User Comments - pretzellogic

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

I meant to say, "it doesn't look like the company or its portfolio companies...."

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

interesting turn. After a casual view of the Bigfoot website, it doesn't like the company or its portfolio companies have any capability to do animation. Bummer. But they do have "six stages, an underwater shooting tank, fully equipped editing suites and the latest film cameras". But the bad news is that they are a mere Payton Manning long pass away from Shanghai, in sunny Cebu, Philippines. Not sure what this does for costs.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

"Probably the less acting required the better, for the time being anyway."

Interesting point. I hope that Cpod isn't thinking that they need to do everything through acting/actors. They can use animation as well. It wasn't clear to me within Bigfoot Ventures' portfolio of companies exactly what kind of video capability they had.

Posted on: 林书豪是如何炼成的

So I guess there's no way to say "Linsanity" in Chinese!

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

You know, I forgot to include the dimension of music. In the scene describing the deathly hallows, the music and Hermoine's voice played key parts in conveying emotion. Yet they were audio dimensions. Maybe an interesting thing to learn would be that music is an incredible tool, but it's hard to use it in language learning. Or maybe video will help identify the language learning areas where music is appropriate.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

agree with you there; you can say that most things are taught ok elsewhere. Then partly my statement/concern/issue would be that cpod just really needs to be clear about setting expectations around lessons in the introduction. I know they're trying to be funny and easy going, and that's good. But if you're not going to teach grammar, then say so in the intro. If you're not going to teach all the rules in the game, say so in the introduction.

To me, this thread points to the value of John Pasden. Maybe cpod should focus on the traps that John says American, British, Australian/New Zelanders fall into when learning a key phrase, sentence pattern or something. Our knowledge of English leads us to intuit that we can say something in Chinese that is flat out wrong. This should be done for video as well as audio.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

hey chris, yeah, maybe I was presumptuous in my statements around "everyone else here". I look forward to the next video as well.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

baba, kinda odd, but regarding your last two comments around learning the game...

Yeah, i'm sure that I could buy the game (if I was interested in playing it), and there would be instructions in the box along with the tiles. I could read that and learn to play the game. But then why is cpod even pretending to have a lesson about playing mahjong when I can just read the instructions? Why did they presume to teach something about it? the tiles that Jenny showed, are they the most important tiles in the game? And is that something I wouldn't have learned in the rules in the box with the tiles?

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

Cpod, assuming you saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. Do you remember the scene where Hermoine was explaning the legend of the deathly hallows to Ron and Harry? Did that scene move you guys? I thought it was one of the most memorable scenes in the entire file, especially when Ignotus Peverell comes out from the Invisibility Cloak to willingly go with Death to the afterlife. Remember how the movie moved from live action and actors, to 2 dimensional figures in sepia and black? Remember the simple graphics that were elegantly drawn to create the entire legend? Remember how visually simple the pictures were, but how beautifully they told the legend of the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone and the Cloak of Invisibility? Didn't you think that entire scene was great?If you did, That's what video can be in your hands. Please do not think in just audio terms. This is what I mean by do video right. Video can move people in ways audio cannot. Please find those ways. Think in pictures. Do not think in words, in sounds.

Cpod has spend more than 6 years creating audio. I'm sure cpod has great internal business processes around creating great audio, and getting that into a pdf, and and entire lesson set. What business processes would you have to change to create pictures of lessons?

Try this for an exercise: have everyone create a picture (powerpoint, hand drawn, whatever) for the next video lesson. Have everyone who participates in the next lesson staff meeting go through their pictures to explain visually what lesson they were trying to teach.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

interesting. when you watch video of radio programs created in the US (featuring Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Edwards, Mike Golic, Michelle Norris/other NPR personalities, etc), everyone is sitting down in front of giant microphones at a large table. They usually have water (or some kind of liquid) in a bottle, cup or mug next to them. Usually the bottle, cup or mug has someone's logo on it.