Friday Finds, XIV
I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb (Vice)
The bad news, which went unstated, was that I had unknowingly stumbled into a nationwide web of deception that appeared to span eight cities and nearly 100 property listings—an undetected scam created by some person or organization that had figured out just how easy it is to exploit Airbnb’s poorly written rules in order to collect thousands of dollars through phony listings, fake reviews, and, when necessary, intimidation.
Be careful out there, folks. Do your due diligence. I've used Airbnb enough times, and have had an overall satisfactory experience. I won't stop using it when appropriate. But it's still an “adolescent” service with a lot of variables that the company can't seem to account for. The good ol' hotel room removes a lot of the uncertainty, that's for sure.
10 Tips to Avoid Leaving Tracks Around the Internet (NY Times)
“Oh yeah — and don’t use Facebook.”
Microsoft Japan’s 4-day workweek experiment sees productivity jump 40% (CNBC)
The experiment, which also incorporated self-development and family wellness schemes, recorded largely positive feedback from employees, too, with 92.1% saying they liked the four-day workweek, according to the firm.
I had a short stint of randomly asking people at the office if they'd be open to a 4-day 10-hours-a-day work week. I got more “yes” than “no” because the perk was the 3-day weekend. But why did I expect that we'd have to have a 40-hour workweek? Why didn't I suggest sticking to 8 hours? 40 hours was a labor movement innovation. Maybe, in this day and age, a new labor movement needs to promote an even healthier work-life balance.
4-day, 8-hours-a-day work week then.
Math Looks The Same In The Brains Of Boys And Girls, Study Finds (NPR)
Using an international database on adolescent achievement in science, mathematics and reading, they found that in two-thirds of all countries, female students performed at least as well as males in science.
Yet paradoxically, females in wealthier countries with more gender equality, including the U.S., were less likely than females in other countries to get degrees in fields like math and computer science.
TL;DR: it has less to do with biology, and more to do with societal structures, expectations, and genderizing interests.
The Billionaires Are Getting Nervous (NY Times)
The wealthiest Americans are paying a much smaller share of income in taxes than they did a half-century ago. In 1961, Americans with the highest incomes paid an average of 51.5 percent of that income in federal, state and local taxes. Half a century later, in 2011, Americans with the highest incomes paid just 33.2 percent of their income in taxes...
And now Michael Bloomberg has decided to enter the race. There was a point in the past where I would've gladly entertained his candidacy. However, I've come to believe very strongly that the greater our income inequality is, the higher the chance for societal instability becomes. The last thing we need is for obscenely wealthy men to tell us they can fix our problems—or buy their way into the White House.