foxit

You had dental insurance and "a lot of appointments with the dentist" while looking for a job? This was paid for by scrubbing toilets at McDonalds, or while on unemployment/just unemployed? Forgive me for being skeptical, but this doesn't match with my experience, nor the experience of anyone I know.

Forgive me if I've misread, but I think what you're putting forth as acknowledged fact here is in fact controversial. You seem to be referencing the 1978 study "Lottery Winners and Accident Victims: Is Happiness Relative?" as well as, perhaps, the idea of the Hedonic Treadmill. Brickman's ideas are considered outdated.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/690806 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

That's not to say that working, alone, producing happiness is a correct idea, but it might make sense that accomplishment does. And these levels of accomplishment - cleaning the floor well for a janitor, for instance - can differ. Most people desire to "make a difference," another way of saying the same thing. If you're talking about deathbed wishes when looking back on a life, the more positive impact your life visited on others, the better.

I liked Steve Friedl's thoughts on this. (Skip to the Billing heading.)

http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/be-consultant.html

I'd be interested in your ideas for designing a better study. What this shows is that it improves concentration, which is vital no matter what your job is.

Do you think the studies showing vacation time boosts productivity are crap as well? I mean, being on vacation means you're not even at work.

There are a lot of points in this - both in the sales pitch that Amazon gave the developers and the outcome of having participated - that are strikingly reminiscent of the Groupon experience for some businesses. (Many, even, based on the links dibarnu posted.)

http://posiescafe.com/wp/?p=316

From the earlier conversations on this particular issue, business insurance (i.e. landlord insurance, hotel insurance) is needed. You can't get business insurance to run an unlicensed business in a private residence, particularly if a) your home isn't zoned for it, and b) if it violates your lease (in the case of a rental)/HOA (in the case of homeownership)/local law (in the case of NYC/SF/Paris et al.). Is there an opportunity there for someone to step up and insure Airbnb-style rentals? Yes. Meanwhile, though, these rentals are not insurable.

One cannot be insured for this occurrence. Neither homeowner's nor renter's insurances cover paid guests in the home.

Are you saying you don't believe me? First, I don't wish to have my email address passed on to other people without my permission. Second, I can't imagine what would be accomplished by my emailing you as opposed to addressing - or simply retracting - your unfounded statement here. Finally, your actions and assumptions you've related here today thoroughly creep me out and I do not wish to have private conversation with you.

What are you talking about? I posted the story here after a month had gone by with no word of what the outcome was. It was picked up and went from there - I do not know her and nobody who does had anything to do with it.

Okay, look. As comments on TechCrunch have stated, MAJOR crisis coaching/high-level PR needs to be hired and step in, stat. This is just getting worse and worse.

No, I did not. "As [pg] states, it was changed for me."

Hi, I'm the submitter, and this was my first submission to Hacker News. Thanks for letting me know (both you and pg) about it being frowned upon to change the title - I'll know that for the future. As he states, it was changed for me. (The original I put in was "AirBnB: Crimes committed against a host".)

I do have to disagree on the likelihood that this particular scenario would've happened to the host through other rental agencies. For her explanation as to why, see paragraph 14 overall - or paragraph 4 under the heading "This was my home" - in her post. She addresses Craigslist; to add to that, I know that VRBO and HomeAway (the two major entire-unit vacation rental sites) accept payment for the host's listing only but absolutely everything else is left between the two parties, including verifications, contracts (if any), and payment method. The key relevant difference between those sites and Airbnb is that Airbnb blocks both host and guest from exchanging outside contact and identity information until a reservation is completed through their system. The reason for that is obvious, as Airbnb is a different business model, and needs to ensure that they receive their percentage for leads they provide. But one result of that policy is that taking independent security measures are impossible until both host and guest are already obligated and on the hook (hosts are penalized by appearing lower in the listings if they cancel a confirmed reservation from their end). The victim admits her naivete in thinking that because Airbnb demands to handle several aspects of the booking, that there are other levels of safety and verification implicit that in fact do not exist.

So yes, hosts can get ripped off using other listing services as well. But it is also made readily apparent that one should protect themselves on those sites, and users aren't actively blocked from gathering information to do so.

And if you get hit by a car?

And if you get cancer, despite your healthy lifestyle, which happens to millions?

It's the time wasted waiting for rarely appearing public transportation that is the problem.