Centives

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