Althouse |
- At the Sunrise Café...
- "The hotel launched its Sleep Concierge service in early 2021, assisting guests with all things slumber through a range of services and amenities..."
- If you want people to trust vote drop boxes, it's obtuse to post political signs on them.
- "Even if Twitter does prevail in recovering the deal or recouping a $1 billion breakup fee, a court battle [could force Twitter] to make key business metrics public..."
- "President Biden is facing an alarming level of doubt from inside his own party, with 64 percent of Democratic voters saying they would prefer a new standard-bearer..."
- "A New York City bodega group says the Big Apple should adopt a local version of Florida’s controversial 'Stand Your Ground' law after a Manhattan store worker was charged with murder..."
- "I am very passionate about politics and current events, even more so after the past few years. My brother-in-law, 'Brad' is silent on these topics."
| Posted: 11 Jul 2022 06:17 PM PDT  ... you can write about whatever you want.  |
| Posted: 11 Jul 2022 02:46 PM PDT "... from hypnotherapy to calming tea.... The hotel is one of many to invest more heavily in sleep-themed services, with offerings across numerous properties aimed at helping guests get the most out of their shut-eye.... The Cadogan partnered with hypnotherapist Malminder Gill to create a meditation audio recording, and it also offers a pillow menu, a weighted blanket, a lavender pillow mist and more, all included in the room price. Guests also can book a private in-room session with Gill in advance for around $375." From "The hottest new service at hotels? Sleep. Sometimes the ultimate luxury is a good night's rest" (WaPo). If only hotels could ensure that you'd be able to sleep. How much would that cost? Imagine paying $375 to get Malminder Gill to come to your room and make you go to sleep. Would that help? Or would that make it harder to sleep? I don't know. Maybe he has a way to drive the thought what the hell am I paying $375 for out of your head. |
| If you want people to trust vote drop boxes, it's obtuse to post political signs on them. Posted: 11 Jul 2022 02:20 PM PDT Seen today in Madison (near Camp Randall):   Context: The Wisconsin Supreme Court recently held that these drop boxes are illegal. As The NYT wrote:
|
| Posted: 11 Jul 2022 11:15 AM PDT "... inviting questions from Wall Street about the overall health of the company, which turned its first profit in 2018 amid a major financial retooling. Donna Hitscherich, a Columbia Business School professor, said Musk's filing will naturally raise questions about why he lost interest... Anticipating more scrutiny of the role of bots in the deal, Twitter gave a Thursday background briefing to reporters. The core of the presentation was about how Twitter calculates its estimate that unwanted bots make up less than 5 percent of what it terms monetizable average daily users, those which the company feels comfortable charging advertisers to reach. Twitter does not ban all bots, which include purposeful automated accounts, such as those that post otter pictures on the hour or the temperature in a specific location. Instead, the company is looking for indicators that include mass creation accounts or coordination among humans to artificially amplify a tweet, set of tweets or topic.... [T]he company is measuring and disclosing problematic accounts, not their activity or impressions — so a small number of accounts might have a large footprint of views...." I bet you did thing there'd be otters in this story. Anyway, it's not the number of bot accounts that matters. It's how much we the real Twitter users are seeing them. Twitter has given out this 5% estimate, but that's the estimate of the number of bots. Are they estimating the number of views that go to bots? Are advertisers just looking at the number of "daily users," so that they care which ones are real and not bots, or do they care how long these real users spend gazing at the page and how far they scroll? I would think that number of daily users is a stupid basis for advertising, since it's so easy to click on the page and then leave immediately. If you impulsively click in, then see that it's junk, you may leave before seeing any advertising at all. In any case, it's important to see that Twitter might want to avoid the lawsuit even if it expects to win. Presumably, Musk knows that and knows how to make the lawsuit burdensome, and perhaps he can win while losing if he achieves the goal of foisting transparency on Twitter. ADDED: I wrote that as if what matters is the number of view that go to bots, but on reflection, maybe it's the number of "views" that come from bots. |
| Posted: 11 Jul 2022 10:04 AM PDT "... in the 2024 presidential campaign, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll, as voters nationwide have soured on his leadership, giving him a meager 33 percent job-approval rating.... More than three-quarters of registered voters see the United States moving in the wrong direction, a pervasive sense of pessimism that spans every corner of the country, every age range and racial group, cities, suburbs and rural areas, as well as both political parties.... In the survey, 94 percent of Democrats under the age of 30 said they would prefer a different presidential nominee.... One glimmer of good news for Mr. Biden is that the survey showed him with a narrow edge in a hypothetical rematch in 2024 with former President Donald J. Trump: 44 percent to 41 percent. The result is a reminder of one of Mr. Biden's favorite aphorisms: 'Don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.'" |
| Posted: 11 Jul 2022 08:50 AM PDT "... for defending himself. United Bodegas of America — which has rallied behind Jose Alba, the 61-year-old shop employee facing a slay rap after fending off a violent ex-con — said Sunday that the measure is needed to protect others who toil behind the counter. 'Bottom line — in Florida, this is what you would consider stand your ground,' UBA spokesman Fernando Mateo said at a press conference, referring to Alba's case. 'That's what New York City needs,' Mateo said of the law.... Mateo said a more expansive statute in New York, similar to Florida's, would have provided Alba with legal grounds for stabbing and mortally wounding 35-year-old Austin Simon when he stormed behind the counter July 1 and accosted Alba. Alba tried to get past Simon and pulled a knife when he was unable to flee, in the caught-on-video incident." A "stand your ground" law would only save him from need to prove that he could not flee, but we are told that "he was unable to flee" (and that's how it looks in the video). The more difficult question is whether he believed he was threatened by great bodily harm, and that's still an issue if there is a "stand your ground" law. If someone is only trying to rob you, you don't get to kill them. |
| Posted: 11 Jul 2022 07:45 AM PDT "A few times I asked my husband what he thought and he just said Brad 'wasn't very political.' I volunteer for a local chapter of a national organization that aligns with my values. Last week I saw a donor list and Brad donated a substantial sum.... I came home and asked my husband about it. I was surprised Brad has this kind of money to donate. I'm also surprised somebody who isn't very political would use their money this way. My husband did not seem surprised at all and just said that I saw the donor list as a volunteer and I shouldn't bring it into the family." Says a letter to the WaPo advice columnist from a woman who finds it "really weird." I find that pretty funny, because I don't think it's weird at all. Some people hate to talk about politics, especially with somebody who's "very passionate." You might think somebody who doesn't want to talk about your issues must be secretly on the other side (or just apathetic), but I can think of lots of reasons to want to avoid conversations with someone who's intense and verbal in support of causes that I support too. If you're getting together with someone, you want to spend time with them, to learn what's going on in their personal world, not to hear something like social media bloviating. The columnist opines that it's weird, but only "low-key weird." Here's a reason that I, specifically, do not talk about politics in person even with someone I agree with. I feel an ethical responsibility to represent people who are missing from a conversation, especially if my in-person interlocutor expresses contempt for those people or misstates their reasons for believing what they do. That puts me in a "really weird" position. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Althouse. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
