I'd agree with you if this applied to primary residences, but it seems like this only applies to secondary residences? I find it hard to reconcile "middle class" with "has a second home in NYC"
Re: existing model, for recsys, as long as the product already exists you have some baseline available, even if it's not very good. Anything from "alphabetical order" to "random order" to "most popular" (a reasonable starting point for a lot of cases) is a baseline model.
I agree that a randomized control is extremely valuable, but more as a way to collect unbiased data than a way to validate that you're outperforming random: it's pretty difficult to do worse than random in most recommendation problems. A more palatable way to introduce some randomness is by showing a random item in a specific position with some probability, rather than showing totally random items for a given user/session. This has the advantage of not ruining the experience for an unlucky user when they get a page of things totally unrelated to their interests.
Yes, it's just really nice to be able to push a button and have it hold at the right temperature; sort of like how boiling water on the stove or in the microwave and using an electric kettle are functionally equivalent but the kettle is way more convenient.
A little desktop app that lets me upload transaction csvs from my bank and figure out how much I need to split with my partner. Mostly because I always forget to charge her for utilities or flight bookings and I hate going through the bank UI. Might also expand it with some simple subscription auditing logic.
Also, a dramatic anime intro (complete with cheesy AI generated theme song and video) starring our foster kittens. It's been interesting to learn about some of the techniques needed for consistency, how to storyboard, etc.
I don't see how their analogy is stupid. Aeropress and french press are pretty similar from an "enthusiast coffee device" perspective. Lots of room for variability in grind size, coffee choice, and specific brewing technique with both methods.