The author here. Cool. Yes, it's a similar experiment. The difference is that you use Python. I guess from your code, it's a CLI application that talk to MIDI devices and read the data from Sheets. Is that correct?
That’s right, it’s a pretty thin layer. Parses the sheet and schedules the midi to be sent to a particular (virtual) device. Having it all in one place sounds a lot more convenient.
A particularly intriguing (to me) version of this kind of
user-centered copy is not uncommon on sites in French and uses first-person verbs: “I accept,” “I start”. As opposed to the infinitive “Comment,” “Sign in,” etc.
That reminds me of a noticeable difference in button UI wording traditions between Spanish and Catalan where the original English uses verbs, for instance Open, Edit, Save and Delete.
Specifically, Spanish translations interpret these as representing an impersonal description of the action, and thus the buttons are labelled using the infinitive: Abrir, Editar, Guardar and Borrar. Catalan versions, on the other hand, have interpreted the verbs as instructions aimed at the computer, and translate them in the imperative: Obre, Edita, Desa and Esborra.
Find places online, then call to reserve. Just last week I called a place I found on Booking and found they had a room at half the price shown online. This is in France though where there seem to be rules about how rates are advertised.
I’ve stayed at a few places where when I went to the front desk to extend my stay, they discretely told me to book via Booking.com rather than with them, because I’d get a better rate that way, and they were right. Like flight pricing, hotel room and channel pricing is complicated.
Booking.com have a price guarantee, and a good one, so you will rarely get a better price from the hotel _unless you’re a member of their loyalty programme_ … so for the big hotel chains, sign up to those and book via their apps
I guess the front desk has no discretion to give discounts, in smaller places the owner can give you the booking.com price because it means they don't have to give a cut (is it 30%?) to the bastards from Amsterdam.
I remember walking into a hotel at around 10 PM (I was road-tripping around Iceland and could've slept in the car too) and asking if they'd give me a discount (1 room more to sell), and the front desk person clicked around on a lot on his computer and when a colleague asked him, he said "I'll just give him the agency rate.".
I believe commissions are pretty standardized at 10-12% by now; OTAs have been competing on commission in the fight to sign up hotels.
The most likely reason you might get a better rate from a third-party booking site than from the hotel direct is if the hotel allows the site to do variable pricing to try to capture more willingness-to-pay; sometimes that variable pricing will work out in your favour.
I wonder if commissions have dropped a lot in the past ~5 years, or if your hotel just has a better rate. I remember hearing that average commission back then was in the 20% range (less for major chains with negotiating power), and I know that Booking/Expedia would be happy to kick down 8-12% for any traffic people referred to them. Any startup with zero volume could sign up for an affiliate account to get access to Expedia's availability and booking APIs and get 8% for each booking, and larger customers could negotiate that upwards. I think I saw 14% for one supplier, but I don't remember if that was Booking or Expedia or a smaller company.
That's incorrect. It's never been as high as 20%. That's a claim that I've seen frequently over the years on HN, but it was never the case, at least at Booking.com.
They have a few mechanisms to try and drive up commission from the usual 12%, though. They have a preferred program which boosts search results but costs
3%> They would have loved to drop it to better tune search, but they were addicted to the incremental revenue.
At various times there were also dynamic ranking boost efforts, where a hotel could increase boost their ranking (with a preview) by increasing the commission percentage. IIRC that went as high as 18%.
Both of those applied to the default search results order ONLY. If you clicked "order by price" or similar then you simply got that.
I have only recent direct experience (OTAs all being 10-12%), but I do know one recent change is that “AirBnB model” listings are turning up on Booking.com a lot more now (renting out your holiday home as if it were a hotel with one unit). I know AirBnB charges 20% commission (I think they call it a service fee), perhaps for these cases Booking.com is offering those operators 20% as well.
That makes perfect sense, they were the same type of single villa style. The biggest things I discovered is that while airbnb charges the host 3-4%, they charge the guest 9-15%. Booking.com reverses this and charges the guest no fees while the host has all the cost, 20% and the most risk if the charge/credit card was fraudulent.
I adopted a few tricks from either [1] or a similar video from James Hoffman’s Youtube channel some time ago (including the foaming milk with a French press one) and it vastly improved my lockdowns. The one useful thing they don’t say is (imo) it’s easier to get it right with a smaller size pot.
