HM Sloop Hotspur

1) Maybe given that Sunday morning's snow was light and disappeared when it hit the ground, no one was expecting it to stick. But it sure did. As a result, our complex had not salted stairs or sidewalks and had not plowed parking lots. And the local roadways hadn't been either.

The stairs had snow 2 inches deep on them, so I descended carefully Monday morning. The snow was very powdery so it brushed off the car easily. Funny thing though, the snow came from the southeast side. The other side of the car? Completely clear, no snow at all. ( Read more... )

I was thinking of how booking your own appointment online is rarely the convenience it's supposed to be. It's never worked for me at my medical group because I can't do it without inputting a mobile number. When I was trying to do it for car maintenance appointments, it would turn out the appointments didn't sync with the in-office calendar they had. And here, had I spoken to a person they would have known the doctor wouldn't be in on Monday at all.

2) Watched a multi-episode documentary on Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. I suspect that the various revelations would be unlikely to emerge with any living subject, or without the sort of research that went into it while they were still alive. ( Read more... )

3) First posted over at tv_talk, Paramount has just cut 1000 jobs and 1000 more job cuts are expected. They want to reach "$2 billion in expense cuts across the company." That's more than most companies and some countries are worth.

Job cuts after an acquisition aren't surprising. It usually happens in a frenzy, and some positions come back once the losses start leading to problems. But a line in this news story, as well as another article coming out the same day, made me start thinking about where big cuts are likely to come from.

"More than 800 people — or about 3.5% of the company’s workforce — were laid off in June, prior to the Ellison family takeover. At the time, Paramount’s management attributed the cuts to the decline of cable television subscriptions and an increased emphasis on bulking up its streaming TV business. In 2024, the company eliminated 2,000 positions, or 15% of its staff." (emphasis mine) ( Read more... )

4) Speaking of TV habits, a study about people's searching behavior finding content on streamers indicated 46% of those surveyed are having more trouble finding what they want, and are more willing to cancel their subscriptions because of the difficulties. Searching time can run from 12 to 26 minutes. Many users also use the Internet to find information rather than the apps themselves.

The answer for many companies is to embed more AI with an eye to making their services able to answer general questions as well as viewing related ones.

5) More streamers are using pause ads. Personally I don't mind these, especially if they only take over the screen as an opt-in feature. I pause stuff often for different reasons, and as long as the ads aren't interrupting my viewing, they can have the screen.

That said, there are plans afoot to use AI to tie ads into the show action as well as localize your viewing. "Amazon has begun to offer the format to local and regional advertisers, says Jenn Donohue, director of local ad sales at Amazon Ads. Commercials from regional banks or community grocery stores can often be extremely meaningful to viewers, she says, and “there’s nothing more important than making it very relevant to the experience that I’m having as a viewer.”"

1) Amazon plans to deploy automated translation of books into non-English languages.

2) Chances are so many past shows have been cancelled due to inaccurate measurements. While that's no longer true for streaming content, it still is for cable and broadcast. ( Read more... )

3) Alarming stats about AI slop: "There's a streaming platform called Deezer... And they're one of the very few platforms that... actually set up a AI detection algorithm..And back in January, they reported that 10% of those [new] songs were AI generated, and they don't allow them on the platform. But then a few months later in April, they said 18% of the songs...delivered were AI generated. And just a few days ago, the September report came out and the number is up to 28%. And so I think ... we're just not even given a choice about whether we wanna see this or hear this stuff or not."

4) When reading this article about how people given the right information refuse to change their wrong take in the face of evidence, I was reminded of an unpleasant encounter this week. The writer of the article concludes that this is a social media issue, but I think it's worse than that. Social media has exacerbated behavior where people always have to be right. ( Read more... )

5) Yet what a difference it makes when an employee makes an effort to help. I had a WalMart gift card which I knew worked because I had used it in May. A few months ago when picking up other meds and groceries I tried to use it. It wouldn't scan. I asked for help and after trying it a few times, the clerk said I'd have to go into a regular cashier line because only they could input the card number. Given the line and having to rescan everything, I just paid with credit and left. ( Read more... )

1) nacramamo has ended and for the time being so has my jewelry making. I made more than I posted about, although there was a lot of that, too. Just a reminder that everykindofcraft remains open for everyday work in progress, completed or stalled.

2) Finished a few shows, such as Perry Mason on HBO. I can see why it was cancelled. It was ambitious and fairly well written, and I thought the character backstories made sense. However, it liked to roll around in the noir aspects rather too much, which I think affected the pacing in S1. I prefer S2. I also think you could watch S2 on its own. ( Read more... )

3) Finished both seasons of House of the Dragon. Am looking forward to S3. I can see why Game of Thrones would have drawn people in. I love a complicated political story with various competing interests, which is what this is. Add in the important female protagonists and it's interesting to follow the zigs and zags.

4) For those with pets, the same things are happening surrounding vet care, supplies and even services as with a lot of other industries – buyouts, stripping services to the bone, and reduction of care. "As with human health care, billionaire consolidators aim to extract big coin on veterinary services, pushing expensive tests and pricey interventions, instituting aggressive billing and collection, and focusing on cost-cutting on the service side, including squeezing wages from employees....These vulture investors typically collect management fees on all transactions, strip out profitable assets (including real estate), call the shots in terms of major decision-making in the practice, and charge fees for monitoring them, even as some of the companies they acquire spiral into bankruptcy. “It’s like setting the fire, being paid to put out the fire, and collecting the insurance on the fire all at the same time."

5) The issue of news avoidance or indifference isn't a new one, but what I found interesting in this was the breakdown of who actually sought out news or made it part of their routine:

MSNBC viewers: 72% active
CNN viewers: 71%
Seniors (65+): 69%
Daily Twitter users: 69%
Strong Democrats: 67%
White college grads: 67%
Fox News viewers: 66%
White collar workers: 66%
MAGA Republicans: 64%

Given this is a recent study I find this to be relatively unsurprising, as it leans towards politically engaged and even fanatical ideologues, who are the only people I can imagine being able to tolerate most of the news these days. Seniors are also unsurprising as they have traditionally been the biggest news consumers, partly due to time, but also because they have the most time to be politically engaged and are the most reliable voting bloc.

This also leads to a logical reversal in more passive news consumers: ( Read more... )