Kind heart, passive aggressive personality.

I'm Aries, and this is my shitpost of a blog... @amethystaries is my less shitty, witchy blog... @ahandacrossspace is my LADS blog...

[what-even-is-thiss]

Checking out the state of duolingo as I do sometimes. The optional end of chapter tests have words in them that weren’t covered in the lessons for some reason.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I reset my Spanish tree to test this because Spanish is one of the priority languages for the company that usually gets the most recent updates and I have a pretty good grasp on basic Spanish.

In the first test it asks you how to say goodbye but it didn’t cover that anywhere in the first three lessons. In fact it covered the much more informal chao.

And yeah a lot of people know that goodbye in Spanish is adiós but they’d been teaching you to say chao and you can’t assume that everyone using this app comes from somewhere with a lot of Spanish influence.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I think there’s a few reasons people keep using Duolingo.

It’s still mostly free. It’s really frustrating to use while free now but it’s possible

Duolingo has had a reputation for a long time now of just being the thing you use when you wanna casually try learning a language. Some schools use it. It’s still got that legitimacy around it for a lot of people who aren’t plugged into online news.

A lot of people just don’t wanna put in the work of looking for other free or affordable resources. This is part of why I have my small series on this blog of doing some of that research myself for popular languages. If you don’t wanna put in that work though, Duolingo is at the top of the App Store.

Duolingo is designed to feed into the sunk cost fallacy. You’ve already put a thousand days into this app. You can’t back out now! Duo misses you. They’re really good at emotional manipulation. They’ve still got Evan Edinger doing free press for them with his over 3700 day streak for example. I’m still waiting for the day that man realizes that he can just watch tv in Spanish for better results at this point.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Here’s my current list of free and cheap resources as it stands btw.

Post by @what-even-is-thiss

💬 0  🔁 389  ❤️ 580 · Language specific free or cheap resources · This list will have more added to it as I do the research to make more list

I realize I need to get back into it and add more but I’ve already got several popular languages on there.

[subjectsix]

I don't know I'm not done talking about it. It's insane that I can't just uninstall Edge or Copilot. That websites require my phone number to sign up. That people share their contacts to find their friends on social media.

I wouldn't use an adblocker if ads were just banners on the side funding a website I enjoy using and want to support. Ads pop up invasively and fill my whole screen, I misclick and get warped away to another page just for trying to read an article or get a recipe.

Every app shouldn't be like every other app. Instagram didn't need reels and a shop. TikTok doesn't need a store. Instagram doesn't need to be connected to Facebook. I don't want my apps to do everything, I want a hub for a specific thing, and I'll go to that place accordingly.

I love discord, but so much information gets lost to it. I don't want to join to view things. I want to lurk on forums. I want to be a user who can log in and join a conversation by replying to a thread, even if that conversation was two days ago. I know discord has threads, it's not the same. I don't want to have to verify my account with a phone number. I understand safety and digital concerns, but I'm concerned about information like that with leaks everywhere, even with password managers.

I shouldn't have to pay subscriptions to use services and get locked out of old versions. My old disk copy of photoshop should work. I should want to upgrade eventually because I like photoshop and supporting the business. Adobe is a whole other can of worms here.

Streaming is so splintered across everything. Shows release so fast. Things don't get physical releases. I can't stream a movie I own digitally to friends because the share-screen blocks it, even though I own two digital copies, even though I own a physical copy.

I have an iPod, and I had to install a third party OS to easily put my music on it without having to tangle with iTunes. Spotify bricked hardware I purchased because they were unwillingly to upkeep it. They don't pay their artists. iTunes isn't even iTunes anymore and Apple struggles to upkeep it.

My TV shows me ads on the home screen. My dad lost access to eBook he purchased because they were digital and got revoked by the company distributing them. Hitman 1-3 only runs online most of the time. Flash died and is staying alive because people love it and made efforts to keep it up.

I have to click "not now" and can't click "no". I don't just get emails, they want to text me to purchase things online too. My windows start search bar searches online, not just my computer. Everything is blindly called an app now. Everything wants me to upload to the cloud. These are good tools! But why am I forced to use them! Why am I not allowed to own or control them?

No more!!!!! I love my iPod with so much storage and FLAC files. I love having all my fics on my harddrive. I love having USBs and backups. I love running scripts to gut suck stuff out of my Windows computer I don't want that spies on me. I love having forums. I love sending letters. I love neocities and webpages and webrings. I will not be scanning QR codes. Please hand me a physical menu. If I didn't need a smartphone for work I'd get a "dumb" phone so fast. I want things to have buttons. I want to use a mouse. I want replaceable batteries. I want the right to repair. I grew up online and I won't forget how it was!

[subjectsix]

glad this post is resonating with the local populace fr

[battery-enthusiast]

im the fakest idgafer youll ever meet. im so chalant. i care more than i can put into words

[beemovieerotica]

[dntwannabeurgirl]

stop using ai i need that water for my bong

[hotcrossedfangs]

[bonesbeetle]

[dropoutdottv]

🤫We're up to something

📞We need phone numbers

🤐We can't tell you any more than that (yet)

☎️➡️ Submit yours here

[oneheadtoanother]

[writing-prompt-s]

You are a warlock who made a contract with your patron when you were 5. You don't really remember why you did it, but one thing that has become apparent. Your patron keeps treating you like a child even 30 years later.

[letsboldlygomotherfuckers]

did I tell you guys that I used to work on a holiday park and I would test all the hot tubs and I got so good at being able to tell the temperature of them just with my hand I could do it to the .5 degree

anyway recently I had some polyps removed from my uterus which involves them shooting warm water up your pussy to help them see what they're doing or something idk but as soon as they did that I was like huh. do you have that set to 38⁰? and they were all like what the Fuck. anyway my pussy tells the temperature

[sandmandaddy69]

[sahonithereadwolf]

I want to see the vampire who lives in this. I bet his name is Chad or Hunter.

[marlynnofmany]

And he's ready to crack open a boy with the cold ones.

[the-uss-premise]

Console buttons from Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-69)

[dark-magician-girl-meets-world]

Culturally significant forbidden candy

[postergirlfornothing]

[branmer]

[normalcei]

Not all dogs have jobs and I think they should get to wear little vests too

[victusinveritas]

[catchymemes]