Sunday, August 5, 2018

On Scientific Research

This is a response to a post from a friend of mine no facebook reproduced here:
Everyday, I drive by the waterfront so I'm interested in the ships I see there. Probably the coolest are the Polar Sun and the Polar Star. They are the two largest ice breakers in the US. The Polar Sun is deactivated and it's parts are being used to keep the Polar Star running.
The Polar Star has one mission... to open the channel every year to McMurdo Station. Without it, our science stations in Antarctica are at risk, since McMurdo is the largest base and supports most of the others.
There's been a push to get a new icebreaker to replace her... since if she breaks and we can't repair her with parts from the Polar Sun... we're kinda screwed.
The Senate allocated $750 million in Feb to build a replacement... and it still needs to be passed. But the Donald "littlefinger" Trump moved all the funding from the icebreaker to the border wall. So much more Making American Science Great Again.

About this article
PHYS.ORG
The rapid pace of global warming and ice melting at the poles have underscored the "critical" need for the United States to build four new polar icebreaker ships, US officials said Tuesday.

It would be very sad to see our Antarctica Scientific investment be lost due to the loss of this ice breaker.  However I think there are other things to think about before we bash Trump for this problem.
First of all, providing for the common defense, as is stated in the preamble of our constitution is one of the primary reasons to have government.  A border wall is a project well within this goal and is thus an appropriate project for federal funding.  Providing for scientific advancement could also be deemed as furthering the common defense but it is unlikely that Antarctica research will contribute much to defense technology.
Something that many Americans seem to be oblivious to is the fact that every dime extracted by taxes to pay for projects funded by the federal government are taken at gun-point.  Any funding of projects that are not authorized by the constitution is an outright theft.  This is so common now-a-days that people see it as some kind of right that the government and voters have.  They forget that all power the government has was granted to it by The People, which our unique constitution recognizes as the only lawful source of authority in a non-theocratic government.
At the end of the life of a democracy, it's collapse always happens when the majority realizes they can vote for anything and steal it from the collective whole without any seeming consequences.  Eventually there are simply not enough producers to feed the greedy majority and the system collapses economically and usually with much violence in the streets.
Our economy is failing for several reasons.  A fiat money system owned by a private corporation, a great burden of arbitrary regulation well outside of the legal limits allowed by our constitution, and a very poor educational system that has produced a generation of feel-good know-nothings that lack the common sense necessary to sustain this economy.
The average American has never read or understood the concepts behind our constitutional republic, nor have they probably ever read the Federalist or Anti-Federalist papers which explains why we have what we have.
Without this basis of understanding we find many many people simply parroting the latest memes touted by the Mainstream Media as fact and true without question.
Another point on the ice-breaker issue is that government funding of research tends to skew it in the direction of whatever beliefs or policies are in place.  Scientists are not free to explore what seems most promising but rather what is most fund-able.  Grant writing is probably the most important skill for a scientist these days that wishes to pursue her chosen area of research.  Picking a research project that bucks the idea of global warming, for example, will have a very hard time getting funding.  This is a disservice to those paying the research bills - the US Taxpayer.
Another point is that the media is commonly used when funding is needed for a particular endeavor.  Ever notice how NASA seems to have a breakthrough in finding life on other planets just at the time congress is voting on its budget?  Ever notice how these great breakthroughs turn out to be nothing after the funding is obtained?
How critical really is this ice-breaker?  It would be real nice to have $750M given to get a new one.  Seems the rich can't get together and make it happen, no lets steal from the poor instead... ever think about that angle?  It isn't just "evil corporations" that steal from people. (and they don't steal it.  They provide a product or service people are willing to pay for.)  We throw a fit when corporations get a tax break but don't realize that every dime that they are taxed simply is passed on to the customer.  The price of a service or commodity is set by the market and the entire marked is adversely affected by both taxes and regulations.
Now I am not arguing that the wall Trump is building is necessarily the right thing to do, but it certainly falls within his job description and it is a project he promised to do on the campaign trail.  He was duly and lawfully elected to do what he promised and amazingly enough, he seems to be keeping his promises.
How does the executive branch "move" funding from one project to another when congress has full control of the purse strings?  Clearly, if the executive branch can do such things, congress is not doing its job to stop this.  Let's at least point the "little finger" in the right direction.

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Why AirBnB SUCKS

This is unbelievable.  Airbnb has a terrible website when used by someone in my niche situation.  My big handicap is that I do not want to have or use a smartphone, yet it is IMPOSSIBLE as a host to use them without one.
When I got my first customer after several months of having been signed up as a host on this site, I received a rather cryptic text message that said someone wanted to stay at my place for two whole months (a $12,000 value).  Yet when I tried to log in I found my account had been hacked by someone and my name and profile photo was someone from India.  I can't imagine why anyone would hack an AirBnB host account but they did.
I spent hours trying to contact a person at AirBnB and could not do so.  After hours of searching I finally found a phone number burred DEEP within their help system. (BTW its 844-424-7262)
I needed to talk to a person because once I reset my password and tried to regain access to my account, I found that they had added a required photo method to verify my identity.  Unfortunately, they would only allow me to upload the photo via a smartphone.  Never mind the fact that I could take a reasonable picture of someone, hold it in front of the phone and take a picture.  The fact that I could not upload an image from my computer made it impossible for me to get back into my account.  I finally had to borrow someone elses phone to accomplish this step.  LAME-O-Tech
By the time this was done, my customer had been lost.

The cryptic url you get from AirBnB in your phone text message includes 0s and Os which can be very confusing.  I had to try 4 variations to get the right URL and the one that appeared right said "You are not authorized to view this message".  Well that helps a lot.
What was also weird was that when I went to my account online there was absolutely no evidence that I had any customers interested in my place.  The support person could not explain or correct this either.
The call center guy also had to admit, I cannot use their system without a smartphone.
I will send them a link to this article as feedback to their system and hope maybe somebody there will be able to make changes so I and others like me can use their services.

AirBnB seems to run their company like US Worst/Verizon does.  An impossible maze of attempts to thwart people from asking intelligent questions and getting real help.

As a test, on their help page I tried searching for "How do I ask a question" - no relevant answers were found.

Specific fixes they could do:
1) Forget photo verification via cell phone.  It doesn't prove anything, and it can easily be thwarted.  Either let people upload an image or get rid of this ridiculous method of user verification.  Better to get them to sign in with facebook - at least then you have a face recognition algorithm working for you.

2) for shortcut URLs don't use 0s or Os - just use lowercase letters - its not a password so keep it simple for users to type in if necessary.  In fact, I would implement it so that words from a simple dictionary are used.  Imagine how simple it would be to type in https://www.airbnb.me/lovelyflowerstogether.

3) Put your support number on the root help page.  Don't pretend to be happy to help me if you hide your number.  Better, add chat support or true email support or some kind of ticket system.  It works and things don't get lost.  Maybe your customer is like me and lives way out where there is little or no cell coverage - ever think of that?  Let people really talk to you using an efficient system via multiple channels.  I can understand the cost of personal support but with a good chat-bot you may be able to still answer most questions in an automated fashion.  Hiding your support or making it hard for people to talk to you just cuts you off from you customers and pisses them off.

If I see no progress in fixing this so I can use it, I will simply have to shut down my account and go elsewhere.  Don't do this guys!  I want to use you if I can!

Note that I have a general problem with all these "middle man" rental listing websites.  A host can only manage so many middle-men and besides loosing profit on their rentals, every site is different and there is simply no way to support all the possible ways a person might offer or manage his rental.  A small fee to allow the listing to simply contain a link to the renter's website would be wonderful and I would gladly pay a reasonable fee for the listing.
If this isn't done soon, I bet a craigs-list kind of rental website will become a defacto winner and eventually dethrone all of you "middle-men".