Interesting Links for 06-09-2023

[andrewducker]

1. The End of Airbnb in New York

(tags:housing newyork GoodNews )

2. The strange, secretive world of North Korean science fiction

(tags:NorthKorea society scifi )

3. Stalker found Japanese singer through reflection in her eyes

(tags:stalking location japan )

4. Study of over 80,000 UK couples finds that in love opposites don't actually attract

(tags:relationships psychology )

5. "AI took my job, literally"—Gizmodo fires Spanish staff amid switch to glitchy AI translator

(tags:ai translation jobs OhForFucksSake )

6. Misinformation about contraception on social media may be contributing to Scotland's record high abortion figures

(tags:disinformation contraception Scotland abortion OhForFucksSake )

7. The Nanohertz Gravitational-Wave Detection Explained

(tags:gravity research space )

Comments

[ninetydegrees]

1 The only part of this I don't like is making people be present when renting.

[calimac]

1) So, as the article points out, this is a blow both to people renting who want, e.g., a place to put their whole family, and to people offering the rentals who want, e.g. to make a little extra money off their apartment when they're out of town for the weekend.

And why is that being done? Because of people on both sides who abuse the privilege, who look for loopholes to be obnoxious or rapacious. They've spoiled it for everybody.

This is called "the tragedy of the commons." It's popular these days to say that the tragedy of the commons does not exist, but it happens all the time, and this is an example.

[andrewducker]

The Tragedy of the Commons assumes a lack of regulation. What we have here is another example of how such tragedies don't tend to occur in real life, because people get together and regulate access to the commons, as they have done here.

Thinking further about this, this isn't about "should a number of people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource such as a pasture, they will tend to over-use it, and may end up destroying its value altogether" - at no point has the value of whatever we're considering "the commons" here been destroyed. If anything, the value of the properties has gone up.

There's certainly economics going on here. But this is more about hoarding (a finite resource being bought out by the rich so they can sell it on to the poor at a large markup) and externalities (where the owners of party flats don't care about the noise they inflict on their neighbours).

[calimac]

Functionally, it's the same thing. If overuse causes you to lose the commons because it's physically been destroyed, and overuse causes you to lose the convenience of AirBNB because it has to be prohibited, either way you've lost it because of overuse. The why of the overuse is immaterial to the basic similarity.

And it's an economic loss, too. Not the market value of the properties, but the value of having an AirBNB rental market. That's an economic value, and it's been completely lost.

[jducoeur]

The Tragedy of the Commons assumes a lack of regulation. What we have here is another example of how such tragedies don't tend to occur in real life, because people get together and regulate access to the commons, as they have done here.

That's true, but it's also an illustration of the common failure mode of excessive, damaging regulation, and the sort of all-or-nothing thinking that is too often dominant nowadays.

It's absolutely the case that some localities have been blighted by excesses of AirBnB and the like. But most haven't -- in most places, it provides convenient places to stay in "hotel deserts", and gives folks a way to make some extra money. (I've at least once had my hash saved, when our house was rendered uninhabitable for a week: being able to rent a nearby AirBnB prevented a bad situation from becoming a true crisis.)

The right approach here, IMO, would have been more measured regulation. It should absolutely involve some sort of license, with a fee sufficient to cover the city's regulatory cost, that can be revoked by the city, whose quantity can be controlled, and can be limited in the number of licenses per person.

Properly managed, coupled with some gradually-evolving guidelines based on empirical evidence of the actual problems, would likely suffice, without this sort of a sledgehammer of regulation...

[simont]

#4 reminds me of an extremely annoying opinion piece I read a couple of decades ago about geeks looking for partners.

Its premise was: if you come home from work, or out of your study, saying "Honey, I just did the most amazing hack!", would you prefer (a) a partner who says "that's nice dear" and puts your dinner down in front of you, or (b) a partner who says "Ooh, what was it? Wait, how did that even work? Show me in more detail ... " and two hours later you're still both enthusing over it and have sent out for pizza. Its conclusion was: you should prefer (a).

This annoyed me because it seemed self-evidently bollocks. It annoyed me because, unlike my phrasing here, it was conventionally gender-stereotyped rather than gender-independent. And it annoyed me most of all by neglecting all the other possibilities! For example, surely another quite plausible option is a partner who is also obsessively geeky but about something else, so that you don't exactly share each other's specific enthusiasm, but are sympathetic toward the general behaviour patterns of geekhood, because you have them too. Plus each of you has something to do when the other one is off doing their thing.

This article at least sounds as if it would have disagreed with that one, which is a start :-)

[andrewducker]

Yes. I don't need my partner to be exactly the same as me, but I do want to be able to talk to them.

And also, Jane and I finish work around the same time. The idea that she'll be putting the dinner down in front of me as I walk through the door is laughably old-fashioned.

[simont]

Well, that article was a couple of decades ago. But I think even then it was a couple of decades out of date!

[channelpenguin]

I definitely want somewhere between b) and your option of c) other geekdom.

I prefer developer geeks in a different language or stack, or who nerd on a different aspect of sailing or self-sufficiency or music or whatever.

I have never understood partnerships where the partners are if the "yes dear, here's your dinner" ilk.

Though...a THIRD partner who did all that would be USEFUL, I have no idea WHY they'd hook up to be "mum" to a pair of geeks...

[andrewducker]

Jane and I have regularly said that we'd find a wife very useful around the house.

(As it is, we have a cleaner one morning a week.)

[anna_wing]

That would be the highly-paid professional cook/housekeeper...

[channelpenguin]

Well yes, money is a reason :-) But I don't have enough

But I'm from a family background/social class where we would be far more likely to BE the "servants" than to employ them.

So no handyman or gardener for me either.

[andrewducker]

We have a team of gardeners. They come round for about half an hour every three weeks, and charge me about £35 for blitzing the garden back into shape.

[channelpenguin]

They are woefully underpaid! There is no way the ones here would charge so little. How can they live? How can they even afford tools?

And I guess you did know people who had gardeners, cleaners etc. when you were a child? I never did. I know people who *were* those things. It seems a stubbornly hard mentality to shift for me. Sigh.

[andrewducker]

I don't think we knew people who had gardeners when I was a kid. Or at any point up to about three years ago, when we got one.

I assume they afford to live because they go round a whole bunch of places and spend almost no time at each one.

[channelpenguin]

Half an hour of hour many people's time? They need tools, fuel, a vehicle (or transport fares) just to operate. They spend time traveling. Maintaining tools. I'm almost certain the economics cannot work out unless (and maybe even if) they live in overcrowded squalor far from town.

:-) still more than me :-)

[anna_wing]

Stay-at-home mothers do it all the time.

[channelpenguin]

I'm sure they do (as well as many many other tasks!)

Sadly, there's just me to do everything, including a full time job (which is at least from home).

My wee cat does pest control, at least he pulls his (4kg) weight :-)

(It wasn't the plan, but my housemate's job, that took him 2 years to find, is site work, so he is now never here)

[calimac]

Option A reminds me of the story in Obama's memoirs about what happened after they called him at 6 AM to tell him he'd won the Nobel Peace Prize, and I quote:

After I hung up, Michelle asked what the call was about.
"I'm getting the Nobel Peace Prize."
"That's wonderful, honey," she said, then rolled over to get a little more shut-eye.

[andrewducker]

I wonder if that's "not interested in Nobel prizes" or "My husband is already the most powerful person on the planet, I'm now jaded about people handing him more", or just the very low level of sleep that seems usual for people operating at that level.

[calimac]

I'm sure it was just "I'm too tired to deal with this right now," which is also pretty much how the president was on the phone with his aide who gave him the news, but regardless of its reason I thought the dismissive tone in the story was very funny.

[andrewducker]

I completely agree. Deserves to be immortalised in fiction of some kind.

[hairyears]

(3) If I recall correctly, waving for the camera can disclose a usable fingerprint and palm print to a high-end (100 megapixel) phone camera.

[andrewducker]

You recall correctly
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/scientists-extract-fingerprints-from-photos-taken-from-up-to-three-meters-away/