a stopgap solution while I figure out the app-development thing

I just discovered that it's possible to embed code into a Substack post. This means I have a stopgap solution to the problem of app development: I can start creating quizzes and tests now if I want, without having to wait to make apps.

This might actually make things simpler, especially for the college-and-older crowd, who would never have to leave the comfort of Substack to seek out apps on the App Store or the Play Store: I can make an interactive quiz publication to which people can subscribe if they want, with separate posts containing answers and explanations. A person curious about taking the quizzes would have to subscribe separately to the quizzes-and-answers section, so it's up to them as to whether subscribing is worth the cost. I'll set the subscription rate at rock bottom, of course—$5 a month or $50 a year. There's a lot I still need to figure out about the coding; you'll recall that I used ChatGPT to code my religion quiz. In fact, the more I think about this, the more I might drop the app idea entirely. Why make my clients zip back and forth across cyberspace and between platforms? (Does anyone even say "cyberspace" anymore?)

This is an exciting thought! I can make quizzes and tests sooner rather than later.

Where I am now: I spent all day today creating a course calendar for my two grammar Substacks—the PG-rated one and the R-rated one. The quizzes and tests for both will have the same content, and the content will be PG-rated, normal English, with no questions about whether boner, taint, and shit are all countable nouns with regular pluralization. This shouldn't be a problem for people doing the R-rated course: if you can understand the concepts via naughty English, you ought to be fine when those same concepts are applied to pedestrian English.

I also just copied over the R-rated version of my comma-related lessons to the PG-rated Substack; the copies, being a bit spicy for the PG Substack, now need to have their content dumbed down. (That's what you paid for, John: gentler content. But if you decide you want to upgrade to spicy, you can cancel your subscription to the PG Substack and switch to the R-rated Substack whenever you like. But the R-rated one's $12/month or $110/year. Up to you.) From now on, I'll be creating two parallel strands of the same material—one strand for my PG crowd, and one strand for my R crowd.*

Remember: the publication schedule for both of my Substacks will be Mondays and Fridays only, but there might be special announcements (or tweet-like "Notes," as Substack calls them) on other days of the week. You never know.

Righto—gotta run. So much to do.

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*For my non-American readers: movie ratings in the United States are G (general audiences, innocent fare), PG (parental guidance suggested—maybe some rough language and/or violence plus some low-level provocative scenes), PG-13 (under 13 must be accompanied by a parent), R (restricted: under 17 must be accompanied by a parent—coarse language and some nudity), and NC-17 (this used to be called X, XX, and XXX, generally for very explicit sex and/or violence—no one under 17 admitted at all). So if an American says someone at his church was using "PG-rated language," this means cursing like damn, hell, or even shit or bullshit. If it was "R-rated language," this means the person was liberally using words like fuck, cunt, jizz, cum, and other equally salty obscenities.