ARobotics's comments

Actually, the above rephrasing is wrong and completely changes the meaning. The original author wasn't saying poor people have less clutter he was saying they have more, but for a reason. Maybe this wording is clearer:

The reason poor people have clutter isn't because they're too dumb to see the virtue of living simply, they have it to reduce risk.

It's too late for me to edit my original post now, but for posterity - airbnb contacted me and resolved the issue. The final customer service rep I spoke to was friendly and helpful, and they refunded the 3% listing/service fee as amends for the slow support.

And if I weren't upset with it, someone else on the internet would be calling me stupid and telling me I deserved it when my identity was stolen or some account was compromised because I was sending things over unencrypted email. Some days I guess you just can't win.

Again though, issue number 1 is unresponsive, unhelpful technical support.

Your comments always make me smile Thomas, you seem like the real life embodiment of the "Lawful Neutral" alignment, always following the letter of each rule. My lease allows subletting, but there may be a provision which I'm not following, I can double check.

If this post gets killed, that's fine. I was hesitant to write it, but I thought it might be valuable to share. There's a fine line between useful critique or sharing an experience and ranting/complaining, perhaps my post leaned too far to the latter.

It's not about anonymity - they have a verified phone number and email address, they have my address and name. My payment is in the form of a check sent to the address being rented, paid to the name on the account. When I created the account, if they had said "We need a credit card number to confirm your identity" or "Use this secure form to submit a copy of utility bill" I would have gladly complied.

Asking me to send them over email after a reservation is much more frustrating. Not responding for two weeks when I do email them a photo of utility bill is more frustrating still.

It's more the principle of requiring additional information after a reservation has been booked instead of being up-front about it, and sending it over unencrypted email.

The biggest issue is that I responded to their original email within 24 hours, but have now waited 10 days without resolution or any feedback.

Great post. One thing that wasn't clear to me - how did your pricing changes affect existing customers?

Did former "basic" accounts get automatically changed to "Freelancer" and start getting billed the extra $10 the next month? If so, how did you handle notifying users and was there much complaint about the change?

I know the title here is the same as the article, but why the heck did sophos choose "Texas college" for the something done by the University of Texas? I assumed from the title it was done by some small school somewhere in Texas, not UT.

Add me to your other reality too. I have never heard of anyone being judged negatively for being laid off. Just about everyone understands that there may be great people laid off when an entire division/product/org gets cut or a company shrinks substantially.

If you're referencing the same article(s) I've read recently, it wasn't "if you don't currently have a job, don't bother applying" it was "if someone has been unemployed for over a year, there is probably a reason". It wasn't a negative judgment on being laid off, it was making the assumption that a long period of unemployment was a signal that the person may not be very hard working or talented or whatever, and with many candidates to choose from that signal could be a deciding factor.

Random hypothesis: Risk.

In 1999 dot coms were making everyone rich and would continue to do so forever. Everyone was getting funded, going public, growing. It didn't appear working at a tech startup was a risky endeavor likely to leave you unemployed in a month.

Today, startups are viewed as very risky. They might go bankrupt, your stock options might be worthless, you might end up with several years of your life gone with little to show for it.

What group of people is going to have the risk profile best suited for that environment - young, single men sounds like a reasonable answer.

You may be underestimating how many small bits of 'fake' are common. A facebook profile is much more accurately described as "how someone wants themselves to be seen" rather than how they are in reality. Some of it is self-censorship, some is self-promotion, some is subconscious, but the cumulative effect is such that the reality show analogy is quite apt; it's based on real events, but edited and filtered into something misleading.

Think about it this way, an autobiography is probably mostly true, but you're going to read it with the understanding that it's not an impartial, objective viewpoint.

I'm veering slightly off topic here but something in this post fascinated me...

Are you sincere in your claim that you were genuinely confused because of the its vs it's mix up in the original post? I had always assumed people pointing it out were doing so just to be pedantic or to make the person who made the mistake look foolish, it never occurred to me that genuine confusion could result.

I'm honestly curious, not trying to anything subversive here. I always read the word "loose" correctly, even when by context it is clear that the author meant "lose" and end up having to pause or re-read the section, so I can certainly understand the experience, it had just never occurred to me that its or it's would really cause confusion.

The results are in line with other studies though. National Instruments, Google, and Apple all rank in the Fortune 100 best places to work every year. It's not surprising that they top this list as well.

A typical day for me is entirely in front of a computer screen, but has over the past year occasionally involved physical work actually putting together a robot. I can attest, some time away from the PC doing mechanical work can be nice.