or ban some of the alternative app stores for phones.

Also: https://cybernews.com/news/france-senate-surveillance-cameras-microphones/

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

We haven't had any major protests over here for a few weeks. Things are calming down for vacation season.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I'm not French so I don't get a guillotine haha. I've just lived here for 16 years. They do like to have their strikes, but in their defence many of them are "declared" and "approved" by local authorities so we are warned about them weeks in advance. Like, my son's school will have a cafeteria strike soon and we were told about it in March.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

It is being resisted. But...

Telegram and WhatsApp groups over here, like in many countries, are echo chambers for certain ideologies. I am a professor, graduate school, and some of my students talk about "the great replacement". I ask them what it is and they tell me, straight-faced in front of their peers, what it is and how it is a real thing because they saw it shared on a group chat. With the very recent knife attack and the fact that this was not a French citizen, I would imagine the loonies are out full swing on their group chats.

The "nothing to hide" argument is used a lot here and (this is my personal opinion) I real feel like many French people are poorly informed about the tech world. I still hear people refer to Gates as the boss of MS. My MIL still thinks that Zuckerberg made Signal so she refuses to use it (but spends 14 hours a day on FB). Musk is viewed by many as a benevolent Tony Stark. And once I presented Mastodon to my students and when I explained the content warnings and some of the rules, they all burst out laughing and called it "stoopid".

Now, in reality we have some great stuff going on over here: La Quadrature du Net, Framasoft, Les Chatons, FDN, etc. and the tech community is loud and likes to resist, but getting GenZ and the Boomers and everyone in between to listen for a minute is hard work. I spend a lot of time looking in to this sort of stuff, and I am subscribed to the LQDN newsletters and donate to different similar organisations... This entire story was completely under the radar for me. I heard nothing about it until I looked at that video.

Anyway, it was fun to rant for a bit.

French people, this isn't French-bashing: I know there are lots of overly tech-savvy people here in this beautiful country.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Die and retry... I made it to 98% but it goes to 112% I believe.

Also, it is gorgeous and the music is awesome and those 6 beetle things still haunt my dreams.

bbbhltz, (edited )
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

John Oliver did a segment on this phenomenon awhile back

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=l5jtFqWq5iU

(skip to 00:05:05)

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Fixed the link I think

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I am on the main instance @ https://bookwyrm.social/user/bbbhltz

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I am but this past year I haven’t been reading much. My “to read” pile is huge.

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