With AirBnB, you don't get to see the other guys' review until you have posted your own. So there's no fear of tit-for-tat retaliation, and most of the reviews should be pretty honest.
"Most" should be "pretty" honest? You neatly illustrate precisely why the system should be mistrusted.
It's been 30 years since Lotus 1-2-3 became cheap, available, accessible, and accurate. What the hell are all of these accountants still doing? I personally think a lot of it is work for idle hands, but makework if you prefer.
I wrote this here on Slashdot back in 2010 - "My wife is the accountant and CFO for a local business" [...] "in the 1980's the business required an accountant, two full time bookkeepers, and a full time filing clerk. Today, despite the business being ten times larger, there's just her and a full time data entry clerk. The phone girl files in her spare time". Today (in 2016) after an upgrade to their vertical/point of sale program that integrated a couple of things that weren't... the full time data entry clerk is gone as well. There's just my wife and the phone girl, who also does data entry and filing for the few remaining manual items.
Oh? Then how come you are completely unable to refute a single one of my points? You didn't even try. (You need not answer, because I know the answer - you can't.)
You, then, have my permission to stay at the hotels certified by the loving, caring, and benevolent officials of the local government. The government, over which you â" a visitor from afar â" have no control whatsoever.
Nor do I need any control, because it's in the goverment's interest to maintain standards. Quite the opposite for AirBNB, which has every reason not to be too honest.
I'll take my chances with AirBNB or someone like them, whose business model is based on the integrity of the ratings (similar to Uber and, to a large extent, Amazon).
That's the difference between you and me - I have no need to take a chance. (And given how riddled with fail Amazon's reviews are, how stupid do you have to be to even bring them up?)
If "fairness" is a concern, the hotels should be left alone â" and unregulated â" too.
I'm not normally one to drink the "regulation is bad" coolaid
But you won't let that stop you from doing so - right from the envelope without even diluting it with water first as per the instructions.
in this case, the regulation serves a function that has been deprecated by the new instant availability of information.
Oh? How exactly does does the 'new instant availability of information' replace regular and routine inspection of the premises to ensure that they are maintained to code and within regulations?
all of the hotels near where I live sit mostly empty most of the time.
Either they don't actually sit empty most of the time (and you're as clueless about that as everything else), or there's something funny going on - hotels that sit 'mostly' empty 'most of the time' are on a fast track to bankruptcy.
They can afford that business model because most of their costs come from actually renting the room (aka taxes contingent upon occupancy).
Some of their costs (and there's much more to it than occupancy taxes) - and all of their income. Which means to not go broke, they need to regularly rent out a significant portion of their rooms.
Be it Uber or AirBNB, the pattern is the same â" the old way of doing things is struggling against the technology-enabled new way.
We lived through this, when automobiles replaced horse-drawn transport, we are witnessing it now...
Horseshit.
creating an unsafe and unfair market for consumers as well as hoteliers
It is decidedly no less "safe" than the overpriced "real" hotels/motels.
Horseshit. A real hotel controls it's keys so that only I and the hotel staff have access to my room. Such control is virtually impossible in an AirBNB situation. In addition, a real hotel has a front desk staff and usually some form of security staff keeping an eye on the premises. A random rental from AirBNB does not. And that's on top of the fire safety and other issues raised by other commenters.
With the immediately-available customer ratings offered by the new companies, the government regulators are simply no longer necessary.
Presuming the ratings are honest - which I do not trust them to be. Customers have no interest in honest ratings, and can be penalized for them if they cast aspersions on the service. The rental agency itself has no incentive to be scrupulously honest because they don't want to piss off too many providers. Etc... etc... Not to mention, few customers will rate (or even have the technical know how to rate) such things as the fire protection system.
Note also that this only failed because it was on a fast track that requires 2/3rds majority; it almost certainly will pass eventually (with a 50%+1 majority), thanks to Republicans.
As usual, the biased idiots only tell half the story... What the AC conveniently forgot to mention, is that after being passed by a Republican Congress it will eventually become law once a Democratic President signs it into law.
....is the per-mile-driven accident rate greater or less with Autopilot (or equivalent) enabled?
For fatal accidents, the per-mile rate is lower with Autopilot enabled.
But perhaps that doesn't tell the true story.
No - it doesn't tell the whole story. The per-mile rate for non Autopilot vehicles is based on multiple billions of miles driven, where a single 'extra' death tomorrow would change the fourth or fifth decimal place. The per-mile rate for Autopilot is based on a much smaller sample size, a single death tomorrow would double the per-mile rate.
How many people died on shuttle flights ? How much more expensive was the program than expendable launch vehicles ?
Not as much more expensive as you might think - even though a single Shuttle flight cost much more than an expendable, it could carry a great deal more than an expendable. (As many as eleven crew while still carrying up to 60k lbs of payload.)
And that's what drives me to distraction in these discussions. Everyone compares costs but they never bring up capability. What you're buying matters every bit as how much you're buying it for. A subcompact car (a capsule) may cost much less than a full sized crew cab pickup (the Shuttle), but only a complete fool would confuse one for the other.
it is already evident that the rate of fatalities using this mode is already a 35% improvement over non-autopilot users. (1 fatality in 130 million miles driven vs. 1 in 96 million)
Is this an apples-to-apples comparison?
No, it's not. The numbers for non-Autopilot users (I.E. the general public in non Tesla vehicles) are an average based on billions and billions of miles driven. The number for Autopilot users are based on a single sample of 130 odd million miles.
Or to put it more bluntly - a single non Autopilot death tomorrow will change the number somewhere down in the range of the third or fourth decimal place at worst. A single Autopilot death tomorrow will double the fatality rate and render Autopilot a little more than half as safe as not using it.
Further, there's "classified" information and then there's "classified" information.
No, there isn't.
Many things are classified, (in fact, it's hard to find government information that's not)
0.o Seriously? Using Google I can find unclassified government information trivially. There's a freakin' waterfall of the stuff available if you have the wit to look for it.
but we haven't been told if it's just classified, secret, top secret, or higher...
This part just made me laugh out loud, because it made for three strikes - every one of your claims is complete bullshit. Not only is there no such classification as "classified" (the classifications are Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret)... But the FBI Director's statement explicitly stated the levels of classified material that were mishandled.
Not true. The current US death rate for highway driving is 1.08 deaths per 100 million miles driven. Tesla's average at the moment is 0.769 deaths per 100 million miles driven on autopilot.
While that 'at the moment' stat sounds impressive - it's not a very reliable number. There's just not enough data. If there was another death today, the result for Tesla would change to about 1.4 deaths per.
Putting aside "we-will-all-be-replaced-by-robots-soon", this is actually a good idea, and the company making them has the right strategy; much better to charge an hourly rent instead of a huge upfront fee!
It's the right strategy from the customers point of view... but TANSTAAFL. From the businesses point of view it's problematic because they lay out the cash cost of the robot upfront but only receive income in a trickle.
In the 1970s I (and almost everyone else) assumed that we would have people living and working in space within the next decade.
In the 1970's I thought that within the next decade I'd be insanely rich and have a stable of lovely and barely legal blondes at my beck and call. The difference between me and you is that I knew it was a fantasy and eventually I grew up and ceased to hold the world at fault for failing to deliver on my fantasies.
It may seem that way, but nevertheless there is overwhelming evidence that Autopilot improves safety. You should look at actual data rather than relying on gut feelings about what "seems" to be true. You should look at actual data rather than relying on gut feelings about what "seems" to be true.
So... give us a link. Show, rather than tell. Prove it, rather than going all fanboy. (Independent proof please, not Tesla propoganda or fanboy gushings.)
Anecdata - back in the 50's and 60's the USN spent a great deal of money developing an autopilot for submarines. Introduced with great fanfare - it was taken out of service in less than five years for the very reasons the grandparent cites. With the autopilot doing most of the work, the attention of the helmsman and planesman started to wander. They started falling asleep. The system ended up being less safe.
Mine sits in the drawer in the nightstand most of the time. I only pull it out when I'm doing something on my phone and wish I had a bigger screen.
No wonder it doesn't get used - you've got it stored away. Mine sits on the end table at my end of couch, and see's daily use. I use it to check my mail and the news while I'm drinking my morning coffee. It's equally in use in the evening for the same purposes, as well as looking up information on shows I'm watching. It also goes into the kitchen to serve as a reference when I'm cooking. (And that's not counting it being used as an e-reader via the Kindle app.)
I don't have a laptop (one that suits my needs is just too expensive), so when I'm travelling it serves as my primary interface to the 'net. It's not a daily carry (I'm a househusband) because it's wi-fi only. If I need 'net access when I'm out and about it's usually easier to just use my iPhone. (But I have a car charger for both the phone and the tablet and use them on the go occasionally.)
I have a big desktop (designed for photo editing and gaming), my Dell Venue tablet, and an iPhone 5... each one has their uses.
To deorbit it, no; you might need a tiny bit of fuel to push it towards our gravity well, but that's about it. After that, you can just let it fall into the atmosphere.
Um, no. That's not how it works. You need sufficient fuel to change it's perapsis so that it's inside the atmosphere - and that can be a great deal of fuel indeed. (Nothing just 'falls' into the atmosphere.) Not to mention, if you're not already in Earth's gravity well (I.E. in Earth orbit), you'll need a great deal *more* fuel to rendezvous with Earth.
We've been dropping space capsules like the Apollo and Soyuz capsules back to Earth, with humans inside, for many decades now without much trouble. I'm sure dropping hunks of rock intact won't be that hard.
And why should this never be cost effective? Robotic mining equipment needs to be deployed once. And without much gravity to speak off, all you need to do is launch the mined material in the direction of a desert every few days.
Robotic mining equipment only needs to be launched once (presuming it never needs maintenance of any kind) - but the fuel needed to deorbit the mined material is another matter entirely.
Slashdot Mirror
"Most" should be "pretty" honest? You neatly illustrate precisely why the system should be mistrusted.
I wrote this here on Slashdot back in 2010 - "My wife is the accountant and CFO for a local business" [...] "in the 1980's the business required an accountant, two full time bookkeepers, and a full time filing clerk. Today, despite the business being ten times larger, there's just her and a full time data entry clerk. The phone girl files in her spare time". Today (in 2016) after an upgrade to their vertical/point of sale program that integrated a couple of things that weren't... the full time data entry clerk is gone as well. There's just my wife and the phone girl, who also does data entry and filing for the few remaining manual items.
Oh? Then how come you are completely unable to refute a single one of my points? You didn't even try. (You need not answer, because I know the answer - you can't.)
Nor do I need any control, because it's in the goverment's interest to maintain standards. Quite the opposite for AirBNB, which has every reason not to be too honest.
That's the difference between you and me - I have no need to take a chance. (And given how riddled with fail Amazon's reviews are, how stupid do you have to be to even bring them up?)
But you won't let that stop you from doing so - right from the envelope without even diluting it with water first as per the instructions.
Oh? How exactly does does the 'new instant availability of information' replace regular and routine inspection of the premises to ensure that they are maintained to code and within regulations?
Either they don't actually sit empty most of the time (and you're as clueless about that as everything else), or there's something funny going on - hotels that sit 'mostly' empty 'most of the time' are on a fast track to bankruptcy.
Some of their costs (and there's much more to it than occupancy taxes) - and all of their income. Which means to not go broke, they need to regularly rent out a significant portion of their rooms.
Horseshit.
Horseshit. A real hotel controls it's keys so that only I and the hotel staff have access to my room. Such control is virtually impossible in an AirBNB situation. In addition, a real hotel has a front desk staff and usually some form of security staff keeping an eye on the premises. A random rental from AirBNB does not. And that's on top of the fire safety and other issues raised by other commenters.
Presuming the ratings are honest - which I do not trust them to be. Customers have no interest in honest ratings, and can be penalized for them if they cast aspersions on the service. The rental agency itself has no incentive to be scrupulously honest because they don't want to piss off too many providers. Etc... etc... Not to mention, few customers will rate (or even have the technical know how to rate) such things as the fire protection system.
As usual, the biased idiots only tell half the story... What the AC conveniently forgot to mention, is that after being passed by a Republican Congress it will eventually become law once a Democratic President signs it into law.
No - it doesn't tell the whole story. The per-mile rate for non Autopilot vehicles is based on multiple billions of miles driven, where a single 'extra' death tomorrow would change the fourth or fifth decimal place. The per-mile rate for Autopilot is based on a much smaller sample size, a single death tomorrow would double the per-mile rate.
Not as much more expensive as you might think - even though a single Shuttle flight cost much more than an expendable, it could carry a great deal more than an expendable. (As many as eleven crew while still carrying up to 60k lbs of payload.)
And that's what drives me to distraction in these discussions. Everyone compares costs but they never bring up capability. What you're buying matters every bit as how much you're buying it for. A subcompact car (a capsule) may cost much less than a full sized crew cab pickup (the Shuttle), but only a complete fool would confuse one for the other.
No, it's not. The numbers for non-Autopilot users (I.E. the general public in non Tesla vehicles) are an average based on billions and billions of miles driven. The number for Autopilot users are based on a single sample of 130 odd million miles.
Or to put it more bluntly - a single non Autopilot death tomorrow will change the number somewhere down in the range of the third or fourth decimal place at worst. A single Autopilot death tomorrow will double the fatality rate and render Autopilot a little more than half as safe as not using it.
Here's my solution: Narrowminded jackasses like yourself should go piss up a rope. It's *my* life, and I'll live it the way I dammed well please.
Says the guy waffling and handwaving in an attempt to steer the discussion away from the facts.
No, there isn't.
0.o Seriously? Using Google I can find unclassified government information trivially. There's a freakin' waterfall of the stuff available if you have the wit to look for it.
This part just made me laugh out loud, because it made for three strikes - every one of your claims is complete bullshit. Not only is there no such classification as "classified" (the classifications are Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret)... But the FBI Director's statement explicitly stated the levels of classified material that were mishandled.
While that 'at the moment' stat sounds impressive - it's not a very reliable number. There's just not enough data. If there was another death today, the result for Tesla would change to about 1.4 deaths per.
It's the right strategy from the customers point of view... but TANSTAAFL. From the businesses point of view it's problematic because they lay out the cash cost of the robot upfront but only receive income in a trickle.
In the 1970's I thought that within the next decade I'd be insanely rich and have a stable of lovely and barely legal blondes at my beck and call. The difference between me and you is that I knew it was a fantasy and eventually I grew up and ceased to hold the world at fault for failing to deliver on my fantasies.
In other words... pretty much the same as it's always been unless you have the cash to pay for better details and larger houses.
I wasn't. And that you're "PISSED" just makes me laugh at your self entitlement. (And at your ignorance.)
Anyone with a clue has seen this coming for years.
When examining whether a business is, or can become, profitable - you can't just look at expenses. You have to look at the income side too.
The submitter, and the linked articles, signally fail to do so.
Unhappily, there's not enough data to make that claim with any degree of certainty.
So... give us a link. Show, rather than tell. Prove it, rather than going all fanboy. (Independent proof please, not Tesla propoganda or fanboy gushings.)
Anecdata - back in the 50's and 60's the USN spent a great deal of money developing an autopilot for submarines. Introduced with great fanfare - it was taken out of service in less than five years for the very reasons the grandparent cites. With the autopilot doing most of the work, the attention of the helmsman and planesman started to wander. They started falling asleep. The system ended up being less safe.
No wonder it doesn't get used - you've got it stored away. Mine sits on the end table at my end of couch, and see's daily use. I use it to check my mail and the news while I'm drinking my morning coffee. It's equally in use in the evening for the same purposes, as well as looking up information on shows I'm watching. It also goes into the kitchen to serve as a reference when I'm cooking. (And that's not counting it being used as an e-reader via the Kindle app.)
I don't have a laptop (one that suits my needs is just too expensive), so when I'm travelling it serves as my primary interface to the 'net. It's not a daily carry (I'm a househusband) because it's wi-fi only. If I need 'net access when I'm out and about it's usually easier to just use my iPhone. (But I have a car charger for both the phone and the tablet and use them on the go occasionally.)
I have a big desktop (designed for photo editing and gaming), my Dell Venue tablet, and an iPhone 5... each one has their uses.
Which means guidance and control packages will have to be regularly shipped up. It won't be as simple as you mistakenly assumed.
The Apollo capsule may not have, but the Apollo Service Module certainly did.
Seriously, are you so monumentally stupid you don't even know how Apollo worked?
Um, no. That's not how it works. You need sufficient fuel to change it's perapsis so that it's inside the atmosphere - and that can be a great deal of fuel indeed. (Nothing just 'falls' into the atmosphere.) Not to mention, if you're not already in Earth's gravity well (I.E. in Earth orbit), you'll need a great deal *more* fuel to rendezvous with Earth.
Capsules are actively guided. Rocks... are not.
Robotic mining equipment only needs to be launched once (presuming it never needs maintenance of any kind) - but the fuel needed to deorbit the mined material is another matter entirely.
So? That has precisely nothing to do with what I posted.