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A renegade photographer got inside this lawless Hong Kong community that was 119 times denser than New York City

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Between the 1950s and mid-'90s, tens of thousands of immigrants constructed a towering community 12 stories high across a 6.4-acre lot in Hong Kong.

It was called the Kowloon Walled City.

With a population of 33,000 squeezed into a tiny lot, at its peak the city was 119 times as dense as present-day New York City. Although it faced rampant crime and poor sanitation, the city was impressively self-sustainable until its demolition in 1993.

In the late '80s, Canadian photographer Greg Girard found his way into the windowless world.

He shared photos and thoughts about his time in Kowloon Walled City with Business Insider. You can check out the rest, along with essays and work from photographer Ian Lambot, in "City of Darkness: Revisited."

SEE ALSO: Inside the Australian mining town where 80% of people live underground

Though Hong Kong had been under British rule for decades by the time construction began, a clause in an 1842 treaty meant China still owned the property that would become Kowloon. Caught in legal limbo, it was effectively lawless.



By 1986, the Walled City had caught the attention of photographer Greg Girard. Girard would spend the next four years in and out of the city, capturing daily life inside its teetering walls.



The Lego-like city was built over decades, as residents simply stacked rooms one on top of another. The end result "looked formidable," Girard tells Tech Insider, "but who knows?"



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Take a look inside the Brooklyn loft of a Wall Streeter turned fragrance entrepreneur

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As the cofounder of Abbott, a men's fragrance line whose scents are inspired by campfires and suede bomber jackets, Jose Alvarez has a masculine style influenced by his travels and adventures.

So when he and his girlfriend, Brooke, moved into a Williamsburg, Brooklyn, loft that was formerly an Esquire Shoe Polish factory in the early 1900s, he wanted to keep its rough concrete and exposed brick interior intact. "We wanted to maintain the integrity of the space but create a home where we could live and grow," Alvarez, who left the finance world to start Abbott with Michael Pass earlier this year, told Business Insider.

To help make his space feel more cozy, Alvarez relied on Homepolisha startup that has designed spaces for startups and homeowners alike. We talked to Alvarez and designer Jae Joo about the home.

SEE ALSO: This entrepreneurial power couple run 4 businesses together out of their West Village home — here's their best advice for making it work

DON'T MISS: Photos show how different family meal time looks in busy homes across America

Alvarez cofounded Abbott after 10 years working in finance, which included stints at Morgan Stanley, ING, and Citigroup. When it came to decorating the home, designer Joo sourced inspiration from Brooklyn flea markets, antique stores in Upstate New York, and Alvarez's outgoing personality. "Jose is a free spirit and refreshingly adventurous," Joo told Business Insider.



Both Joo and Alvarez wanted the space to feel cozy.



"My focus was to create a polished canvas so that despite the grand scale of the loft, it could become a relaxed and inviting home," Joo said.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Everyone is raving about male birth control — here's when it might actually arrive

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Women get a short and complicated stick when it comes to family planning.

Though birth control pills are 99% effective when taken correctly, free in the US, and among the safest and most widely used forms of contraception, there's a lot to dislike, namely the common side effects.

A lot of women on the pill or other hormone-based forms of birth control report experiencing acne, mood swings, depression, cramping, nausea, vomiting, breast tenderness, bleeding between periods, weight gain, and changes in sexual desire, to name a few things. Some formulations can even lead to serious complications (though very rarely) like blood clots, heart attack, stroke, liver tumors, and gallstones, according to Planned Parenthood.

Meanwhile, men don't have any FDA-approved pill, patch, implant, shot, or other medicated form of birth control available to them. The only safe and effective options are condoms, vasectomies (which aren't easily reversible), or abstinence. (Sorry, guys, pulling out is a very risky strategy.)

If some oral or injectable drug could safely, reliably, and temporarily reduce a man's sperm fertility, then family planning options could be more balanced — and millions of women could breathe huge sighs of relief.

Thus the world is in a tizzy over a new study of a male birth control injection, which reliably slowed down sperm production to a crawl.

The research, published October 27 in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, focused on 320 male volunteers in steady relationships with women. Researchers injected the guys with a two-hormone cocktail, which was designed to suppress sperm formation, every two months for 13 months.

The injection was about 98% effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies in the portion of men who responded to the hormones. Furthermore, this clinical infertility reversed within a year after stopping injections for about 95% of volunteers.

As good as this may sound on paper, however, it may be years before it makes its way to apothecaries or doctors' offices.

The reason? A hodgepodge of cultural, bureaucratic, and scientific issues stand in the way.

How the injection works

A nurse prepares a H1N1 flu vaccine shot at a hospital in Budapest, Hungary, in this November 20, 2009 file photo.  REUTERS/Karoly Arvai/Files

Most birth control methods for women exploit a natural moment of infertility, and reversibly so: pregnancy.

By regularly taking the pill, which contains synthetic versions of pregnancy hormones (like estradiol, a progestin, or both), women can prevent ovulation, hinder implantation of a fertilized egg, block sperm from reaching their eggs, or all three.

The new male birth control injection works a different route: by cutting sperm production down to levels less than 1 million sperm per milliliter, which are considered clinically infertile. (The typical fertile man, according to the World Health Organization, has about 15 million sperm per milliliter of semen, or 39 million sperm per ejaculation.)

The injection uses two different synthetic hormones to get the job done.

One is a progestogen, or class of hormones that help women maintain a pregnancy. In men they affect sperm development and, quite literally, whip the cells into a frenzy.

The other hormone is a synthetic form of testosterone. Though testosterone does a lot in the bodies of both men and women, it's best known for its boost to sex drive in men. But too much, as researchers learned in the 1980s and 1990s, can slow down sperm production— and so testosterone became a prime target for male birth control.

Getting the dose correct emerged as one issue, though. While one concentration of testosterone would slow sperm production in one man, it would not for another, and inconsistency is something no one likes in their drugs. The new study also notes there are concerns about significant long-term side effects for taking high doses of synthetic testosterone.

Luckily, scientists in the mid-2000s discovered that mixing progestogens and testosterone provided a double-whammy to sperm production, all while requiring less testosterone.

Trouble is, it wasn't known how well the injection and reduced sperm counts would work in the real world: during unprotected sex.

What the new study discovered

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The new study, penned by 16 researchers from all over the world, ran from 2008 through 2012 in three phases.

Their idea was to test how regular progestogen-testosterone injections worked on stable heterosexual couples who voluntarily went off birth control.

Researchers set up 10 sites in seven different countries to recruit men "aged 18-45 years, and their 18-to-38-year-old female partners, in stable, monogamous relationships," according to the study. Volunteers were told there was a risk for pregnancy, too, since the procedure was experimental.

The researchers ended up enrolling 320 male volunteers in the first "suppression" phase: a round of four injections over 24 weeks, which shut down sperm production to 1 million cells per milliliter (or less).

At least seven men (2%) didn't see suppressed sperm production, while dozens of other men dropped out. This left 266 volunteers who responded and moved on to the second "efficacy" phase. Men received injections once every 8 weeks for 56 weeks and didn't use condoms — all while their girlfriends or wives went off birth control.

Due to a big and unexpected change in the study (more on this later), plus additional dropouts, the researchers ended up with 111 men who fully completed this crucial phase.

Six men "rebounded" above of the 1-million-sperm cutoff over the 56-week period, and four couples got pregnant. If you compare those pregnancies to all the time couples spent on male birth control — again, not in combination with any female contraception — it was about 97-98% effective. That's pretty close to the 99% effectiveness seen with correct use of the pill for women.

But the researchers also tested a big concern for male birth control: a return to fertility.

Nearly 95% of men who received the injections bounced back to the study's measure of a fertile sperm count within a year. On average, it took about half a year for the volunteers to spring back in this third "recovery" phase of the study.

But eight men had trouble resuming fertile sperm counts. It took five of them longer than a year to recover, with at least one man taking 74 weeks. One man didn't recover fertile sperm counts within 4 years after his last injection, though it's impossible to know if the injections or some other problem led to that result.

Either way, this hiccup matters. According to Susan Scutti's reporting for CNN on the male birth control study:

"It shows that it's a risk, a low-probability risk of it, and it's not to be sneezed at as a risk of it, surely," said Elisabeth Lloyd, a faculty scholar at the Kinsey Institute, professor of biology and an adjunct professor of philosophy at Indiana University Bloomington. She is unaffiliated with the new study.

That was just one issue with the study, though.

Counting the caveats

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No study is perfect, and this one had plenty of complications that are important to consider.

For one, a sample size of 320 men — while seemingly large — is not as ideal as studying, say, 5,000 or even 1,000 men. And again, the injections didn't work on some men, and a lot of men dropped out of the study.

Second, if you live in the US you may be surprised to know that all 10 of the study's recruiting centers were out of the country. Two sites each were located in "Australia, Germany, and United Kingdom and 1 site [each] in Chile, India, Indonesia, and Italy," according to the study.

Third, the requirements that men had to fulfill to be included in the study were strict. They included:

  • a sperm count of 15 million per milliliter, or 39 million per ejaculation (in two separate samples)
  • no sperm abnormalities or other problems
  • typical hormone levels
  • no serious diseases, psychiatric or otherwise
  • no signs of a sexually transmitted disease, either currently or in the past
  • a healthy prostate exam
  • a Body Mass Index of 20 to 32

Already, this may exclude quite a few perfectly "normal" men.

But now add in the study's requirement for a the couple:

"a stable, mutually monogamous partnership for at least 1 year was required, along with a coital frequency of twice/week on average, an intent to remain in the relationship for the course of the study, no desire for pregnancy within the next 2 years, and willingness to accept a low but unknown risk of pregnancy."

Another huge caveat was a major interruption of the study about 3 years in.

By late 2010, the side effects were becoming apparent; for example, about 46% of men reported getting acne; 23% said the injection site hurt, and 16% experienced muscle pain. (If you're one of the 4.5% of American women who get injectable birth control, such side effects may seem all too familiar.)

There were also more serious side effects that were at least "possibly" related to the injections, including "reports of mood changes, depression, pain at the injection site, and increased libido," the researchers wrote in their study.

Two external boards of reviewers met frequently to go over the study's data and determine, ethically, if it should continue.

One review board in January 2011 told the researchers that they could keep going.

In March 2011, however, the other review board told the researchers to stop injections and move on to the recovery phase. In particular, 3% of men in the study who said they experienced depression troubled the latter review board.

For context, compare that the 30% of women who report depression (plus other side effects) on female birth control, as Lloyd told CNN. (Yes, that rate is 10 times higher.)

In their study, the researchers didn't seem pleased with the second board's decision:

"It is well known from other trials of hormonal regimens in men [...] that [adverse events] are reported frequently in these longterm studies, even in a placebo group. That being said, 2 independent safety committees [...] came to different conclusions on the safety of the regimen, which resulted in early termination of the study injections."

The second group's decision caused nearly 100 couples to stop male birth control and resume female birth control.

Because of that interruption, plus the fact that you can't ethically give study volunteers a placebo or "fake" injection (a lot of unplanned pregnancies would happen), "a definitive answer as to whether the potential risks of this hormonal combination for male contraception outweigh the potential benefits cannot be made based on the present results," they wrote (our emphasis added).

Still, the study's authors said their work shows promise.

In addition to being effective, they noted more than 75% of couples wanted to continue using the injections instead of female birth control.

Male birth control is not 'here' — yet

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Some outlets have teased that male birth control is here or "almost here." And while it certainly seems within reach, it has been a strange uphill battle — one that's likely years away from any kind of conclusion.

Until recently, most research into male birth control has focused on animals like rodents. The results have been mixed, with some early successes failing to translate to humans.

A 2015 study of two immune system-suppressing drugs, for example, seemed to decrease sperm mobility in mice. But men who happened to be taking one of the drugs at a properly scaled does were still fertile.

One reason for the dearth of research into male contraceptives is that men have no known, natural cycle of infertility. In short, the testicles are "always on" and making sperm, and well into old age; pregnancy in women seemed like a more natural target for contraception.

The social and historical context is crucial, too.

Until recently, most medical and scientific research was performed by men. Contraception research of yesteryear, in particular, focused primarily on women due to a twisted mix of misogyny, racism, gender stereotyping, and other problems.

Pharmaceutical companies should also accept some responsibility for the slow pace. Even where certain male contraceptives showed promise, for-profit ventures pulled their funding, presumably to maintain a lucrative status quo, according to a 2008 study.

And assuming a new male birth control (like progestogen-testosterone shots) began clearing the FDA's rigorous three-phase drug approval process today, it could still be another 5 to 10 years before it arrives in doctors' offices or pharmacies, according to a September 2015 feature about male contraceptive research by Amber Cox in Endocrine Today.

The cost to develop and test a drug is also steep, typically hundreds of millions of dollars or sometimes billions, and it's no guarantee — it can fail FDA approval. In fact, about 86% of drugs don't pass the FDA's final two approval stages. (And that's before considering the fact that 94% of all drugs that pass initial animal trials fail to pass any of the three human clinical trials.) Even if a drug does pass, it can show weak results or turn up potential side effects that consumers won't be willing to risk in a medication.

So unless the injection passes future clinical drug trials to show it's safe and effective for a much larger and more diverse population, the first male birth control is unfortunately still a ways off.

Should progestogen-testosterone shots succeed, they may not be enough to help all men:

"No single method is used universally by all women; in a way this is analogous to the less than 5% of men who may not adequately suppress their sperm output," the author of one 2008 review of male birth control research wrote. "The need for a range of different options is obvious because no single method can be expected to be ideal for every couple."

SEE ALSO: Babies cry in the womb and 18 other surprising facts I learned when I became a dad

DON'T MISS: Here's why '9 months of pregnancy' is a vexing myth

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How much sex you should be having in a healthy relationship

These are the 10 best everyday exercises for burning calories

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What's the best way to burn the most calories?

There's a lot that goes into developing an exercise regimen — meeting your body's needs, finding something you enjoy, and figuring out what will have enough impact to make a difference to your health.

If you're crunched for time, one of the ways to measure that is to figure out how much energy a particular exercise expends in the time you actually do it. In other words, how many calories does it burn?

The big, important caveats here are that exercising on its own actually doesn't do much to make you lose weight. If you want to slim down, we suggest talking to a doctor about what a healthy weight is for you and working on cutting sugar and large portions out of your diet.

Still, calories burned per hour is a good measure of how intense a particular exercise is. The Mayo Clinic, drawing on research published by the National Institutes of Health, lists 36 popular forms of exercise by their caloric impacts, which we've ranked in another article. Here, we've listed the top ten, with approximate calories burned per hour for a 200-pound person listed for each activity. (An average adult American weighs just under 200 pounds.) Of course exact figures will vary across body types, gender, age, and other factors.

Keep in mind that the numbers here are approximate. Also, just because an exercise burns calories faster doesn't mean it's necessarily the best option. The most important exercise is the one you enjoy enough to get up and do regularly.

SEE ALSO: The 36 best ways to burn the most calories in an hour

DON'T MISS: 9 science-backed ways to be a happier person

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See the rest of the story at Business Insider

A couple who quit work at 43 to travel Europe on $18,000 a year share their best advice for retiring early

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Reaching financial independence before typical retirement age is an increasinglypopular trend.

For Jason and Julie Buckley, retiring last year at age 43 meant relinquishing the stress of the corporate world and jumping into a life of full-time travel.

Shepherded by meticulous spreadsheet estimates and years of tracking their pennies, the British couple retired with about £30,000 (~ $36,800) in cash savings and set a modest retirement budget of £15,000 (~ $18,400) a year, Jason told Business Insider in an email.

The rest of their net worth is invested in rented-out residential property, private pensions, and investments including ETFs and bonds.

For the past 10 months, the Buckleys have been touring Europe and North Africa in their motor home, which enables them to visit expensive countries "for a fraction of the cost."

"We developed a strategy to avoid living off savings. In theory, and in practice so far, our savings will increase over time," Jason said. Currently, the couple lives off of cash flow from investments — rental income, dividends, and interest — as well as advertising and book sales on their travel blog, which they spend just two hours a day maintaining.

If you're aiming to achieve early retirement yourself, Jason says, "You’re most likely going to be swimming against a very strong tide of opinion! If you're infected with an insatiable desire to do it, then be confident you can do it."

They suggest starting with educating yourself financially and putting your plan on paper, tracking spending and cutting all unnecessary costs, and investing.

"As your costs come down, and income from your investments gets re-invested in more investments, at some point you will experience the bewildering and joyful moment when your wealth starts to spiral upwards," Jason said. "At that point your freedom is all but inevitable."

Access a test copy of the Buckleys' spreadsheet to track your own viability for early retirement. Check out their blog Our Tour for more advice, tips, and information on reaching financial independence.

DON'T MISS: This couple retired at 43 to travel Europe full time on $18,000 a year — here's the spreadsheet that helped them get there

SEE ALSO: How one 26-year-old banked nearly $150,000 in savings as part of a plan to retire by age 37

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Drivers are wasting $2.1 billion on premium gas a year

11 things you can do in your 30s to live without regrets

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The internet may be made up of millions of anonymous strangers, but those strangers can still share some pretty great life advice.

One of the most common questions to come up on Reddit's AskReddit threads is young people asking how to live without regret.

Thousands of people have weighed in over the last several years, offering advice to people of all ages.

Here are some of the shiniest pearls of wisdom from people over 40 to people still in their 30s:

SEE ALSO: Redditors give 20-somethings advice on how to enter your 30s without regrets

"Big goals are just checkpoints and have far less punch in hindsight."

"Big goals are just checkpoints and have far less punch in hindsight. The day-to-day moments of sitting around with friends, cuddling on the couch, laughing together at a funny joke, those moments burn in memory and hold all of the real importance. Attaining or not attaining goals seems to have nothing to do with happiness. Looking back, some of my biggest failures that seemed so catastrophic at the time, feel meaningless. They are just part of my story. The people I've lost, I miss every day. It's only about the people." — clickclickfizzle



"Multitasking is an oxymoron."

"I regret ... living in a shallow blur, by doing too many things adequately vs. a few meaningful things really, really well.

"Multitasking is an oxymoron, and your inbox will always be full — that is its job. But being excellent in a few cherished things (playing piano, skiing, photography, whatever) gives a lasting reward." — mustlovecash



"Stay fit and healthy guys. It's a long way back once you lose it!"

"I got married in my late 20s and really settled into a sedentary lifestyle right through my 30s. Stacked on too much weight and the lack of exercise and terrible diet now sees me having some fairly significant health issues before I even hit 45.

"Stay fit and healthy guys. It's a long way back once you lose it!" — Ozguy23



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Nobody wants to buy Tommy Hilfiger's $58.9 million penthouse in the Plaza Hotel

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Tommy Hilfiger Plaza penthouse

Fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger has dropped the price of his Plaza Hotel penthouse yet again, this time to $58.9 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The 5,600-square-foot duplex has been on and off the market since 2013, when Hilfiger and his wife, Dee Ocleppo, first listed it for $80 million. At the time that made it one of the most expensive homes on the market in America.

It was later dropped to $75 million, and then to $68.95 million before dropping off the market a few months ago. It's now back, having switched realtors.

The condo is located on the 18th and 19th floors of the Plaza and has four bedrooms with views of Central Park and Fifth Avenue.

Hilfiger and his wife bought two separate units in the hotel for $25.5 million in 2008, combining them in an extensive renovation. At one point that year, Hilfiger seemed to have second thoughts and tried to unload the apartment mid-renovation, marketing it as a "fixer-upper” for $50 million. The price is now a mere $9 million more than that.

Douglas Elliman Real Estate now has the listing.

Alyson Penn and Megan Willett contributed reporting to past versions of this story.

SEE ALSO: A 30-year-old cofounder of 2 billion-dollar companies reportedly bought San Francisco's most expensive home

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Welcome to Tommy Hilfiger's duplex at the top of New York's Plaza Hotel.



As you can see, the decor is quite grand. Hilfiger has decorated it with priceless art like Andy Warhol paintings and other pieces, but they are not included as part of the sale.



His All-American style is pervasive. “It’s not your cookie cutter new condo,” the listing agent told the Wall Street Journal.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

11 successful tech execs who left Silicon Valley to disrupt the marijuana industry

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Entrepreneurs are seeing green when it comes to the legal marijuana industry.

Pot sales could hit $20 billion by 2020, with help from the chief executives, founders, and product gurus abandoning the technology sector for the fast-paced and ever-changing business of selling bud. More entrepreneurs are making the leap than ever.

We rounded up the 11 Silicon Valley players-turned-"ganjapreneurs" worth watching.

SEE ALSO: The best marijuana vaporizer for every type of person

Eric Eslao spent six years as a senior producer working on iTunes marketing at Apple before giving the pot-infused chocolate bar the makeover it desperately needed.

His new company, Défoncé Chocolatier, delivers one of the most beautiful and user-friendly lines of marijuana edibles we've seen. Each bar features a three-dimensional design that divides doses into small increments, making them more approachable for beginners.

"Working at Apple, you're constantly just revving new versions [of products]," Eslao told Business Insider earlier this year. "We want that to be part of the culture at this company. Something might be awesome, but you have to keep on pushing to make it better and better."



Keith McCarty was the fourth employee at Yammer, an enterprise-focused social network that Microsoft bought for $1.2 billion, and founded an on-demand pot delivery service.

These days, medical marijuana patients in nearly 100 California cities can get their bud delivered to their door faster than most Postmates orders. That's in part thanks to Eaze, an on-demand delivery and telemedicine app that's been dubbed the "Uber of weed."

Eaze has raised more than $25 million in funding from 500 Startups, Snoop Dogg, and the Winklevoss brothers of Facebook fame, making it one of the best funded marijuana startups.



A two-year stint on Facebook's risk management team taught Jake Heimark how to build a great product. He's the brains behind Plus, a startup that makes medicated gum.

Heimark wants to take a bite out of the $5.4 billion legal marijuana industry with a marijuana-infused chewing gum. Plus products take effect faster than most edibles because they're absorbed through the lining of the mouth, which might help users avoid uncomfortable highs.

"What I love about this industry is that it is brand-new and growing. It's so exciting and changing every day," Heimark told Business Insider. "I was part of tech, and I've seen what that felt like. I can tell you this feels the same, if not even faster growing."



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

25 cities where Americans commute the most

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In the US, most working Americans— about 108 million of them — drive alone in a car, truck, or van to get to work. On average, Americans commute about 25 minutes each way to and from work.

But when you live in a major US city like New York City or Los Angeles, how you get from point A to point B changes significantly.

And in most highly populated cities, even if you're only traveling a mere mile or so, you wind up spending more of your life commuting.

Using data collected from the US Census Bureau, personal-finance site WalletHub ranked 116 of the most populated cities based on the average number of minutes residents spend traveling from home to work. Using that same data, Business Insider also looked at how people commute to and from work in each city.

Here's how the 25 cities with the longest commute times stack up:

SEE ALSO: 13 apps that will make your commute more tolerable, according to my coworkers

SEE ALSO: 13 jobs you should avoid if you don’t want to work a lot

25. San Jose, California

Average minutes spent commuting to work: 26.6

Most San Jose commuters travel by driving alone, followed by carpooling.



23. (tie) Stockton, California

Average minutes spent commuting to work: 26.8

Most Stockton commuters travel by driving alone, followed by carpooling.



23. (tie) Detroit, Michigan

Average minutes spent commuting to work: 26.8

Most Detroit commuters travel by driving alone, followed by carpooling, and then public transportation.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

How Atlantic City went from a bustling tourist hub to a ghost town

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This week, The New York Times reported that Republican nominee Donald Trump "avoided reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxable income" by stretching a loophole in a way they say was legally questionable.

Much of that money can be traced back to Trump's investments in his three Atlantic City casinos, which The Times said were "failing in Atlantic City long before Atlantic City itself was failing." All three of the casinos had filed for bankruptcy by 1992, and the last one bearing his name, the Trump Taj Mahal, closed at the beginning of October. Trump Entertainment Resorts had become a subsidiary of Icahn Enterprises in February 2016.

Atlantic City was once New Jersey's largest tourist attraction. As the first city to provide gambling outside of Nevada, it provided those on the East Coast a place to vacation on the beach and gamble. 

But the city has seen hard times these past few years; five of the city's 12 casinos closed between 2013 and 2016. Atlantic City's unemployment rate is 7.1% (well above the national rate of 5%), and its mortgage-foreclosure rate is America's highest

Now coming into winter, typically the city's off-season, the streets and boardwalk of Atlantic City look more like a ghost town than a tourist hub. 

SEE ALSO: Inside the $200 million, presidential-themed hotel Donald Trump just opened a mile away from the White House

Atlantic City's true heyday was in the early 1960s, when traveling cross-country was not economical for most families.



Even before gambling was legal in the area, the city served as the East Coast's go-to beach destination. Now, even on a 90-degree day the beaches can feel eerily empty.



Opening its doors in the summer of 1978, the Resorts International Casino was the first casino to open in Atlantic City. It was the first time gambling was legal outside of Nevada, and it was a bold attempt to bring more tourists to the area.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

12 things people decide within seconds of meeting you

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Psychologists call it "thin slicing."

Within moments of meeting you, people decide all sorts of things about you, from status to intelligence to conscientiousness.

Career experts say it takes just three seconds for someone to determine whether they like you and want to do business with you.

Fortunately, you have some control over the way others see you. For example, wearing tailored clothes and looking your conversation partner in the eye will generally create a more positive impression. But as for how aggressive you seem? That's largely determined by your facial structure.

Here, we've rounded up 13 assumptions people make about you — sometimes accurate and sometimes less so — based on first impressions. Read on to find out what signals you might be giving off.

Drake Baer contributed reporting on a previous version of this article.

SEE ALSO: How to make people like you in 4 seconds or less

If you're trustworthy

People may decide on your trustworthiness in as little as a tenth of a second.

Princeton researchers found this out by giving one group of 245 university students 100 milliseconds to rate the attractiveness, competence, likability, aggressiveness, and trustworthiness of actors' faces.

One hundred and twenty-eight members of another group were able to take as long as they wanted. Results showed that ratings of trustworthiness were highly similar between the two groups — even more similar than ratings of attractiveness — suggesting that we figure out almost instantaneously if we can trust someone.



If you're high-status

A small Dutch study found that people wearing name-brand clothes — Lacoste and Tommy Hilfiger, to be precise — were seen as higher status and wealthier than folks wearing nondesigner clothes when they approached 80 shoppers in a mall.

"Perceptions did not differ on any of the other dimensions that might affect the outcome of social interactions," the authors wrote. "There were no differences in perceived attractiveness, kindness, and trustworthiness."

Just status and wealth.



If you're smart

2007 study led by Nora A. Murphy, a professor at Loyola Marymount University, found that looking your conversation partner in the eye might help encourage people to see you as more intelligent.

For the study, 182 college students were asked to discuss an assigned topic in pairs for five minutes. Partners then rated each other on how smart they seemed. Results showed that people were perceived as more intelligent when they held their partner's gaze while talking.

"Looking while speaking was a key behavior," she wrote.

Wearing thick glasses and speaking expressively could help, too.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Here are my 2 new favorite mental tricks to get to the gym even when I'm sick, sore, or busy

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working out running exercise gym

The hardest part of going to the gym is actually getting there.

Sure, the whole sweating-through-your-clothes thing presents its own set of challenges, but once you're on the premises, you might as well. The trick is getting yourself onto those premises.

As a compromise between the miserable outdoor running and living-room floor pushups and wonderful-but-unrealistic $36 boutique workout classes, I belong to an awesome Manhattan gym chain, which includes an appealing variety of classes. It costs me $90 a month. So I have to go.

I've found two phrases to be invaluable when it comes to hitting the gym instead of sloping off to the couch after work. Lately, I've begun telling myself:

1. 'There's always a reason not to go'

I once wrote about how "there's always something" in reference to planning out your spending and your budget. It's the same for the gym. I'm not sure there has ever been a night where I couldn't think of multiple reasons not to go.

For instance, here's a list of reasons I considered not going to the gym in the last week:

  • I'm tired.
  • My calves are sore from a new class I tried.
  • I don't have the shorts I prefer to wear for spin class.
  • I got stuck at work and won't be able to make my preferred Tuesday night class.
  • It's dark.
  • It's raining.
  • I forgot my headphones.
  • I'm going to miss the express train home.
  • I'm coming down with the cold that's been going around the office.
  • I need to pack for a weekend trip.
  • My gym buddies all bailed on me.

Just because you have a reason doesn't make it a good one. Go anyway. If my reason is (well, seems) really persuasive, I reassure myself ...

2. 'You can decide whether you want to go afterward'

This tactic has worked brilliantly.

Instead of spending the day fighting myself over whether I "feel like" or "want to" go to the gym, I postpone the internal debate until after my workout.

That way, I can have a nice, indulgent mental back-and-forth and bask in indignation and reluctance for as long as I want — on the train home, having already done my workout.

I've never been sorry.

SEE ALSO: 14 ways I trick myself into going to the gym

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APPLY NOW: Business Insider is hiring a paid video intern for winter 2017

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ZIPLINEBusiness Insider is hiring a video intern to edit and shoot videos for the fastest-growing business news site. 

The ideal candidate has superb post-production video editing skills while also having an interest in research and writing, especially in the areas of general news, tech, science and business.

This intern should know how to use Adobe Premiere, Final Cut, After Effects and Photoshop, along with various types of audio and digital video equipment. 

The candidate should be able to edit and produce the types of videos published at Business Insider:

APPLY HERE with your resume and cover letter if interested. Please include links in your cover letter to any relevant videos you've worked on. 

Please note that this internship requires that you work in our Manhattan office, and is paid hourly. The internship term runs for approximately six months, with some flexibility on start and end dates.

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Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had the exact same reaction to one White House Chef's meal

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bill clinton and john moeller

For around two decades John Moeller was part an elite group of American chefs who served at the pleasure of the President of the United States.

It was a somewhat cloistered existence. Moeller and his colleagues learned to not speak much to the outside world of chefs, focusing their attention on the daily meals of the residents, and on massive state dinners and working lunches.

"We were a little bit sheltered because we didn't interact with the outside world," he told Business Insider in an interview. "You don't know people's intentions, they might be looking for information... We had to be protected."

That lasted from the beginning of George H.W. Bush's administration, to the end of his son's — George W. Bush — in 2008.

And so after returning to his home of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Moeller decided to write about what he learned in his new book, "Dining at the White House." He's also cooking a select number of White House dishes from state dinners and the like at New York City's Delmonico's — one of the city's oldest restaurants and host of presidents throughout its history — through the week leading up to this year's Presidential election.

Think American classics with a modern update — Pistachio Crusted Lamb Chops, an Osso Buco of Salmon and Diver Scallops — paired with wines that have also been served at the White House. Michelle Obama's favorite 2015 Penner-Ash Viognier made the cut.

There's a lot that goes into decisions like that. Moeller explained that menu approval for state dinners especially was a process.

"[Visiting dignitaries'] embassies will forward to us, through the State Department, dietary restrictions, likes, dislikes, allergies, religious considerations... I look at that and I know the likes and dislikes of our President and First Lady and then you start creating something. I look at seasonal, regional ingredients and move on to that and try to have some fun."

Once the menu is imagined, it then goes to the Usher's office which is like White House central command. They type it up and send it to the Social Office. The head of that office sees it and may send questions. Once the menu passes that hurdle it can be presented to the First  Lady. When it's approved it goes to the calligraphy department.

kennedy turkey demonico's

But that's just the mechanics. There were and are obviously a lot of personal, human moments involved with working at the White House just like anywhere else.

So Moeller shared a few with us. And honestly the following had to be our favorite:

Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush reacted the same exact way to the same exact dish — chicken pot pie. Moeller prepared it as one would in central Pennsylvania* Dutch style, with the crust cooked inside the stew.

He served it to Clinton on a whim.

"I put it bowl and give it to the butler, and there's a swinging door that goes into the dining room. There's a little diamond window [on the door] and lots of times we'd sort of look outside," Moeller recounted. "I saw the butler come back and there was Clinton just a few feet in there at the table and ... he's eating it and he looks up to me and says 'John, this is the kind of food I like.'

Years later on a cold winter night Moeller made the same meal for Bush who was dining alone.

"I give it to the butler... I go to look and he's already coming back in the kitchen and Bush is sitting where Clinton was sitting and he is leaning over the bowl wolfing it down and he looks up at me and says 'John, this is the kind of food I like' I kid you not, the exact same thing the exact same motion."

A few more tidbits from Moeller's memory:

  • One night about a month into her father's administration, Chelsea Clinton was eating alone and asked for macaroni and cheese. After Moeller whipped up a bechamel sauce from with a bunch of fancy cheese, she thanked him kindly but said she preferred the Kraft Macaroni from the blue box.
  • Moeller was most blown away when culinary legend Julia Child complimented his meal at the White House in 1997. He had her letter to the First Lady about it (Hillary Clinton at the time) and Clinton's response framed. The most electrifying state dinner, he said, was Nelson Mandela's.
  • Once Moeller caught Eric Clapton and Lenny Kravitz warming up to Jimmi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" before a Clinton era concert. Lenny came by after and hung out in the kitchen with his crew. Actor Anthony Hopkins chilled in the kitchen too.
  • First Lady Laura Bush had a mean eggs migas recipe that Moeller said he still uses as an excellent hangover cure when in need. "Call me next time you have a hangover," he said with a chuckle. "Mrs. Bush turned me on to this... [she] asked for it for lunch... Soft scrambled eggs, corned tortillas fried. Fold that into the soft scrambled egg, put into a casserole dish, top with salsa and cheese and finish it off in the oven.
  • The George W. Bush family did not do flour tortillas. They are from Texas, and like all respectable Texans, consume only corn tortillas made from scratch. This is likely also the way God would want it.
  • Barbara Bush was the least hands on First Lady."She said 'you people know what you're doing,'" Moeller told us. He also said she and her husband win the award for "best palate."

While Moeller cooked inside the White House, American cuisine changed. The Food Network created the celebrity chef. He, like everyone else on the outside, started experimenting with more vegetables. We, as a country, became more serious about our food.

*Your correspondent is also from central Pennsylvania and corroborates that this is the ideal way to cook chicken pot pie.

SEE ALSO: How to order whiskey like a pro

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Take a look inside Bentley's luxurious hotel suites priced as high as $10,000 a night

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The Bentley Suite

In case Bentley's luxury cars weren't enough, the automaker now has its own hotel suites.

Bentley and Starwood Hotel and Resorts, which owns the St. Regis hotel chain, formed a partnership in 2012. As part of the partnership, Bentley supplies the St. Regis hotels with a fleet of its Flying Spur luxury sedans and offers coordinated driving programs for guests.

But Bentley didn't stop with the cars — it also has a luxurious suite in three separate St. Regis hotels. Scroll down for a closer look:

SEE ALSO: The 12 most high-tech hotels in the world

1. Bentley has a suite at St. Regis' flagship hotel in New York that's priced at $10,500 a night.



The suite covers 1,700 square-feet of floor space on the hotel's 15th floor and comes with a bedroom, a full bathroom, a half bathroom, a foyer, and a large dining room.



The suite comes standard with butler service and a champagne bar, and overlooks Fifth Avenue and Central Park. Bentley's New York suite was the first to open in September of 2012.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

We explored an abandoned insane asylum, and it was even creepier than we expected

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The sprawling campus of the Rockland Psychiatric Center was once considered a picturesque escape for New York City's mentally ill. The facility opened in 1931 and performed a number of lobotomies and electroshock therapy sessions — both state-of-the-art treatments in the 1940s.

We explored the now-abandoned buildings that "represent in microcosm the history of the treatment of the mentally ill in this country" with "Abandoned NYC" photographer Will Ellis. Check out some of his photos of Rockland.

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The first sex toy on Kickstarter has landed

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alexandra fine, dame products, fin vibrator

When Alexandra Fine was gearing up to launch her company's second gadget, a handheld vibrator engineered to mimic human touch, she knew Kickstarter wasn't likely to accept her application. The crowdfunding website does not support sex toys and rejected Fine once before.

So, Fine did what any strong-willed person would do: She wrote a letter.

"We made an appeal to them. 'Hey, we're not doing anything weird. We're normal. We're makers, too!'" Fine says, recalling the plea she made to Kickstarter last summer.

On November 3rd, the Fin vibrator by Fine's company, Dame Products, hits Kickstarter. It's the first erotic product (lest you count a smart kegel trainer) to tap into the site's nearly 12 million backers — a milestone that Fine credits to the vibrator's innovative and intuitive design.

It helped that Kickstarter's offices were located down the street from Dame Products. Fine and her cofounder Janet Lieberman, an MIT-educated mechanical engineer, frequented their meet-ups for makers and shared their mission of bringing gender equality to sexual pleasure.

"They were like, we're going to champion this," Fine tells Business Insider.

alexandra fine, dame products

Unlike most vibrators, the Fin is worn between the fingers during use to optimize agility. It can be placed at the fingertips, the base of the palm, or the backside of the fingers, giving the wearer direct contact with their partner or themselves with reinforcement from Fin.

The company's first product, Eva, (which launched on rival crowdfunding website Indiegogo) was hands-free. It tucked into the vagina, providing clitoral stimulation during sex. But Fine says the biggest piece of feedback they received from customers, who were split between men and women, was that Eva created a barrier between the wearer and her partner.

alexandra fine, dame products, fin vibrator

Interest in vibrators made for couples has steadily increased in the last 10 years, according to Google Trends data. Fin rides that trend by catering to couples who want to be more hands on.

The device will retail for $74.99.

Fin's breakthrough entry into Kickstarter could mean consumers will start seeing more sex toys on the leading crowdfunding website. It's good news for innovators in the space — and curious shoppers who don't want to step in an adult store.

SEE ALSO: The woman behind 'female Viagra' sold her company for $1 billion — that's when everything fell apart

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A former Googler is launching a company to transform boring offices

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lucy lyle perch

In the age of open offices and cookie-cutter Ikea desks, many employees feel they don't have the freedom to truly make their workspace their own.

Lucy Lyle was working in marketing strategy at Google when she came up with the idea to create Perch, a design-focused office product company that officially launches Thursday. 

"I just got tired of being subjected to bad workspace products," she told Business Insider. "Though the common areas at Google are more creatively designed, there was a lot of fluorescent lighting and white desks where we were spending most of our working time."

The company's product offerings span everything that you come into contact with during the work day, from mouse pads and staplers to the actual desk itself.

"I realized that beautiful, personal surroundings really affect the way you feel at work," she said. "Research shows that having a workplace that reflects your identity increases your productivity, but there was no go-to for everything you need to create a workspace you'll love working in." 

With more Americans working remotely or choosing to go freelance, the idea of a traditional office is on its way out, and the modern worker will theoretically have a more flexible schedule and space. One of Perch's main goals is to appeal to individual tastes by offering some 400 unique items that are more design-oriented than the stuff you'll find at Staples.

Everything besides the mahogany desks — which Perch developed itself after working with engineers in Nicaragua — are sourced from makers the company has formed distribution partnerships with. The desks are being offered for between $750 and $1,250, depending on the size, but Lyle points out that a desk of similar quality and construction could cost up much more at a traditional retailer. 

harrison desk perchAnd as for the product focus, Lyle says that many people have asked her why she doesn't just launch a desk company.

"But where do you go to get a really beautiful stapler? We figured that if we can't find a good option, we'll make the product ourselves," she said.

fountain pens perch"We're bringing a subtle, artful design to these everyday products. We made sure that each product category had a range of prices and aesthetics." 

Though this is Lyle's first foray into design and startups, she has an inherent understanding of the beauty in the details. Growing up in Tribeca with her mother, a painter, and her father, a chef, she worked as a personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman when she was a teenager. 

"This obsession with beautiful products is in my blood," she said. "I'm a workaholic and love beautiful things."

The idea has attracted an impressive roster of investors that includes Casper cofounder and COO Neil Parikh, Bonobos and Trunk Club cofounder Brian Spaly, MakerBot cofounder Bre Pettis, and Venmo cofounders Iqram Magdon-Ismail and Andrew Kortina, among others.

perch notebookperch business card case

SEE ALSO: Take a look inside the Brooklyn loft of a Wall Streeter turned fragrance entrepreneur

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