{"id":42538,"date":"2024-08-01T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=42538"},"modified":"2024-07-30T13:27:07","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T20:27:07","slug":"free-audiobooks-adios-selina-remote-work-saves-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/free-audiobooks-adios-selina-remote-work-saves-the-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Audiobooks\/Adios Selina\/Remote Work Saves the Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of\u00a0A Better Life for Half the Price<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The World\u2019s Cheapest Destinations<\/em>. See\u00a0past editions here,<\/a>\u00a0where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selina Going Under<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

First it was WeWork that imploded, now it\u2019s Selina\u2019s turn. Despite the massive move to remote work that happened the past few years, global co-living chain Selina is in insolvency now<\/a> after failing to make debt payments. As often happens when a quest for growth pushes aside everything else, setbacks snowballed into a collapse when interest rates went up. \u201cThe company has lost almost all of its value since going public in December 2021 with a $1.2 billion valuation.\u201d Although their subscription model was compelling for globetrotting nomads, apparently not enough to keep them afloat.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Free Public Domain Audiobooks<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In cheerier news, public domain books that you could already read for free are available in free audiobook versions as well. More than 70,000 titles are up now through the Listenly platform<\/a>. Get schooled on your next road trip with titles from the likes of Jane Austen and Joseph Conrad, but also newer voluntary public domain titles from the likes of Paul Graham. The even have a \u201cbanned books\u201d category for classics that some school board or another has deemed too dangerous for young minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germany Regains the \u201cKing of Hops\u201d Title<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s something for the Europeans to cheer about. After nine years of trailing the USA in hops production for beer, Germany has regained its crown as the world\u2019s #1 producer, with 20,300 hectares of land devoted to the crop. According to the German Tourism Board, there are more than 1,500 breweries in Germany and the average person living there drinks 95 liters of the beverage per year. Here\u2019s more from them on their own craft beer scene<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did Remote Work Save the U.S. Economy?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Economists have been scratching their heads at how the U.S. defied all predictions and managed to rev up the economy post-COVID while also keeping unemployment low and pushing inflation down. This defies all the models for what should<\/em> have happened (and what mostly did happen in other countries). A new academic working paper<\/a> proposes that the answer is\u2026remote work. The USA has the highest percentage of remote workers as a portion of the total labor force and the author points to this as a big factor in why the U.S. economy has trounced most others. The cheers come with a downside though: the reason this worked is that the remote workers were willing to accept smaller pay increases as they got rid of costs for commuting and child care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nomadico issue #115<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[2385],"tags":[2386],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42539,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42538\/revisions\/42539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}