Centives

Janaki Jitchotvisut wrote about a fascinating scheme launched by Domino’s Australia:

• On a service called “Pizza Mogul” anybody can use Domino’s custom pizza builder to create their own pizza, and list it on Domino’s menu.
• The creator of the pizza gets between $0.25 and $4.25 for each pizza sold.
• Creators are encouraged to advertise their creations on social media boosting both Domino’s and the pizza maker’s earnings.
• The program has been going on since August and the top pizza maker has made over $22,000 since the program began.
• His top creation is “The Mega Meat Lovers” which includes various meats including Rasher Bacon and Pulled Pork.

Read more about Pizza Mogul, how it works, and thoughts about bringing it to the United States here.

Source: First We Feast

The “dark net” is a part of the internet that can only be accessed by those using software that conceals identities. Among its many uses is to allow users to purchase drugs and other illicit contraband online. The Economist took a look:

• Sales on the dark net are growing, possibly as high as 20% every two months according to one measure.
• Sellers usually list their products on Amazon like sites where they pay a fee to be listed, and then a commission of 3-6% on each sale. The goods are then usually dispatched via domestic mail and normally go undetected.
• Like Amazon the sites have five star rating systems that allow buyers to purchase only from those with the most stellar reputations. This requires a high degree of professionalism from sellers.
• Sellers are getting increasingly sophisticated with strategies such as loyalty discounts, two for one offers, and discounts during special days such as smoke weed day.
• The sellers have also begun to act like corporations with mission statements and money back guarantees.
• The dark net offers at least some benefits to society. By moving trades online it could reduce crime resulting from suspicious transactions taking place between distrusting parties in dark allies.

Read more about the business of selling credit card information online, the types of products that are most popular, why it’d be difficult to shut down the dark net, and much more here.

Source: The Economist

In an article titled “We are the 20%” Alexa Tsoulis-Reay, and Mary Jane Weedman interviewed various service sector workers who rely on tips and found out secrets of the trade:

• Odd things affect tips. Being understaffed, being pregnant, or engaging well with children will boost earnings.
• Baristas will usually have two tip jars. One where the coffee is ordered and another where the coffee is made. The second is for people who are moved to tip after they’re dazzled by the beauty of their concoction.
• In coffee shops sad music usually leads to lower tips.
• When bartenders give free drinks, they actually have to pay for it themselves. They try to invest those free drinks in people who will offer more in tips in the long run.

Read more of the stories, tricks, and tips here.

Source: Grub Street

The appropriately named Mariella Moon spoke with an astronaut to find out what life on the International Space Station (ISS) is like. Some of the more interesting highlights include:

• The ISS orbits the earth every 90 minutes which means that those onboard go through 16 sunsets and rises a day.
• Now that America has retired its space shuttle program, astronauts hitch rides on the Russian Soyuz craft to get to the Space Station. It costs $71 million per person.
• A condition to get on the Soyuz is the ability to speak Russian.
• In 2011 the ISS got internet although it was incredibly slow at first. These days astronauts can browse the web at speeds of 300 Mbps.
• However crew members report that the best form of entertainment is simply to look out the window at the planet below. (They’ve clearly never been exposed to Centives).
• Astronauts are allowed to sleep 8.5 hours a day every 24 hours. Most wake up after six though since the body is less tired in microgravity.

The full article includes many more details including a sample daily schedule, experiments that are done, and how triathlons are done in space. Read it here.

Source: Engadget

Svetlana Z, an escort, wrote about the economics of sex workers going “on tour”:

• Sex workers living in big cities can make a lot of money by going on tour. Many customers will only have sex with touring escorts since they know there’s less of a danger of running into them again.
• Big city escorts can also lower their rates when going to other cities. Those in smaller cities then feel like they’re getting a great bargain when, for example, they pay $600 for an escort that usually costs over a thousand in a city such as New York. The volume of services sold makes up for the price cut.
• Certain cities are just good for business. The number of politicians and the amount of money slushing around DC make it a place that escorts should visit if they want a cash infusion.
• Buyers have to be careful though. If an escort finds that they’re with somebody rich or powerful they may try to poke holes in the condoms.

Read more about why touring prostitutes are more likely to get online reviews, and other tricks of the trade here.

Source: Medium

We’ve covered both drones and ambulances in the past. Our interest was piqued, then, when one inventor put the two together. NDTV reported:

• A student has developed a drone that can transport lifesaving medical equipment at 100 km/h.
• When an emergency call is received the drone can be dispatched to the patient’s location using the GPS location from the phone of either the victim or a bystander.
• Live audio and video feeds provide crucial information to doctors working remotely.
• The drone is currently configured to transport a defibrillator to a patient, but it could be equipped with other items such as an oxygen mask or insulin injection.
• Each drone is expected to cost approximately €15,000

Read about the drone, details of how it works, a cost benefit analysis, and more over here.

Source: NDTV

World War One lasted just four years – fairly short compared to the years spent on combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq – yet the debts from the war have lived on writes Kabir Chibber:

• As a result of the Great Depression England converted some of its war bonds into perpetuities which would pay a small amount of interest until the end of time, but would never require the principal to be repaid.
• These bonds have cost England £136 million a year since for a total of £1.26 billion. The entirety of World War One is estimated to have cost England £3.25 billion.
• The UK and France owed the US a lot of money after WW1, but since Germany was broke and couldn’t repay its debts to them, the UK and France couldn’t repay the US.
• A future American Vice President then suggested that America lend money to Germany, which would be used to pay back France and the UK, which would be used to pay back the US.
• The idea sort of worked – the proponent of the idea received the Nobel Peace Prize – until it didn’t when Hitler defaulted on the loans.
• After World War Two however the countries agreed to repayment terms, and Germany paid off its debts – to the tune of 96,000 tons of gold – in 2010.

The full article covers many more details including how World War One introduced the American government to the idea of debt, ruminations on what this means for debt from the Iraq war, and details around debt that has been ongoing since the 18^th century. You can read it here.

Source: Quartz

Soon after Apple Pay launched retailers such as CVS announced that it would not work on their systems. Why would shops resist an easier way for customers to give them money? Davey Alba explained:

• MCX is a group of retailers who agreed to develop their own mobile payment solution, long before Apple Pay had been announced or discussed.
• Having signed up to it, it is possible that members would have to pay a fine if they adopted any other solution – although MCS states that this is not the case.
• MCX’s solution is more attractive to retailers since it ties directly to bank accounts rather than going through credit cards, cutting down on the fees that have to be paid by merchants and customers.
• In contrast Apple is believed to get a cut of every Apple Pay transaction, making it lucrative for the technology company, though not so much for retailers.
• Retailers also prefer MCX because they’ll have access to the shopping data and use it to offer promotions and discounts to customers. Apple Pay does not allow for this.

Read about the hurdles that the MCX solution faces, the technical differences between the two, and more over here.

Source: Wired

France has long been known for its custom of topless sunbathing. It’s not as frequent anymore and Morwenna Ferrier looked into why:

• Concerns about skin cancer have made the activity seem less appealing.
• Going topless used to be seen as a sign of class and female liberalization. These days however with mainstream culture increasingly “pornified” it seems less innocent.
• Sunbathers also have to deal with photos of them being immortalized on the internet through social media.
• Breasts have, in some cases, become political statements. The group Femen uses them to attract attention to various causes, and this can make stripping on the beach seem like a political statement.
• And then there’s the lure of traditional romance. One writer notes that covering up “makes uncovering them for a lover more interesting”

Read more about the countries where topless sunbathing is still popular, what French commentators have to say, and why gravity is a significant concern over here.

Source: The Guardian

Turns out that the politics of seating arrangements at Washington social events are not too distant from the politics in Game of Thrones in terms of drama, complexity, and the possibility of longstanding family feuds. Roxanne Roberts wrote:

• Traditionally the host and hostess of a Washington dinner event are seated apart, and guests of honour are carefully placed around the two.
• There is an established hierarchy of importance. The President has the highest rank and gets the best seat, next to the hosts. Then come foreign leaders, the Vice President, Governors, and on the list goes.
• Wives are treated as if they held the rank of their husbands.
• Married and dating couples are seated separately, but engaged couples sit together as it is assumed that they’re too smitten by one another to be apart.
• Everybody knows this protocol, and their ranking. If a guest feels that they’ve been seated at a lower position than they should have been, one should expect the grudge to last for years.
• Experts who know the protocol can be brought in to advise on what the seating arrangement should be.
• But things will likely change at the last minute. Cancellations are common, and guests will have to be rearranged so that they’re not sitting alone at their table if their dinner companions are late.
• Despite all the complexities, figuring out dinner seating arrangements isn’t nearly as difficult as funeral arrangements. At President Reagan’s funeral a fight broke out when a staffer was upset that their seat wasn’t in the camera shot.

Read about the headaches caused by people who simply change their seat to get a better table, a mock case study which shows how guests should be seated, how the Obamas have shaken things up, and much more in a fascinating article here.

Source: The Washington Post