Alexa is listening, and who else?

Say that again, please; the ministry didn’t quite catch it

Bloomberg reports that Alexa is not only listing to us 24 hours a day so as to know when the owner calls on her for assistance, but also recording everything said in the room and sending it back to headquarters.

The Intercept reported earlier this year that employees of Amazon-owned Ring manually identify vehicles and people in videos captured by the company’s doorbell cameras, an effort to better train the software to do that work itself.

“You don’t necessarily think of another human listening to what you’re telling your smart speaker in the intimacy of your home,” said Florian Schaub, a professor at the University of Michigan who has researched privacy issues related to smart speakers. “I think we’ve been conditioned to the [assumption] that these machines are just doing magic machine learning. But the fact is there is still manual processing involved.”

“Whether that’s a privacy concern or not depends on how cautious Amazon and other companies are in what type of information they have manually annotated, and how they present that information to someone,” he added.

I would say that, given the revelations recently about how Appeal, Facebook and our other high-tech monopolies treat customers’ personal information, there is no reason to believe that any of manufacturers of these machines can be trusted to record in our homes.

As predicted, (one of) the dumbest creatures in Congress proves it

Maxine Waters was appointed chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee and aren’t we having fun.

Rep. Maxine Waters seemed to demonstrate that she is in over her head Wednesday when she queried several bank executives about student loans even though they were nationalized under former president Obama nearly a decade ago.

Waters is the chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee -- the committee that regulates the banks.

During a hearing examining the practices of some of the nation's biggest banks, Waters complained to a panel of seven bank CEOs that there are more than 44 million Americans that owe … $1.56 trillion in student loan debt."

She added, “Last year, one million student loan borrowers defaulted, which is on top of the one million borrowers who defaulted the year before.”

She then demanded to know what they intended to do about this massive problem. “What are you guys doing to help us with this student loan debt?" she asked. "Who would like to answer first? Mr. Monahan, big bank.”

Bank of America chairman and CEO Brian Monahan replied, “We stopped making student loans in 2007 or so.”

Ms. Waters replied, “Oh, so you don’t do it anymore. Mr. Corbat?”

Said Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat: “We exited student lending in 2009.”

James Dimon, JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO, finally spilled the beans: “When the government took over student lending in 2010 or so, we stopped doing all student lending,” he said.

Waters then quickly changed the subject to small businesses.

The Obama administration put the federal government in charge of student lending in 2010, with the intention of saving taxpayer dollars by “cutting out the middleman,” as President Barack Obama put it.

According to the Washington Times, "student loan debt exploded from $154.9 billion in 2009 to $1.1 trillion at the end of 2017"  with current student debt "estimated at more than $1.5 trillion."

Congress critters might be expected to have staff members to protect them from their ignorance, but Waters apparently hires underlings with a lower intelligence than hers, which would mean an IQ no higher than 70.

UPDATE: Just for yucks, I Google (Duckducked, actually) for “the dumbest things Maxine Waters has said:lots of material to choose from.

Not all that glitters in Riverside is gold

26 Glen Avon Road is back off the rental rolls and back on the market, this time at $3.599. I’ve always liked this house and its location: the owners back in the 80s and early 90s were friends of ours, and we attended several great parties there, especially the Halloween party thrown for all the neighborhood kids and their parents. But it has had trouble selling. It sold for $5.495 in 2006 — not bad — but resold to the present owners for just $4.775 in 2009. They, in turn, placed it back up for sale in 2013 at $5.195, gave up that effort in 2016 and rented it out. Now it’s back, as noted. $3.599 doesn’t seem like a ridiculous price, but I guess we’ll see.

A development that should surprise no-one, and the obvious — to Hartford — solution.

Minimum wage hike from $10 to $15 per hour will cost municipalities $24 million annually.

Nonpartisan analysts released four projections on how the minimum wage hike would affect Connecticut’s 169 cities and towns.

Large cities, with populations greater than 100,000, would face $800,000 to $1 million in added costs.

Medium-sized cities with populations between 50,000 and 80,000 would face $400,000 to $600,000 in additional expenses.

Small cities with populations between 30,000 and 50,000 would face $100,000 to $300,000 in added costs.

Small towns with less than 20,000 people would face $50,000 or less in increased expenses.

A CT Mirror analysis using OFA’s cost estimates and population estimates from the state Office of Policy and Management found there will be an aggregate impact of the wage hike of up to $23.9 million. Connecticut has five large cities, 14 medium-sized cities, 36 small cities and 114 small towns.

All of the projections are based largely on mandated wage hikes. For example, a municipal employee earning $12 per hour would have to be paid $15.

And $6.9 for child care agencies, and, be assured, lots of other agencies that have yet to be accounted for. Plus, if you raise a worker’s pay from $10 to $15, do you think that workers [sic] now earning $15 will welcome the now-equal newcomers as their economic peers, or will they instead insist on their own wages to rise so as to maintain the difference? I’m only kidding about the first option.

…

“We have to look at this holistically,” said Sen. Julie Kushner, D-Danbury. “If we solve a problem here and create a problem there, that doesn’t work.”

Both Kushner and the committee’s other co-chairwoman, Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven, said the legislature should consider raising more revenue to ensure a minimum wage hike doesn’t hurt groups in need.

Well they won’t find that new revenue among the poor, or in Bridgeport, or in Hartford’s slums. So where will they find it? One guess.

Democratic leaders of the Labor and Public Employees Committee said the new estimates demonstrate the need to boost funding for municipalities.

Even weak minds think alike.

Ouch

The owners of 11 Plow Lane paid $4,755,018 for it, new, in 2007, the high-water mark of our market. They put it back up for sale in September and it remains unsold; today it’s been marked down to $3.595. Plow Lane’s a (small) development off Old Church, and I’ve never been a fan of its geography, with houses carved out of ledge and thus affording only minimal back yards. And this house’s lengthy stay on the market doesn’t help, because a stigma attaches to houses that stay around too long. Buyers ask, “what’s wrong with it?”, and explaining that its only problem was that it had been originally overpriced never quite lifts their suspicion that, if no one else wants it, why should they?

Still, it’s a decent house, and it will certainly sell, at some price.

I used to dismiss stagers as unnecessary, but I’ve changed my mind. A stager, for instance, would have temporarily cleared out this master closet, if only for the listing photo day — dump most of the clothes and shoes in another room before the photograph was taken and then return them, would have been my suggestion.

An empty wine cellar only reminds buyers that no one uses them

Riverside contract

88 Meadow Road, an old (1929) charmer, asking $2.795 million, reports a contract. It started at $3.595 in February of last year, but an $800,000 cut seems to have flushed out a customer.

Meadow’s a great street, and though this buyer will probably want to do some extensive updating and renovating here, I think the new owners won’t regret their purchase.

The difficulties this house had finding a buyer can certainly be attributed to initially overpricing it, but it also, in my opinion, offers support to the Mickster’s earlier observation referring to another property: new and nearly-new homes are doing well, while older homes are encountering headwinds.

My own taste runs to older homes like this one, but I’m not the market.

Is there any number at which the media branch of the Democrat Party will admit we have a "crisis"? Probably not.

103,000 illegal aliens apprehended at border in March. And that number only includes those tally caught; surely thousands more slipped across the border undetected.

As the Trump administration has leveled more threats to close the southern border to immigrants, the number of illegal immigrants stopped at the border hit 103,492, the highest in five years, according to just-released U.S. Customs and Border Protection numbers.

The agency seized around 92,607 immigrants at the southern border last month, including 53,000 family units and 8,900 unaccompanied immigrant children.

If this continues, we’ll be embracing and feeding, and providing free medical care and education for 1,200,00,000 new friends into our country over next year. We’re q big country, but these numbers are large enough to drive down wages, compete with our own low-income population and swamp many towns. For comparison of numbers, Pittsburgh has a population of 308,000. Can we afford 4 new Pittsburghs in the next year? he Democrats say yes, others differ.

Pending on Old Church

340 Old Church Road, latest asking price $2.250 million, has found a buyer. I’ve always liked this house, but its quirky, stretched-out layout made it a tough sell. these sellers paid $3.575 fr it in 2000, and began this resale at $2.975 a year ago June, so clearly no home run here.

Still, at some point, you’ve got to take your loss and run.

(Relatively) quick sale on Martin Dale

One Martin Dale, new construction, asked $4.795, got $4.650.

It’s one-house-in from North Street, which probably helped.

I'd say this young man''s problems lie with mannequins

Mother destroy’s neighbor’s lawn display because, she clams, it disturbs her 16-year-old son

A New Jersey woman could be facing charges for destroying her neighbor's 'sexy' Easter lawn display.

Desiree Mozek,of Clifton, dismantled the five scantily clad mannequins with garden shears Tuesday, claiming her 16-year-old son was 'disturbed' by the 'disgusting' set-up. 

The dolls, dressed as Playboy Bunnies in fishnet stockings and lingerie, had been dividing residents in the community for several days.

The unconventional yard display was first set up by dentist Wayne Gangi in front of his Grove Street dental office. 

Dr Gangi was not present at the time the mannequins were dismantled, but told media he is now in the process of filing a restraining order against Mozek. 

Mozek told Pix 11 reporter Andrew Ramos that she was 'offended' by the mannequins when she first walked past them with her son. 

As she disassembled the mannequins, she told Pix 11: 'He's 16-year-old. He's a good boy, he doesn't need to see this every time I take him back from school'. 

The kid’s 16, and his mommy is still walking him home from school? Other than ensuring that he’ll feel comfortable on today’s campuses, I predict no good will come from this.

RELATED? Lehigh University starts men’s cuddling group so as to “redefine masculinity”.will