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Tell HN: Airbnb just stole me 5 minutes of my time adding dices

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Re: Tell HN: Airbnb just stole me 5 minutes of my time adding dices

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for sounding like a cynical right-winger but I'm sure people prefer to share toilets with other people instead of sleeping in the streets. In my country there are very regid regulations on what standard apartments has to fulfill, which has the consequence that not enough apartments are built that can be afforded by poor people.

I've long since suspected that a small part of the housing crises in the developed world is due to the high minimum standards for apartments and housing.

It's not, it's due to greed and people (and corporations) living of rent.

Re: Tell HN: Airbnb just stole me 5 minutes of my time adding dices

#182

I see this as high-IQ software developers building systems to shut out non-high-IQ people from society. Managers look at these CAPTCHAs and think "oh I could solve these no problem, let's use them". In fact, they can only be solved by unusually smart people or by ML bots. Arkose Labs (the maker of this particular captcha) explicitly advertises that their methods can keep out "low-skilled workers" on "human fraud farm…

> In fact, they can only be solved by unusually smart people Wut? Have you actually ever met a person who can't? I always suspected the electoral majority is not particularly bright (which sort of contradicts the idea of near-100 being an average IQ nevertheless) but if this is "unusually smart" then things feel really creepy.

The average IQ by definition is 100. In civilised countries it is above that.

Re: Tell HN: Airbnb just stole me 5 minutes of my time adding dices

#183

Airbnb has been very human hostile since the beginning. The first time I had to create an account, they required that I connect with a google account with access to all my contacts. Then ask me to make a video of myself. I didn't create the account and booked an hotel. Now they are less aggressive with their new procedures, but still, you can see that the people behind it see technical solutions way before they perce…

Sorry for sounding like a cynical right-winger but I'm sure people prefer to share toilets with other people instead of sleeping in the streets. In my country there are very regid regulations on what standard apartments has to fulfill, which has the consequence that not enough apartments are built that can be afforded by poor people.

Having a bathroom shared between many strangers is exceptionally annoying. You have to queue for your turn to use the shower. If someone spends ages in their, well bad luck you're going to be late for work or no shower for you. Many people these days choose not to share a single bathroom even between family members, never mind trying to negotiate with your co-residents. Then how is this shared bathroom cleaned and by who and to what standard? What if one of your neighbours refuses to do the work? Bad luck for you.

The $500 cost of a shower unit and toilet isn't what makes housing unavailable to the poor. Housing standards are a good thing as accommodation quality regresses to the minimum allowed by law.

Re: Tell HN: Airbnb just stole me 5 minutes of my time adding dices

#184

I see this as high-IQ software developers building systems to shut out non-high-IQ people from society. Managers look at these CAPTCHAs and think "oh I could solve these no problem, let's use them". In fact, they can only be solved by unusually smart people or by ML bots. Arkose Labs (the maker of this particular captcha) explicitly advertises that their methods can keep out "low-skilled workers" on "human fraud farm…

Wait are you really suggesting that the Airbnb programmers thought "guys, we need to stop low-IQ people from using our site"?? That's crazy. > explicitly advertises that their methods can keep out "low-skilled workers" on "human fraud farms" Uhm yeah. They're trying to keep people from human fraud farms (who happen to be low-skilled workers) out. It's not a weird elitist conspiracy to keep all low-IQ people from soci…

How do you think they distinguish a low-skilled worker working for a human fraud farm from a low-skilled worker not working for a human fraud farm?

Re: Tell HN: Airbnb just stole me 5 minutes of my time adding dices

#185

I see this as high-IQ software developers building systems to shut out non-high-IQ people from society. Managers look at these CAPTCHAs and think "oh I could solve these no problem, let's use them". In fact, they can only be solved by unusually smart people or by ML bots. Arkose Labs (the maker of this particular captcha) explicitly advertises that their methods can keep out "low-skilled workers" on "human fraud farm…

> In fact, they can only be solved by unusually smart people Wut? Have you actually ever met a person who can't? I always suspected the electoral majority is not particularly bright (which sort of contradicts the idea of near-100 being an average IQ nevertheless) but if this is "unusually smart" then things feel really creepy.

I never met one in person, but in email support, yes.

And it makes sense.

Statistically, an IQ of 100 is the population median, meaning, assuming a Gaussian repartition (which it usually is for human traits), that's about 10% of people scoring around 80 or lower.

To give an idea of what level of intelligence this means, we can wonder what that kind of people cannot do?

In the US, the military don't do a systematic IQ test for recruitment, but when they did one, it was deemed illegal to induct any one if they possessed an IQ less than or equal to 81.

That means 1 person out of 10 is not intelligent enough to be in the lowest rank in the army.

It's not far fetched to think of the possibility that some functioning members of society are not capable of solving mental problems most humanity think are trivial.

In fact, that are also trivial for AI, although we may all end up to fall into that basket one day or the other.

Re: Tell HN: Airbnb just stole me 5 minutes of my time adding dices

#186
post #165

I see this as high-IQ software developers building systems to shut out non-high-IQ people from society. Managers look at these CAPTCHAs and think "oh I could solve these no problem, let's use them". In fact, they can only be solved by unusually smart people or by ML bots. Arkose Labs (the maker of this particular captcha) explicitly advertises that their methods can keep out "low-skilled workers" on "human fraud farm…

Not sure I agree with your “opressive” high-IQ developers spin, but it’s clear that whoever implements this kind of captcha (even the not-so-challenging ones) doesn’t give a shit about user experience and deserve to metaphorically-speaking, burn in hell. I think it’s just an example for how developers should not make decisions about UI or UX in general. It doesn’t really matter how hard to solve the captcha is, it sh…

AirBNB doesn't want bots scraping their data.

They currently have a monopoly on STR listings - so they don't really need to care about user experience.

This is what you end up with.

Re: Tell HN: Airbnb just stole me 5 minutes of my time adding dices

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their audio captcha (no longer available?) involved listening to 3 MIDI tunes and picking "the sad one". Given that a large part of the world doesn't use the major/minor dichotomy, or even equal temperament, this seems like a terrible way to verify someone is a human... My favourite recaptchas, if one can have such a thing, are the shape sequence selection ones as they don't make significant assumptions about cultu…

I saw this one today, which asks you to pick a "cheese" illustration: https://imgur.com/a/fQSQpX4 . I'm very much of the opinion that almost all modern captchas are american-centric. Mailboxes, fire hydrants, Trams are not recognizable for billions of people.

> Mailboxes, fire hydrants, Trams are not recognizable for billions of people.

Cheese is though? And I'm pretty sure most of the world would recognise those things anyway - you forget how much American culture is spread through films and TV.

Re: Tell HN: Airbnb just stole me 5 minutes of my time adding dices

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you always go for the technicality and the gotcha? Isn't that best applied elsewhere rather than here? Because sure, lines of code in a browser are technically automation, but they don't automate your actions so your whole point is moot. And you know this, I'm sure, so you're wasting your (and everybody else's) time.

They do exactly in fact automate your actions. You decided you wanted to kick off a rather large process by clicking a link, and the browser performed countless individual and dynamic actions as a result. Just to take one macroscopic crude simple example since we apparently don't have much imagination to work with here, did you evaluate every one of the individual http fetches in that page to decide if you wanted to…

> since we apparently don't have much imagination to work with here

Oh, I'm much more likely to engage in a great conversation after an ad hominem. Sigh.

I am well aware of how browsers work and what they automate for you. But you called them bots. You lumped them with several other types of software, which doesn't make sense. I never said you were incorrect — I said you were going for the technically correct and the gotcha.

Do browsers include automation? Yes. Do things get automated when you use them? Yes. Is software development automation at heart? Yes. The fact that you are correct about these things doesn't make the deception any less obvious: you are using these technicalities to misrepresent what a browser is — which doesn't make sense in the context of the thread -, and that's all I pointed out.

Re: Tell HN: Airbnb just stole me 5 minutes of my time adding dices

#189
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with sharing bathrooms? That's a dorm, or a youth hostel for that matter. It's totally fine. Pretty common all over the world, not just for the poorest.

We're presumably speaking about a shared bathroom in your home, not about travel accommodation. It would infringe upon a fundamental need for privacy that people have: having a space that is yours alone, where you are free to do whatever, without being observed by others. I've seen some (studio) apartments that have a private bathroom that outside the front door, but still inside the building. I would very much disli…

You’d be surprised to know that people in poor places not only share the same bathroom but also the same room and same bed.

Re: Tell HN: Airbnb just stole me 5 minutes of my time adding dices

#190
post #154

Just a tip, if you find a place that looks nice to book on airbnb, try checking for booking directly. I found a place on airbnb and was in a hurry, but later when I checked the cabin rental's website, I found that the money I spent in fees to airbnb could get me an upgrade to a much nicer cabin if I had booked directly with the cabin rental company.

Many times you can find the same place with search for apartments on booking.com. You will get full address and most of the times cheaper.
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