Recognise the episodes whose answer checks itself first

Recognition was working strictly newest-first, so the seventeen episodes holding
the publisher's ad-free master sat behind 259 that do not. Those seventeen are
the only ones where the result validates itself: subtracting the master found
4:20 of the 4:15 the lengths imply on Darknet Diaries and 3:32 of 3:29 on
Heavyweight.

Everything else falls back to reading the ad copy, which across the first
nineteen real episodes found 0%, 0%, 15% and 29% of what the lengths say is
there -- and on a show that bakes its sponsor reads in, found 2:13 where the
lengths can see nothing at all. Useful as a hint, not as a measurement.

So the budget goes where the result can be trusted first, and stays newest-first
within each group.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_018AwnALZL6bD4VBtATDVv3B

1 files changed, 19 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/server/cmd/listend/main.go b/server/cmd/listend/main.go
index c21d65a..6dd3c65 100644
--- a/server/cmd/listend/main.go
+++ b/server/cmd/listend/main.go
@@ -598,7 +598,19 @@ func adAccounting(e *store.Episode, found []transcript.Candidate) string {
 	}
 }
 
-// pendingRecognition is every mirrored episode still without words, newest first.
+/*
+pendingRecognition is every mirrored episode still without words, best first.
+
+An episode holding the publisher's ad-free master comes first, whatever its date. Recognising
+one of those produces an answer that checks itself: subtraction found 4:20 of the 4:15 the
+lengths imply on Darknet Diaries and 3:32 of 3:29 on Heavyweight. Recognising anything else
+leaves the ad copy to be read, which across the first nineteen real episodes found 0%, 0%, 15%
+and 29% of what the lengths say is there. Spending the budget where the result can be trusted
+first is worth more than spending it in date order.
+
+Newest first within each group, because an episode about to be played is worth having words for
+before one from the back of a catalogue.
+*/
 func (w *worker) pendingRecognition() []*store.Episode {
 	var pending []*store.Episode
 	for _, show := range w.state.Shows() {
@@ -608,8 +620,12 @@ func (w *worker) pendingRecognition() []*store.Episode {
 			}
 		}
 	}
-	sort.Slice(pending, func(i, j int) bool {
-		return pending[i].PublishedUnix > pending[j].PublishedUnix
+	sort.SliceStable(pending, func(i, j int) bool {
+		left, right := pending[i], pending[j]
+		if (left.MasterCues > 0) != (right.MasterCues > 0) {
+			return left.MasterCues > 0
+		}
+		return left.PublishedUnix > right.PublishedUnix
 	})
 	return pending
 }