Not privacy focused but read on if you want my thoughts on Duo vs Busuu. I used Duolingo back in the day but they chased me away with their complete 180 on ads (they used to advertise as no ads ever!). Duolingo was great for learning vocab but terrible for grammar in my opinion (at least eng-> german and eng-> spanish).

After bailing I didn’t use anything for awhile but I picked up Busuu a few years ago shortly after it was purchased by Chegg. They have a premium and an ad supported tier and the ad tier is terrible, it makes you have to close out at the end of each lesson to proceed past an annoying screen trying to get you to upgrade. The premium is advertised at about $70 a year but it comes down to around $50 for good sales. The monthly is a bit pricey ($10 or $12 or something).

Anyways, I really like Busuu for learning grammar. They have a flash card section for vocab that’s excellent as well but the grammar is where I saw huge improvements. The grammar is introduced in the lessons then given a strength that degrades over time until you practice it again. It tells you where your skills are weak so you can focus on a particular grammar element.

I also really like that they include regional differences in word use and regional expressions.

They recently introduced an AI speaking feature but I haven’t opted into it because I’m not comfortable with them processing my voice data. I haven’t read the privacy policy. This means skipping 1-2 lessons each unit which isn’t a big deal to me.

Hope this info is helpful to someone!

I predicted sleuths would be able to figure out some stuff that was supposed to be redacted (like “donald trump” redactions always being the same width or something) but if this is true it has to be sabotage from within lol

Exactly. If we thought the companies would fold in AI thoughtfully as one tool of many for game creators to consider when implementing their vision I doubt people would be negative. As it stands we trust companies to continue doing what they’re doing: forcing workers to incorporate AI into their workflow because they’re rich friends at google/meta/openAI really really need the technology to succeed to make back anything on their investment even though the profit step still reads ??? in their master plan anyway.

hehehehe

Roblox wants the future of communication to be via Roblox?

Were you the only one who knew how to press the input button on the remote to switch devices?

A second peace plan in as many months designed to legitimize a landgrab by an imperialist power

They’re not in the new Epstein Ballroom, they’re in the student loan servers (they’re nice and cool like tunnels)

I was on snap in college and I had to resubmit the paperwork to apply every 3 months. What I got would change every time I refiled. I feel like it had a lot to do with which caseworker I got. Sometimes the paperwork would come in the mail past the deadline for the interview and I would have to restart the process.

I hate how it deals with lines in chart grids where it looks like different lines are bolded depending on your zoom level

How long has it been on 99.9%? Still a chance you just need to wait for someone to turn on their computer?

If I can’t get an audiobook specifically I usually mark it as a request in the Libby app and hope the library will purchase some licenses. Does your library offer similar services?

To answer your original question though I don’t generally buy stuff I’ve failed to torrent. I intermittently search for it again unless I forget about it though.

I’ve lived near a… crack distribution service and can confirm that nice BMWs were not rare visitors.

Will do:)

got it. Thanks for sharing your recipe!

When you say blend it do you mean in a blender or just mix them?

The typical therapist advice about focusing only on the things you can personally change does not work well on macro issues. Issues that were created by lots of people working together like climate change require a bunch of people working together to fix. A bunch of people who don’t individually have the power to make any significant impact.

Moral philosophers get bogged down trying to figure out how to do a calculus that would reasonably obligate each individual to join the cause via our normal feelings of responsibility but these generally feel unintuitive and lack the kind of motivating responsibility most people feel towards things they had more control in creating or causing. I like Pinkert’s early work to help get my head around issues of collective responsibility and individual motivation.

Fact is that a whole lot of people need to take a leap of commitment to solve collective problems because if everyone acts rationally (in terms of their proportional responsibility to the problem and capacity to fix it) there is not nearly enough capacity to make a dent in issues like environmental pollution.

On the level of day to day life it depends on how you’re applying the advice but I personally don’t find it comforting to be told there’s nothing I can do to intervene—in this case too I feel better trying -something- and failing frequently vs forcing myself to be zen about my friend turning to drugs or my boss being a jerk all the time because my rational brain says my efforts won’t make a difference anyway.

Uh oh I think you’ve gone and added a new dystopia that we’ll need to incorporate:( I’d read it though, solid premise

Okay but hear me out, how would we craft a world that combined all of the dystopias science fiction warned us against if we left out mass surveillance?

He is wearing the shirt, pulls his head inside like a turtle, and sprays the axe deodorant spray inside (presumably from the bottom opening).

And whimsical crockery