Should I get a cleaner?

Today I booked a cleaner for my flat. When I last did this around 2014, I think Gumtree was the main source of cleaning jobs. Now a load of cleaning services have popped up which follow the Uber middleman pattern. Hassle says “All our independent London cleaners are self-employed”; they charge £12/hr. Handy similarly says they have “top-quality, pre-screened independent service professionals”. Housekeep pays its workers £8.50 per hour, and charges £12.50 per hour, and so takes about a 1/3 cut.

I’m not sure I like using these services, mainly because of the massive cut they take. But it sure is convenient, so I went with Handy.

What can computers do? What are the limits of mathematics? And just how busy can a busy beaver be? This year, I’m writing Busy Beavers, a unique interactive book on computability theory. You and I will take a practical and modern approach to answering these questions — or at least learning why some questions are unanswerable!

It’s only $19, and you can get 50% off if you find the discount code ... Not quite. Hackers use the console!

After months of secret toil, I and Andrew Carr released Everyday Data Science, a unique interactive online course! You’ll make the perfect glass of lemonade using Thompson sampling. You’ll lose weight with differential equations. And you might just qualify for the Olympics with a bit of statistics!

It’s $29, but you can get 50% off if you find the discount code ... Not quite. Hackers use the console!

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