Dаn̈ıel Раršlow 🥧 @pieist@qoto.org

Hey, it's the 2023 TOM THE DANCING BUG ANNUAL!

https://tomdbug.wpcomstaging.com/2024/01/09/announcing-the-2023-tom-the-dancing-bug-annual/

From 2015 to 2022, I spent hundreds of hours on Duolingo, translating articles, answering language questions on the forums, and helping to improve the smaller courses by reporting mistakes.

There are thousands of volunteers who donated their labour to Duo: the course creators who wrote their courses, the volunteers who created grammar guides (some smaller languages had an entire second course in the forums), the wiki contributors, the native speakers who answered questions in the sentence discussions.

All of their work made Duolingo the powerhouse it is today. Duo was built by a community who believed in its original mission: language learning should be free and accessible.

Bit by bit all of our work was hidden from us as Duolingo became a publicly-traded company. And now that work is being fed into their AI as training data.

Well, I've learned the true lesson of Duolingo: never give a corporation your labour for free. Don't ever trust them, no matter what they say. Eventually greed will consume any good intentions.

#duolingo #languagelearning #enshittification #capitalism

I kid you not. These are two actual posts from this weekend, posted by two candidates for president of the United States in 2024.

The contrast. 🤯

The Dude abides.

Old Lang Sign.

I'll see myself out now.

"I'm upset about abortions"
"Let's fund sex ed, contraceptives and health care for pregnant women, it will cause the number of abortions to decline dramatically."
"NO. Send the women & doctors to jail."

"I'm upset people jump the turnstyle"
"Let's properly fund the subway and make it free and faster while reducing overhead."
"NO. I want those bad teens ARRESTED."

"This dreary area under the bridge is DISGUSTING."
"Let's clean it up & install a public restroom."
"NO. Arrest people for pooping"

@pinata1138 @cybeardjm From Fargo S5E5:

Lorraine Lyon: "So you want freedom without responsibility? Son there's only one person on Earth who gets that deal."

Sheriff Roy Tillman: "The President?"

Lorraine Lyon: "A baby. You’re fighting for your right to be a baby."

Santa is just the fruiting body the real Christmas stretches for miles under the permafrost

I have boosted it, but I will additionally advertise this article - this is a response to a NYT article that recently claimed that sanctions don’t work and Western companies leaving Russia are actually pleasing Putin (but they are pleasing him equally well, if they stay, so whatever they do, Putin wins). The authors of the Fortune article demonstrate on facts that sanctions do work and #Russia economy is actually going through all the turbulent processes (inflation, price increases, drop in production) that everyone predicted in 2022.

In fact, the total enterprise value of leading Russian state-owned companies has plummeted even lower. For example, Gazprom’s enterprise value shrank by 75%, far in excess of the valuation markdowns incurred by most foreign companies. The Times characterizes the Russian asset divestitures of global multinationals as a “huge transfer of wealth” to Putin’s cronies, but with valuations of even Russia’s top state-owned companies down so much, the real story is one of massive, unprecedented wealth destruction as Russian assets plummet, whether they’re owned by Russians or foreigners.

Source: https://fortune.com/2023/12/20/parroting-putin-propaganda-business-exodus-ukraine-russia-bonanza-sanctions-economy-international-politics/

As usual, those who in 2022 claimed Russia is going to collapse immediately after sanctions are introduced, were taken as the benchmark and then promptly “proven wrong”.

But I very well remember more evidence-based prognoses that Russian economy will able to support the war for “2-3 years”, which means 2024-2025 as the expected forecast of Russian economy collapse if they continue the existing policy.

@randahl In Finland we also have joulu , kristusmessu is not even a real word.
Our traditions still echo kekri (Fennopagan's big feast of the year, basically New Year, Ancestor's Remembrance Day, Harvest feast & Feast of domestic animals rolled in one). Most people would probably think that joulu is Christian feast, but actually today's joulu is a blend of pagan traditions, Christian traditions and western commercialism.

Only a handful of people celebrates the "original" Finnish feast of Pesäpäivät ("nest days") that celebrates the days where Sun "rests in its nest", though.