Centives

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