Centives

Robbie Gonzalez took us inside the life of a human cannonball:

• Human cannonballing is largely a family business. Performers are related by blood or marriage.
• The business is secretive. Only industry veterans know, for example, how the cannons are made.
• It’s a dangerous sport. One old estimate suggests that out of 50 performers, 30 had died.
• When the person is launched they travel at a speed of 66 miles per hour.
• They are shot from a cannon that is heated precisely to between 65 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit, in order to ensure that the pressurized gas powering the cannon behaves as expected.
• The cannonball lands on an airbag that is painted with a target and multiple stars that act as reference points and tell the performer how to control their speed mid-air.

Read more about the business and see some incredible videos and .gifs, including one that shows what it’s like from the perspective of the human cannonball here.

Source: io9

Self-driving cars are coming. Joseph Coughlin and Luke Yoquinto looked at what this will mean for our commutes:

• On average, despite the type of transit available, people live about a 30 minute commute from work.
• This relationship is so strong it may well have been true for ancient Greeks and cavemen.
• But the average hides a lot of variation. For a lot of people 90 minute commutes are fairly normal – though they’re offset by all the people with five minute commutes.
• Since autonomous cars will be able to drive safely at incredibly fast speeds, those willing to commute 90 minutes will be able to live much further away.
• Somebody could live, for example, in upstate Vermont and work in New York.
• Such commutes will be even more palatable since autonomous cars will likely have a lot of space for eating, reading, and sleeping.
• This will also likely herald the end of the short haul flight industry. Why fly when you can get there much cheaper and without the hassle of security?

Read more about what the future of autonomous cars means for us, the environmental concerns, and the infrastructure we’ll need to bring this about here.

Source: Slate

We’ve previously covered the market for luxury ice. Christopher Jones wrote about just how sophisticated the market has become:

• Premium bars are increasingly making premium ice a part of their brands.
• This can add up to 80 cents to the price of each drink
• This is because of the cost of the machinery involved. One that specializes in making clear ice costs $6,000 and takes three days to make 600 pounds of ice.
• Clarity is important because like diamonds, ice is judged on its clarity, density, size, and cut.
• Difference ices are used in different drinks. Large ice cubes are used in spirit heavy cocktails in the hopes of slowing down dilution.
• Meanwhile another machine makes chewy and fluffy pellet ice that absorbs flavours and is used in drinks such as mojitos.

Read about the different kinds of ice, what it costs to make them, and why ice is so important over here.

Source: Wired

Jared Goyette and Bobby Bascomb reported on an audacious new plan to save the rhinos: poison them.

• The low number of living rhinos means that they’re expensive for zoos and reserves. Each one can cost over $20,000.
• But poachers can get $200,000 for their horns.
• To protect their investments zoos buy insurance – costing around $700 a year per rhino – against poaching.
• In order to secure this insurance one company requires that the Rhinos horns be poisoned.
• By injecting poison deep into the horn of the rhino, anybody who later ingests it after it is poached will fall violently ill.
• The hope is that if enough of the market becomes worried about poisoning, demand for rhino horns will drop.
• There are enough rhinos that it’s not possible to poison all their horns – but if a majority are that should be enough to dissuade buyers.
• In order to spread this fear, the injection of poison into rhino horns is usually done in public with a large audience, in order to disseminate the message.
• As the horns grow quickly, the poison has to be re-injected into the horns every four years.

Read about those behind the idea, its effectiveness, why the South African government doesn’t really believe in it, and more over here.

Source: PRI

Via: Marginal Revolution

Kathy Gilsinan wrote about the $25 million prize that was available for catching Osama Bin Laden:

• The United States now offers $25 million for Bin Laden’s successor.
• The numbers are determined based on perceived threat and may change if, for example, a terrorist gets promoted or demoted in their organization.
• Yet one economist notes that $25 million seems too low when compared to the trillion dollars spent on the Afghanistan invasion.
• If instead the United States had offered $500 million or a billion everybody could potentially have been saved a lot of trouble, grief, and money.
• Critics note that such a high offer could result in even more false leads that would result in wasted time.
• But false leads are the cost of doing business – and the government seems willing to accept that costs given the tremendous amount of false leads that must be generated by the NSA’s bulk metadata collection.
• Moreover there’s not much of an incentive to offer false leads – no money will change hands as a result of it.
• Other critics note that the bounty may in fact be too high. $25 million may seem too abstract and potential informants may not appreciate just how much it is.

Read more musings about the subject here.

Source: Defense One

Joe Pinsker looked at the benefits of being tall:

• Every inch of height is, on average, worth an extra $800 a year in earnings.
• Compounded over a 30 year career, that’s several hundreds of thousands of dollars that people will enjoy just for being tall.
• Some inches matter more than others. The sharpest jump in earnings is for those between the heights of 5’4″ and 5’6″.
• By the time you reach the six footers, additional inches don’t mean much for earnings.
• It’s not just about the money though – its status. Bishops tend to be taller than preachers.
• Taller people are also more likely to be entrepreneurs, and are more satisfied with life.

Read more about why height may lead to extra dollars, how attractiveness affects earnings, and more over here.

Source: The Atlantic

Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are arguably the current frontrunners for the Republican nomination for President. Yet only Rubio has officially announced that he’s gunning for the Oval Office. Bush likes to say that he’s still considering it – even though for all intents and purposes he’s acting like a candidate for the top job. Josh Voorhees explained why:

• Those running for Federal office have limits on the amount of cash they can raise.
• As Federal Senators, candidates like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, and Rand Paul, are always assumed to be running for office by law – therefore the spending caps have already been imposed on them.
• These candidates have nothing to lose by declaring their intent to run for President, and can generate some buzz by being the only ones who are officially running.
• Meanwhile candidates like Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, and Rick Perry are not Federal officers, and can raise unlimited amounts of money through Super PACs.
• Therefore while the candidates are clearly running, officially they say that they aren’t.

Read more about what declared candidates for President can and can’t do, and why some non-Federal officers have already declared their intent to run over here.

Source: Slate

We’ve previously looked at how every extra second waiting at a drive-thru leads to 4 cents less in revenue for a fast food chain. According to a study covered by CBS, people value their time when waiting for videos to load pretty highly as well:

• People’s patience with a video that is loading lasts about two seconds.
• After that, for every additional second a video takes to load, a video loses viewers at a rate of 5.8%.
• After ten seconds half a video’s potential audience will have given up.
• People viewing longer videos are more forgiving, and will give a website an extra couple seconds before losing hope.
• Meanwhile those on the fastest internet connections seem to value their time the most and aren’t even always willing to give the two seconds that other more charitable users give.

Read more here.

Source: CBS

Soo Kim covered some of the odder hotels and cafes that are available in Japan:

• One hotel offers a “crying room” with cashmere soft tissues and tear-jerking movies/manga comic books.
• Cuddle cafes allow visitors to cuddle with a female partner in bed. No sexual relations are allowed although for additional charges patrons can stare into their partner’s eyes or even stroke their face.
• Cat, bunny, and even owl cafes let visitors pet animals for a bit.
• One bar only serves canned food. Plastic cutlery is provided and patrons are expected to eat directly from the tins.
• Some dessert shops attract visitors by having servers dressed in maid outfits.
• Yet another offers dancing robots, giant pandas, and humans dressed as dinosaurs.

Read some other fascinating other examples, and how much it costs to partake, over here.

Source: The Telegraph