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

In the car servicing industry? Get out while you can writes Anton Wahlman:

• Most cars are generally brought to a mechanic once every 5,000 miles to change oil, filters and other small tasks. This usually costs about $200.
• With electric cars none of this basic servicing is necessary.
• 45,000 Volts have driven 300 million miles so far– that’s about $12 million in lost revenue for local garages already.
• Electric cars routinely make it into the list of most highly recommended cars in part because servicing them is a breeze. They’ll soon become even more widespread.

Read more about how those that fix cars are going to go the way of those who used to fix the hard disks of tablets, which cars will dominate the sales charts, and more over here.

Source: The Street

The humble shipping container – the large boxes that transport cargo across borders by ship, train, and truck – is responsible for unprecedented wealth in the world writes The Economist:

• Before shipping containers, longshoremen would load cargo of differing size onto ships in what was essentially a giant game of tetris.
• This was so slow that ships spent more time tied up than they did actually traversing the oceans. There was also a significant amount of theft – a longshoreman’s pay was said to be $20 a day and all the Scotch they could carry.
• The man who invented containers found that it brought down costs from $5.83 a tonne to $0.16 a tonne – a decline of 97%.
• With the decrease in the ease and likelihood of theft, insurance rates for shipping cargo also fell.
• According to one study, the use of containers leads to a 320% increase in bilateral trade after the first five years and 790% after the first 20. This means that container shipping is more effective at promoting trade than any free trade agreement.

Read more about the power of the shipping container, the benefits it produces, and how those benefits are transmitted over here.

Source: The Economist

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom has issued a press release outlining some of the bizarre requests that diplomats have had to deal with. Highlights include:

• A woman asked consular staff in Tel Aviv to force her husband to get fit so that they could have children.
• Consulates have often been asked for information about the best locations to watch football.
• In a bid to settle a £1,000 wager staff in Montreal were asked for information about the colour of a British passport.
• A man wanted to run a tattoo by a representative in Rome to have it translated and ensure that it said what he thought it did.

Read more of some of the fascinating requests over here.

Source: Foreign Policy

Eric Limer took a look at how much it would cost to build the Starship Enterprise:

• Limer assumes that the half-mile long enterprise is equivalent to two Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, each of which costs $6.2 billion.
• The closest thing we have to a holodeck is Microsoft’s IllumiRoom technology and the CAVE 2. Overall the closest approximation of the system we could get would cost $1.1 million.
• We need to arm our enterprise with proton torpedoes…except…they haven’t really been invented yet. The UGM-133 Trident II is a nuclear tipped ballistic missile. 38 of them would cost $6 billion.
• You’d need at least 11 officers on deck and if you use the cost of a soldier in Iraq for a year, then you’ll have to pay them $15.4 million.
• But the biggest cost is getting all of these materials into space where presumably they’ll be assembled. Overall that would cost more than $475 billion.
• This puts the total cost of the Enterprise at just under $500 billion or…12.6% of America’s total budget. Time for a petition?

Read about other costs associated with building the Enterprise and more over here. You can check out our own attempt at using a battleship to estimate the cost of a spaceship over here.

Source: Gizmodo

Google is in legal trouble for the suggestions offered by auto-complete writes Marya Hannun:

• A German court has ruled in favour of an (unnamed) businessman who was upset that Google would suggest adding “fraud” after people typed in his name
• This is far from the first time. Guy Hingston, an Australian who sued because Google auto-complete would suggest “bankrupt” for his name ended up making the problem worse since the resulting press coverage made it even more likely that his name would be linked to the word ‘bankrupt’.
• It’s not just individuals who are upset with Google’s auto-complete. A Jewish group sued Google for linking Judaism with unsavoury figures through searches such as “is Rupert Murdoch Jewish”.
• Google, for its part, points out that the auto-complete searches are drawn from what people type into its box. It’s not Google who is defaming these individuals and groups, it’s the wider populace.

Read more about other cases of Google being sued over auto-complete, the implications the German ruling may have, and more over here.

Source: Foreign Policy

Circuses in India may be dead within the decade writes Kay Johnson:

• In the 1990s India had 300 circuses. Today there are around 30.
• The decline is part of a wider trend across the world – people have found alternate sources of entertainment that have caused circus revenues to fall.
• But the decline is particularly steep in India where the Supreme Court has banned the use of wild animals and child performers.
• Since many circus skills have to be taught at a young age, the ban against child performers will make it more difficult to train future entertainers.
• Cities have also become more congested and circuses have to set up their tents further and further away from city centers – causing a decline in audience buzz.

Read more about the 150 year history of Indian circuses, what circus owners have to say, and the stories of various circus performers over here.

Source: Daily News

Israel’s blockade of the Gaza strip has provided an opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs to satisfy cravings for KFC writes Ahmed Aldabba:

• The al-Yamama company purchases fried chicken from a KFC in Egypt, and then smuggles it through a tunnel into Palestine
• al-Yamama charges $30 – three times the price of the chicken – to compensate for the transportation and smuggling
• From initial order to final delivery a meal takes about three hours
• The company advertises its services through Facebook
• Tunnel smugglers however are worried about the future. The tunnels are being destroyed, making it harder for Palestinians to get access to such luxuries as KFC

Read more over here.

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

The bullfighting industry in Spain is struggling writes David Román:

• Animal rights concerns about the events in which the bulls almost always die are causing regions across Spain to ban the $3.3 billion industry
• Regional governments used to hold annual celebrations that would include bullfighting events; however with the recent European recession, governments have been unable to afford the events
• The regulations around bullfighting also mean that it remains expensive. Each matador is legally required to pay for at least six assistants
• Due to the blood and gore television channels have increasingly declined to showcase the events
• The government also raised taxes on tickets to novilladas – fights between matadors in training and young bulls.
• With the increase in prices and the decline in television coverage bullfighting may fail to reach the next generation of Spanish citizens and the bullfighting tradition may come to a gentle end

Read more about the economics of the bullfighting industry, those desperately working to keep the industry alive, the ethical problems with the practice, and more over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Via: Marginal Revolution

Subway built its reputation on comparing itself to McDonald’s and showing how much healthier it was. Yet according to a study reported on by Tracy Miller, the average subway sandwich is usually far less healthy than a McDonald’s burger:

• Scientists asked a group of 100 adolescents to eat at McDonald’s and Subways and to return with receipts for what they purchased.
• An analysis of the receipts showed that the average sandwich bought at Subway had 784 calories in it. This compares to McDonald’s 582 calories.
• Subway, for example, offers a footlong Big Philly Cheesesteak that packs in 1,000 calories – almost double that of a Big Mac.
• The average Subway meal still had fewer calories than an average McDonald’s meal – this is because McDonald’s sides such as fries and sodas, had more calories than Subway sides that include apples and potato chips – but the difference wasn’t great – or statistically significant.
• The authors conclude that it’s what – not where – you eat that matters.

Read more about how McDonald’s and Subway compared on carbohydrates, sodium, and sugars, as well as the methodology of the study, and the comments of those who ran it, over here.

Source: Daily News

In the past there have been markets for things now considered unethical such as slaves writes John Timmer. We normally assume that this was because we weren’t as moral or ethical back then, and that our views have developed to condemn such practices. We’re implicitly assuming that markets reflected the ethics of the time. But, according to one study, it’s also possible that ethics reflect the markets of the time:

• Lab rats are normally killed if they’re unfit for scientific research. The authors of the study secured funding to keep a group of mice alive, and then asked experiment participants how much money they would accept before they would agree to have the mice killed.
• The participants were surveyed and about 45% of participants stated that they would rather take $13 than keep the animals alive.
• However when groups of buyers and sellers were allowed to freely trade for the rats’ lives the price of a rat dropped to $6.50.
• The price seemed to drop over time as participants became more interested in taking whatever amount of money they could get.
• Thus, ethically, the participants put a high price on the lives of rats. But when given an opportunity to trade, their beliefs fell away.
• This might be because there are two people – a buyer and a seller – agreeing to see the mouse dead. Therefore we share the blame for their death. Moreover the mere existence of a market normalizes the idea of the trade.
• The authors conclude by noting that while the evidence suggests that free markets can distort moral viewpoints, other forms of economic distribution usually lead to significantly worse ethical abuses.

Read more about the study, its methodology, other reasons why people may have abandoned their moral code, and what happens when gift cards are used instead of cash over here.

Source: ArsTechnica

Sean Hollister took a look at an app that might change how we communicate:

• Bang With Friends is an app that lets you pick which of your friends you’d like to…well…bang. But it doesn’t tell your friends, unless they also select you in which case you’re both told and are free to pursue your desires.
• The app is a solution to a rising problem. While we all broadcast more and more information about our lives, it’s a very particular view of our life. We don’t always want those around us to know of our taste in music, our interest in Pokémon, or our crippling Batman addiction.
• We also have to be wary because something that we carelessly broadcast now could haunt us and our careers for decades to come.
• Apps like this could help us connect with other people who have mutual interests that we might not necessarily be public about.
• In a party, for example, you could glance down at your phone and see pictures of all the people who have similar interests to you, giving you an easy way to start up a conversation with a new person.

Read more about what people might broadcast about themselves, how they could function, and what this all means over here.

Source: The Verge

Robert Burns talked about a very different kind of nuclear crisis:

• The Air Force recently suspended 17 officers who have the authority to launch intercontinental nuclear missiles because they were determined to be unfit for the role.
• The problem is a crisis of morale. The world is moving towards fewer nuclear weapons, not more, and so officers in the units think they’re careers are headed nowhere.
• Moreover the task of manning the nuclear missiles isn’t particularly glamorous. It involves standing around 60 feet underground, with the launch keys, waiting for the President to make a decision to initiate a nuclear attack.

Read more about the problems with the guardians of American nuclear weapons, how the Air Force is trying to fix the problem, and what political leaders have to say over here.

Source: ABC News

The Economist delved in the world of valuing boats:

• Just like a house, cargo ships are bought and sold, and bankers have to estimate the value of the ship before the deals can proceed.
• Old-style ship brokers are expensive – they can charge $1,500 for the valuation, and in the close shipping community, it’s hard to get a valuation without everybody finding out about it.
• A website called VesselsValue is trying to do for shipping what Zillow and Zoopla did for real estate – an online directory where people can get instant checks of a ship’s price.
• VesselsValue takes into account things such as current and estimated future costs of shipping cargo when providing valuations.

Read more about the business of valuing ships over here.

Source: The Economist

The reviews of Google Glass have been tepid at best. But the claim that people should avoid it due to privacy concerns don’t hold up to closer scrutiny writes Will Oremus:

• If people want to secretly record you then they can do it in much cheaper ways. You can get pens and glasses with hidden spycams that cost a fraction of the thousands that Glass costs.
• Google Glass itself isn’t particularly intuitive or easy to use. You need to talk to it – making it clear to everyone around you that you’re recording – or try to awkwardly get at a half-hidden button to record.
• Even if one is able to navigate through Glass’s interface to take a video without anybody noticing, a bright light will start shining meaning that everybody will know they are being recorded.
• It’s possible that some day in the future Glass or a competing product will evolve to the point where it is a privacy concern. But it is nowhere near that point yet.

Read more about some ways to secretly record people that actually work, how society will evolve to accommodate wearable computing, and what exactly a Glasshole is over here.

Source: Slate

Daniel W. Drezner has put together a collection of articles that look at the implications of a world where alternative forms of energy such as shale gas replace oil as the primary source of energy:

• The price of oil would fall and countries such as Saudi Arabia that use oil funds to keep instability at bay will quickly descend into chaos.
• Since oil exporting countries haven’t developed industries other than oil, the internal turmoil would likely last for several years if not decades.
• A lot of the alternative sources of energy are found in areas of disputed sovereignty and countries may resort to military tactics to secure those supplies.
• Oil also currently forces inter-dependence through trade. Both America and China, for example, need oil, and thus need to ensure that international waters are safe for trade.
• Without that stabilizing force it is possible that there will be more warfare as countries will have less to lose.

Drezner puts together these articles to argue that the articles are flawed, and that there is nothing to be concerned about. Read his argument, as well as links to the source articles worrying about an alternative-energy future over here.

Source: Foreign Policy

There’s an economic crisis ravaging the virtual gaming world of Diablo III writes Luke Plunkett:

• Players in the game have found a way to duplicate gold – the virtual money used in the game.
• This has resulted in massive inflation.
• The inflation very real implications since Diablo III allows players to trade in gold for real money. Players are seeing very real dollars evaporate due to inflation.
• The makers of the game have since suspended all trading in the game as they try to fix the problem.

Read more over here.

Source: Kotaku

Centives has done its part to suggest that drones are the future. Konstantin Kakaes thinks that the importance given to drones is overblown:

• Technology that is used by the military isn’t always useful for civilian purposes. There aren’t, for example, many stealth passenger jets ferrying us across the skies.
• Drones are expensive. The technology behind it requires huge capital investments, and the pilot on the ground controlling the aircraft still costs money – as does the satellite uplink that allows the pilot to see what’s going on.
• Small drones would have some commercial uses – if they could stay in the sky for any period of time. Yet most small drones have a flight time of under an hour.
• We might over-estimate the range of drones because when we see photos and videos we underestimate how large they are (see what the one in the picture above looks like on the ground here). Those large enough to carry fuel to stay in the sky for appreciable periods of time are also the ones that aren’t of much use to most people.
• In this way drones are like helicopters. Helicopters too were meant to transform the world through the use of ‘helicopter taxi’ services and express helicopter mail. Neither happened – though helicopters are still used for military and specific industry purposes.

Read more about why this means that privacy concerns related to drones are over-blown, what the American Customs and Border Protection inspector general has to say about drones, and the planes the FBI maintains over here.

Source: Slate

Julie Jargon looked at how Kroger Co., a supermarket chain, is making sure that customers don’t have to wait in line:

• Using a system called QueVision Kroger uses infrared cameras – similar to those used by the military – to alert managers when lines are building up, informing them that more lanes need to be opened.
• QueVision also takes into account hourly and daily fluctuations in shoppers and informs managers so that they can plan their lane operators accordingly.
• Overall the system is credited with reducing average wait times by almost 90% from 4 minutes to 26 seconds.
• Kroger isn’t alone in fighting long lines. Wal-Mart recently released a new system where shoppers can scan their purchases into their smartphones and then use that information to quickly self-checkout.

Read more about how other companies are reducing wait times, the impact the system has had on Kroger’s financials, and more over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Years from now we’ll likely see a rise in Japanese economic majors. When we do Jun Hongo’s article will be cited as the reason for this surge:

• A new pop-idol group called Machikado Keiki Japan base their costumes on the stock price index of the day.
• The higher the price, the shorter their skirts get. When the index crossed 13,000 the group went without skirts altogether.
• The groups’ lyrics include such gems as “Fix the yen’s appreciation. Quantitative easing. Don’t forget public investment”.
• During performances crowds of (mostly male) fans are known to yell out terms like “Monetary policy!” and “Private investment!”
• Perhaps non-coincidentally Japan’s stock market has been surging in recent times.

Read more about the fascinating group here.

Source: The Japan Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

Anna Palmer took a look at why ads on ESPN in America have become increasingly political:

• Obama and other top White House officials are known to be avid sports fans, watching several live sporting events.
• Industry groups and lobbyists that want the White House to be aware of important issues buy time on ESPN to discretely target the President.
• The ads have to be subtle – it can’t be obvious that Obama and his team are the target.
• The ads themselves aren’t that expensive. While those that run across the nation can cost up to $20,000 those that are only seen in Washington cost $750-$1000 per ad.
• ESPN has other advantages as an advertising platform – it’s one of the few forms of television that people want to watch live – along with the associated live ads.

Read more about the companies that are trying to use ESPN to advocate for specific causes, what ESPN has done to encourage it, and more over here.

Source: Politico

While analyzing the words used in song titles Tyler Schnoebelen found love. More specifically, he found statistics about the frequency with which the word ‘love’ shows up in top Billboard songs:

• In 1980 15.8% of top songs had some variation of the word ‘love’ in the title.
• 1993 was also a good year for love when 13.8% mentioned love. Examples include Dreamlover and That’s the Way Love Goes.
• More recently songs have become more lonely. In 2005 only 3.2% of songs were about love.
• Between 2002 and 2006 11 songs with the word ‘hate’ in them made the top. In the past 120 years there have only been 30 chart-topping songs about hate.
• In the past year things have gotten better. In 2012 5.8% of all songs were about love. Examples include Rihanna’s We Found Love, and Enrique Iglesias’ Tonight (I’m Lovin’ You).
• Faith Hill’s The Way You Love Me has the record for longest at the top – staying there for 56 weeks. Taylor Swift’s Love Story isn’t far behind at 49 weeks.
• Love might be declining in popularity because songwriters have become smarter. Songs about love only last for about 9.4 weeks at the top. Other songs generally go for 11.4 weeks.

Read more about the artists that sing most about love, the number of characters in titles with the word ‘love’ in them, and more of the top songs about love over here.

Source: idibon

Via: The Week

A little under a year ago Patrick Radden Keefe wrote an in depth piece about the operations of drug cartels. A few of the very many highlights include:

• Custom built submarines, FedEx, and air conditioned trolley tunnels are all ways that narcotics make their way into the United States.
• Some arrested drug traffickers demand a receipt from the authorities for the drugs that were taken from them so that they can prove to their masters that they didn’t steal or consume the drugs.
• It’s even possible to buy insurance policies that protect against seizure.
• Other sophisticated financial products include lines of credit given to drug retailers who can’t afford to pay for the upfront cost of the product.
• While drug cartels don’t pay taxes the amount that they have to pay in bribes is likely equal to that of the corporate tax rate in Mexico.
• These bribes mean that even when they are arrested traffickers live cushy lives. One prisoner ordered his meals from a menu, had prostitutes delivered to him, and managed his drug affairs with a cell phone while in prison.
• Many of those who are a part of the drug organizations are also members of the police. They conduct their business in their police uniforms – sometimes even openly killing people.
• In contrast, when (honest) officers make a drug bust, they make sure to cover their face before appearing in front of cameras to ensure that their families aren’t targeted. Thus the cops dress like thieves while the thieves dress like cops.
• Getting drugs into the United States is only half the battle. The other half is exporting the cash back out of it and into the pockets of the cartels.
• And there is a lot of cash. A kilo of drugs that is bought for $2,000 can retail for up to $100,000 in the United States.

Read more about how marriages are used to ensure loyalty, the Mexican cities where every cab-driver is on the payroll, where the cartels invest their money, and much, much more over here.

Source: The New York Times

22 scrappy contenders are going to be involved in a no-holds, anything-goes brawl to try to breathe some life into a dying industry by convincing movie-goers to visit the theaters writes Ben Fritz. We look forward to seeing the movie adaption:

• Compared to the previous four summers, this summer 50% more big-budget movie productions are going to be released.
• The supply is surging despite the fact that American box-office receipts have been down 12%.
• Ten of the 22 aren’t sequels, spinoffs or reboots – and these types of movies generally do worse at the box office.
• Certain movies are going to directly compete with one another. In the animated category Despicable Me 2 will go up against Monster’s University, while The Hangover Part III will compete with Fast and Furious for the ‘young men’ segment of the market.
• The battle begins with the release of Iron Man 3 this week. Other upcoming movies include Man of Steel, Star Trek, World War Z, Pacific Rim, and The Lone Ranger.

Read more about the importance of ‘hold’ in the industry, the movies that will be premiering in the same week, and what studio executives have to say over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

David Alexander looked at the numbers behind Guantanamo Bay:

• The prison costs $150 million a year to operate – or $900,000 per prisoner.
• That means that every prisoner at Guantanamo costs 30 times more than the $30,000 that the average American prisoner costs.
• The high cost is due in part to the prison’s remote location. Everything has to be flown in including judges and the media during trials.
• Until recently administrators didn’t even reveal how much the prison cost. One expert suggests that in eleven years of operation the prison has cost up to $2 billion.
• Unless the prison is closed soon it will get a whole lot more expensive. Urgent investments of $170 million are needed to upgrade the living facilities of American troops overseeing the prisoners.

Read more about the political context of Guantanamo, what the money could be used for, why neither of the political parties are in favour of it, and more over here.

Source: Reuters

The Economist looked at how the private sector is helping public schools offer healthier meals in the United States:

• In the public school system meals are usually made in a process similar to airline food. It is manufactured in a large center, then frozen, packaged, and shipped across the country.
• Little wonder then that many children choose not to eat the free lunches and either go hungry or resort to junk food.
• Revolution Foods is trying to change that by using locally sourced ingredients. Children are also asked for their feedback on the meals that are produced and this ultimately leads to food that is healthy and which children actually like to eat.
• Revolution Foods also receives daily reports on what is and isn’t being eaten and uses it to either update its menu or convince students to try new things.

Read more about the challenges that Revolution Foods faces and the problem with school lunches over here.

Source: The Economist

Wondering which country you should invest your money it in? Mull it over lunch writes Adam Pasick. It’s more useful than you’d think:

• According to the list of best restaurants in the world Europe is stagnant – Danish and UK restaurants both dropped in the rankings.
• Asia and Latin America are rising – Mexico, Thailand, and Peru are some of the emerging markets that are rapidly rising in the list.
• The United States has an uncertain outlook – it has the most restaurants on the list, but they’re losing ground.
• Japan is showing nascent signs of growth – both restaurants inched up the list.
• The list of best restaurants doesn’t completely track the economy. Belgium’s and Italy’s restaurants are doing well, though their economies aren’t. India, Turkey, and Canada aren’t on the list at all.
• The best restaurants cater to elite customers – and as the developing world grows and gives rise to a new elite expect restaurants to pop up to serve their dining needs.

See which countries have the most restaurants in the list, how the list of best restaurants compares to the list of billionaires by country, and read more about the trends over here.

Source: Quartz

There is currently a conspiracy theory that the Obama administration is attempting to buy up the USA’s ammunition supplies. Which is exactly what we want, writes Matthew Yglesias:

• Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe and Rep. Frank Lucas have introduced a bill that would prohibit every government agency — except the military — from buying more ammunition each month than the monthly average it purchased from 2001 to 2009. This is to stop Obama creating an ammunition shortage.
• The theory goes that after Obama failed to push through his gun control legislation, he is seeking alternative means to restrict gun ownership; by buying up all the ammo.
• This has lead in some sectors to panic buying of ammunition, and ‘buying my kids ammo instead of savings bonds’
• Which is, Matthew writes, exactly what the USA needs right now. The USA needs stimulus in domestic markets, which means buying is better than saving.
• And if people insist on buying bonds and not ammunition? Then increase the supply of bonds, and use the money raised to buy ammo anyway, helping the economy.

So do we find ourselves in the position of wanting to perpetuate a myth in order to stimulate the economy? Read more from Matthew over here, or for more background and context check out Salon or The Guardian

Source: Slate and Salon

See also: The Guardian

Victoria Bekiempis covered New York’s latest trend: dogs with tattoos:

• As summertime approaches and dogs have their hair cut short, dog owners are using (temporary) tattoos to glamourize their pets.
• Dog owners say that they go to several events where other peoples’ pets are dressed up in expensive outfits and that this is a low cost way to compete.
• The tattoos themselves cost $100.
• Owners argue that their pets like the tattoos. They might not appreciate its design or colour but they enjoy the resulting attention they receive from people who notice.

Read more about the trend, the celebrity dog groomer driving it, photos of pets and owners with matching tattoos, and how the practice is spreading outside of New York over here. And read our entire coverage of Pet Perks over here.

Source: DNAinfo

The Economist produced a chart that looked at estimates of the size of various black markets:

• Drug trafficking is worth an annual $320 billion a year and is thought to be by far the largest black market in the world.
• 21% smaller is the second placed market for counterfeit and pirated goods, worth $250 billion.
• Human trafficking is worth $32 billion and is 68% bigger than the market for wildlife trafficking. Human organ trafficking is worth $0.6 billion.
• The numbers are inexact and come from various years. The estimates are based, in part, on seizures by border control agents.

Read more about other markets and their comparative size, in a striking chart over here.

Source: The Economist

What happens when a South Asian math major come sociology PhD student teams up with Steven Levitt? Some pretty interesting insights into gangland economics;

• In the 1980s, being a gang leader meant power, influence and respect but no money. Marijuana just didn’t make enough cash.
• Crack-cocaine changed this; a drug that could be smoked, very addictive, but a short lived high.
• In terms of management structure, gangs are a lot like a MacDonald’s franchise. A local leader can set up, get his own crew, and use the main gang’s name and reputation in their local area.
• A footslogger in a gang might make around $3.50 an hour…many gang members actually work at MacDonald’s part time. A gang leader, however, makes in the order of $100,000
• The death rate for the lowest rank of gang member is 7% per year. For soldier’s in Iraq (2004) the figure was around 0.5%. Gangs understand this, and members get paid more when the violence gets worse
• Gangs could go into their neighbours territory and start shooting into the air. This would terrify locals and destroy their rival’s drug market. But they mainly don’t, as the other gang could do the same thing to them… inner city game theory.

A brilliant 20 minute insight, published in 2004. It’s well worth a listen or read, to find out how gangs parallel the dot com boom and why it’s important for gang leaders (and maybe CEOs?) to pay themselves handsomely even when the lowest ranks can’t get paid. Read more over here

Source: TED

Rowan Jacobsen took a look at the history of the apple:

• Each apple tree is different. The seeds that turn into a tree are a combination of the father’s and mother’s genes, and produce a brand new type of apple. Most aren’t that great.
• But when a new tree does produce good apples, the only way to get more of that type of apple is by cloning it through a graft of one of its shoots.
• Therefore every Granny Smith apple is produced from a direct clone of a tree that first grew in 1868.
• America used to have thousands of strains of apples each unique in its own way, but the rise of industrialized farming led to most people settling on just a few different types of apples.
• America’s prohibition is also partly to blame for the decline in diversity of apples. Some of them made excellent ciders but died out when alcohol was banned.
• Nowadays new strains of apples are protected by intellectual property rights that restrict how they can be grown, and require a licensing fee for each apple that is produced.

Read more about the man who’s trying to identify, catalogue, and revive America’s various apples, what different apples such as Wolf River and Harrison looked like, and what the hunt for an apple is like over here.

Source: Mother Jones

We’ve previously covered the excellent personal analytics that Wolfram|Alpha offers through your Facebook profile. Now they’ve aggregated the information that was analyzed and come out with some interesting findings:

• The median number of Facebook friends is 342.
• The proportion of people “in a relationship” peaks around the age of 24. Those “engaged” peak around 27.
• Between the age of 40 and 60, the fraction of people reporting themselves as “single” increases for women, but decreases for men.
• Teenage boys generally have more friends than teenage girls – potentially because they’re less selective about who they friend.
• Men are more likely to talk about movies, television and music. Women enjoy talking about pets and health.

As with all Wolfram|Alpha posts, this summary is an injustice to what it a fascinating, concise, comprehensive article illustrated with brilliant charts and graphs. You should really read through it over here.

Source: Stephen Wolfram Blog

When the President of the United State meets with a foreign leader, the President normally receives a gift that must be recoded and catalogued writes Brian Fung. Here are some of the more interesting things about the gifts Barack Obama received in 2011:

• France’s Nicolas Sarkozy was the most frequent gift-giver with 16 gifts to the United States in 2011.
• Yet in terms of overall value of all gifts, France’s $42,000 in gifts paled in comparison to Brazil and Gabon.
• Brazil enjoys giving the President rare soccer jerseys.
• Gabon’s Ali Bongo Ondimba has only given one gift to the President of the United States but the 14″ blue mark sculpture is worth $52,69 – 25% more than the value of France’s 16 gifts combined.

Read more over here.

Source: National Journal

You would be forgiven for thinking that deafness is something that can’t be prevented with medicines. But perhaps it is, writes Helen Carmichael:

• Noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) is caused by hairs in the ear becoming damaged. This can be ‘mechanical’, caused by vibrations.
• It can also be because of ‘free radicals’ (reactive chemicals) being produced by the ears’ surface cells after loud noises. These free radicals also destroy fragile ear hairs.
• This is an ongoing process; the free radicals are present for 7-10 days after exposure to elevated noise levels.
• A wide range of chemicals can help remove free radicals; including taking magnesium supplements.
• Test are still in the trial stage, but a variety of studies suggest that there are a large number of possible drugs that could be taken routinely, or after exposure to loud noises, that would help mitigate hearing damage.
• The market for NIHL preventing drugs is estimated to be worth a potential $2 billion. The hearing implants and devices market is currently worth around $6 billion.

Free radicals are only part of the picture, but if workers who are exposed to loud noises could help mitigate their hearing loss through routine supplements then so much the better. Read more in this chemistry-focused article over here

Source: Society of Chemistry and Industry

How much is the value of the zip code system of the United States? Niraj Chokshi looked at a study that tried to answer the question:

• According to a report by the U.S. Postal Service Office and IBM, the zip code system is worth $9.5 billion a year.
• $2.2 billion of that value goes to the postal service, $2.1 billion to firms who use it for mail-related products, $2.4 billion for firms that use it for non-mail products, and consumers, governments, and non-profits gain $2.9 billion.
• The zip code isn’t an American invention – Germany had the first modern zip code system in 1961, and it didn’t come to the United States until 1963.
• The primary challenge when setting up the system was ensuring that there was a high rate of adoption. AT&T warned the post office that their experience with implementing area codes for telephones indicated that implementing zip codes would be an uphill challenge.
• A massive advertising campaign ensured that the system had near 100% adoption within 20 years.
• The next evolution for the zip code might be the addition of longitude and latitude coordinates. Even a 1% improvement in zip code data could yield $33 billion in benefits.

Read more about the study, its limitations, and the mysterious Mr. Zip who made the American zip code system possible over here.

Source: The Atlantic

We at Centives are massive Lord of the Rings fans, and keep a flaming log nearby in case of ringwraith surprises. But there has been something that has bugged us for a while.

Where did the orcs get their food from?

Mordor was an ashen wasteland where we never see any plant life (save for the odd tree in the dead swamp), let alone fields full of crops. Old volcanoes are good for making soil fertile, constantly erupting ones are not. But somehow the orcs were eating. How? To get food, the black lands must have been trading with an outside power.

Assuming that the Dark Lord was importing food from abroad, something must have been exported in return. True, Sauron may have forced Easterlings/pirates/dwarves/hobbits to bring him victuals for nothing, but you can only threaten so much with an army that someone else feeds.

Balance of trades

We’re going to go ahead and say that Middle Earth’s economy is roughly comparable to 14^th Century England. For reference that’s the time of the Hundred Years War, the Black Death and Bannockburn.

If Mordor was trading something, then we imagine that this would be swords. Sauron had both mines and forges, and so supply should not have been an issue. A medieval sword cost around 6d (6 pence) each. We got in touch with expert Hector Cole, master arrowsmith and archaeological ironworker, who gave us some ideas about medieval sword manufacture.

Bearing in mind that within Mordor itself there isn’t an economy; it’s a command system governed by Sauron and his Nazgul. So mining and manufacture costs aren’t monetary, and all 60d can be spent on other things. Like…

Food. Feeding an army isn’t easy. One option for mass consupmtion is pig;

A hog roast can feed about 100 at a sitting. Assuming 3 meals per day this is 33 orcs per pig A medieval pig cost 2 shilling (24 pence) each So 100 orcs can be fed for 72d per day

So to keep 500 orcs fighting, around 35 orcs are needed to be smithing, and about 1 orc smelting.

Thus for Mordor’s economy to work, constant wars would be needed to keep up the demand for weapons, so that Mordor could trade them for food. This raises the question of how moral it would be for Sauron not to start wars. Due to the requirements of smithing and smelting, about 7% of orcs would be involved in ‘civilian’ roles. When considering firewood, building, and particularly mining, this figure would become much higher.

This is a lot of swords being made per year. Perhaps instead of weapons, Mordor could make farming equipment in its forges. Then to trade it would need a farming people, living quiet lives, who make lots of food but would never go down a mine or do something so unexpected as become a blacksmith.

So those are our thoughts on Mordor. At least 7% were civilians. Which makes us less cool with *SPOILER* that massive earthquake at the end of Return of the King. Though, read on for the peculiar case of Mordor’s agrarian sector.

The Case of Nurn

This is for those who, whilst reading the above article, wanted to cry out “but what about Nurn! It’s the place that feeds Mordor’s armies! Nurn!” 

In the literature, Nurn is referred to as having land fertile enough to feed the legions of Sauron. So by all means, perhaps the Dark Lord’s armies are fed by this land. But we’re not so sure for the following reasons:

1)      Orcs farming seems odd at best. All medieval states suffered from famine and crop failure, and this was when peasants put every ounce of their skills into providing food for their own families. What a mess an orc would have made of crops we can only imagine.

2)      Forced labour is pretty inefficient when it comes to farming. 33% less efficient in the case of Wisbech in Cambridgeshire (14^th century).

3)      As Merry and Pippin are being taken to Isengard (yes, we know, not Mordor, but still) the orcs complain that “we ain’t had nothing but maggoty bread for 3 stinking days”, suggesting that they are used to a meat diet, which has been interrupted for their hunt.

4)      Transporting a quarter-ton of wheat by sea is 14 times cheaper than by land (per mile). Importing makes sense.

5)      Look at an orcs mouth. They are not creatures made for bread.

6)      Admittedly, Nurn may have been animal grazing, not crop growing. But unless there were very favourable prevailing winds, Mount Doom would be an issue. Crops can tolerate up to 10cm of volcanic ash, animals as little as 1mm.

For our rather detailed references, assumptions and further thoughts, click here.

If this article was your sort of thing, then take a look at our Greatest Hits, and check out our answer to the question of who was the better investment, Bilbo or the Hobbit, or take a look at the population of Panem. And we always love hearing from our readers; by commenting below, emailing us, or:

One of the many debates that the Boston Bombings will lead to in the United States, is the debate about the role that the government has to play in providing terror insurance:

• Insurers are able to develop risk forecast models for natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes to help identify the right amount they should charge for insurance.
• However their models are unable to truly account for terror attacks since those are relatively rare.
• The fear is that since private insurers won’t provide terror insurance, important infrastructure and development projects will be held up as developers are unwilling to take on an uninsured risk of a terror attack.
• After 9/11 the government set up a program that would provide government support if a terror attack led to over $100 million in losses.
• However that program is expiring in 2014 and lawmakers are hoping that even though the Boston Bombings wouldn’t have triggered a payout under the policy; it will still serve as impetus to extend the program.

Read more about why it is being opposed and how it could be modified over here.

Source: Politico

Via: Marginal Revolution

Overpriced snacks and drinks in a tiny dorm-sized refrigerator are a staple of hotel stays. Or at least they used to be writes Andrea Petersen:

• Hotels claim that they actually make a loss on the over-priced snacks in the fridges. Between payment disputes and guests replacing the contents of bottles with water, up to 20% of revenue is lost.
• Most people don’t even use the mini-bar because people don’t really enjoy drinking alone, and are aware of how expensive the contents are.
• To get people to use it more some hotel are putting in more exotic snacks such as ham-flavoured almonds, or beer from local breweries, to convince guests to purchase items they can’t get anywhere else.
• Others are getting rid of the fridge entirely and putting snacks in plain view, making them harder to resist.
• Some hotels have experimented with putting in electronic trackers to see if the contents of a fridge have been disturbed. They also track expiry dates, cutting down on the cost of labour required to replace items. However these have their own problems as customers might move things around without consuming anything.

Read more about why some hotels have just put in empty fridges into the rooms, the most popular items with guests, and why one guest was charged $700 for items he didn’t consume over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Via: The Economist

Farming in the modern era is a difficult and capital intensive process. This is especially true for farmers who grow crops of marijuana. Ana Campoy took a look at the economics of the industry:

• Growing marijuana is labour intensive – and growers can’t hope to use cheap immigrants to do the job. Payroll can make up to a third of production costs.
• As the legal framework concerning the growth of marijuana has eased, there has also been increased competition which has eaten away at profits. The price for a pound of weed has crashed from $3,900 to $2,000.
• The strict regulations around growing pot require a lot of investment. The state requires cameras in every room with plants and expensive heating lamps have to be bought. Banks refuse to offer finance.
• Meanwhile the industry has to deal with cheap overseas competition from Mexico where wages are low, working conditions are harsh, and regulations are lax.
• As with any farm, pot-growers have to be on the look-out for pests and other dangers that can lower the quality of a harvest.
• Farmers are also concerned about intellectual property rights. After one strain of pot called Bio-Diesel won the award for best quality in 2009, copycats with lower quality plants used the same name to market their produce.

Read more about the best way to make money growing weed, why there can be raids even in states where it’s legal to grow the plant, and how a single male plant can ruin an entire harvest of marijuana over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

To aid the manhunt of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, officials asked residents to stay home and business to stay shut in the city of Boston. Joshua Green and Caroline Winter took a look at the economic implications of this:

• As one of America’s most important cities Boston see’s about $1 billion in economic activity every day.
• But shutting down the city doesn’t end all economic activity. Thanks to computers a lot of work continues to go on. Moreover activities such as shopping for groceries that could not happen on the day of the manhunt will simply happen the next day, preserving the economic benefit.
• Some economic activity is lost though, and the value for that lost activity is up to about $333 million.
• One source of commerce that will continue is the trade of donuts. Police officials asked that Dunkin Donuts remained open so that officers had a place to take a snack break.

Read more about the economics of shutting down a city, as well as what New York City and Washington can tell us about the after-effects of a crisis over here.

Source: Businessweek

We’ve previously covered cupcakes as the next big food trend. It appears that cupcakes may just have been a bubble which is now collapsing:

• Crumbs Bake Shop – a chain that sells cupcakes that cost up to $42 – has seen its share price drop from $13 to $1.70 in the past 18 months.
• This is in part because the cupcakes were a novelty. People enjoyed them a few times, but there isn’t much repeat business.
• The barriers to entry in the market are also low and there has been a flood of competitors who’ve eaten away at Crumbs’ market share.
• Image issues contributed to the decline – at least one former employee claims that the premium cupcakes aren’t always fresh.
• For its part, Crumbs claims that its disappointing financial performance is due to $700,000 in lost sales during the time of Hurricane Sandy.

Read more about the cupcake bubble, what experts have to say, and a potential future strategy for Crumbs over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Raspberry Pi is the realised dream of a small, cheap, hackable computer that will work anywhere in the world. But getting there wasn’t an easy ride, writes co-founder Pete Lomas

• The plan was to build 1,000 units at $36 each and sell them for $35. There’s a reason it’s a charity, not a company
• Three weeks before launch, demand was above the estimated 1,000 units, to the tune of 200,000.
• People had invested considerable sums of money in Raspberry Pi. The original idea was to have the hardware and software be totally open so anybody could hack it. But open also means copyable, and that would have meant investors potentially never getting their return.
• To overcome this, the designers published the schematics early on, but waited a while before releasing the Bill of Materials and physical PCB design.
• The project created 30 manufacturing jobs in the UK.

Read more in this mildly technical article; about what different groups were asking for in the design, why the project was saved by a laser making hair size holes, and how 7 year olds are getting involved over here

Source: Wired

“I have no doubt that we could physically place a human being on Mars. Whether they’d be able to survive for an extended period of time is much more doubtful” says Dr Bray. But the plan is to have humans settling the red planet by 2023, writes Melissa Hogenboom:

• Mars One is the non-profit organisation aiming to send the colonisers. After the first arrivals, four new settlers will be sent every two years.
• All of the technology that will be used on Mars already exists, including solar cells for energy and water recycling technologies for drinking and crop growing.
• For the reality TV show lovers, there’s something for you. The plan is to televise the whole experience in a Big Brother (or perhaps Truman Show) style programme.
• Cost may be an issue at $6 billion for the first group. But Mars One already has two investors, Trifork BV from the Netherlands and  Now&Partners from South Africa.
• There might be slight hiccups. “There’s no liquid water, the atmospheric pressure is “practically a vacuum”, radiation levels are higher and temperatures vary wildly” warns Dr Bray.

Read more about this project including plans to deal with the radiation, how Mars compares to Antarctica and why the tickets to Mars are only one way over here

Source: BBC

Half a century ago chicken came on the bone and resembled a bird. Today the era of on the bone chicken appears to be coming to an end, giving way to boneless chicken:

• Up until the 1970s fast food chains didn’t have product offerings beyond burgers and fries. However federal guidelines around the 70s began to discourage Americans from eating red meat.
• Moreover the price of beef began to rise, causing fast food chains to desperately search around for alternatives.
• Chicken was an attractive option since it was cheap and thought to be healthier than beef.
• McDonald’s led the charge trying out chicken pot-pies and bone-in fried chicken. Only deep fried boneless chicken chunks resonated with customers.
• Now boneless chicken has become so common that one KFC executive jokes that young people today no longer know that chicken has bones in it.
• Most chains from Chik-Fil-A to Burger King have abandoned on the bone chicken. KFC was the last holdout and it too recently announced plans to introduce boneless chicken menu offerings.

Read more about the history of chicken nuggets, what Colonel Sanders would have thought, and the problem with chicken margins over here.

Source: Time

The internet has been around for a while now…yet it hasn’t really transformed the real estate business the way it should have writes Brad Stone:

• Sites such as Zillow have made it easier for buyers and sellers to trade properties – yet agents remain a part of the process and their fees have stayed the same.
• This is despite the studies that indicate that going through an agent, rather than selling the home directly, decreases the price of the home by up to 7.7%.
• This might be due to collusion –there are agents involved on both the buy and sell sides; one agent might navigate their client away from another agent that offers a discount low-cost model.
• Things aren’t likely to change in the future. It’s not as if buyers and sellers haven’t used the internet – in fact 90% of real estate transactions begin on the web – they just feel the need to work with an agent who overcharges them.

Read more about the company that is (unsuccessfully) trying to challenge the standard model, a couple companies that have given up on challenging it, and how agents do in other countries over here.

Source: Businessweek

Via: Marginal Revolution

Clothing retailers appear to have perpetual sales that do nothing but mislead customers about the value of the deals they’re getting. As we’ve previously covered Ron Johnson wanted to try to change that and implement a system of fair pricing. The initiative has been an abject failure and has seriously damaged J.C. Penney’s sales. What happened?

• Coupons and false ‘sales’ are a drain on retailers. It makes supply difficult to project, and leads to uncertain profit margins.
• It’s not that great for customers either. They don’t really get a discount when they go to stores – instead the retailers inflate the original price and then pretend to mark it down to make it seem like a good deal.
• In theory then getting rid of coupons and facetious sales is a good deal for both parties.
• Yet human beings seem hardwired to look out for deals – even if they’re fake. The thrill of the hunt is half the fun of shopping.
• Part of the problem is that J.C. Penney couldn’t promise the lowest prices the way that chains like Walmart do. All it was claiming was ‘low’ prices but what was ‘low’ was being defined by J.C. Penney and consumers had no reason to trust it.
• Thus J.C. Penney’s initiative failed and its CEO Ron Johnson was replaced.

Read more about the struggles that other companies have had with honest pricing, the merits and drawbacks of honest pricing, areas where it may work, and more over here.

Source: The New York Times

North Korea has recently increased the intensity of its rhetoric. John Hudson looked at the companies who may well be thankful for this:

• Lockheed Martin, Boeing, EADS, and BAE Systems are all trying to sell fighter jets to South Korea. Recent events only make their business case more attractive.
• The rise of drone aircraft has led to a “robotic alliance” between the US, Australia, Japan, and South Korea. Seoul sees them as valuable tools to ward off the threat from North Korea.
• Missiles can cost up to $80,000 a piece, and since South Korea may soon have to replenish its stocks, the share price of firms that produce them have rocketed up.

Read more over here.

Source: Foreign Policy

Andrew Bomford writes that in general electric cars actually end up being worse for the environment than conventional ones. Here’s why:

• Electric cars require twice as much energy as conventional cars to manufacture.
• The source of energy that electric cars use to recharge their batteries can also be just as polluting as those of regular cars.
• When these two factors are taken together, it is likely that an electric car bought today will be worse for the environment than a conventional one.
• However this is changing. As demand for electric cars expands, the process of building them will become more efficient and less energy intensive.
• Countries are also increasingly using renewables to supply their electricity needs, and this too will lessen the impact that electric cars have on the environment.

Read more about the methodology of the study that outlined the pollution impact of electric cars, as well as the countries where electric cars are best for the environment over here.

Source: BBC

In the United States it is commonly believed that southern States are the most obese. It turns out that’s a myth:

• The data that indicates that southerners are the fattest comes from a periodic nationwide survey done by the CDC asking respondents about their height and weight.
• However this relies on self-reported data. When southerners are actually weighed then they no longer top the charts.
• The reason why the CDC survey shows them to be the fattest then may simply be because southerners are the most willing to be honest about their weight.

Read more about the study, its findings, and its methodology over here.

Source: All Alabama

Via: Marginal Revolution

Just under a year ago McDonald’s was a darling of business analysts. Yet it’s now facing tough times writes Julie Jargon. What happened?

• McDonald’s outlets are gaining an increasing repetition for rudeness and slow service.
• According to one study, McDonald’s is among the least friendly of the major fast food chains – only Burger King is worse.
• To deal with these issues McDonald’s is trying out a ‘dual point’ ordering system where customers order on one end, grab a ticket, watch for their number to flash on a screen, and then head over to pick up their order. The person who gives them their order is meant to thank them and ask to see them again.
• The fast food chain is also trying out software that will help its many independent stores understand the optimal number of staff required on hand at any given time.
• Instead of having cashiers and cooks do all the work, the company is also looking into creating specialized runners who do nothing but fetch the components of a meal and put it together for customers.

Read more about McDonald’s woes, its financials, and what executives have to say over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

The fight against AIDS was led by many groups – from activists to governments – writes The Economist. One of these groups is corporations:

• Businesses in South Africa became increasingly concerned about the spread of AIDS. Certain groups of workers such as miners who lived in areas rife with prostitution were particularly at risk for the disease.
• At one point AIDS had spread so widely that companies were training two employees for every job, just in case one fell sick.
• To deal with this companies launched programs such as free AIDS testing, and free drug treatments for those who were diagnosed with AIDS.
• Mining offices began to receive weekly emails outlining which offices had the lowest rates of AIDS – or, as one commentator put it, which mine was the safest to have sex in.
• The initiatives worked, and AIDS has become a much more manageable disease.
• Companies that launched the programs have realized other benefits from instituting the controls. From improved employee morale to lower staff turnover. In fact the AIDS programs might soon begin to pay for themselves.

Read more about other industries that helped fight AIDS, how companies helped alter the political climate in South Africa, and how obeisity might be the next battle for businesses over here.

Source: The Economist

Brooke Jarvis took a look at the international demand for American sperm:

• American sperm is popular in part because of the ethnic diversity of its population. Hopeful mothers around the world can find a sperm donor of similar ethnicity in the United States.
• America’s regulations governing the testing of donated sperm is also among the most stringent in the world – giving future mothers the confidence that their child will be healthy.
• America’s supply of sperm is reliable. Men are allowed to donate anonymously and be paid to do so. In the many countries where this is not true, there is a dearth in supply.
• One sperm bank sees 60% of its produce end up outside the United States.
• Denmark, the UK, Canada and Australia are top destinations for these American goods.

Read more about the sense of distance that donors feel from the offspring, the difference between male and female donors, and the activists that think America’s sperm market needs to change over here.

Source: The Verge

Walking around New York City’s Times Square it is common to see performers dressed up as famous characters such as Elmo and Batman. They expect a tip if the millions of tourists that flock to Times Square have a picture taken with them. Andrew Grossman took a look at the practice:

• The performers don’t get permission from the license holders of the characters. Sesame workshop, for example, hasn’t authorized anybody to walk around in an Elmo costume collecting tips.
• However dressing up in a costume is an activity protected by America’s First Amendment – Halloween would be far less interesting if it weren’t.
• The number of performers – and the range of characters they dress up as – is growing. Today there are around 50 in Times Square and soon there could be more than 100.
• Elmo is the most popular character. There are 8 of them roaming around Times Square.
• A performer can expect to make up to $200 per day.

Read more about the growing nuisance the performers have become, which superhero is the most popular, and more over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Soon algorithms rather than humans may decide whether or not you get the job writes The Economist. Some of the interesting things they’ve found:

• Applicants who have joined one or two social networks are more likely to stay in the position longer. Those who have joined four or more are not.
• Honest candidates usually make bad salespeople.
• Applicants with a criminal record are better at making customer-support calls than those without one.
• Individuals who fill out online applications with a different browser than that which came with their computer usually do better.

Read more about this future, its perils, its successes, and how businesses are implementing them over here.

Source: The Economist

Do you have a potential lawsuit where you’re reasonably sure that you can sue for damages, but don’t have the time or resources to pursue? You can sell it writes The Economist:

• Litigation firms are specializing in pursuing lawsuits that those who have been wronged aren’t able to pursue.
• They take up the legal costs and prosecution and in return get between 30%-60% of the final payout (if any).
• For firms in the industry the problem isn’t finding promising cases. Instead it is the slow moving nature of the courts. Profits can be erratic because they depend upon the legal system delivering its decisions in a timely manner.
• At the moment demand is greater than supply. It’s worth $1 billion today…and is expected to grow rapidly.

Read more about leading industry players, why somebody might sell off their lawsuit, and ethical considerations over here.

Source: The Economist

For $79 Amazon offers a year of free two day shipping. And soon it might cost next to nothing writes Marcus Wohlsen:

• Those who use Amazon Prime spend twice as much, on average, than non-Amazon prime customers.
• After adding all the extra costs of courting Prime subscribers, the average Prime member accounts for $78 more in profit than regular customers.
• Prime customers are 4% of Amazon’s total subscriber base. And this 4% is responsible for more than one third of Amazon’s profits.
• Prime subscribers likely use the service more because they’ve already invested in it, and can get their goods faster and cheaper than regular customers.

Read more about the future of Amazon Prime, its smart play in enticing college students, and more over here.

Source: Wired

Via: Newmark’s Door

Nicole Perlroth delved into the world of fake twitter accounts:

• According to researchers there are up to 20 million fake twitter accounts floating around.
• The going rate is about $18 for 1,000 followers.
• This means the overall market for fake Twitter followers could be worth as much as $360 million.
• The same account can be sold to multiple buyers. In fact buyers prefer this since it makes the fake twitter account look more authentic.
• Retweets can also be brought. Five a day costs $9 a month.
• Up to 10,000 new accounts can be created in less than a week.

Read more about Twitter’s efforts to crack down on the practice, how Twitter has a different conceptualization of identity than Facebook, and how the numbers were determined over here. And you can become one of our (very real) Twitter followers over here!

Source: The New York Times

Americans rate colonoscopies and cockoroaches more highly than they rate America’s House of Representatives writes Daniel Schuman. They should be given a raise:

• Congress members currently make what sounds like a very generous $174,000 a year.
• Yet when they “retire” to become lobbyists they can see their pay jump to a million dollars. This creates an incentive to quickly create connections and then leave.
• By hiking the pay of politicians, a more qualified group of individuals will see the job as a promising alternative and will run for office.
• Singapore pays its ministers millions of dollars – part of the reason why it’s one of the best managed countries in the world.

Read more about the plight of Congressional staffers, how the President’s salary compares and more over here.

Source: Slate

Even the darkest cloud can have a silver lining, in this case for falcons, writes Elias Groll:

• A prime Pakistani falcon can be worth up to $100,000, sold in the Arab world for hunting
• But this is on the black market. In 2005 the falcons were labelled an endangered species, with only 2,000 of the birds in the tribal region
• Violence has intensified since that date; the region is a battle ground, with Pakistani army offensives and CIA drone strikes.
• As the area became too dangerous for hunters and poachers, falcon populations have been recovering. By 2008 the population of falcons had quadrupled.

“The bitter irony of a brutal civil war creating significant environmental benefits is not something that has environmentalists looking to Pakistan as a model for conservation strategies. Still, the falcons are probably happy” Read more over here

Source: Foreign Policy

Barbie dolls dressed up in the garb of different professions cost different amounts. This might be because parents purchase the Doctor Barbie Doll in the hopes that their child will grow up to be a doctor. You’d expect then that the most expensive Barbie dolls would be the ones that are dressed as those who make the most money in real life. Does the theory hold? The Economist found out:

• There is some correlation. The computer engineering Barbie is one of the most expensive – her real-life counterparts can also expect to make a lot of money.
• In other cases the professions differ wildly. The babysitter Barbie is the eight most expensive version of Barbie, yet in our world childcare workers make very little money.
• On the other end of the extreme the pilot Barbie can be had for a fairly low price, but today pilots and flight engineers make about 1.4 times the median US wage.

Read more over here.

Source: The Economist

To many people, Amazon is the last word in book selling. Yet it recently forked out $150 million for Goodreads, a book recommendation site. Heres why, according to Jordan Weissman:

• The publishing industry relies on super fans; those who read far more than the average person. 19% of Americans accounted for 79% of all books read in 2010 (other than for work or school)
• Personal recommendations are important and becoming more so. 14% of books were found by personal recommendation in 2010. This was up to 19% in 2012.
• Goodreads offers the opportunity for personal recommendations on a huge scale; ‘in the world of books, Goodreads is about as influential as Facebook’
• As of yet Amazon’s plans for Goodreads are unknown. The problem of writers buying good reviews may mean the new purchase is simply a large store of trustworthy opinions.

For helpful diagrams and the percentage of Americans who  read no books for pleasure in 2010 click here

Source: The Atlantic

The third Season of Game of Thrones premiered yesterday. Laurie Kulikowski took a look at three stocks that were “loyal to the crown”:

• Time Warner – the parent company of HBO. Its shares are hitting highs – perhaps helped along by the Game of Thrones buzz.
• As Amazon continues to take the battle to traditional retailers, it too benefits from sales of Game of Thrones DVDs.
• Facebook. HBO has been extensively promoting the third season on the world’s premiere social network. Expect many fan discussions to take place on the website.

Read more over here. And check out some of our editorials on Game of Thrones.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Typically, one’s immortal soul is considered to be of infinite value to its original owner, as possession of it is widely thought to allow access to some sort of eternal reward and/or avoidance of eternal damnation. But what if you are in a really tight spot, and don’t have any other assets to sell at that moment?

Maybe it’s time to consider entering the eternally hot market of soul trading.

Before signing any contract however, you should probably have a firm grasp of what exactly the commodity being traded is typically worth, so read on.

Unfortunately for the potential soul-seller, there seem to be rather few credible soul purchasers on the market. Certainly there are quite a few soul consumers, such as Yog-sothoth¹, the Erlking², Nyarlathotep³, etc. but according to most sources they often either merely seize the soul in question without negotiation or bargain in rather bad faith.

Yog-sothoth: not much of a negotiator when it comes to souls

 The only entity that appears to regularly purchase souls is the Satan of the Abrahamic faiths and his agents, such as Mephistopheles.

 The Prince of Lies: Most Honest and Reliable Soul Dealer in the Cosmos Since 5,500 BCE!

 Given his position as the dominant soul purchaser in the market and the high fragmentation of soul sellers, Satan has a great deal of bargaining leverage.

On the bright side, at least for purposes of this analysis, Lucifer’s position means that his offers can be considered the standards of the market, allowing us to relatively easily determine the market value of a soul based upon Satan’s traits and prior transactions.

The first thing to consider is Satan’s motivations for purchasing souls, from which we might derive his level of demand. While his game is somewhat puzzling, it would seem that his primary objectives are political and/or personal, revolving around his adversarial relationship with the Abrahamic God. Given that this conflict is projected to persist until Armageddon, and that humans (and their souls) appear to be one of the major strategic focuses of this conflict, we can anticipate that his demand will persist for the foreseeable future.

As for Satan’s supply of capital to exchange in these transactions, this man of wealth and taste is frequently considered to have dominion over the entire Earth (primarily based on his being referred to as “ruler of this world” (John 12:31, NRSV)), and indeed in Matthew 4:8-9 Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the Earth in exchange for Jesus worshipping him. From this we can derive that Satan’s asset base for soul transactions is not only huge, but will keep perfect pace with global GDP,⁴ and effectively render him immune from the time-value of money (as he’s already invested in everything.)

“It’s a great up-and-coming neighborhood.”

So, how much has the Prince of Darkness been historically willing to offer for a typical mortal soul? While there are many accounts of these transactions, most of them either are settled with wagers, which upsets calculating market value as it is difficult to reconstruct the probability calculations used by the participants, or they involve intangible components such as love, good fortune, fame, knowledge, political power, or sorcerous powers of ambiguous scale and versatility, which are difficult to quantify in terms of pure financial value. Fortunately, there is the case of 18^th century New Hampshire General Jonathan Moulton.

Thinly veiled as “General Hampton” in Samuel Drake’s 1882 travelogue The Heart of the White Mountains, Jonathan Moulton sells his soul in exchange for having his boots filled with guineas every month. Naturally, Moulton soon found the largest pair of boots in the village so that he could maximize his income from the bargain, which Satan apparently considered acceptable as “the devil does not stand upon trifles.” However, when Moulton tried to push his luck further by cutting out the soles of the boots so that the devil would fill the boots endlessly, Satan apparently considered this a breach of contract and decided to sue in a trial by fire—as in, he burned down Moulton’s house.

On top of paying damages in terms of the damage to his house, Moulton also lost all of the guineas, which he had been stuffing into the rafters of his house, and still had to give up custody of his soul, based on the fact that supposedly when he was exhumed his coffin was found empty.

Extrapolating from a reference to a 1769 Boston Chronicle article, we can date the conflagration of Jonathan Moulton’s house to March 15^th, 1769, which is useful useful information for determining the value of the transaction, which you can see here.

Volume of two largest boots available:

640cm³

Volume of one guinea:

1.131cm³

Number of guineas in two boots:

11,745

Wage of an English farmer (1769):

17.38 guineas per year

Converting economic values from this time period and earlier to that of today is a hotly debated matter by economic historians considering the lack benchmarks that persist across them, but if we scale the income of a 1769 English farmer to the average U.S. wage today, then the compensation for the soul would be worth approximately $29 million per month or $348.5 million per year, over two and a half times the total income of the highest paid CEO of 2012, who was paid $137.2 million for the entire year.

Alternatively, we could calculate Moulton’s income based on the modern value of the gold in the coins. Each guinea minted during that period contained 7.7 grams of gold (out of 8.4 grams in the coins total.) This works out to 90.7 kilograms of gold each month, which would be worth $5 million on today’s market.

So, assuming that souls are moderately fungible, and the devil has been giving his dues in keeping up with modern income expectations, the typical Faustian bargain can net a substantial short-term upside, albeit with a high rate of seller’s remorse.

-Centives would like to thank our guest writer Gregory Maus of strategic consulting firm Maus Publicity and Consulting for getting in touch and contributing this article.

¹ While Yog-sothoth, as presented in Illuminatus!, seems to be open to some forms of negotiation to devour the souls of others, but the entity in question is rather fickle in its soul consumption, taking the souls of those who summon it if not properly restrained. Furthermore, because Yog-sothoth devours the souls of others, rather than that of the negotiator, the resulting moral hazard means that that which is given in exchange cannot be considered a fair market price. In any case, the account in Illuminatus! seems to be the only instance of an entity known as Yog-sothoth trafficking in souls, per se, and indeed it seems to differ in quite  number of respects from the Yog-sothoth featured elsewhere in the Lovecraft mythos.

² The closest that the Erlking seems to come to a soul purchase is in Goethe’s Der Erlkönig, in which he does originally promise the boy involved in the soul transaction the opportunity to join him in his halls for a variety of merriments, but this cannot be considered a good-faith offer as the Erlking A. never informs the boy of the price of the offer or really any terms thereof, and B. steals the boy’s soul when negotiations break down, demonstrating that negotiations involved unfair leverage and coercive elements (which is also suggested by the boy’s verbal expressions of fear throughout the poem.) While there other folkloric instances of individuals making unusual transactions with various fey (involving such bargaining chips as marriage, one’s children, or one’s memories), they never seem to involve the mortal’s own soul.

³ As the soul and messenger of the Outer Gods, Nyarlathotep is naturally involved with a variety of transactions with mortals, such as signing one’s name in Azathoth’s book in Dreams in the Witch House, but it is ambiguous as to whether these transactions involved the mortal bargainer’s soul and even if they do, the one transaction featured in the story is laced with coercive elements  (chiefly repeated insanity-inducing harassment by Brown Jenkin and Keziah Mason) and suggestions that alleged book signer Walter Gilman may not have been in a sufficiently sound state of mind to properly consent to such an exchange (if indeed it did occur, which is ambiguous.) Nyarlathotep (and various other Lovecraftian entities) may also receive the souls of his various cultists throughout the cosmos, but this likely cannot be properly considered a good-faith bargain either, given Nyarlathotep’s inherent conflict of interest as perceived deity of said cultists (a role it could utilize to counsel his followers to offer their souls to it for less than fair market value.)

⁴ The conclusion that Satan’s assets to exchange for souls will keep pace with Earth’s GDP does rely on the implicit assumption that Satan does not commonly utilize substantial assets decoupled from and out of step with Earth’s economy for these transactions,

⁵ These calculations assume that any bulge in the boots from the weight of the guineas is roughly canceled out by the inefficient space utilization by the coins.

Enjoyed this? Check out our estimates of other soul trades, or have a think about how much the markup is on your pizza toppings. You can find this and other articles in our Editorials although for a selection of the best check out our Greatest Hits. And be sure to stay in touch:

So how many guineas could fit in Moulton’s oversized boots? Considering that the story written in The Heart of the Mountains says that Moulton “ransacked the village for the largest pair to be found” (emphasis added), we’ll assume that he didn’t custom make any boots and so, while large, the boots would not be unreasonably so.

One can only imagine what Satan would have done to Moulton if he’d tried to claim these as his boots.

 A local custom riding boots shop said that the largest dimensions that they’ve ever had for boots were 20 inches high (with three inches of that being the foot and the other 17 being the calf), 15 inches long at the foot, six inches wide at the foot, and with a 20 inch calf circumference, which works out to approximately .00664 cubic meters of interior volume.

Since the King George’s reign began in 1760, the guinea was standardized at 24 mm in diameter and (we estimate) ≈2.5mm in thickness, which means that it would take approximately 5,872 of them to fill each boot described above, 11,745 total.¹

This would mean that Moulton was receiving, in exchange for his soul, 678 times the average annual English farm worker’s salary every month.

¹ These calculations assume that any bulge in the boots from the weight of the guineas is roughly cancelled out by the inefficient space utilization by the coins.

If we were ever offered the chance to sell our souls, we would be pretty careful about the whole deal. We would want to know what we’d get in exchange, and we would have very detailed and careful plans about how we would use the money/flying boat/golden fiddle we were getting in exchange for being owned by the Devil.

Only, one of the major themes in soul selling is the huge discrepancy between what is promised by the dark powers, and what the human ends up with. For the sake of comparison we’ve assumed that all soul trades take place in the modern day, and you can find below some examples both ‘real’ and fictional; what was promised and what was delivered. We’ve estimated both of these in monetary terms, along with the % return, or ‘what did the soul seller actually end up with as a % of what they were offered?’

(Please note that all monetary values are approximate, and Centives is not responsible if your soul trade goes wrong. Or right. To be honest, we advise against the whole business. Too hard to graph.)

-Centives would like to thank our guest writer Gregory Maus of strategic consulting firm Maus Publicity and Consulting for getting in touch and helping with the writing of this article.

We’d also suggest checking out Greg’s thoughts on soul trading and General Moulton, or maybe take a look at how long resources would last in the zombie apocalypse. You can find this and other articles in our Editorials although for a selection of the best check out our Greatest Hits. And be sure to stay in touch:

Steve Levitt hosted a discussion of ‘outsiders’ (economists, psychologists and political scientists), alongside in the field non-profit workers on the subject of child obesity. Some of the highlights that discussion were:

• Whilst children are more likely than adults to be bullied for being overweight, it is adults’ health that suffers. So social costs of obesity drop off with age (generally), as medical costs rise
• The time-lapse between a child eating and gaining weight makes it harder to perceive the cause-effect relationship. In animals a 4-minute lapse between cause and effect means the animal never learns.
• Since the 1950′s USA tobacco use has dropped from 45% to about 24%. Which estimates suggest account for maybe 20% of existing obesity.
• Childhood obesity campaigns can have the unintended consequence of increasing eating disorders. But campaigns focused solely on healthy eating don’t have this problem.
• As a way to help individuals stop eating so much, one solution is to carry around a disgusting smell in a jar. When tempted to eat, this could be sniffed. As an experiment, Levitt passed the jar around the room. The outsiders tried the smells, but the workers ‘in the field’ wouldn’t go near them.

Read (or listen) more about other suggestions to cut child obesity, who might be considered to be responsible and what this has to do with Harlem school drop-outs over here.

Source: Freakonomics

ESPN is owned by Disney and is probably responsible for 60% of Disney’s cash flow and half of its share price writes The Economist:

• ESPN has done incredibly well because it was quick to realize the importance of showing sports live as they happened.
• The channel is also good at bidding for exclusive rights so that content available on ESPN isn’t available anywhere else.
• ESPN also has affiliate fees – which cable operators pay to carry its channel. This is a more lucrative and more stable funding source for ESPN than advertizements, keeping ESPN’s profits healthy.
• Competition is rising though. ESPN sold off its British assets because it couldn’t acquire the rights to broadcast football there.
• But even if ESPN fails to acquire the rights to some content, it can take solace in knowing that its customers are mostly locked into long-term contracts and can’t leave.

Read more about the channels humble origins in a prostitution ring, its relationship with Disney, and some more of the secrets to its success over here.

Source: The Economist

BRICS is an odd amalgamation of countries. For the most part it makes sense why four of the five BRICS economies are expected to dominate the future, but there’s one country that is dissimilar from the rest and quite obviously shouldn’t be included. Joshua Keating is talking, of course, about:

• Brazil. The other countries have seen incredible rates of growth. Brazil, on the other hand, has at times seen growth rates of under 2%.
• Russia. It once had a lot of promise but corruption and bureaucracy are suffocating the country’s infrastructure and economy.
• India. It’s perennially on the verge of a balance of payments crisis and doesn’t seem to be serious about attracting the foreign investment it so desperately needs to ensure future growth. To say nothing of the corruption.
• China. Thanks to the one-child policy population growth is going to start falling soon and that’ll drastically reduce its growth potential in the coming future.
• South Africa. It has taken a turn towards illiberalism and appears to have given up on its post-Apartheid ideals of equality and justice.

Read more about some of the countries that should replace the one outlier in BRICS, more about why each of the countries don’t belong, and why the disparity among the BRICS isn’t all that surprising compared to other international groupings over here.

Source: Foreign Policy

Just ten years ago up to 85% of nightclub bartenders were male. Today 60% of them are female writes Ann McGinley. What explains the change?

• Nightclubs became sexier. These days they have “pleasure pits” and topless “European” pools.
• Female bartenders are a part of their experience. With professional hair and makeup they are more akin to models than bartenders.
• Customers are also less irritated at the prospect of waiting in a long line if they’re ultimately served by a female.
• This also explains why female card dealers are more common. Some even sing and dance on stage to entertain after they’re done dealing.
• All in all it appears to be a positive development for women. Before they were limited to working as cocktail servers and while the money was lucrative – $100,000 a year – the job itself was demeaning and involved a lot of groping. Bartenders make less money but have more prestige.

Read more about how men feel about the trend, the (unlikely) possibility of seeing men in mankinis in night clubs, and more over here.

Source: Slate

The United States government offers a generous retirement package to those who formerly occupied the White House. Here are some of the more interesting numbers:

• Overall the four ex-Presidents of the United States cost $3.7 million last year.
• George W. Bush was the most expensive – costing $1.3 million. However this is likely because recently departed Presidents get more assistance than those who have been out of office for a while.
• Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, only cost $500,000.
• The costs include a $200,000 annual pension, as well as $96,000 every year for office staff. Other costs include travel, office space, and postage.
• These costs don’t include the price of the Secret Service protection that former Presidents and their family receive.

Read more about when and why ex-Presidents started to receive these benefits, why they may no longer be required in the modern era, how much the widows of former Presidents receive, and what Nancy Reagan spent on postage over here.

Source: Fox News

Tom Parfitt writes that the rich in Russia have found a new way to avoid traffic: ride in an ambulance.

• For $200 an hour individuals can choose to get to their destination in an ambulance taxi.
• They use their sirens to clear out traffic jams and get executives to their meetings on time.
• These aren’t your standard ambulances – they are fitted with plush interiors not too different from those of a limousine.
• The police intend to stop ambulances for random checks to crack down on the practice.

Read more about one ambulance that was caught, and what the President and Prime Minister intend to do in response over here.

Source: National Post

We’ve previously covered the future of wireless charging. According to Duncan Graham-Rowe that’s just the first step. Nokia is developing technologies that could lead to the end of us having to charge our phones:

• In most places we go we’re surrounded by ambient radio waves, and it’s possible to harvest these waves to generate power.
• This is also how RFID chips draw their power, thus operating without a battery.
• Nokia has found a way to draw around a thousand times the power that most technologies can typically draw from the ambient waves. With this amount of power it can keep a phone powered on in standby mode indefinitely.
• If Nokia is able to develop the technology a little further then it could even use the ambient waves to slowly charge the phone…leading to the end of the charger.

Read more about how the technology works, the long history of the technology, and what experts have to say over here.

Source: The Guardian

Via: WMPoweruser

Steve Cohen took a look at college rankings:

• The most commonly accepted measures of college rankings have serious deficiencies. The proportion of professors with a Ph.D. is usually an important metric but the educational level of the Professor has nothing to do with their educational ability.
• In fact the most prestigious professors might be the poorest educators because they have the least amount of time to focus on their students.
• Another measure that is used is the average size of classes. But some of the most dazzling professors do their best work in front of large audiences.
• Instead college rankings should look at the ‘happiness quotient’ of a campus.
• Salaries of graduates up to ten years after graduation should also be evaluated.
• For those going to college to find a job, measures of what employers think of the University should also be published.

Read more about the more questionable metrics that existing rankings use, what they should actually look at, and the increasing importance of the debt that university can put people into over here.

Source: The Daily Beast

Mercedes has just revealed its latest flagship: the S-Class W222. Damon Lavrinc took a look at what those who have the dough to spend on a car like this get for their buck:

• The car comes with active perfuming technology. A bottle of Mercedes’ own perfume is dispersed by the car’s cooling system.
• Not only are the seats and steering wheel heated…so are the armrests and the center console of the car.
• The rear seats come with a pop-out ottoman so travelers can relax their legs.
• The seats themselves are massage chairs that have six different settings, including two with added heat creating an experience similar to a hot-stone massage.

Read more about the car’s sound system, navigation system, and, unfortunately, the price over here.

Source: Wired

Megan Garber took a look at the history of applause:

• Applause appears to go back centuries and seems to unite us across cultures.
• Applause really came to the fore during the Roman Empire when leaders used applause as a gauge to measure the audience’s reaction to their speeches…and those of their opponents.
• In the Empire competing politicians would also hire individuals to applaud their own speeches, and heckle those of their opponents.
• When Joseph Stalin entered conferences in Soviet Russia audience members who didn’t clap for long enough would be arrested.
• In the modern era applause has lost a lot of its nuances. It only happens at certain times, and audience members either give all or nothing. It is no longer a dialogue with the audience, but, instead, a brute transaction that is expected rather than rewarded.

Read more about the rise of automated laugh tracks, how Facebook is changing the nature of applause, and more over here.

Source: The Atlantic

Around five percent of all magicians are females writes Ashley Fetters. She explored some theories as to why so few choose to take up the trade:

• Magicians normally get there start early as young kids with a magic kit as a present. Boys are more likely to get this as a gift than girls.
• Magic is essentially a puzzle and like math and science seems to attract more boys than girls.
• Male clothing – with its more baggy jackets and large pockets – is better suited for the art of deception.
• Women also have smaller hands, on average, than men – and large hands are useful for obscuring the audience’s gaze from, say, a deck of cards.
• Magic unlike other forms of entertainment is best viewed in a live setting. Until relatively recently it was expected for women to stay at home and constant travel wasn’t a realistic option.

Read more about the role that the inquisition played, what women would likely appreciate about magician’s conferences, and some of the more notable female magicians over here.

Source: The Atlantic

Via: Marginal Revolution

In the wake of the Newton attacks and moves by the American government to increase controls on the sales of guns, there has been a surge in arms purchases. This has the unexpected effect of helping to protect wildlife writes Jim Malewitz:

• A federal tax on the sales of guns and ammunition is used to finance wildlife projects.
• Declining gun sales were causing revenues flowing to such projects to fall.
• But in 2012 gun sales surged and the revenues collected for wildlife increased 43% to $555 million.
• This year should be another good one for wildlife…thanks to the increasing number of guns in the hands of Americans.

Read more about the types of projects that are financed with the funds, the effects that the sequester has had on the program, and why states might not be able to afford it if it continues to do so well over here.

Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts

What happens to all that fan mail that celebrities get? Jon Kelly found out:

• Some such as Robert Pattinson of Twilight fame try to read it. Others such as Ringo Starr destroy it. Most outsource the reading of it.
• A company that has represented Johnny Depp, Rob Lowe and Michael J. Fox in the past currently represents 26 celebrities and goes through 20,000 items of mail a month.
• Television actors generate more mails than movie stars – possibly because we watch them in our living rooms rather than a theater, making them more accessible.
• Candy that is sent gets thrown out. It might be drugged.
• Other gifts such as soft toys are distributed to local hospitals.
• The letters themselves get shredded and recycled.

Read more about how various celebrities deal with their fan mail, what fans get in return for the effort of sending a letter, and what the letters generally say over here.

And, of course, you can also send us fan mail by reaching out to us at any of the links on the bottom here =)

Source: BBC

We’ve previously covered how being the American ambassador to Austria costs just $1.3 million. Nicholas Kralev looked at the pros and cons of this practice:

• Wealthy donors who are appointed to ambassadorships around the world generally have a close working relationship with the President.
• Having no experience in foreign policy before they can also bring innovation to the post and challenge traditional kinds of thinking.
• They normally have extensive management and leadership experience. They may also be wealthy enough to fund glamorous parties and receptions.
• Yet in the end these are inexperienced individuals responsible for helping conduct America’s foreign policy – no different than, say, a General.
• Often inexperienced appointees won’t speak the language of the country they’re assigned too and might even have their own personal agenda to promote in the country.
• The State Department oversees two weeks of training for new ambassadors. After that they’re mostly on their own.

Read more thoughts about the practice, some examples of the inexperienced appointees that have been successful, and some of the abject disasters over here.

Source: The Atlantic

Spring break is more than just a week long holiday. It has become an entire industry writes Allie Conti:

• Sites like StudentCity offer spring break packages that include up to 12 hours a day of free drinking in exotic locales with famous DJs.
• Some of these packages cost more than a semester’s worth of tuition.
• While the internet has heralded the end of most travel agencies, the spring break travel industry has thrived.
• This might be in part because students are spending their parents’ money – not their own. The upper-middle class kids might also not know how to deal with unstructured free time – needing the organization of travel packages to schedule their vacation.
• The companies for their part keep staff on-site to refer intoxicated partyers to local officials.

Read more about the embodiment of spring break who runs one of the companies, other companies in the market, and why the companies hope to avoid attracting GDIs over here.

Source: Vice

Behind all those beheadings you hear about in Saudi Arabia, there are people trained in the art of cutting off people’s heads writes J. Dana Stuster. Their future is looking bleak:

• Saudi Arabia is considering updating its laws to allow execution by firing squad.
• Swordsmen aren’t threatened because of a lack of demand. Indeed, the execution business in Saudi Arabia is booming. Rather, the problem is on the supply side. There aren’t enough reliable swordsmen.
• The government is having trouble recruiting more swordsmen because few people are interested in beheadings for a career.
• Overall Saudi Arabia’s current generation of swordsmen aren’t overly concerned. One has already received firearms training in preparation for the rule change.

Meet a Saudi Arabian executioner, his apprentice, and read about the religious barriers to allowing firing squads over here.

Source: Foreign Policy

Companies spend millions advertising their brands and products on search engines such as Google and Bing. Research from eBay suggests that the money is wasted:

• In an experiment eBay turned off its paid search listings across a third of the United States.
• It found no appreciable drop in revenue. For the most part those who were going to search for a product on eBay were going to find eBay regardless of whether or not they saw an ad for it.
• Overall the research concludes that for every dollar spent on search engine ads, anywhere between zero and 25 cents of revenues is generated.
• The researchers note that paid search listings might be useful for less well-known companies.

Read more about the study, its caveats, and its methodology over here.

Source: Slate

The rise of online shopping means that malls have to change writes Tom Bill. Here’s what they’ll look like:

• People prefer to buy things on the internet. To keep people coming through its doors malls must become more like community centers.
• This means that the malls of the future will have medical and government services as well as art galleries and spa centers.
• There might also be inspiration from other countries: malls in China and Dubai have experimented with having residential spaces or open leisure areas to draw people in.
• The websites of malls will also change. They will include services such as the ability to book a parking space or a restaurant table.

Read more about why logistics is the new retail, the lack of vision by shopping center owners, and the countries where developers are taking a lead to evolve the concept of the mall over here.

Source: Reuters

We’ve previously covered the lengths that people go to, to make it onto best-seller lists. Now Patrick Wensink writes that it’s probably not worth the effort:

• Wensink made just $12,000 after having the book that was number six on the list of best-selling books in America.
• This is despite the book being ahead of the Hunger Games on the list – and not far behind 50 Shades of Grey.
• It made it that far up the list by selling 4,000 copies.
• The disappointing amount is likely why most well-known authors continue to be professors at university.

Read more about the amount that other authors have made, what Wensink did with the money and more over here.

Source: Salon

Carnival Cruise Lines has been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently. Yet it’s stayed in business thanks to the generous help of the US government writes Gwynn Guilford:

• The US Coast Guard has spent millions of dollars on rescue operations for stranded passengers on Carnival Cruise Lines.
• Yet as a company incorporated in Panama (despite having its headquarters in Miami) Carnival doesn’t have to pay any US corporate income tax – meaning it gets the services of the US Coast Guard for free.
• By being incorporated outside the US it’s also able to avoid all the regulation and safety requirements that would probably help prevent such disasters.
• Despite the accidents travelers appear to have a short memory. Bookings recovered three weeks after the most recent incident, likely helped along by generous promotions.

Read more about the Senator trying to take action against Carnival Cruise Lines, a response from a company spokesperson, and a breakdown of what Carnival has cost the US coast guard over here.

Source: Quartz

Marcus Wohlsen writes about a school that doesn’t charge you…until you get paid. Highlights include:

• App Academy offers a 9 week 810 hour course that teaches students how to become expert programmers.
• The classes are free. If graduates of the course get employed then they pay 15% of what they earn in the first year of their job.
• This puts the onus on the instructors to give a high quality learning experience – since they won’t get paid if the students don’t.
• The biggest risk to App Academy is students who join without any real intention of finding a job. To prevent this App Academy requires students to sign a good-faith agreement and pay a $3,000 refundable deposit.
• Admission is competitive. Less than 10% of applicants are accepted.

To read how much money graduates can expect to make, why this is fairly lucrative for the academy, and the types of people who have signed up click here.

Source: Wired

Via: Marginal Revolution

Note: several commentators have pointed out that we’ve failed to make a distinction between a free service and free software. They are correct. We apologize for the confusion.

Google has announced that it’s about to retire Google Reader despite the fact that millions rely on the service. Farhad Manjoo points out that this goes to show why we shouldn’t trust free software:

• The nature of software has changed. Before you would purchase software and you could use it indefinitely. Even now programs decades old can be installed on our computers. Now with software stored on the cloud, if the company decides to shut down the service, there is nothing users can do.
• Free stuff is especially susceptible to this threat. If a company thinks that its software isn’t worth your money then it probably doesn’t think much of the software.
• Similarly, if you do use a free service often, and there’s an option to pay for it, then you should. It might just save the service.
• Google, however, doesn’t really allow you to pay for its service. And that’s likely why a lot of its products will eventually be discontinued. On the chopping block are both Google Voice and Google Scholar among others.

Read more about the future of RSS, some Google products that’ll probably stick around for a bit, and why Orkut will soon die even in Brazil, over here.

Source: Slate

Note: several commentators have pointed out that we’ve failed to make a distinction between a free service and free software. They are correct. We apologize for the confusion.

The Economist took a look at the economics of lifts:

• Four firms make the majority of lifts in the world, and they’ve been doing incredibly well as businesses.
• This is in part due to the rise of China and an increasing demand for high-rise buildings. 70 million people a year – more than the population of Britain – moves to a city every year.
• But this isn’t the whole story. The real reason why lift manufacturers have done so well is because people hate getting stuck in lifts, and the lift firms are able to sell maintenance contracts.
• They can charge up to $5,000 a year to keep the elevators running smoothly. A fat sum for very little effort.
• Maintenance contracts are also lucrative because this demand is much more stable than the demand for lifts – which changes depending on the state of the economy.

Read more about why it’s so difficult for competitors to enter the market, why they might soon anyway, and expanded financials of the industry over here.

Source: The Economist

Komo news writes:

A police survey says panhandlers outside Wal-Mart in Coos Bay can make $300 a day. Inside, it takes a clerk a week to make that much

Source: Komo News

The Doritos Locos Taco is a taco with the standard Taco Bell filling…wrapped in a shell of Doritos Nacho Cheese. It might save the country writes Daniel Gross. Or at least show the way forwards:

• Taco Bell sold more than 1 million Doritos Locos Tacos every day in 2012.
• This is why Taco Bell grew faster than other more famous chains such as KFC, Pizza Hut, and McDonald’s.
• Taco Bell had to hire an additional 15,000 employees to deal with the growth.
• This demonstrates that it’s possible for companies to grow within America selling products to Americans.
• It also demonstrates the importance of intellectual property and brand licensing. No other chain can make a Doritos Taco, giving Taco Bell a monopoly on the product.
• Taco Bell’s current CEO is an Australian…whose trying to sell Mexican food to Americans. This shows the transformative effects of globalization in America.

Read more about how you can see the future of the United States in this one taco, why Taco Bell hasn’t tried expanding to other countries, and how Taco Bell feels about horsemeat over here.

Source: The Daily Beast