My love-hate relationship with DuoLingo

Updated 13 October 2024

DuoLingo is a language app available on Android and IOS as well as a web browser version. I have been using it every day for nearly two years to learn Ukrainian, usually on my phone (Android) and sometimes on my iPad (IOS) and once or twice on my PC. My experience, therefore, is based on just one language, so some of my comments are specific to that, whilst others are more generic.

Even the “Greens” are capitalists!

I am a supporter of the “green lobby” – that is, anything to do with helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. But sometimes the things you do just seem to come back and slap you in the face, and a case in point is green energy.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Source: Cinema a Go-Go

We live in the strangest of times. It feels like the 1963 movie's title that heads this article is more true of our world today than it was of the crazy comedy for which it was the title. Here are my contenders for why this is so.

The Crown - Netflix's often untrue history of the Royal Family

I have a love-hate relationship with The Crown, I love it because it is so well made and acted. The choices of actress and actor have been inspired. The production values are high and the filming is sumptuous. In short, it's great to look at, impeccably acted and very entertaining.

What can we learn from COVID-19?

It’s a truism to say that prevention is better than a cure ^[1], and no sane person would deny it’s better to stop something bad from happening than to deal with its consequences after it does.

So what can I do about climate change?

I am a foster carer and one of the 15-year-old girls in my care (we also care for her twin sister) is very keen on campaigning about climate change, having been on two recent climate school strikes. However, when I talk to her about what she could do personally, it's a struggle as she sees the problems as:

a) too big for an individual to make a difference;
b) the responsibility of the adults (who are to blame).

So this post is a kind of response to that, because I think everyone can make a difference - no matter how small. And a lot of small differences add up! Now there are lots of online resources that provide great advice about what you can do, and I have provided links to some of them below. I don't pretend to offer better or different options; this is simply my personal response to the issue. If it makes even one reader stop and think, and maybe take personal action as well, then I'll be well pleased!

Is Labour anti-Semitic?

Is the Labour Party anti-Semitic? I don't think anyone will ever know all the facts, but it seems to me that the media are playing up this label because

1. it's sensational, and the media love sensation, and
2. it's an easy way to tar Labour's image without actually analysing its policies or politics.

I'm Jewish by birth (though I became a Christian in my teens) - so that makes me Jewish by race, if not religion. I'm also a Labour supporter. That's because I believe that Labour's policies are the best for the country as a whole (and I'm not just talking 'Brexit' here). My take on Labour's so-called anti-Semitism is as follows:

Project Viability – a cybernetics approach, part 4

So far this series I have looked at the idea of Requisite Variety (part 1) in project management communications in terms of assessing the environment (part 2) and internal communications (part 3) within the project. In this final part we return to the environment this time looking at how we get the project messages “out there” effectively.

Project Viability – a cybernetics approach, part 3

In the first part of this series I introduced the idea of Requisite Variety and attempted to outline how it might apply to project management.  The second part looked in more detail at the inputs into a project from its external environment and the need for Attenuation (or filtering). This third installment covers information flows within the project.

Project Viability – a cybernetics approach, part 2

In the first part of this series I introduced the idea of Requisite Variety and attempted to outline how it might apply to project management.  This second part will look in more detail at the inputs into a project and the need for Attenuation (or filtering). There are two aspects to this: where attenuation should occur and how to attenuate effectively. The terms attenuation and filter are used interchangeably below.