Centives

Before astronaut Chris Hadfield played and sang David Bowie’s Space Oddity on the International Space Station in a performance uploaded to Youtube, he made sure to clear up any copyrights issues with Mr Bowie’s representatives. If he hadn’t then he would’ve stepped into a legal quagmire writes The Economist:

• At a ‘mere’ 400 kilometers above the earth’s surface, intellectual property rights still apply to the International Space Station.
• The problem is which country’s rights should apply? The spacecraft flew over several as Hadfield played the song.
• The International Space Station itself is made up of modules assembled by various countries. The laws of each individual country apply to the module built by the country. Hadfield went through modules built by America and Japan as he performed, and thus he was subject to the laws of each country.
• As private space launches become more widespread these copyright issues will become more complicated and music groups may have grounds to sue entire countries if an individual chooses to start singing a song while on board a spacecraft.

Kottke helpfully points out that we now “live in a world where sending a guitar into space is trivial while ironing out rights agreements is the tough part.” Read more about the issues that Hadfield might have created by performing in front of other crew members, the legal rights that intellectual property owners have in space, and more over here.

Source: The Economist

Via: Kottke

The Economist took a look at the struggling British sex industry:

• Demand for the services has fallen as Britain’s economy continues to struggle. Sex, unlike food or the payments on a mortgage, is considered by most to be a luxury and is easily cut back upon.
• At the same time the supply of sex workers has increased as people find ways to supplement their income. This has put downward pressure on prices – some have had to cut prices by up to 50%.
• The industry is also struggling with higher rent and energy prices.
• The news isn’t all bad – budget brothels have been doing well as they offer greater value for money.

Read more about the dangerous situations that prostitutes are having to deal with, how it’s no longer possible to be a full time prostitute, and how this reflects broader trends in the British economy over here.

Source: The Economist

On Reddit’s Ask Historians sub-section various users explained how popcorn became a staple in movie theaters:

• Up until the end of the 1800s popcorn was associated with circuses and the comparatively higher class movie going audience shunned the snack.
• Then the Great Depression hit and five cent bags of popcorn as well as cheap candy became an affordable luxury.
• During World War Two sugar was tightly rationed and moviegoers could no longer buy candy at the concession stand. That left popcorn as the only available movie snack. Thus began popcorn’s dominance.
• Popcorn also has the advantage of being a snack that can be consumed relatively quietly.

Read more about how the movie going experience used to be different, more information about the rise of popcorn, and when popcorn arrived in the United States over here.

Source: Reddit

For many years Michelin Stars were the gold standard of evaluating a restaurants quality writes Alan Sytsma. But in recent times the World’s 50 Best restaurants list has garnered greater media attention. The two lists use different methodologies to evaluate the restaurants and this is affecting how restaurants behave to ensure they stay on top of the list:

• The Michelin Star system didn’t rank restaurants – it merely assigned certain numbers of stars. These stars were determined by salaried inspectors who would visit each year.
• The evaluation criteria was so opaque that restaurants couldn’t really game the system. The best they could do was to ensure consistency in the food they produced, just in case they ended up serving an inspector.
• However the list of the “World’s 50 Best restaurants” explicitly ranks one restaurant against another. Being close to the top of the list can mean a fortune for restaurants – entire neighborhood phone lines have been known to go down around restaurants at the top.
• The ranking on the list is determined by non-anonymous chefs, critics, and foodies. They are asked to vote for restaurants they’ve visited in the past 18 months, and so the restaurants that are located around important food-related conferences or events have an advantage – since the voters are likely to be at the event, and are able to visit and rank the local restaurants.
• Instead of consistency restaurants are encouraged to resort to gimmicks and menu transformations to generate media buzz and give voters reasons to enter through their doors.

Read about the man who committed suicide because his restaurant could potentially have lost a Michelin star, the irony of Nestlé being the company behind the 50 best list, the rules relating to who voters can select for the list of the 50 best, and why Peru was so prominent on the previous list over here.

Source: Grub Street

Via: Kottke

Michael Steen writes that European Commission is considering a proposal to abolish the one Eurocent coin – much to the dismay of specific groups of people:

• The Eurocent coin costs more to make than it is worth – and people usually just let them accumulate rather than actually spending them which means that more have to be minted every year.
• However some fear that if the one cent coin is abolished then retailers will round their prices up, making things more expensive.
• One German children’s charity believes that they would lose hundreds of thousands of Euros a year since the one cent coin makes up a quarter of its cash donations.
• The Netherlands and Finland have both gotten rid of the one cent coin. Retailers can still set prices at 99 cents and those who pay by cash have to pay a cent more.
• For the most part though it doesn’t really make a difference since most people just pay by card.

Read more about the problem, and alternate proposals that the European Commission is considering here.

Source: Financial Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

Messy Nessy Chic took a look at a problem that most cities probably wish they had: too many abandoned luxury cars:

• In Dubai’s airports and parking lots abandoned Jaguars, Ferraris, and Porsches accumulating dust isn’t too uncommon a sight.
• The cars likely belong to foreigners who lost it all during Dubai’s financial crisis and hastily left the country.
• It’s a criminal offense to have a check bounce in Dubai and so bankrupted luxury car owners drove their vehicles over to the airport and left them there.
• Owners sometimes leave the loan documents on the dashboard of the car with the keys still in the ignition.
• Residents are beginning to complain about the cars taking up valuable parking spots. The government has started to auction off the million dollar vehicles.

See spectacular photos of the once great luxury cars over here.

Source: Messy Nessy Chic

Yesterday Microsoft revealed the Xbox One, a few months after Sony had revealed the PlayStation 4 in May. The Wii U appears to have been dead on arrival and other budding competitors such as Steam, Google and Apple have yet to set the market buzzing. The battle is between Microsoft and Sony and Chris Kohler looked at the different approaches the two are taking:

• Internally the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 are similar – both have similar amounts of processing power.
• But these devices do very different things. It’s the software that drives the experience that the two consoles have to offer.
• The Xbox One aspires to be more than just a gaming device. In addition to letting people play games it also wants to bring together your television, movie, and music experiences.
• Sony, on the other hand, is trying to sell itself as a device that is designed solely for gamers.
• Microsoft’s approach could alienate gamers who feel that Microsoft is trying to please other audiences in addition to them.
• But gaming only devices have had troubles in an era where we have multi-functional smartphones in our pocket. Nintendo’s 3DS and Wii U have both had issues, and even Sony’s own gaming focused Vita has struggled.

Read more about how this all ties into Game of Thrones, other features of the devices, and more over here.

Source: Wired

People across the political spectrum can find something to dislike in the storm of scandals that has plagued Obama over the past week or so. Yet Obama’s approval ratings have remained stable. Why? Nate Silver had a theory:

• The economy is doing better than it has ever done before during Obama’s tenure as President.
• Over the past five years Obama’s approval rating has closely correlated with the state of the economy.
• Thus while the scandals are bringing his approval rating down by a few points, that decline is being counteracted by positivity for Obama due to the state of the economy.

See how Obama’s ratings correlate with the state of the economy, and how the killing of Osama bin Laden can throw off the analysis a little over here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Slate

Alex Mayyasi believes that it’s time to end the senior citizen discount:

• Giving benefits to seniors dates back to the Great Depression which affected the poor disproportionately.
• However in the 20^th century there’s been a significant decline in poverty among the elderly.
• Now it is the millennials – the youngest generation – that is poor.
• And it doesn’t seem like the millennials will escape poverty anytime soon – they carry $1 trillion in student debt and have to deal with a soft job market.

Mayyasi concludes by arguing that we actually need a discount for millennials – find out what he thinks that discount should be called, graphs that demonstrate poverty and net worth by age group, and more over here.

Source: Priceonomics

Marketing executives have had to adapt in a world driven by social media writes The Economist. Here’s how they’ve done it:

• When a blackout interrupted the most recent Super Bowl Tide tweeted “”We can’t get your #blackout, but we can get your stains out.” – marketers now have to be quick on their feet and use spot events as a marketing opportunity.
• At the same time marketers also have the opportunity to use data to be more targeted in their advertising. Kleenex targets its ad spending in areas where people are more likely to suffer from colds, and Wall’s ice cream sends ads to phones that are located in warm areas.
• Ads must also be about more than just the product. SpecialK isn’t just a breakfast cereal. It also helps teaches customers about diet, exercise, and overall health.
• The distinction between advertising and content is disappearing. A mobile game can serve as both distraction and advert. A documentary could explore the origins of a product simultaneously giving the product air time, and providing a history lesson.

Read more about how Asia will alter advertising techniques, some of the more creative campaigns that have rolled out, and why marketers are outside of their zone of comfort over here.

Source: The Economist