Earlier this year I moved to Cape Town, with an Airbnb booked for the first month.
I was the first guest, and the place did not meet even the most basic standards of hygiene. What’s worse is that there was still evidence of the place being used as a crack house.
Needless to say, I refused to stay there and Airbnb gave a full refund.
All of this could have been avoided by a simple verification system.
Any new listing should, at the very least, be viewed and assessed against a list of basic standards before a paying guest arrives at the door.
Inappropriate content can be flagged, and continuing to view or partake in discussion of extremist things, that are counter to the interests of every living thing on the planet, waive the users right to privacy, and logs of activity automatically get passed on to public protection agencies.
How many edx courses from top universities could you do in the same amount of time?
Perhaps a balance between the two.
Binge watch?
How about binge development.
It is definitely worth focusing on quality rather than quantity.
Personally I have found hacker news to be a highly valuable resource over the past few years. Many books I have read, and interesting topics I have looked into have come from all of your posts, comments and recommendations.
The signal to noise ratio is among the best on the web that I have encountered thus far.
Personally I was introduced to the poor standard of early childhood development in my city by a friend, and since then we have built 3 schools. Just in my immediate area, there are around 40 that need attention, and across the country of South Africa there must be thousands. The cost of a simple building to handle part of the problem is around $25k. Another problem we face is high unemployment, so we pay people from the community to help build the schools.
Lack of access to quality education, skills and funding are the challenges we face.
A lot of research still needs to be done on extent of the problem. I have been dreaming of an app that maps all of these ECD centers and rates them on various metrics, like quality of education, building, and nutrition. An app that would allow professionals who would like to give their time a list of options of places that need their help. Like crowd funding, but for skills. An app to allow the greater community to see, engage and solve the most pressing problems around us, all over the world.
Also and app like Uber or Airbnb, but for artisans and skilled contractors, with similar rating systems.
There are many crowd funding sites, but it’s time to go deeper and actively seek out and solve issues.
There should be law that makes companies directly responsible for what happens to their packaging materials. Whatever a company brings into this world is their responsibility to recycle. Yes it adds overhead, but it makes people a lot more aware, and forces them to take responsibility of the impact they are having.
Why shouldn’t packaging be designed to be easily transformed into something useful, or even into functional community art projects?
A temple of coke cans for example. If they going to last forever it might as well be in a form that benefits communities.
Plastics have already been banned in certain countries.
Or are there to many lobbying in the wrong direction?
Surely every country around the world needs to be involved in approving something like this. Amazon does not get my vote to put anything that could potentially become space junk in the air above South Africa.
Not yet at least. What is the benefit to humanity as a whole?
“Hi Drew/Glenda
It is with great pleasure to see the project at this stage. We have yet once again proved the sceptics, nay sayers and persmists wrong. From a plain field to a sight commanding building that yields hope to drags of our society and the future itself. Despite of the hindrances we have encountered along the way, I am humbled, awed and jubilant to have been a part of such a gesture. In this money fueled life style I would also been delighted to have made myself a fortune in building such a building that is going to make a difference in many people's lives but the greatest fortune of all is the joy I find in knowing that these hands have built such a meaningful building. The project may have come to its end but the memory will linger in my heart forever. This hasn't only equipped me with skills but changed the way I view life. It is this reason that I would love the organisers to allow us to keep the tools we have used in building the hope and the future of our society so that we can continue putting bread on our tables and helping those in need of our assistance. My humble thanks to all those who selflessly opened their check books and offered with their hard earned cash to the project, and not forgetting those who could not offer funding but took it upon themselves and used their precious time to personally give a hand in this project. This project is a full proof that humanity/Ubuntu still exists.
Regards
Michael Dyasi”
There are some interesting, award winning projects happening in Port Elizabeth, South Africa that are incorporating recycled materials into the vernacular.
These projects are to address the poor condition of schools, where children are typically taught in overcrowded shacks.
Earlier this year I moved to Cape Town, with an Airbnb booked for the first month.
I was the first guest, and the place did not meet even the most basic standards of hygiene. What’s worse is that there was still evidence of the place being used as a crack house.
Needless to say, I refused to stay there and Airbnb gave a full refund.
All of this could have been avoided by a simple verification system.
Any new listing should, at the very least, be viewed and assessed against a list of basic standards before a paying guest arrives at the door.