Centives

The jewelry industry isn’t doing so hot these days and Beejoli Shah thinks she knows why:

• Dating couples used to express their affection through gifts of jewelry. Now they do it through gifts of technology such as the latest smartphone.
• Technology, they reason, is just as pricey as jewelry, but is also functional.
• While diamonds are forever, millennials aren’t ready to make that kind of commitment. They would rather buy a tablet knowing that they will upgrade to a different one in a couple years.
• At the same time the quality of costume jewelry is increasing, and because it’s cheap, buyers can purchase baubles as fashions come and go.

See some eye opening statistics, find out the role that the internet played, and read more details about why the jewelry business is struggling over here.

Source: Pacific Standard

Pensions in Brazil put old people in the mood wrote Samantha Pearson:

• Until recently spouses of deceased workers received their partner’s pensions for the rest of their life.
• This made marriage to older men attractive to younger women who could live off the pension for several decades – even if they married someone else after the death of their beloved.
• However recent macroeconomic problems have forced the government to announce reforms.
• Now the partners of the deceased will only get 50% of the original pension.
• Newly single individuals under the age of 44 will only have rights to the pension for as little as three years.

Read about how Brazil got into this mess, what the government is doing to perk up the economy, and more over here.

Source: Financial Times

Via: Quartz

Eric Chemi and Ariana Giorgi analyzed some statistics about credit card tipping for taxi drivers in New York City:

• By default passengers are presented with buttons with the option to tip 20%, 25%, 30% or other.
• Unsurprisingly 20%, 25%, and 30% are among the most popular tipping amounts, with 20% being the most common.
• The seventh most common tipping amount is 0%. Credit cards make it easier for passengers to tip nothing and then dash without awkward conversation.
• The overall average tip is 19% but this increases to 20% during rush hour, in part because of travelers using corporate credit cards.
• In the early am hours the average tip drops to 18% suggesting that alcohol and generous tipping don’t mix.

See excellent charts, and read more details about the numbers here.

Source: Bloomberg

Via: I Quant NY

The Economist put together insights from Beth Berman, Kieran Healy, and internet commentators to present a story of inequality in the sky:

• Before the creation of economy plus, domestic flights in the US had a two class system. Economy class passengers made up 93% of the passengers but only got 85% of the cabin space.
• This means planes had a Gini index of 8. The higher the Gini index the greater the inequality.
• With the advent of a third class, economy plus, the Gini index approximately doubled to be around 16.
• On transatlantic flights where First Class passengers are increasingly pampered the Gini index shoots up to 25.
• Just as in the real world inequality is rising in the skies. But it still has a ways to go – the Gini index of the US economy is 48.
• If a plane had the same Gini index as the United States then on a typical jet there would be about 8 First Class passengers, making up 3.5% of those onboard but using 35% of the cabin space.

Read about why the rising Gini index actually shows that air travel is becoming more egalitarian, details about the calculations, and more over here.

Source: The Economist

Having pioneered the use of ambulances as taxis, the Russians are at it again with the taxi tank:

• A company in Russia is using former military vehicles as taxis.
• The vehicles are painted pink to seem less intimidating.
• Since St. Petersburg has various rivers and channels that can only be circumvented through traffic clogged bridges, the amphibious taxi can be timesavers.
• The company’s slogan is “a safer taxi” since passengers won’t have to worry about getting injured in a traffic accident (unless there’s an RPG involved).

Read more about the taxis, and see some incredible photos here.

Source: English Russia

Enjoy a glass of bubbly on the New Year? Turns out it wasn’t always a classy drink, according to Kate Bratskeir:

• Champagne was first created due to freak weather events. In 1400s Europe an abrupt temperature drop temporarily stopped the wine fermentation process.
• When temperatures warmed up in the spring the process restarted itself. This led to excess carbon dioxide and bubbly wine.
• The result was widely regarded as a sign of careless winemaking, in part because the bottles holding it would sometimes explode.
• However over time the populace grew to like it, and a monk named Don Pierre Pérignon was asked to make it even bubblier.
• In that way champagne is like lobster – it went from being a poor man’s food to one being enjoyed by the elite.
• Marilyn Monroe is said to have filled a bath with 350 bottles of it to bathe in.

Read more about the history of champagne here.

Source: Huffington Post

Alice Truong wrote about what New Year’s eve will look like around the world:

• On average Russians stay up the latest, partying until 3:43am.
• This is thought to be because Christmas was banned in the former Soviet Union and so Russians took to having a mega-celebration for both Christmas and New Year’s on December 31^st.
• The Chinese go to bed the earliest, turning in by 12:42am.
• One third of all Americans go to sleep before midnight and wake to find themselves in the New Year.

Find out the source of the data, other insights, and the best cities to party in on New Year’s over here.

Source: Quartz

The best wishes for the New Year to all.

432 Park Avenue in New York City, at 426 meters, is the tallest residential building in the world. It’s become notorious for its high prices; the cheapest two bedroom unit costs $17 million. Because of this and other factors the address ‘432 Park Avenue’ has become a buzzword in the city but people trying to find the entrance of the building are wasting their time walking along Park Avenue wrote Patrick Clark:

• While one of the building’s sides is on Park Avenue, the skyscraper’s main entrance is on 56^th street.
• However an address on Park Avenue can raise a property’s price by up to 10%.
• Getting such a ‘vanity address’ is relatively cheap, and an excellent return on investment. The government evaluates each application on a case by case basis and charges an $11,000 processing fee.
• Such vanity addresses are a particular problem on Times Square where buildings far from the Square may claim an address there.
• Inaccurate addresses can sometimes lead to tragic consequences. In 1987, in Chicago, rescue workers were unable to find a burning building in time because the building, 1 Illinois Center, was actually on East Wacker Drive.

Read about the practice, periodic outrages about it, other popular vanity addresses, and more over here.

Source: Bloomberg

We’ve previously covered the ambulance drone. Greg Kumparak wrote about its younger brother, the lifeguard drone:

• Project Ryptide is a self-inflating life preserver ring.
• It can attach to most common drones. A lifeguard can then control it using their phone and have it drop the life preserver next to a drowning person.
• The ring will automatically inflate upon contact with water.
• The system will be on kickstarter and is expected to cost about $99 (drone not included).

Read more about it here.

Source: Techcrunch

Bourree Lam wrote about the business of buffets:

• Studies have indicated that the more people pay for an all you can eat buffet, the higher patrons rate the quality of the food.
  • The buffet business is lucrative since restaurants don’t have to pay much for wait staff – people serve themselves.
  • At some specialty buffet places customers are presented with a range of ingredients and encouraged to cook their own food, further reducing costs.
  • All you can eat places are usually family or group affairs which is good for the restaurants as there are usually only 1-2 “super-eaters” in the group while other family members eat much less than what they paid for.
• One company inputs metrics about food that was wasted into a computer program. This is then used to figure out how much food to prepare.
• Salads, for example, are particularly popular at the beginning of a new year.

Read more about the economics of the business over here. Read our earlier coverage about all you can eat places here.

Source: The Atlantic