Despite a massive net worth hovering around $23.6 billion, Musk has never taken a paycheck from Tesla, refusing his $56,000 minimum salary every year.
Back in March, Tesla shareholders approved a plan awarding Musk $2.6 billion in stock options, reports CNBC, which will vest in 12 tranches, or portions, as the company hits key milestones over the next decade. The $2.6 billion amount was March 21 current stock value. U.S. News notes that if Musk meets the goals and the stock value rises during that time period, it "could net him more than $50 billion."
In January, Tesla announced it would pay Musk nothing for the next 10 years — no salary, bonus, or stock — until the company reaches a $100 billion market cap. If and when that happens, Musk could potentially overtake Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as the richest person in the world.
A notorious workaholic, Musk doesn't spend cash on lavish vacations or expensive hobbies. Instead, the entrepreneur spends most of his time at the office or in factories, retreating to one of his four Los Angeles mansions at the end of the day.
Scroll through to find out what we know about how Musk, a father of five, amassed his fortune and how he spends it.
Just before his 18th birthday, Musk moved to Canada and worked a series of hard labor jobs, including shoveling grain, cutting logs, and eventually cleaning out the boiler room in a lumber mill for $18 an hour — an impressive wage in 1989.
Musk got a pay cut to $14 an hour when he started a summer internship alongside his brother, Kimbal, at the Bank of Nova Scotia after cold-calling — and impressing — a top executive there.
That's the possibility some are preparing for, at least.
In 2008, Larry Hall purchased a retired missile silo (an underground structure made for the storage and launch of nuclear weapon-carrying missiles) for $300,000 and converted it into apartments for people who worry about Armageddon and have cash to burn.
Hall'sSurvival Condo Project, located in Kansas, cost about $20 million to build and accommodates roughly a dozen families. Complete with food stores, fisheries, gardens, and a pool, the development could pass as a setting in the game "Fallout Shelter," wherein players oversee a group of post-apocalyptic residents in an underground vault.
Take a look inside one of the world's most extravagant doomsday shelters.
The Survival Condo Project is no ordinary condo development.
It lives inside a missile silo built during the height of the Cold War. The structure housed a nuclear warhead from 1961 to 1965 and was built to withstand a direct nuclear blast.
Larry Hall, who previously developed networks and data centers for government contractors, got the idea to convert the base after the attacks on September 11, 2001, when the federal government began reinvesting more heavily in catastrophe planning.
KSI and Logan Paul, two of the most famous YouTubers of all time, will fight on Saturday, August 25.
The internet celebrities want to settle an online grudge and will slug it out at the 21,000-capacity Manchester Arena.
The bout will be broadcast live on YouTube's pay-per-view format.
Some 100 million people are expected to tune in, and they'll see one clear winner: Logan Paul.
KSI and Logan Paul, two of the most famous YouTubers of all time, are going to fight each other Saturday.
The pair are the talk of the internet, the combat-sports industry, and the wider entertainment circuit all because they want to settle an online grudge for our apparent pleasure.
They will even fight in one of England's premier boxing venues — the 21,000-capacity Manchester Arena — in an event that will be broadcast for £7/$8 on YouTube.
In one corner we have KSI, aka JJ, the 25-year-old Londoner renowned for vlogging and rapping — and controversially known for "trivialising rape"; his YouTube channel has over 19 million subscribers.
In the other corner we have Logan Paul, the 23-year-old internet celebrity who achieved global notoriety earlier this year when he uploaded a vlog to his YouTube channel (18.1 million subscribers) that appeared to show the corpse of a man who had apparently hanged himself in the "suicide forest" near the base of Mount Fuji in Japan.
Their fight, a low-level white-collar boxing show, could be one of the most watched combat sports events of the year — and, naturally, people in the fight game are unhappy.
The former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping slammed the YouTubers on his podcast for "making a mockery of the sport of boxing and martial arts," while Eddie Hearn — the promoter of world heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua — told TMZ that as a "hardcore boxing fan" the event "makes his skin crawl," as he believes neither YouTuber can fight and "it'll actually be terrible to watch."
If the quality of the contest will be so poor, why are we even talking about it?
Well, both KSI and Logan Paul are massive names in their field, there's a lot of pride on the line, and the loser will likely become a meme for the ages. The former cruiserweight boxing champion Johnny Nelson perhaps said it best when he told KSI and Logan Paul that the loser will "get b----ed on every time he walks down the street." Nelson even anticipates an audience of 100 million people.
So who's going to win? Logan Paul — and it's not even close.
Logan Paul is the bigger, stronger, and longer man
A post shared by Logan Paul (@loganpaul) on Jul 30, 2018 at 9:02am PDT on
Weight classes in combat sports exist for a reason — they bring balance to the playing field. Size mismatches are dangerous for the smaller fighter, as the larger fighter has natural advantages of weight, height, and reach.
Size in fighting absolutely matters and can absolutely make a difference. At 6-2, Paul is 2 inches taller than KSI.
For KSI's only other white-collar boxing fight, the Joe Weller bout earlier this year, he weighed 182 pounds. That may seem big, but Logan Paul has previously claimed he weighs 200. Paul is about 17 1/2 pounds heavier than KSI. To put that in perspective, the fight this weekend could be a ruckus between a glorified super middleweight in KSI and a small heavyweight in Logan Paul.
But height and weight are not Paul's only physical advantages — he also has a larger reach, which also matters in fighting. Having a longer reach means you can land punches from a safe distance as your opponent lacks the arm span necessary to land the same shots.
In this contest, Logan Paul is the bigger, stronger, and longer man, but physical attributes are not his only advantages.
Logan Paul has a wealth of combat-sports experience
KSI may seem to be the more experienced boxer because he scored a third-round technical knockout over Joe Weller in his one previous fight at the Copper Box Arena in east London in February, but Paul has a wealth of combat experience under his belt.
"I wrestled for a majority of my life," he said during a face-off promo. "I did some MMA in high school for a couple years but no boxing. I'm just an athlete. I know Joe Weller said he was an athlete, but I'm a different beast. I'm a corn-fed Ohio boy."
Paul's claims may not be prefight braggadocio. According to Cleveland.com, he was a competent footballer in the US, where he played as a running back/linebacker. He apparently made 92 tackles, 62 solo, ran for over 1,400 yards, and scored 18 touchdowns. He also placed fifth at a state-level wrestling tournament.
Wrestlers, as the UFC shows, can develop highly efficient striking skills. Some of the fighters listed on Tapology's list of the 50 greatest MMA strikers of all time— like Frankie Edgar and Dan Cormier — are wrestlers. And Paul's athletic background means he might not struggle to develop a striking ability that is superior to KSI.
KSI, unfazed by his opponent's background as an athlete, claimed he is "a God" during a comically cringeworthy face-to-face promo, but later conceded that "sporting-wise, I have no background. I literally started boxing less than a year ago." He added that Paul has "height, reach" and is "athletic."
Logan Paul is more talented than KSI
KSI may have won his white-collar debut, but his flaws were there for all to see. He has a pawing jab, he keeps his arms low (which means he does not defend his own face), and he does not respond well to getting hit. If Weller was bigger (like Logan Paul), or had more power (like Logan Paul), he may have been able to knock KSI down and out.
KSI, put quite simply, cannot defend himself. Weller was able to tag KSI at will during the start of the opening round when the pair faced off. There were also moments where Weller had KSI on the ropes and KSI just couldn't get Weller off of him — or, perhaps, didn't know how to get Weller off of him.
KSI only has the one white-collar bout to his name, and is at the level he probably should be — a raw, unpolished, boxing novice. But comparing him to the limited amount of sparring footage available for Logan Paul, it is Paul who looks better. Paul seemingly is able to time a punch, and is also able to land that punch with power.
In a TMZ Sports clip published in June, Logan Paul was able to knock his sparring opponent down with a counter left hook — something that actually requires a modicum of technique to pull off, technique that KSI simply does not possess.
The new Lamborghini Aventador SVJ supercar made its debut on Thursday in Monterey, California.
The SVJ is the latest update to Lamborghini's flagship Aventador.
It's powered by a 770 horsepower, naturally aspirated V12 and boasts a top speed of more than 217 mph.
The most significant updates to the Aventador is the addition of Lambo's ALA 2.0 active aerodynamic system.
The Aventador SVJ retails for $517,770 in the US.
Lamborghini's flagship Aventador supercar has been around since 2011. Since then, the Italian supercar maker has been steadily improving the big V12 bruiser while burnishing its reputation as a track weapon.
On Thursday, Lamborghini introduced the latest version of supercar dubbed the Aventador SVJ in Monterey, California.
The Aventador SVJ follows in the footsteps of 2015's Aventador SV and last year's Aventador S. SVJ, in case you're wondering, stands for Superveloce Jota. Superveloce means "superfast" in Italian, while Jota is a designation used for Lambos geared towards track performance.
"The Aventador SVJ is an innovative car and represents the absolute pinnacle of our super sports car product range," Automobili Lamborghini CEO, Stefano Domenicali said in a statement.
Lurking behind the driver is a 770 horsepower, naturally aspirated, V12 engine, the most powerful production V12 in company history. It's hooked up to both a four-wheel-drive and a four-wheel-steering system.
According to Lambo, the sprint from 0-62 mph happens in just 2.8 seconds with a top speed of more than 217 mph.
But the big story with the Aventador SVJ is the addition of Lamborghini's new ALA 2.0 active aerodynamics system. It's an improved version of the ALA system that debuted on Lambo's record-setting Huracan Performante last year. The system uses a series of active flaps and air ducts to control downforce.
Lamborghini will make just 900 Aventador SVJs during its production run.
The company will also produce 63 special edition Aventador SVJ 63s in honor of Lambo's founding in 1963.
The price of all of this awesomeness is not cheap, $517,770 in the US.
Mexico's President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for not recently insulting Mexico or people of Mexican dec scent.
Trump has previously blamed Mexico for illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and unfair trade practices during his campaign and presidency.
The US and Mexico are currently engaged in bilateral talks to reform the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Mexico's President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for treating Mexicans with more respect — or at least not saying anything insulting lately.
"For some time now, he (Trump) has been very prudent in referring to Mexicans, or he hasn't said offensive things," Lopez Obrador said Friday. "I have to thank him for that ... up to now, things are going well. There has been respect."
During his campaign and the early part of his administration, Trump blamed Mexico for illegal immigration and drug trafficking into the US, insisting they spend an estimated $25 billion on a border wall, and decrying the United States' trade deficit with Mexico, calling NAFTA "the worst trade deal in history."
He also drew ire for accusing Mexican immigrants of bringing drugs, crime, and sexual violence to America in his June 2015 speech announcing his presidential bid.
The president-elect also said Friday that bilateral talks on the North American Free Trade Agreement "are on a good track." But he paraphrased Yankees legend Yogi Berra and said: "This isn't over till it's over."
Trump has had a rocky relationship with Mexico's current President, Enrique Peña Nieto. In February, Nieto cancelled a planned visit to the White House, reportedly over Trump refusing to admit that Mexico would not fund the border wall in a tense phone call between the two leaders.
Lopez Obrador, who will take office in December, is the former mayor of Mexico City and a progressive leftist politician, who has not empathized US-Mexico relations as strongly as previous Mexican presidents.
Nevertheless, things could be looking up. The United States and Mexico have made healthy progress during the past two weeks of bilateral NAFTA talks on issues including agricultural exports and auto regulations, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
Earlier this week Trump said about Lopez Obrador: "I think he's going to be terrific."
This London dairy is creating exciting new varieties of cheese.
The dairy creates everything from apple brandy brushed cheese to an experimental brie and cheddar mix.
Wildes Cheese also runs mozzarella stretching classes, tours of the dairy, and cheese tasting.
When Philip Wilton was made redundant from his job he decided to devote all of his time to cheese making. In 2012 he founded Wildes Cheese, a micro-dairy in Tottenham, London. The dairy was originally based in a small garage space in London but since then the company has expanded and now produces around 70 kg of cheese a day.
The process starts with 600 litres of fresh milk each day. This milk is warmed to between 30-45°C depending on the type of cheese being made and a culture is added. The culture dramatically changes the taste of the cheese. Wildes source cultures from France, Italy, Spain, and create their own blends from them.
This mixture is left for around 30 minutes before a vegetarian rennet is added. The rennet causes the milk to separate into curds and whey. The curds are collected and placed into moulds. The moulds give the cheese its shape and let the whey drain away. The cheeses are flipped often at the beginning to keep moisture even. The cheeses are then aged. Humidity and length of the aging process changes the end result.
Wildes Cheese make around eight different cheeses and they ship to markets and restaurants across London. They offer cheesemaking classes and tours of their dairy.
Rob Dubbin, CEO of Scripto.computer, had been peacefully enjoying the yield from the peach tree in his backyard when he noticed some unwelcome visitors.
Bears had figured out how to get into the fence he built around the tree, and were wastefully eating peaches without even finishing them.
After hearing that bears are scared of human voices, his solution was to blare podcasts through a speaker to ward them off.
What lengths would you go to in order to protect the things you care about?
That's a question Rob Dubbin, CEO of Scripto.computer, had to ask himself when he realized his beloved peach tree, named Belvis, was being threatened by hungry bears.
In a Twitter thread, Dubbin explained how he first came to notice the peach tree on his property, how he and his partner enjoyed and utilized the yield from Belvis, and how it all came so close to crashing down.
We didn't know about the peach tree when we bought the house. This is how it looked when someone pointed it out to us. Note the cartoonishly ineffective fence – we were advised to build a better one, or deer and bears would eat all the peaches before we could. Not on my watch. pic.twitter.com/vt6xeJ8tOQ
Clearly, this wasn't a proper defense against the forces of nature, so Dubbin took it upon himself to create a proper fence.
So my deeply human instinct to compete with nature kicked in and I built this big octagonal fence around Belvis. Big for me anyway, as it was my first fence. Here's me last year admiring my work, plus a photo of this fence totally owning some of 2017's hungriest deer. pic.twitter.com/RJG6ab4yqS
Everything was going fine, you could even say peachy, as the two made pies and harvested hundreds of fruits. There were no bears in sight.
I cannot overstate how well this worked. All the peaches ripened on the tree, and for two weeks we ate around 200 total. Here's a pie @sealln made and a shot of the last batch I pulled off the tree before the frost. It was the best. I remember saying "haha eat shit bears!" pic.twitter.com/CYJRGrkKYc
Sorry, no photos of the bear scat, though the image is forever seared onto my memory. I'm no park ranger but it wasn't hard to see this scat was 95% semi-digested peach matter. Then, looking closer, I saw the pits.
Dubbin had to think fast. Research told him that human voices might scare the bears off, but music might not do the trick.
There was nothing I wouldn't do to defend Belvis. I researched how to discourage bears, and the thing that kept coming up was they don't like the sound of human voices. There was research suggesting that it had to be conversational, because they'd "figure out music eventually."
Before he could come up with a solution, the bear came back — and it couldn't figure out how to get out of the fence. It was wastefully eating peaches without finishing them before it finally escaped its confinement and sprinted off to pillage another day.
So yeah, we had a problem. This rather small, still very much growing bear would soon return if we didn't do anything about it. I decided then and there: I would build a battery-powered machine to play podcasts at the bear until the peaches ripened. pic.twitter.com/F8fNfPw5Ky
Dubbin rigged up an old iPhone, loaded it with 100 episodes of the Reply All podcast, hooked it up to a large speaker and battery, and put it under the tree.
All he could do after that was wait.
Ultimately I settled on @ReplyAll because I figured even the most starving bear would quail at the haunting sound of @PJVogt's laughter. I loaded up an old iPhone with 100 episodes and hooked it up to a speaker and a heavy-duty telescope battery, underneath a waterproof hood. pic.twitter.com/XCLBtMxWvi
Somehow, it worked — the bears apparently couldn't stand the sound of endless podcasts. They still haven't returned, and the remaining peaches have stayed unharmed. Belvis will live to see another day.
WEDNESDAY MORNING UPDATE: Heavy rain last night, the first real test of my waterproofing system. The Belvis Defense Grid greeted me with @AGoldmund’s classic YikYak episode, unfazed by storm or beast. All peaches accounted for, no scat observed. pic.twitter.com/UfWUlZDKa3
However, this effective defense came with a cost. It apparently began to spook Dubbin's neighbors out, as they wondered why they were hearing strange voices all throughout the night, which he had to eventually explain.
It wasn't long before the Reply All producers caught wind of how their podcast was being used — and they appeared to approve.
I guess this significantly complicates the next episode we were working on, which was just two hours of us saying "come here, bears, there are some nice ripe peaches for you."
Wanting to hear what the latest in the peach tree saga was, Business Insider called up Dubbin to talk about his experience, and what he took away from it.
"It brought me so much joy to see the joy that it was bringing other people," Dubbin said, regarding the reactions on Twitter. "I think that kind of joy is like the true essence of peaches."
Dubbin said he wasn't even sure that playing podcasts would be effective, or why conversations were said to be more effective at repelling bears than just music. "Honestly it had just been an inkling," he said. "And then we saw this bear and it became so real that I felt like I had to do everything in my power, sort of just grab at the best theory I had. It felt like one of those split-second decisions on the bridge in Star Trek."
Dubbin expected the bear to simply wait until it was dark out to return, but he was wrong.
"I thought it would avoid the daylight, but it didn’t," he said. "I thought I had all day until it would come back at night under the cover of darkness, but it was more brazen than that. And it forced my hand."
Perhaps the most insulting part of the ordeal was the bear's wastefulness with the peaches – not even bothering to finish one before moving on to the next one.
"I was gonna say it felt like wasting a natural resource, but because it’s a bear, I feel like it’s hard to hold a bear to that standard," Dubbin said. "Having enjoyed a full peach harvest last year, I was very conscious of the fact that we were able to make use of all the fruit, and in a lot of very delicious and nourishing ways. And for me, seeing the peaches unused on the ground was really a symbol of lost potential."
Dubbin said his neighbors were very understanding after he explained why they were hearing voices at night, and he appreciates them "bearing with him" (pun likely not intended).
Although it's only been a few days, and the peach harvesting has just begun, Dubbin has high hopes for Belvis and its podcast-blaring sound barrier. He hasn't seen a bear return since setting the system up.
"We’ve taken six (peaches) off, so the harvest is just beginning," he said. "And honestly one of the things that brings the harvest along is a nice sunny day, and there’s a nice sunny day here today, so I’m optimistic."
So, if you're having bear troubles, take note from Dubbin — podcasts are your friend.
Earlier this year, Apple debuted a new website that will let you check the value of your old Apple products.
Apple will give you store credit for working devices, or simply recycle them if they can't be resold.
Here's how it works.
Over the years, I've collected a fair amount of older computers. Obsolete laptops, phones, and accessories are simply collecting dust and growing even more out of date in a series of drawers and boxes.
Given the fact that Apple seems likely to launch new iPhones and possibly laptops next month, which I will probably consider buying, I thought it was a good time to clear out some of my older gadgetry.
But you can't just throw old electronics away in the trash. They contain lots of toxic materials that shouldn't end up in landfills. And sometimes, your old phones and laptops retain a little bit of value, and can be cleaned up and used again.
I had an old iPhone 6 that I hadn't used in a year. I brought it into an Apple store without an appointment, and about 30 minutes later, I left with a $75 gift card to Apple.
It guides you through and asks you a series of questions about your device — does it boot up? Is the screen cracked?
My iPhone 6 was in pretty good shape, so they gave me an estimated value of $75, which would be paid in an Apple gift card. The website offered to send me a shipping slip so I could mail my old iPhone in.
Not only does she have killer looks and a voice to match, she's one-half of a power couple, dominates the music industry, and embodies female empowerment. It also doesn't hurt that she has an estimated net worth of $355 million, according to Forbes.
And after working hard to build that wealth, she knows how to spend it.
Queen Bey, as fans love to call her, is known to indulge in multimillion dollar mansions, luxurious vacations and yachting adventures, and beauty treatments. She's also an excellent gift giver, having gifted husband Jay-Z a private jet and a car, and giving daughter Blue Ivy a doll worth five figures on her birthday.
Beyoncé also spreads her wealth beyond her family, donating it far and wide, including to victims of natural disasters and to education.
For a long time, Bernal Heights was the best kept secret in San Francisco real estate.
Short commutes into downtown, relatively affordable homes, and panoramic hilltop views made it a desirable place for artists, musicians, and tech workers to settle down.
But the residential enclave located south of the city's Mission District and Noe Valley has seen a surge in popularity in recent years, causing home prices to appreciate 111% over the past six years. The median sales price for a two-bedroom abode is $1.58 million.
In 2014, real-estate site Redfin named the north slope of Bernal Heights, an area that's densely packed with million-dollar homes, the hottest neighborhood in America based on increases in search traffic to local listings.
I spent an afternoon in Bernal Height's northern end to see what the buzz is about.
Bernal Heights has a small town feel while still being in a central part of San Francisco.
It sits south of the city's downtown and is bisected by Cortland Avenue, a main shopping strip populated by small markets, cafes, restaurants, and hair and nail salons.
I started my day north of Cortland at Café St. Jorge, a Portuguese-inspired coffee shop and restaurant where I found young people catching up with friends and working on laptops.
The man charged with first-degree murder in the death of 20-year old Mollie Tibbetts reportedly made repeated unsolicited advances on social media towards local young women.
One woman told The New York Times that she once rejected Cristhian Bahena Rivera's advances, but he repeatedly messaged her over social media.
She said she discussed Bahena Rivera with female friends, and they said he messaged them, too.
"Something about him was off," said a 20-year-old Iowa woman who turned him down for a date.
The man charged with first-degree murder in the death of 20-year old Mollie Tibbetts made repeated unsolicited advances on social media towards local young women, according to a New York Times report.
Cristhian Bahena Rivera was a familiar fixture in Brooklyn, Iowa, where he worked for the last four years at a dairy farm a few miles from where Tibbetts was last seen.
Brooke Bestell, a local 20-year-old woman, told the Times she once turned him down when he asked her out on a date, but he repeatedly messaged her on Facebook late at night though they didn't speak in person.
"He would just stare. He wouldn't really like talk," Bestell said. "Something about him was off."
Bestell said he would message her "just over and over, like every week or so." She said the most recent message from Bahena Rivera came June 13 at 3 a.m.
After Bahena Rivera was arrested, two of Bestell's friends told her that he had also messaged them and Bestell said she wondered "how many other girls he probably was trying to talk to."
Bahena Rivera is jailed on a $5 million cash bond after prosecutors allege he abducted Tibbetts while she was out for an evening run in Brooklyn on July 18, killed her, and disposed of her body in a cornfield.
Preliminary autopsy results from the state medical examiner's office found Tibbetts died from "multiple sharp force injuries."
Law enforcement officials and Bahena Rivera's employer told the Times that the suspect seemed like a hardworking and law-abiding presence in the community, who was often seen in the local park and grocery store.
Authorities said Bahena Rivera and Tibbetts have no known connection beyond that he allegedly told investigators that he had seen her running previously.
The case has rocked the small town and dominated political discussion after President Donald Trump jumped on the news that Rivera was allegedly in the country illegally and called for stricter immigration laws, calling current laws a "disgrace." Tibbetts' family has hit back at the illegal immigration discussion surrounding the case.
The heavy coverage of Tibbetts' case has sparked online discussion over a recorded minimum 48 Iowa juveniles who went missing in July. Though the nervewracking statistic circulated online, officials told USA Today it was within expected rates.
Many travelers believe the most beautiful McDonald's in the world is in Porto, a coastal city in northwest Portugal.
Opened in 1995, the restaurant is located in a renovated space previously occupied by Cafe Imperial, a famous coffee shop open in the city since the 1930s.
I stopped by "the McDonald's Imperial" to see if it truly is the "World's Most Beautiful McDonald's."
You've probably eaten a Big Mac or McNuggets at dozens of McDonald's restaurants throughout your life, but have you ever stopped to think which of the chain's 36,899 locations is the most beautiful?
Many travelers believe the most beautiful McDonald's in the world is in Porto, an age-old coastal city in northwest Portugal known for its gorgeous cobblestone streets and historic medieval city center.
Opened in 1995, the restaurant is located in a renovated space previously occupied by Cafe Imperial, a famous coffee shop open in the city since the 1930s. The coffee shop was seen as a prime example of Art Deco architecture of the period and, thus, McDonald's retained most of the main architectural features when it took over the location.
One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to visit American fast food joints in other countries — you never know how much companies cater to local tastes. When I visited China in April, I found that KFC is by far the most popular American fast food chain there and it is far better than in the US.
When I got to Porto earlier this week, I decided that I had to check out the McDonald's Imperial — as it is called by locals — to see if it lived up to the hype as the "World's Most Beautiful McDonald's."
The McDonald's was pretty busy when I stopped by for a late afternoon lunch one day this past week. It being summer in Portugal, there were tons of tourists dining al fresco. The restaurant is located in Liberdade Square in the center of the city and near many attractions.
The first thing you notice upon approaching the McDonald's is the giant bronze eagle by Portuguese sculptor Henrique Moreira. When Cafe Imperial opened in 1936, the entrance had a revolving door, but that is long gone.
When you first enter the restaurant, you notice the hallmarks of the Art Deco style (think Empire State Building-style): the ornate friezes along the ceiling, the crystal chandeliers, and, most famously, the massive stained glass window behind the counter.
Airline passengers tend to notice factors that impact comfort — like seat size, the behavior of nearby passengers, and turbulence.
Airline pilots are trained to be attentive to small details that slip by most passengers.
Some of these details have serious safety implications.
For most of us, air travel is an opportunity to sleep, work, read, or watch a movie with fewer distractions than you'd find on the ground.
When we do notice our surroundings, we tend to focus on factors that impact our comfort — seat size, the behavior of nearby passengers, turbulence — but for airline pilots and aviation experts, the experience can be different. Pilots and experts are trained to be attentive to small details on planes, so even when they don't have to fly the plane and can sit in the main cabin, they'll notice things that other passengers don't.
We interviewed two airline pilots and collected responses from a Quora thread to find out what pilots notice when they're flying in the main cabin. Here's what they said.
Most passengers are likely to be concerned about turbulence, but according to Tanya Gatlin, a pilot and associate professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, it's not as bad as most think. "It's not something that's going to cause an accident or is even a factor to safety," she said in a phone interview with Business Insider.
Instead, Gatlin is worried about ice. When necessary, ice and snow are removed from a plane before it takes off, and the plane is coated in materials that will prevent ice from building up while it's in the air — for a limited amount of time.
The difficulty can come when the plane turns down its engine while preparing to land.
"We're coming down in a very short amount of distance and there's no way we can get down that fast without the power being at idle," she said.
This means the engines don't generate as much heat as when they're taking off, which increases the chance that ice will build up on the plane and make a smooth landing difficult.
Suspicious scents
Scents can be one of the strongest indicators that something's wrong on a plane, as they can quickly hint at problems with the engine or fuel-storage systems.
"Sounds are always useful, but a passenger cabin often is pretty isolated from any sounds that might be indicative of a problem.Smells, on the other hand, travel around quite freely, and some (e.g., fuel, hydraulic fluid, superheated bleed air) are pretty distinctive," Tom Farrier, a former director of safety for the Air Transport Association, wrote on Quora.
The angle that light comes in through the window
Experienced pilots know that a sudden change in the angle of the light that comes through a cabin window can be the first sign that the pilot is changing course.
"An unexpected, significant shift in the angle of the Sun can be your first sign that a course change is being made," Farrier wrote.
The Economist Intelligence Unit released its annual Global Liveability Index, measuring the most livable cities in the world.
For the first time in eight years, Melbourne, Australia, did not finish in the No. 1 spot.
The cities were judged by metrics like crime rates, healthcare quality, infrastructure, and levels of corruption.
The US had several cities on the list, but none in the top 20.
When it comes to choosing a place to live, there are several factors to consider — climate, transportation options, and crime rates, to name a few.
Although it's hard to find a perfect match, a few select cities have the perfect combination of factors that make them the most livable in the world.
The Economist Intelligence Unit released its annual Global Liveability Index, and for the first time in eight years, Melbourne, Australia, did not take the top spot on the list.
The Economist ranked 140 major cities by averaging the results of five metrics:
Stability, including the prevalence of petty and violent crime, the threat of terror, and the threat of military conflict
Healthcare, including the availability and quality of healthcare, both public and private
Culture and environment, including climate, level of corruption, level of censorship, and sporting availability
Education, including the availability and quality of private education
Infrastructure, including the quality of road networks and public transport, the availability of good quality housing, the quality of telecommunications, and the quality of water and energy provisions
If you're looking for an American city, you won't find one near the top — Honolulu was the highest American city on the list at 23, and the next one on the list was Pittsburgh at 32.
Read on to see the 50 most livable cities in the world for 2018.
Republican Sen. John McCain died Saturday at the age of 81.
McCain suffered from an aggressive form of brain cancer.
Republican Sen. John McCain, an internationally renowned Vietnam War hero who served for 30 years in the Senate representing Arizona, died Saturday due to complications stemming from brain cancer.
His office said in a statement that his wife Cindy McCain and their family were alongside him when he died.
"At his death, he had served the United States of America faithfully for sixty years," his office said.
McCain, 81, was a part of many of the past three decades' most significant political moments. He was the 2008 Republican presidential nominee in a contest he lost to President Barack Obama. He also sought the presidency in 2000, mounting a primary campaign against President George W. Bush.
A graduate of the Naval Academy, the Arizona Republican followed both his father and grandfather, who were four-star admirals, into the US Navy, where he carried out airstrike missions.
During a 1967 bombing run over Hanoi, McCain's plane was shot down, nearly killing him. He was captured by North Vietnamese forces and spent six years as a prisoner of war, suffering brutal beatings at the hands of his captors, which left him with lifelong physical ailments.
He quickly lost 50 pounds and saw his hair turn white. His captors did not treat his injuries from the plane crash.
Because his father was named commander of US forces in Vietnam that same year, the North Vietnamese offered to release McCain early. He refused unless every prisoner of war taken before him was also released. He was soon placed in solitary confinement, where he would remain for the next two years. He was not released until March of 1973.
Upon returning to the US, McCain was awarded a number of military medals, including two Purple Hearts. He soon set his sights on politics and ran for an Arizona congressional seat in 1982, winning a tough primary and subsequently the general election.
In 1986, he ran for the Senate seat vacated by longtime Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, who was the Republican presidential nominee in 1964. He won that election as well, and he has been reelected to the Senate for five additional terms — most recently in 2016.
Early in his Senate career, McCain became embroiled in the "Keating Five" scandal. McCain was one of five senators who received campaign contributions from Charles Keating Jr. and was later asked by Keating to prevent the government from seizing his Lincoln Savings and Loan Association.
McCain met twice with regulators to discuss the government investigation. He later returned the donations and admitted the appearance of it was wrong. The episode led McCain to become a leader on campaign finance reform, which included the passage of the McCain-Feingold Act.
During his 2000 campaign for president, the press became enthralled with the candidate who won over a reputation as a "maverick," rebuffing his party's conservative orthodoxy at the time. He famously traveled on a bus called the "Straight Talk Express" during his 2000 bid.
In 2008, McCain fared far better. He won the Republican presidential nomination but ultimately was defeated by Obama in a year in which he faced defending an unpopular war in Iraq and a faltering economy under the Bush administration.
McCain selected then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, a move criticized by some as having opened the floodgates for the Republican Party to be infiltrated by a number of far-right candidates who went on to be elected.
After the 2008 campaign, McCain returned to the Senate, his stature even more prominent, leading on national security and military issues.
He was diagnosed with brain cancer early in his sixth term. He battled through it, returning to Congress this past summer. In perhaps his last signature political moment, McCain cast a dramatic vote against his party to stop the repeal of Obamacare, coming to the floor in the middle of the vote before pausing and pointing his right thumb down. The moment highlighted a contentious relationship between the senator and President Donald Trump.
The type of brain tumor with which he was afflicted, glioblastoma, is particularly aggressive and difficult to treat. He had been receiving chemotherapy, but his family announced in August that he would no longer seek medical treatment.
McCain is survived by his 106-year-old mother Roberta, seven children, and his second wife, Cindy, whom he married in 1980 following a 15-year marriage to Carol Shepp.
Most famous among his children is Meghan, who is a prominent conservative pundit and cohost of ABC's "The View." During a December episode, former Vice President Joe Biden consoled her and said that if "anybody" could overcome that cancer, it was her father.
Republican Sen. John McCain, 81, has died after a long battle with brain cancer.
The Arizona senator was diagnosed with an aggressive form of glioblastoma and began treatment for the disease in July 2017. McCain appeared to be undeterred for several months after his diagnosis was made public.
He was seen back at work on Capitol Hill last fall and weighed in on major legislative policies, including the annual defense authorization bill and efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
"I don't mean to be repetitious, but to my Democrat friends and some of my Republican friends: I'm coming back," McCain said during a Facebook Live event in August last year.
McCain made headlines upon his return — including when he dramatically voted no on the Republican version of a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
His career as a public servant spanned decades of honorable service, and despite some challenges along the way, McCain established himself as a key figurehead of the Republican Party. He was known to buck the GOP's leadersip — earning the nickname "Maverick" — and reach across the political aisle to voice his candid opinions.
Here's a look back at John McCain's incredible life:
McCain graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1958 and served as a pilot.
Early in his career in naval aviation, McCain's flying ability and judgment were questioned after he crashed three planes. His commanders were said to have sarcastically called him "Ace McCain" because of his record.
"John was what you called a push-the-envelope guy," Sam Hawkins, who flew in McCain's squadron in the 1960s, told the Los Angeles Times. "There are some naval aviators who are on the cautious side. They don't get out on the edges, but the edges are where you get the maximum out of yourself and out of your plane. That's where John operated."
On October 26, 1967, during the Vietnam War, McCain was flying over Hanoi when a surface-to-air missile hit his plane's wing, forcing him to eject.
"Some North Vietnamese swam out and pulled me to the side of the lake and immediately started stripping me, which is their standard procedure," McCain wrote in USA Today.
"Of course, this being in the center of town, a huge crowd of people gathered, and they were all hollering and screaming and cursing and spitting and kicking at me."
McCain broke both of his arms and his right knee. He had lost consciousness until he hit the water after ejecting from the plane.
McCain was held as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) for five and a half years. He was subjected to torture and solitary confinement in a Vietnamese prison nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton."
Upon learning that McCain's father was an admiral in the Navy, who would eventually command all US forces in the Pacific, NVA forces provided medical care to McCain. Doctors performed surgery on his leg, according to McCain, but made incorrect incisions on one side and cut all the ligaments.
McCain would spend the rest of his life walking with a noticeable limp.
President Donald Trump offered his condolences to the family of Sen. John McCain in light of his death on Saturday.
McCain died at 4:28 p.m., one day after his family announced he would be discontinuing his brain cancer treatment.
Trump has been criticized for his feud with McCain, which started after he underplayed the senator's renowned military service.
President Donald Trump offered his condolences to the family of Sen. John McCain after his death on Saturday.
"My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain," Trump said on Twitter. "Our hearts and prayers are with you!"
McCain died on Saturday afternoon, one day after his family announced he would be discontinuing his brain cancer treatment.
"Senator John Sidney McCain III died at 4:28pm on August 25, 2018," a statement from McCain's office said. "With the Senator when he passed were his wife Cindy and their family. At his death, he had served the United States of America faithfully for sixty years."
Trump has been criticized for his feud with McCain, which started after he underplayed the senator's renowned military service during the 2016 presidential campaign. McCain, who served in the Vietnam War, spent six years as a prisoner of war.
"He is a war hero because he was captured," Trump said in 2015. "I like people that weren't captured, OK? I hate to tell you."
Welcoming a new puppy into your home isn't always easy.
It can be time consuming getting your new furry friend to settle in.
Luckily, a few companies offer "pawternity leave" so you can spend some time together.
Happy National Puppy Day!
Anyone who has experienced getting a puppy knows it can be hard work. Owners often refer to their pets as "fur babies," which makes a lot of sense considering how much attention puppies require when you first get them.
Puppies need time to settle into their new home and bond with their owners. They've probably just been taken from their mothers and introduced to a brand new environment, so there's likely to be a lot of crying. And that's before you can even think about house-training.
As it turns out, some companies sympathise with this transition and offer what's known as "pawternity leave." In fact, research from Petplan found that 5% of owners have been offered paid leave from their job to adjust to their pet owning duties.
These are some of the companies which give you a few days off to bond with your new best friend.
Mars Petcare
Mars Petcare was one of the first companies to offer pawternity leave. The company offers its employees ten hours of paid leave when they get a new pet, and they can bring them into the office after that.
Mparticle
The data platform provider Mparticle offers two weeks of paid leave if an employee adopts a rescue dog. According to The Times, the recruiter for the company Laurel Peppino said it's to provide time for training and walks.
"We offer maternity and paternity leave and a pet is just another member of the family," she said. "We don't discriminate just because they aren't human."
BitSol Solutions
A tech company based in Manchester called BitSol Solutions offers its employees a full week of paid leave if they get a new pet. According to the Metro, company owner Greg Buchanan said: "Pets are like babies nowadays, so why shouldn't staff have some time off when they arrive?"
In an experiment, 240 students were presented with fake newspaper clippings of a police report either about an attack on a person, or on a dog.
In the fake report, the victim was attacked "with a baseball bat by an unknown assailant," and was left unconscious "with one broken leg" and "multiple lacerations."
Participants were each given the same report with the victim being either a one-year-old baby, a 30-year-old adult, a puppy,or a six-year-old dog. Then they were asked about how they felt using questions to measure their levels of empathy.
The team hypothesized that the vulnerability of the victims — determined by age, rather than species — would be the most important factor in participants' levels of distress and concern. In fact, empathy levels for the puppy, older dog, and baby human were on similar levels, while the adult person came last. The adult dog only received lower scores of empathy when compared to the infant human victim.
"Subjects did not view their dogs as animals, but rather as 'fur babies,' or family members alongside human children," the researchers concluded, showing how people often think of their pets as part of the family.
Last month, a study published in the journal Scientific Reports found one reason we're so attached to our dogs. According to the team, dogs make more facial movements when a human is paying attention to them.
The researchers used a video camera to record the facial movements of 24 dogs when there was either a human facing the animal, or facing away, with or without a treat.
It was previously thought that animal facial expressions were purely unconscious, but the study found that dogs raise their eyebrows and even make their eyes bigger when they are looking for attention from a person.
The presence of treats had no impact on the expressions the dogs made, suggesting it wasn't about them turning on the charm to get extra snacks.
Instead, the researchers concluded it could be a route of communication between owner and pet.
"[The research] tells us that their facial expressions are probably responsive to humans — not just to other dogs," Bridget Waller, professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Portsmouth, and author of the study, told The Guardian.
"[That] tells us something about how domestication has shaped [dogs], and that it has changed them in order to be more communicative with humans, in a sense."
In his new memoir, Arizona senator and former Republican presidential nominee John McCain revealed the heartbreaking details of how he found out he had brain cancer.
His fight with brain cancer has kept him home in Arizona and away from Congress for much of the last year.
McCain died on Saturday, one day after his family announced he would be discontinuing his cancer treatment.
In his last memoir, Arizona senator and former Republican presidential nominee John McCain revealed the heartbreaking details of how he found out he had brain cancer.
After completing his physical, McCain was heading out of town for the weekend when his physician told him to turn around and come back to the Mayo Clinic. The brain scan that McCain had undergone during his physical had discovered something.
He underwent surgery several hours later. Like McCain, the neurosurgeon who performed the procedure was also on his way out of town before being called back. The five-hour procedure was a minimally invasive craniotomy with eyebrow incision.
"They cut a hole in my skull along my left eyebrow to look at my brain's left frontal lobe and see what the trouble was," he wrote. It was a two-inch blood clot that they found and removed.
McCain was back on his feet quickly, as he went home the next day after the surgery and responded well cognitively to questions the physicians asked him.
But a few days later, it was revealed that the blood clot was a primary brain tumor. McCain never heard of the medical term before and did not fully understand the diagnosis, but he knew it was serious when someone brought up the late Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.
"I knew it was serious from the sober demeanor of the medical professionals in the room, and when someone, I don't remember who, mentioned that it was the same cancer that Ted had, I got the picture," McCain wrote.
While the procedure successfully removed the tumor, McCain was told that the form of brain cancer could spread across his body.
Despite recovering well from the procedure and being in good physical condition, McCain's physicians did not think that he should travel to Washington for the debate and vote over health care before undergoing chemotherapy and radiation.
But in McCain-esque fashion, he was able to convince his physicians to allow him to fly back to Washington and famously vote against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
"I hope those who mourn my passing, and those who don’t, will celebrate as I celebrate a happy life lived in imperfect service to a country made of ideals, whose continued success is the hope of the world," McCain wrote in his book.
"And I wish all of you great adventures, good company, and lives as lucky as mine."
Lurking behind the driver is a 770 horsepower, naturally aspirated, V12 engine, the most powerful production V12 in company history. It's hooked up to both a four-wheel-drive and a four-wheel-steering system. 
The company will also produce 63 special edition Aventador SVJ 63s in honor of Lambo's founding in 1963. 
