461–470 of 533 posts
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It sounds ludicrous to say out loud, but if you're staying in a Hyatt hotel, it's best not to take a hot shower until this issue is resolved. The steam from the showers tend to make these types of particle sensors go wild.
The issue is not a Hyatt issue. It is an issue with a specific hotel that happens to be a Hyatt.
From their FAQ: "Is it worth the investment? Absolutely. Hotels equipped with Rest have seen an 84x increase in smoking fine collection. Plus, our smoking detection technology helps prevent damage to rooms and reduce a number of future violations." Apparently there are way more people smoking than we thought there are or the sensor just generates a lot of false positives. The language they are using all over the site…
That said, I haven't smelled _cigarette_ smoke in a hotel in recent memory.
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This is like those 10k bomb detectors that were just a box with wires dangling out aren’t they? I do not understand what possesses people to buy this stuff without proof.
Because they can charge $500 to almost all occupants realizing the likelihood of a repeat visitor is low?
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Is there that much smoking in hotels? Do they charge more for smoking rooms? A number like 84x suggests that it's basically zero now. That kinda makes sense. The only one who would notice is the cleaning staff, and relying on their word for "it smelled like smoke" sounds like a way to get a chargeback. They'd call you on it only if they were forced to take the room out of rotation to air it out. So maybe there are a…
The last time I walked into a hotel room that smelled like cigarette smoke was in 1998, so I would think this is very uncommon.
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> totalitarian state... where you don't even get a vote Quick note that totalitarian states often have elections in which the population is allowed to vote.
I've read Popular Dictatorships . I'm not naive that they care about public opinion and have "elections." Having unfree and unfair elections is not the same things as having elections in a real sense. Party based FPTP elections are generally free and fair. There are real concerns about gerrymandering, but for the most part, even a gerrymandered area is effective as a political pressure release valve. Aleksandar Matov…
There are a vast number of ways in which people can be denied a legitimate opportunity to obtain the policies most want (making a democracy less legitimate), but to list a few:
* People are allowed to vote, but votes aren't counted fairly.
* The voting system can be vulnerable to vote splitting (e.g. First Past the Post) or have other vulnerabilities that can lead to an outcome where the majority would have supported candidate A over candidate B, but B wins. This can lead to dynamics where tactical voting means only the candidates endorsed by the two best known parties have a chance, even if both of those parties are captured by minority interests. Generally the duopoly perpetuate the poor voting system to protect their interests.
* The leaders of any movements challenging the incumbents can be targeted before they have a chance to run - e.g. with trumped up legal charges, defamatory claims, violence either blatantly from the government, or by supporters which goes unpunished / is pardoned.
* Voters fear that if they vote against the incumbent, they'll face consequences.
* Voter demographics considered less likely to support the incumbent face barriers to vote, such as demands to provide documentation they might not have.
* Special case: Voting is restricted to citizens, but there are populations of people who live long term in the country but don't get a vote. Citizenship is not granted to or even stripped from people who are considered less likely to support the incumbent.
* Media is state owned, and is biased towards the incumbent, preventing the public from learning about alternative policy platforms in a meaningful way.
* Media is privately owned, and biased towards the interests of the owners of the media, preventing the public from learning about policy platforms opposed to the owner in a meaningful way.
* There are significant barriers to becoming a candidate (financial, or requiring a lot of work which costs a lot of money), preventing non-wealthy groups from being able to run.
* Corporations or ultra-wealthy are allowed to selectively fund large amounts of money (beyond the means of normal citizens), allowing policy platforms they support to drown out policy platforms in the interest of the public.
* As you mentioned, electorate boundaries are set in an unfair way (gerrymandering).
There are a lot more - but the summary is that there are many ways to undermine a democracy, and there are many countries that are nominally democratic, but aren't really.
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> France as I discovered does this at the gas stations where they put $200 or so authorizations on your card for absolutely no good reason. It's the same here but I'm not sure how it could work another way? They have to make sure you have the money to pay for the fuel you're pumping, it doesn't seem weird to me. I can't imagine a pump that allows you to pump as you wish and then just begs you to pay. That works for t…
That’s how it works if I choose “pay at cashier” - if I walk up and don’t have the money the fuel is already in my car.
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> Of course Airbnbs are also a real problem in general with the way they increase the scarcity of housing, What's the actual mechanism for airbnbs to prevent housing construction?
I'll assume good faith here: AirBnB rentals typically make more money for apartment and condo owners than long-term rentals, at least in big cities (that attract tourists) where there's often already scarce housing and not a lot of new affordable construction. So as housing units get taken off the long-term market rental (i.e. actually being used for housing) to be turned into short-term rental for AirBnB, it reduces…
This tells me that you think that treating housing supply as a relevant factor to the price of housing is a stupidly obvious error.
> So they don't necessarily "prevent housing construction" (what housing gets built is a topic a bit too complex to get into here) but they absolutely do reduce available housing in large cities and in-demand areas, in the ways outlined above.
That you for agreeing that they do not prevent housing supply from increasing to meet the increased demand.
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Is there that much smoking in hotels? Do they charge more for smoking rooms? A number like 84x suggests that it's basically zero now. That kinda makes sense. The only one who would notice is the cleaning staff, and relying on their word for "it smelled like smoke" sounds like a way to get a chargeback. They'd call you on it only if they were forced to take the room out of rotation to air it out. So maybe there are a…
The last time I walked into a hotel room that smelled like cigarette smoke was in 1998, so I would think this is very uncommon.
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Credit card is a proxy for an acceptable credit score. It's a filter so they can exclude irresponsible people without exposing themselves to claims of discrimination or racism. Unfortunately people who simply choose to live without using credit are caught up in that too.
In Europe, UK and Ireland it’s not an actual credit card - a debit card is perfectly acceptable and normal.