novembersmith

So I was listening to an audiobook of Agatha Christie stories

and one character mentioned the "why and wherefore" of something

which *immediately* got "Never Mind the Why and Wherefore" from HMS Pinafore going through my head [https://youtu.be/fz00Ru9RXA8?si=_iW2jYRH-8RW_w49]

which of course meant I had no choice but to listen to the whole of HMS Pinafore [https://youtu.be/N6iNGprcxFI?si=B-vFtrypguIKurHv for example]

and now various of those songs keep popping up ... for at least week now ... only the lyrics are starting to scramble, which tends to happen when something is stuck in my head long enough.

("I am the captain of the minotaur~~" wait no)

Anyway my plan for dealing with this is to watch the 1983 film version of Pirates of Penzance, which is an extremely solid plan with no possible down sides.

Duolingo's increasing reliance on AI at the expense of human employees bothers me a lot. It's also, not coincidentally, gotten sloppy. I've noticed things in the English that feel off -- "He didn't die because he had the operation on time" should have been "in time"; "It's possible that I start going out with Francisco" should be "I'll start" or "I might start"; "She isn't tolerant with other ideas" should either be "of" or the object should be "people" (this may be regional? but for me it's tolerant *of* things, tolerant *with* or of people); "The travelers would buy at the market" should either have a different verb like "shop" or should have a direct object (I know "buy" can be intransitive but it still feels weird in this sentence); etc. If there are things that strike me as odd about the language I'm a native speaker of, how the fuck can I trust them to be correct in the language I'm trying to learn?

I currently have a subscription, partly so I wouldn't get ads and partly because I supported their stated mission. I no longer want to support them. My renewal, set to annual, renews next month.

On the other hand I have a streak of 3839 days, several friends streaks over 300, and a ridiculous number of friends quests in a row (can't find the info but I think it's around 85-90?). Also while practicing Duo mostly makes me better at Duo, I am still learning vocab, even if some of it doesn't want to stick.

So I'm trying to decide:

Option 1: cancel subscription and delete app. Up side: cheaper and more ethical. Down side: realistically I'm not going to find an easy Spanish-practice alternative.

Option 2a: cancel subscription but keep "playing" until I reach a pretty streak number, then quit. Up side: cheaper, though ads mean they're still profiting, and I get to leave on a pretty number. Down side: ads, plus im still planning on breaking the streak.

Option 2b: cancel subscription and keep playing indefinitely. Up side: still get Spanish practice. Down: ads, blech.

Option 3: keep subscription for another year. Up: practice, no ads. Down: I'm paying money for dubious AI.

If I take one of the streak-breaking options -- either now or in 161 days (which is, uh, 5 months and change, so December? -- and then regret it, I'll have lost the chance to make the long streak longer. OTOH it literally can't go on forever anyway, and I don't like supporting AI. OTOOH one subscription isn't noticeable really, so they won't care.

...I hate making decisions...

(Side note: my phone's predictive texting really wants to decapitalize I. If I type "i wo" it of course autocaps i to I, but then doesn't suggest "would"/"wouldn't" for the next word, but instead suggests "i would" which changes the I back to lowercase. Is this inherent to autocorrect or am I doing something wrong?)