I have difficulty in imagining the ideal audience for this discussion. An absolute beginner might not know how to use OpAmps yet, while a more advanced electronic engineer will probably find this post too elementary for them.

Nonetheless, I set off with the goal of adding 0.01V to a part of my circuit, and have decided that this particular configuration is ideal. So I'll discuss my reasoning and hopefully other engineers here can comment.

Motivation

I'm configuring a constant current sink (0mA through 500mA) when I started to calculate some "worst case errors". Lets assume the input is varying somewhere between 1V to 5V, and I'd like to program a DAC + Constant Current to subtract a (configurable) voltage off of the input.

For the beginners: the OpAmp sets the voltage at R1 very accurately to the DAC_Output voltage. Because R1 is connected to Ground, this means we very accurately control the current flowing down through R1 (with the NMOS in voltage-follower configuration, the voltage at the source follows the voltage at the gate).

Because R2 is connected on this circuit, the current configured at R1 is innately the same as the current flowing through R2. And now we have an accurate subtraction operation configured with the DAC

Looks straightforward, except for one thing. OpAmps like the MCP6006 have an unpredictable Voffset of 0.003V. Across my circuit, there's three OpAmps this calculation goes through, so I'd like to add 0.009V (aka: three times the Voffset) so that I have enough "wiggleroom" for the DAC to trim-away all possible errors.

Adjustment Circuit

I did switch to MINDI as Microchip's MCP6006 OpAmp is only accurately simulated in MINDI.

As the title implies, its just a combination Wildar+Peaking current mirror to generate a constant current, and then an OpAmp to subtract 0.01V from the feedback (which causes the output to "negate" and become +0.01V).

Basic Current Mirrors

https://wiki.analog.com/university/courses/electronics/text/chapter-11

Analog.com has a great wiki which goes over the Wildar + Peaking current mirror. Although they call it the "Stabilized Current Source".

The original current mirror is as follows:

A matched-pair BJT serves as the basis. (such as the BCM847B by diotec, diodes or many other manufacturers. The "M" is important with guaranteed matching specs). The left transistor converts a current into a voltage... specifically the exact voltage that is associated to the current.

Ex: 500uA current probably turns into 0.53V or so, it all depends on temperature and manufacturing, and Beta... but guess what? The two transistors are guaranteed to match (within 0.002V base offset, and within 10% Beta).

So when you take this voltage from the left transistor, and apply it to the right transistor, the right transistor now "copies" or "mirrors" the current. IE: the right transistor converts 0.53V (or whatever it was) back into 500uA or so.

This switching from Current input -> Voltage in the middle -> Current output is possible only because BCM847B has guaranteed matching specs. Alternatively, you can manually search through a pile of transistors for matching Vbe and/or Hfe/Beta (and in the 80s, people would manually measure and search for matching specs out of a box).

Peaking Current

Ah, but I don't have a basic current mirror in my circuit, do I?

This here is the "Peaking Current Mirror". Analog.com's wiki has a reasonable explanation, but this other article has a better explanation that worked for me: https://www.edn.com/peaking-current-source-has-high-rejection/

The conversion from Current -> Voltage is far more complex with the "peaking" circuit. The gist is that the additional resistor (R2 in this case) serves as negative feedback against VCC. As VCC increases, Q1 will pull pull Vce down, towards 0V (ground). And as VCC decreases, that also pulls Vce down towards 0V (because VCC going down is uhhh... just voltage dropping).

These two dropping effects create a "peak" at exactly Vcb == 0.026 Volts (assuming room temperature of 25C). I've configured the 10k resistor and 59 ohm resistor such that this peak occurs around 5V-input, the operating point of my circuit.

Now why do this? Well, this makes Q1's output voltage more independent of VCC. Or in other words, this "creates" Power-supply rejection. If VCC has noise or other regulation issues, this creates a "Zero-gain amplifier" effect where changes to VCC "refuse" to propagate down to the rest of my circuit... or at least are mitigated slightly at this juncture.

For example: a classic current mirror would output 50% more current as VCC moves from 4V to 6V. However, in this improved "peaking" circuit, the circuit barely changes between 4V and 6V.

Green is a traditional current mirror between 4V and 6V. Notice how its exactly proportional to the input voltage!!

Red is the "peaking" current mirror between 4V and 6V. By using negative-feedback to force the Vcb voltage down (as VCC goes up), the red line is far more stable against changes to VCC. In the EDN article, they run the current through TWO of these "peaking" circuits to double up on the stability. But one-layer of stability is likely sufficient for my purposes.

Wildar Current Source

Wildar is the legendary electrical engineer who designed the 741 OpAmp. As it turns out, Wildar's primary "move", the addition of one more resistor on the emitter, is compatible with the "Peaking" current source from before.

So why not combine the two techniques?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widlar_current_source

The Wildar Current Source has numerous advantages. The main tidbit is that it helps negate the Early Voltage in BJTs (making our current-output more resilient against changes in output voltage).

Note the scale. All of this graph is zoomed in between 9uA and 10.5uA. So the "original" current mirror is still quite good at current regulation (only a 10% difference of current despite the voltage swinging from 0 through 10 volts).

However, we can improve upon this current regulation dramatically by adding the resistor turning us into a Wildar Current Source. The regulation tightens much more, with a minimum 9.78uA current to 10.03uA (only a 2.5% swing). This is because the emitter-resistor is hampering the "Early Effect" (discovered by Dr. Early), which kinda-sorta makes the BJT look like a non-ideal current source.

Note: a Wilson current mirror would work even better, but that requires 1.2V minimum. My circuit actually goes down to 0.9V, which is much too low for the Wilson current mirror.

Wildar Current sources also have additional benefits that aren't too relevant. First they require much smaller resistors, which is a benefit in ICs like the 741 OpAmp (even today large resistors are difficult to build on modern IC processes. Small resistors are just easier to make more consistent). Wildar Current Mirrors also don't need as tight matching between Beta/Hfe or Vbe between the two transistors. The resistors help stabilize the circuit vs changing manufacturing tolerances of the transistors. Finally, the Wildar Current Source actually makes the "peaking" circuit better at rejecting input voltage swings... a bit of unexpected synergy between these two designs!

Questions? Comments?

Its a bit of a stream of consciousness but I hope you all enjoyed this breakdown. Please let me know if I forgot something or if something is unclear.

All in all, a relatively high quality constant current sink can be implemented with just three resistors and one matched-pair BJT, for a total of 5 components on your PCB. Or alternatively, you flip it all around and use PNP Transistors to create a constant current source. Hopefully you analog engineers out there can use this technique to build something cool.

Voltage regulators are commonly solved with dedicated ICs today. But current sources are actually quite easy to make yourself out of just a few resistors and a matched-pair transistor.

The standard current mirror is much easier to think about (configured with basically a singular resistor, or even with "nothing" if you have a signal already in the form of some kind of current-output). However, the "peaking" circuit improves input voltage rejection with only one additional resistor, while the "Wildar" circuit improves output impedance with another additional resistor.

The downside is ... you need to do far more math and simulations to "set" the output current correctly. A lot more math (the emitter resistor on the output transistor has a logarithm relationship to the input... and the two input resistors to the peaking circuit have non-intuitive calculations). But anyone going into this hobby is probably not afraid of a few logarithms or math subjects, right?

AVR is one of my favorite chips as a hobbyist. 8-bits, manuals in the less than 500 pages region (very small compared to Cortex-M0+ which are closer to the 1000 or 2000 page long regions if we include instruction sets and other details), etc. etc. So I'm happy to see Microchip continue to support simpler 8-bit chips for those who need them.

For those looking to use this chip exactly: it seems like AVR LA specializes in low-cost, low-power, and capacitive touch. Most components have been stripped out, the ADC is only 10-bits, there's no more dual power supply (like AVR DD, DB, or DA), there's no special features like op-amps (AVR DB), or programmable gain differential ADCs (like AVR EA or EB).

You do get event system, CCLs (AVR's feature of LUTs, functioning as useful "glue logic" that can implement a few simple XOR, AND, OR, NOT gates for those who need simple glue), RTC, and PTC (aka: Peripheral Touch Controller, Microchip's system of building capacitive touch).

At 1.62V minimum (and up to 5.5V maximum), this is seemingly the lowest voltage I've seen from AVR lines. For anyone with a buck or boost converter in their designs, this should lower power usage a fair bit over the 1.8V previous minimums.

Finally, the 5k unit pricing is around 50-cents or so. This is the cheapest AVR 8-bit you can buy, if anyone were doing a large scale mass manufacturing line. But for most hobbyistss, I don't believe we can sufficiently tell the difference between 50c chips and $2.00 chips.

So its very barebones outside of capacitive touch. Still, this shows a commitment from Microchip to continue to support AVR chips and their ecosystem. I would recommend beginners use the AVR DB instead (which come with 3x OpAmps and far more features), unless you really want a barebones capacitive touch controller.

There's so much beginner advice out there, and I'm hesitant to add yet one more beginner-based rant to the mix. But hopefully this content is useful to someone out there.

Despite 6 months of daily effort, it is clear that my overall language journey has only begun. I'm comfortable to call myself around an A2 these days ("advanced beginner"), but its extremely clear how limited my German is. Nonetheless, I'm surprised at how "useful" A2 seems to be in browsing the internet and consuming German media.

I can truly watch news reports in native German and get the gist of what is going on. I can watch comedians tell jokes, that I don't fully understand but can feel the puns and rhyming schemes. I can enjoy music and understand the majority of pop-song chorus (at least, with a few minutes of study and maybe a 2nd or 3rd listen). Its not much, but its a solid foundation for continuing my language learning.

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How did I get here? My month-by-month breakdown is as follows:

October 2025: I learn of a trade show in Germany scheduled in May that's relevant to my professional career. This is my inspiration moment. I want to learn German so that I can comfortably visit Germany. But ... am I even truly interested? I immediately download "Learn German in your Car", and "test" myself. If I'm able to continue studying German for a full month, I'll know for certain that I'm doing this seriously.

In hindsight, the "Learn German in your Car" lessons weren't very useful, but they proved that I had long term interest in this subject. It was quick and easy to try, and because of my daily drive to-and-from work, it wasn't hard for me to stick with the schedule of daily practice.

November 2025: I've researched extensively on the Internet different learning schemes. I begin Nicos Weg. I purchase grammar textbooks. I begin 20-cards/day on Anki. I realize that the A1 German deck on Ankiweb is full of mistakes and am forced to start over. I buy flashcards on Amazon.com. I try everything to learn German.

December 2025: I start posting on Learning German Discord. My sentence structure sucks, I'm told to study the basics and review the beginner grammar. People don't understand me at all in voice chat. In response... I read through all of my Basic German grammar book (Its only 200 pages and I skipped the exercises. I just wanted an overview). I'm over 500 words into Anki. Anki begins to feel oppressive, I drop down to 10 words/day.

I purchase "Cafe in Berlin", and read it through entirely. (A1/A2 graded reader). After completing it, I purchase "Short Stories in German" by Olly Richards. (A2/B1 graded reader) Despite my failures in speaking on Discord, its clear my reading skills are pushing into the A2 level. Its clear that my reading skills are pushing into A2, but how do I improve my speech??

January 2026: I enroll into a local private tutor program that's close to work and home. I sign up for 10 weeks, 1.5 hours twice a week (30 hours scheduled, 40 total lessons each 45 minutes long). It turns out that I tested into A2.2 (!!!!), despite my somewhat depressive first jump into the Learning German Discord, its clear I was making progress. However, I know that as a self-learner my study habits are full of holes. I instead choose to drop down to A2.1 instead and meet with my teacher.

My speech is awful. Despite working hard on learning "German R" as self-learning, I'm messing up ei, ie, z, ö, d, sp, st, and many combinations of letters. My tutor says I should read every section of the work to him throughout the tutoring session. I'm unable to do any of the roleplay sections, despite dropping down a level.

At this point, I post my 3-months of German through song topic (https://lemmy.world/post/41037513). I know I have a long way to go, but testing into A2.2 gives me a major confidence boost, I'm actually further along than I thought, even if I feel the need to drop down a level. I'm able to browse a large chunk of German-Wikipedia introduction paragraphs.

February / March 2026: I trust the language course and my teacher, and mostly just do the assigned work / homework. I memorize 600+ new words from the class. I manually input these into my custom Anki deck for daily practice. We practice those words every class, I have homework involving listening exercises and speech practice. My speech improves, I'm slowly building up the ability to roleplay effectively. I end the course with an 85% on the final and a certificate for A2.1 (remember, I dropped down a level on purpose). I wouldn't say it was "hard", but its clear I learned a lot from the class.

Anki continues to feel oppressive, I drop down to 80% FSRS retention.

I start Pokemon. Somewhat a bad idea, its more like a B2 level read rather than A2. Still, I enjoy the exercise and look forward to returning to Pokemon later.

Around this time, I'm noticing that its no longer necessary for me to listen to children songs. Regular German pop-songs (and even German rap) have the same level of understanding as the Kinderlieder. (Notice: I still don't understand Kinderlieder or Pop songs in their entirety. I just notice they're the "same difficulty" now). Seriously, some of those children-songs are very difficult, while the easiest of pop-songs use such common language that its surprisingly easy to pickup the main chorus (albeit I'm missing most of the verses).

April 2026: With my class over, I return to self-study. Now with a solid foundation of pronunciation, and an idea of what it takes to learn vocabulary (in context, speaking in different circumstances, etc. etc.).

Despite my speech improvements, my grammar became the weakpoint in the class. I can speak clearly, but with improper conjugation, using "das" far too often and am unable to use "ein" or other articles.

I purchase "Grammatik aktiv", and complete 1 lesson daily. I purchase additional A2 readers: "Carsten Tsara blickt nicht durch", with printout + .mp3 file. I review my tutor material weekly in the car (~40 minutes of recordings covering my coursework), I still got it, I'm still able to listen and understand.

I know I have so much self-study to do (more reading, more grammar exercises, more listening, and now I need to find a new source of speaking practice somewhere). But its a start.

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As a self-study student, my "knowledge" is eclectic. I'm able to understand B1 concepts like relative clauses, passive voice, da-words, wo-words and more. But this is because "Pokemon" forced me to study so much B1 level grammar to understand it.

On the other hand, eclectic knowledge means that I'm missing basic A1 stuff like "eine" vs "keine". Even after taking my A2.1 level course, I never got to practice that. Only after purchasing Grammatik aktiv and systematically reviewing all grammar from A1 through B1 am I realizing how much A1-level stuff I missed.

Its the nature of learning. All these concepts are theoretically organized int courses... but that's not how people learn. You'll pick things up here and there. Your brain has a biorhythm, on "good days" you'll learn material but on "bad days" all your efforts will be wasted. This always leads to holes even if you end up systematically tackling each subject.

Today, my account only shows the following for this community: https://lemmy.world/c/leopardsatemyface

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If I enter "Private Mode", or if I log out, I can actually see far more stuff.

Is there any account setting that might have caused this problem?

I'm at the level where I must start forming sentences. The best exercise I've found for this is roleplay. So let's make a forum game out of this!!

In character roleplay will be done in German only. Meta-discussion (rules questions, edits, takebacks...) will be done in English only.

Rules:

1. No AI, make sentences of your own accord. Correct other people's mistakes with your own effort.

2. Set the topic to sort-by-new. Try to work off the most recent post.

3. Reply in a thread if you think someone else made a grammar mistake, explain the mistake in English so that we know it is 'out of character's. If making a correction post, please include your rough level (A0, A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, or native).

4. Wait for either 24 hours before replying to yourself (as the other character), or wait for some human to respond. IE: if two people are logged in at the same time, feel free to keep roleplaying with each other in German.

5. You may play both roles, as long as you aren't repeatably responding to yourself. (24 hour delay before responding to yourself as per rule #4).

6. Try to keep the roleplay words to the level of the topic. If A1 is too easy, make a new topic aiming for a higher level.

7. Start every roleplay with a character name, making it clear 'who is talking'.

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Roleplay situation: Alice has just called Hanz, and Hanz has picked up the phone. Alice wants to invite Hanz and hang out over the weekend. Try to figure out the time and schedule of each other in German.

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I'll start with

Hanz:Hallo. Ich bin Hanz.

A1+ German learner here. A huge part of my studies over the last 3 months have been songs, specifically Kinderlieder (aka: Children Songs). I'll list off my recommended songs for beginners and my overall opinions of them here.

I'll order songs roughly by difficulty. Beginners should start at the top of the list and work their way down. From zero, it took me months of listening to these songs before I could track them and eventually understand them. And only after going through their lyrics and translating word-by-word.

There's so many german songs out there, just keep translating them as daily exercise. Get the words and put them in your Anki deck.

Overall plan:

1. Listen to the song a few times -- If you like the song, keep working at it! If you don't like it, move on to the next song.

2. Try singing along!! Don't try to get all the words right. Just get the words you can get.

3. Download the lyrics, and perform a word-by-word translation. As we are trying to learn German, it becomes important to know every single word and its meaning. Do NOT use ChatGPT, Google Translate or DeepL. This is "too much", because you MUST learn how to "think in German grammar" yourself. (These translation programs translates the grammar for you, and that's counter-productive to learning).

4. Reword the words/lines into your own English understanding. This is a crutch, but at the A1 / A2 levels its a useful crutch. This is your "check". In the long-term, you want to be able to "think in German", but by rewording it in English you are now figuring out and memorizing these lines on your own terms. If you are unable to reword it into English, perhaps your understanding of German grammar is off. Go seek some help (maybe post here for some help!)

Absolute Beginner Songs (A1-)

This is as easy as I can find, so this is where we begin. Don't be intimidated!! Pre-schoolers do NOT understand these songs on their first listen. Just try to get used to the rhythm and slowly your brain will pick it up as you practice.

• Bruder Jakob https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frb-w7qyb88 / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzF0C6Wc1bw

• • Nominally, this song is harder than everything else in this category... But its a "Rosetta Stone" for us Americans. Frere Jacques is a very well known song in USA, and hearing it in German is a great way to begin your German studies! If you aren't familiar with this song though, skip to the next song as it'd be easier. Its not quite the same lyrics in all three languages. But its close enough.

• Große Uhren machen tick tack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQdtm-ymjPE

• • The first song I mastered. A simple "round" song covering a few different types of clocks, with barely any grammar.

• Tschu Tschu wa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6CkQkcY1cs

• • Mostly nonsense words for the rhythm. A basic dance for children that helps you learn anatomy. (Hände, Faust, Daumen, Kopf...). Its obvious if you watch the video / dance. Excellent preposition practice!!

• A B C-Lied https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgx0RTx0aFg

• • The classic, but the German version. A great place to start.

• Old MacDonald hat ne Farm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwMxNqIAqd4

• • Popular song in USA, it should be easy for Americans to pick up the German version

• Meine Hände sind verschwunden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtJGAJrvFu8

• • We now have the first song with proper grammar. "sind" is among the first verbs you learn ("are" in English). "My hands are gone (as the singer hides their hands behind their body). Oh, my hands are back again!". A simple song, especially with the cartoon, to help learn various body parts, while also teaching complete (though simple) sentences). Keep an eye on "sind" ("are") vs "es" (is), as some body parts are plural (ex: Hände, plural for "hands") or singular (ex: Nase, singular for "nose").

• Kopf und Schultern, Knie und Fuß https://youtu.be/vyTNuVCdUzw

• • Head Shoulder Knees and Toes (feet!!! in German) is very easy. You'll be surprised how many words German and English share with this one!

• Grün grün grün sind alle meine Kleider https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGrsasgsFuQ / https://www.singkinderlieder.de/video/gruen-gruen-gruen-sind-alle-meine-kleider

• • A repetitive/looping "colors" song. The "template" changes with color vs profession. The singer says her clothes and even everything she has are grün / rot / weiße / (etc. etc.). Then in the final line, she explains that's because her "Schatz" ("Treasure", or slang for sweetheart) is a Jäger (grün / Green for Hunter), Reiter (rot / Red for Rider), etc. etc.

• Backe backe Kuchen https://www.singkinderlieder.de/video/backe-backe-kuchen

• • 200ish year old German Kinderlieder. Bake a cake!

• Hände waschen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFLT4Q_i7Hg

• • Repetitive/Looping bath song about washing the hands, foot, or head. Harder than earlier songs.

Middle A1 Songs

As you get into your A1 studies, your vocabulary will grow into hundreds of words. You'll also be able to follow more complex grammar and subject matters.

• Imse Bimse Spinne https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3BFZEeC2jY

• • Itsy Bitsy Spider. Americans know this one (and THIS specific version is reasonably close to "our" version).

• Krokodillied / Ei, was kommt deen da? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfg-4ICLBfY

• • More complex grammar. A call-and-response between the Crocodile and the various Humans. (Crocodile tells the human to get into its mouth. Human says no). Focus on "Krokodil, lass das sein" in the Imperative (aka: Command) grammar. Also note how the song talks about how various characters interact and talk/command each other.

• Die Räder vom Bus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1hLy1zxHTY

• • A rather large amount of vocabulary words in a short song! We USA-ians are very familiar with "The Wheels on the Bus"

• Augen Ohren Nase https://youtu.be/m3YjA3ciRYk

• • Good song!! If you've mastered Augen Ohren Nase (Eyes, Ears and Nose), this song ties the body-parts to Der Sinne (the senses). A fun way to expand your vocabulary from all that body-part practice from earlier. You're reaching some B1-level grammar concepts here (dazu), so don't try to reach full understanding of everything. But you should be able to listen and hear how the "Sehen Sehen Sehen dazu sind die Augen da!!"

• Fünf Kleine Fische https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p51c5g1iNzw

• • A counting-backwards song. I find this grammatically complex for A1 and is probably an A2++ song for understanding. But with the Youtube video you probably can figure out what's going on!

• Alle meine Fingerlein wollen heute Tiere sein https://youtu.be/bYVxxVpNEVY

• • Fingers + Animal combo-song.

• Das ist gerade, das is schief https://youtu.be/rJWZhitXWzI

• • I'm calling bullshit on this "song". This is just vocabulary practice, isn't it? More seriously though: its a lot of adjectives/adverbs listed in terms of opposites. Gerade means straight, while schief is crooked. Its rather impressive how they made it all rhyme, and honestly keeping the opposites next to each other helps connect these words together.

A break for St. Martin's Day!!

Apparently Germans have this... St. Martins Day thing? And its big?? A huge number of children-songs are about the lantern walks, or St. Martin, or other such events of the German November Holiday.

I've been told that the young German children learn these songs and often sing them for school recitals. If the young Germans can learn them, so can you even at A1 level!

The general pattern is about Laterne (Lanterns), gehen / geh / gehe (going), scheinen (shining), die Sonne (sun), der Mond (moon), der Stern (stars), kalt (cold), schön (beautiful), "durch die Nacht" (through the night)... oben (over), unter (under), etc. etc.

Its kind of a nifty little "sub-vocabulary". Because these songs all share the same theme, you can learn lots of vocabulary by focusing on these songs in general just for this one holiday.

• Ich geh mit meiner Laterne https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_yBTKBxZiI

• Laterne, Laterne https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBV594t8Jpk / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cV1o_JlgWY

• Sankt Martin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrFwtGQyjfM

• Meine kleine Laterne leuchtet schön https://youtu.be/Oz-4cQXgXY0

• Sing mit mir Laternenlieden-Mix https://youtu.be/932K0Ng_bXU (10 minutes, multiple songs together).

• Kommt wir woll'n Laterne laufen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qevZkMfqXOg

Harder but more interesting Children songs

Children songs are catchy and all, but they do get boring if you only listen to them. The following songs are still children songs, but change the rhythm to something more complex (as well as increasing the vocabulary/grammar to A2+ or even B1- levels).

• In meiner Bi-Ba-Badewanne https://youtu.be/BErxt3YAZg0

• • More complex grammar / vocabulary to an otherwise bath-song about basic body parts (Kopf, Haals, Po, Gesicht...)

• Nudeltag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1QK9G5efyY

• • Nominally about the days of the week, but closer to A2+ or even B1- level to comprehend. Focus on only the days of the week and you should be good as a beginner, don't try to understand the whole song.

• Die Zahnfeuerwehr https://youtu.be/VPAQ17jGK9Y

• • The tooth-firetruck comes in to save your teeth!

• Der Banenbrot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yDrbEhp6Sg

• • A fun spoof of the USA-famous "Deyyyyo - Bananna Boat song".

A2ish or so?

I'm not... at A2 level. These songs feel like I'm just about ready to tackle them and are next on my todo list.

• Wer will fleißige Handwerker sehn https://youtu.be/-jSvfhXl0pQ

• • Basic professions and jobs.

• Im Walde von Toulouse https://youtu.be/ZaqBgQyTzug

• • Woah, an actual story! Robbers, horses, stuff? Something is going on for sure, I'll tell you what when I translate it, lol.

• Die Maus auf Weltraumreise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj315AKAUTM

• • This is the German version of "Bump on a log in a hole on the bottom of the sea". A bunch of random crap this mouse needs to pack into his suitcase, leading to a rather complex set of vocabulary to memorize. Simple grammar but vocabulary practice.

• Alle Vögel sind schon da https://youtu.be/YZaLjkp0QY4

• • Lots and lots of words for birds, lol. Simple grammar and tune, but lots of vocabulary.

Native level songs

I mean, don't just listen to beginner stuff. Also branch out and listen to the full native speed stuff.

• 99 Luftballoons https://youtu.be/Fpu5a0Bl8eY

• • USA-famous Classic German song. German-native song

• Peter Schilling - Major Tom (Völlig losgelöst...) https://youtu.be/KQRaj1vcnrs

• • USA Famous but from 1982. German-native

• Lagtrain (Jinja Version) https://youtu.be/Lz1qJnwfF04

• • German VTuber dubs her own version of Vocaloid's Lagtrain.

• Idol (Yuko Version) https://youtu.be/TCZ5JbdbJOg

• • German dub of "Idol", a top anime opening from the anime hit Oshi no Ko.

• Applaus Applaus https://youtu.be/H0oRftpQs7w

• • An easier-end song. Slower rhythm than other songs, still faster than any children's song. But maybe the slowest you'll get for a "real" song these days.

• Auf anderen Wegen https://youtu.be/m-Ik3yy728Y

• Nacht voll Schatten https://youtu.be/3F-8XEF3r24

• • Moonlight Shadow got dubbed over in German as Nacht voll Schatten.

• Nüsse sind Gesund https://youtu.be/WVTIbV1Ug6A / (Jinja cover) https://youtu.be/dBkooYLztzI

• • Actually, this one might be A1 level lol.

That's all for now!

Anki is an open-source flashcard app for Windows, Linux, Mac OSX with versions also available for Android and iOS. Unfortunately, iOS version costs $25, but all other versions are free.

Anki is a self-graded flashcard program / app. This makes it a combination quiz-app + timer system. Unlike Duolingo or other programs, Anki entirely relies upon self-grading, but this is more than sufficient for study.

Anki grabs the top cards from a deck (defaulting to 20 new cards per day. Feel free to customize this to whatever fits your needs best). Then each day, it grabs "scheduled review" cards + shuffles in the new cards, and shows you them one at a time. Once a card is shown to you, you the user click a button to reveal the other side.

After the flip, Anki asks you to self-grade yourself on your performance. "Again" means you grade yourself as "incorrect", and Anki will remember this mistake. Because you were "incorrect" on this card, Anki will show you the card again very soon.

If you choose one of the three "correct" scores (labeled "Hard", "Good" and "Easy"), Anki remembers that you've answered correctly, and will schedule the card some time in the future. I'll get to the difference of the three scores later, but consider all three to just be "correct" for now.

The precise time is calculated based on how well Anki thinks you know the card. If you know the card well, "Good" might schedule the card to be reviewed 1 month from now, but if you've made a lot of mistakes with a particular card, then that card will likely be reviewed 1 or 2 days from now. Its all data collected on a per-card basis.

Above is an example screenshot of Anki's memory: every single self-graded score is remembered on every single card, as well as the date and time of each score.

As such, Anki is a system of spaced repetition. The "better" you are with some cards, the less you see them. The "worse" you are with other cards, the more Anki shows you those particular cards you keep making mistakes with. Timer + self-grading == you only see the cards you're doing bad with, while Anki hides the cards you are doing good with.

The Algorithm

FSRS is a new experimental algorithm Anki is using. There's been 6 versions (FSRS-1, -2, -3,... and of course FSRS 6 today). Fortunately, the overall gist has been the same for all 6 versions. Alas, its a lot of blogposts and technical math that's far too nerdy for most people https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/The-Algorithm. For the math nerds who want to learn the algorithm, study away. But I'll attempt to do a simpler "translation".

Before we get started, click on your deck's preferences and scroll down to the FSRS button. Ensure it is on.

FSRS is simply three pieces of memory being applied to each and every "card" in your Anki decks. Every single card will try to figure out "R", "S" and "D". R is the probability that you've forgotten a card each day. The longer a card goes without being shown, the worse-and-worse "R" gets (this is the value Anki uses to determine when to repeat a card to you, it wants to show you a card before you've forgotten, but after enough time that you had a chance to forget, defaulting to 10% chance of forgetting).

Every single card tracked by Anki has this "forgetting" curve, primarily defined by the "R" aka Retention variable.

The theory is: if you show a card too often, you never really test your long-term memory. Furthermore, its too much extra work to review so many cards. By waiting days, weeks, or months before showing you a card again, Anki saves you time by not overly-reviewing cards you already know the information of. Furthermore, studies have shown that showing you information "right as you are forgetting about it" is the best way to remember (!!!). Any sooner, and you really aren't learning too well, but instead just temporarily holding things in your short-term or medium-term memory.

"S" stands for Stability. The more "stable" a card is, the longer Anki-FSRS thinks it can stay in your memory memory without review. Most "new" cards are assumed to be forgotten about within a day by default. However, as you get the card "correct" over-and-over again, Anki-FSRS will increase stability, thereby causing the longer review intervals. (Maybe showing you a card once every 3 days, then 7 days, then 1.5 months, then 3 months....).

"D" stands for Difficulty. The more times you get a card wrong (ie: when you click the "Again" button), the worse Difficulty gets. Anki-FSRS remembers that some cards are harder for you to remember... in particular the ones you keep getting wrong.

Even if you get a high-difficulty card correct multiple times, Anki "remembers" that you have been forgetting this card, and will show it to you again sooner. Ex: by default Anki will mature a card within 7x correct answers in a row. However, if a card is "difficult", Anki will keep showing you that card 10x, 15x or more, knowing that you need the extra practice.

Or in more math-nerd terms, "Difficulty" is the derivative of stability. The change-of-stability is determined by the "Difficulty" of a card.

Hard / Good / Easy

Hard / Good / Easy all count as correct (ie: increases the stability of Anki-FSRS), but will do different things to your Difficulty score.

"Good" is the default, and Anki recommends that users hit the "Good" button 80%+ of the time. Lets pretend that a particular "Good" answer will result in 1-month timer for a particular card...

"Easy" basically is telling Anki that you don't want to practice with this card anymore (ie: low-difficulty card). After clicking "Easy", instead of taking a 1-month timer... Anki will likely choose a 1.5-month or 2-month timer on the card.

"Hard" is telling Anki that you want extra practice with this card. It increases difficulty, despite increasing stability. You'll see this card again more-and-more in the future. Instead of 1-month timer, Anki might show you the card again within 2-weeks.

Where Anki fits in language learning

Anki was originally developed to help its original programmer learn Japanese. Its not an end-all be-all app however. Anki is only a piece of any language-learner. You must also buy grammar / theory books, as well as write regularly in the new language... speaking and listening and more.

Nonetheless, "Anki" is your cudgel. A brute-force method to try to force vocabulary words into your brain through raw force. You'll likely never gain mastery of the words through Anki... but you can at least become a beginner and learn how to start reading. There's literally thousands, if not tens-of-thousands of words you must learn to become proficient in a language. And that's spelling, grammar usage (gender / der/das/die in German, or maybe conjugation rules and pluralization rules), definitions and more!!

In all cases, Anki can be used as a way to force this information into your brain, getting it ready so that those words can "begin to be learned" when you watch TV, listen to a foreign language podcast or hear those words in a song.

Yes, Anki isn't enough. But Anki is a great tool to get you started. And getting started is sometimes the hardest step for many people.

Remember: 1000 words is beginner level (near 1st grade level understanding), while 10,000 words is roughly high school level. If you wish to be seen as a competent adult in a new language, you must figure out a system to reach those 10,000+ words known. 10,000 words sounds like a lot in isolation... especially because true mastery of 10,000 words includes spelling, grammar (pluralization/conjugation/gender), meaning, and pronunciation. But think about it: 10,000 words is merely 14 words per day for 2-years. Plenty of people have used Anki to jumpstart that kind of long-term forced-learning of words.

My Anki routine

My current Anki deck is the 4000 German words/phrases by frequency (https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/653061995). Anki decks vary in quality but this is one of the better German decks.

Despite that, this deck starts out-of-order. I had to reorder the first 200 words into the correct order (for some reason, words #1 through #200 were actually the least frequent words). After reordering, I hit the "FSRS" button, signed up to AnkiWeb.com and synchronized my Desktop + Phone to this deck through the web-account.

I currently keep the defaults of Anki-FSRS at 90% retention and 20 words per day. I roughly have 80 review words per day + 20 new words, or 100 flashcards to review (front and back). I hit "good" or "again" most often, though some very easy words (ex: "Ich") I do hit the "easy" button on. I rarely hit "hard" at all.

When a card feels poorly made, I always go into "Edit" and improve the card. In most cases, the "English side" of this deck is lacking (ex: "because" either turns into weil or denn). In these cases, I add a German sentence to the English side with the German-word missing, so that the card can become "more fair" as study material. Anki Decks should always be customized to become your own notes.

If Anki gives me a new word, I also check Wiktionary for the proper pronounciation, as well as additional "example sentences" of that word. Anki is NOT a dictionary, its simply a notecard system, and you should rely upon good and proper dictionaries. In some rare cases, I go to German Language Discord and ask the community to help me understand a concept, but in most cases I do try to figure out the word myself.

I also use many songs, kids songs, Anime songs, pop songs and more as my primary source of "Practical German". (Ideally songs harder than Ramstein's "Du Hast", lol). I'm building an Anki deck out of these songs (ex: Backe Backe Kuchen, or "Bake Bake a Cake", a traditional German kid's song, has a list of common ingredients like sugar, salt, milk. Its good vocabulary practice... and also is a good source of practical words for an Anki deck). I also have a beginner German book ("Cafe in Berlin"), with a huge vocabulary list. Fortunately, the author for this book already made an Anki deck and I can just go to to the listed website and download the pre-made Anki.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3573759522

Dungeons4 is a fun RTS/Tower-Defense that took up a few of the last months of entertainment. Its a very "dad-joke" level of low-hanging fruit and pop-culture references, but comedy is often the right way to handle "Evil" plots.

The overall game is to build up an army, head out to the "Overworld" and collect "Evil" by killing Heroes, slaughtering villagers, destroying villages and towns. As your "Evil" gets collected, you can spend "Evil" on the Tech Tree to get more powerful units, upgrades, new buildings, new economic options and... eventually win the map's objectives.

Typical maps take me ~1 hour, though a speedrunner probably can complete maps within 20 minutes, while slower defensive players might take longer. With ~20 maps, you should have well over 20+ hours of gameplay, and then 10 "Skirmish" maps, and multiple (paid) DLC, its a well fleshed out game.

The one downside is a weak set of tutorial levels, and poor documentation/help. There's also very little discussion / guides. So I figure publishing this Steam guide will help any would-be players enter this game.

My guide is rather detailed strategy focused on the hardest of difficulty levels. But this advice likely will help any player on normal mode (which is plenty hard enough your first time through!).

https://youtu.be/bOR38552MJA

Our timeline is officially stupider than fucking South Park.

I'm doing some Galois Field / Cyclic Redundancy Check research for fun and I've come across an intriguing pattern that I need a data structure for.

Across the 64-bit (or even 128-bit or larger) spaces, I've discovered an interesting pattern relating to hamming distances that I'd like a data structure to represent.

I'm going to need something on the order of ~billions of intervals each having somewhere between 1 item to ~1 billion per interval. And I'd like to quickly (O(1) or O(lg(n))) determine if other intervals intersect.

---

For 32-bit space I can simply make a 512MB Bitmask lol and then AND/OR the two Bitmask. Easy

But for 64-bit space I'm stuck and a bit ignorant to various data structures. I'm wondering if someone out there has a good data structure for me to use?

I've read over Interval Trees on Wikipedia. I'm also considering binary decision diagram over the 64-bits actually. Finally I'm thinking of some kind of 1-dimension octtree like datastructure (is that just a binary tree?? Lol. But BVH trees in 3d space seems similar to my problem it's just I need it optimized down to 1 dimension rather than 3.) Anyone else have any other ideas or cool data structures that might work?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24780658

https://lemmy.world/post/22892985

/c/technology was the most active by far (more so than /c/cars), so I'll post here again first.

Stats

The following stats are winter tests (10F to 30F. Or -10C to 0C).

• L1 Charger from Home is 2.05 mi/kwhr (12.0 mi/electric-$$. 17.1c per kwhr home costs) in this deep cold.

• L2 Charger from Work is 2.8mi/kwhr (14.0 mi/electric-$$. 20c per kwhr work-charging costs).

• 43 Miles per Gallon gasoline (13.9 mi/gasoline-$. $3.10 gasoline during test).

• L1 Charger is closer to 2.8 mi/kwhr during 60F (15C+ temperatures).

• L2 Charger is closer to 3.5 mi/kwhr during 60F (15C+ temperatures).

Conclusion: The cold (10F to 30F) has made the Li-ion batteries of this car SIGNIFICANTLY less efficient. We're at the point where L1 chargers are more expensive than gasoline, while L2 chargers are roughly on part with gasoline.

I recommend anyone who gets an EV to get an L2 charger. Not only for the convenience of far faster charges, but also because of the incredible improvements to cold-weather charging efficiency.

---

There were some pro-EV fans asking me to more carefully test the gasoline usage in the winter. And now you have the stats. I can solidly say that gasoline is worse during the Winter (down from EPA estimated 48), but not dramatically worse like the electric engine gets.

The above gasoline test was done over an entire week of driving to reach the 200+ miles I thought was needed for a solid test. I performed it by running out of electricity (all the way down to 0%), then driving to a gasoline station and filling up. I memorized the exact pump I filled up at.

Then, after 200 miles across a week, I came back to the same pump and filled up exactly the same. I then counted the gallons that came out of the pump and divided out based on my trip odometer. I was 203.5 miles of driving total with 4.734 gallons reported from the pump.

https://lemmy.world/post/22892985

/c/technology was the most active by far (more so than /c/cars), so I'll post here again first.

Stats

The following stats are winter tests (10F to 30F. Or -10C to 0C).

• L1 Charger from Home is 2.05 mi/kwhr (12.0 mi/electric-$$. 17.1c per kwhr home costs) in this deep cold.

• L2 Charger from Work is 2.8mi/kwhr (14.0 mi/electric-$$. 20c per kwhr work-charging costs).

• 43 Miles per Gallon gasoline (13.9 mi/gasoline-$. $3.10 gasoline during test).

• L1 Charger is closer to 2.8 mi/kwhr during 60F (15C+ temperatures).

• L2 Charger is closer to 3.5 mi/kwhr during 60F (15C+ temperatures).

Conclusion: The cold (10F to 30F) has made the Li-ion batteries of this car SIGNIFICANTLY less efficient. We're at the point where L1 chargers are more expensive than gasoline, while L2 chargers are roughly on part with gasoline.

I recommend anyone who gets an EV to get an L2 charger. Not only for the convenience of far faster charges, but also because of the incredible improvements to cold-weather charging efficiency.

---

There were some pro-EV fans asking me to more carefully test the gasoline usage in the winter. And now you have the stats. I can solidly say that gasoline is worse during the Winter (down from EPA estimated 48), but not dramatically worse like the electric engine gets.

The above gasoline test was done over an entire week of driving to reach the 200+ miles I thought was needed for a solid test. I performed it by running out of electricity (all the way down to 0%), then driving to a gasoline station and filling up. I memorized the exact pump I filled up at.

Then, after 200 miles across a week, I came back to the same pump and filled up exactly the same. I then counted the gallons that came out of the pump and divided out based on my trip odometer. I was 203.5 miles of driving total with 4.734 gallons reported from the pump.