I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam Run by Fake Hosts on Airbnb - VICE
Even if my scammers had been slightly foiled, there was no guarantee that they couldn’t just start fresh with new profiles. The system was still in place. Airbnb has created a web of more than 7 million listings built largely on trust, easily exploitable by those willing to do so. Maybe it’s not so surprising that the company would rather play a half-assed game of whack-a-mole than answer basic questions about its verification process. For every person who doesn’t receive a complete refund, Airbnb makes money.
I've had good experiences on Airbnb so far, but this sort of thing makes me wary about continuing to push my luck. The hotel aggregation sites are little better.
Everything is Amazing, But Nothing is Ours – alexdanco.com
The cost of ownership is up front and visible; the cost of access is back-dated and hidden.
When Should You Start a New Note? — Zettelkasten Forum
I need to print this and stick it where I will see it all the time until I have internalised it.
The case for planting trees | Small Farm Future
Sensible, practical advice, it seems to me.
Paper to Paperless: A Guide to Digitalizing Your Journals with a Scanner App
Very thorough guide that covers both how and why you might want to do this. Most interesting, it links to a Python script for adding a Table of Contents to a PDF, which would be very handy indeed.
But shouldn't it be "digitising"?
Daring Fireball: Correction: Regarding an Erroneous Allegation in ‘Richard Stallman’s Disgrace’
This is how you do this sort of thing.
Medium tests to save webpages from the internet
Don’t get me wrong. I am sure a lot of people like free stuff. But I just find it hard to justify removing ads / bypassing paywalls from external content while enforcing paywall for some Medium stories.
Well now, there's a thing.
h/t Peter Molnar
“If you want people do to something, make it easy.” Richard Thaler has Lunch with the FT
Brexit means Brexit — that is one of the dumbest statements that has ever been uttered by a head of state. And I’m aware that there are thousands of tweets one could compare it with. I mean, it’s simultaneously meaningless and wrong.”
Salsa in Central Park
I don’t agree with Roger Scruton on much, but I do agree with him that limiting social dance to clubs and EDM festivals where everyone is drunk or high is not good for us. Scruton’s solution is to yearn for the glory days of eighteenth century Europe. My solution is to look to our friends from the African diaspora, whose social norms around music and dance are very different from those of white people, and in a lot of ways, more grown up.
Very well said; one the other hand, there is always Irish, Scottish and English "folk dancing" and its many derivatives, which are so much fun and which I could do, more and more often.
Going to extremes
Extreme Economies by Richard Davies, as reviewed by Diane Coyle, does sound like a book I would enjoy reading.
Structured Procrastination
via gwern.net
[W]hat could be more noble than using one character flaw to offset the bad effects of another?
Weeknotes 30 - Get me a red — Nat Buckley
Frankly, if I wanted to read a detailed report on the work you did in the past week, I’d become your boss.
Via Phil Gyford
Its bad enough feeling bad about monthly round-ups. I'm not going to foist weeknotes on myself or anyone else. But this is a good reminder.
Uses This / Paul Ford
in 2019 the web is less about documents and more for restaurants
This, from one who knows.
My Changing World: An elegy for the window fan
So glad to see this site spring back to life, and this post is a great example of how anecdote can illuminate data.
Well just fancy that
"States with more permissive gun laws and greater gun ownership had higher rates of mass shootings, and a growing divide appears to be emerging between restrictive and permissive states."
A brief history of the “walking simulator,” gaming's most detested genre
As a non-gamer, I had no idea that this was even a thing. And some of these games are almost tempting. Found via Craig Mod's Ridgeline newsletter.
Thinking about the Land: A Personal Perspective on the Origin of Organic Farming – Rachel Laudan
Rachel Laudan is promising a personal look into some of the history of the organic farming movement in England. Looking forward to the rest of her series.
Walk vs. Hike — Ridgeline issue 030
The clever distinctions Craig makes between "walk" and "hike" are subtle and important.
The Grassroots Growth of Mechanical Keyboard Culture
Uh-oh. Keyboard envy ...
Tim Harford — Article — How the Brexit debate was flushed down the drain
Far too reasonable to be taken seriously.
1Password 6 will stop working with Safari 13
Looks like I might be in the same boat, considering similar alternatives to 1Password.
Fake Is Easy, Back Up Your Words With Hyperlinks
I don't like embedding tweets for all the right reasons, so I try to use screenshots. Just have to remember always to save to The Internet Archive and link.
The New Wilderness (Idle Words)
The large tech companies point to our willing use of their services as proof that people don’t really care about their privacy. But this is like arguing that inmates are happy to be in jail because they use the prison library.
Clever! Maybe not entirely true, but clever.
Telling people that they own their data, and should decide what to do with it, is just another way of disempowering them.
Tiny Loops, Hold Me Closer — Roden Explorers Archive
Phenomenally interesting edition of his newsletter from Craig Mod, talking at length about the seductive little loops that keep us in thrall.