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"You might be surprised to find out 3D printers have been around since the mid-1980s, but the devices themselves and the material they consumed were so expensive (with small, simple structures costing hundreds of dollars) that the idea of a consumer-level 3D printer was ludicrous. Over the past couple of decades, though, the cost of these consumer level printers has plummeted from more than US$110,000 to as low as US$350."

Our goal with Duolingo is to provide the absolute best language learning service out there (and also make it 100% free!). In this post I want to talk about something that we believe is fundamental towards this goal: students must be able to read and write complete sentences and be given immediate detailed feedback about their answers. When we started working on Duolingo we noticed that most language learning methods outside of the classroom didn't do this. Some never provide you with any feedback (think of books or the audio tapes from the 1980s), while other more "interactive" ones only provide you with feedback on single words or multiple choice questions. As any educator will tell you, having students read and write complete sentences by themselves, and then get detailed feedback, is significantly better for learning.

"In Japan, the word otaku refers to people who have obsessive, minute interests-especially stuff like anime or videogames. It comes from a term for "someone else's house"-otaku live in their own, enclosed worlds. Or, at least, their lives follow patterns that are well outside the norm. Looking back, we were American otakus. "

Interesting to think about how Geek culture has changed over the past three decades.