Anna Wintour can currently be found sitting front row at New York Fashion Week, but the Vogue editor-in-chief isn't just scoping out new looks for the magazine — she may be doing some personal shopping as well.

According to a recent numbers breakdown by The New York Times, Wintour receives a whopping $200,000-per-year allowance devoted solely to her work wear.

Compared to other employees at Condé Nast — the publishing company responsible for titles such as Vogue, W, Glamour, GQ, Architectural Digest, and many more — Wintour's wardrobe budget is staggering.

According to annual salaries on GlassDoor.com as reported by WhoWhatWear, a Condé Nast creative director — the next highest position — makes just $163,333.

The numbers get bleaker as you go down the totem pole:

Senior Editor: $98,733
Online Senior Editor: $87,840
Online Editor: $73,932
Associate Editor: $53,833
Fashion Assistant: $38,000
Assistant Editor: $34,781
Editorial Assistant: $30, 625

Wintour reportedly makes $2 million annually and is worth around $35 million.

In her defense, the 64-year-old editrix was also named the artistic director for Condé Nast last year and has held her editor-in-chief position at Vogue since 1988.

SEE ALSO: Inside The Most Glamorous New York Fashion Week Party At The Plaza

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New York City is a magical place in the fall.

There are crisp days perfect for walks in the park, hot apple cider from local farmer's markets, and football.

There's also plenty of events and festivals, from the New York City Marathon to the Wine & Food Festival.

Autumn officially starts on September 22nd, so get ready for the new season with our ultimate guide on what every New Yorker should do this fall.

Gorge yourself on sausages with peppers and Cannolis at the Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy, which runs from September 11th to 21st.

For a map and event schedule, click here >

Go apple picking at one of the gorgeous orchards in upstate New York, Connecticut, or New Jersey, where you can wander the grounds picking bushels of your own fruit.

Some good options near New York City include Applewood Orchards & Winery, Barton Orchards, Dr. Davies Farm, and Greig Farm.

For more suggestions, click here >

Shop at one of New York City’s largest street fairs, the Atlantic Antic. It takes place on September 28th and runs through Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, and Boerum Hill.

You can find a street map of vendors here >

If you are buying a new iPhone, don't use it in bed — and not just because nighttime smartphone use messes up your sleep cycle.

The blue light from personal electronic devices has also been linked to serious physical and mental health problems.

Blue light is part of the full light spectrum, which means we're exposed to it by the sun every day. However, nighttime exposure to that light, which is emitted at high levels by smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other LED screens, may be damaging your vision. It also suppresses production of the hormone melatonin, which throws off your body's natural sleep cues.

When your melatonin levels and sleep cycle go haywire, your risk goes up for a wide range of ailments, from depression to cancer.

Our various personal electronic devices emit blue light because it's so bright. That's the only way we can see those screens when the sun is shining. But we've started to have regular close-up nighttime exposure to this light only in the past 10 or 20 years, as a recent Gigaom story on the topic notes.

Now we're really starting to see the consequences.

Blue Light At Night

1. The damage that this habit does to our eyes alone is both significant and surprising. Direct exposure to blue light can cause damage to the retina. The American Macular Degeneration Foundation warns that retinal damage caused by blue light may lead to macular degeneration, which causes the loss of central vision — the ability to see what's in front of you.

It should be noted however, that most studies show this effect with the light being held very close to the retina, which may not exactly replicate typical phone use.

2. There may also be a link between cataracts and blue light, though more research is needed. Gigaom cited an eye doctor who says he's starting to see 35-year-olds with eyes that are as cloudy with cataracts as 75-year-olds. Though a single account can't prove that blue light exposure causes cataracts — this doctor just thinks there's a link, which doesn't count as evidence — the idea is being investigated. Still, studies haven't concluded anything certain yet.

3. Exposure to blue light at night can ruin sleep. Bright blue light disrupts the brain's production of melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate the sleep cycle. That's fine in the morning, but our brains are supposed to start producing melatonin when we are ready for sleep, and blue light interferes with that process. That's why smartphones ruin sleep, and messing with your sleep has a long list of associated health consequences that range from obesity to genetic disruption and memory problems.

4. Sleep disturbance and "light at night" have been linked to higher cancer risk, particularly for breast and prostate cancers. In addition to helping us sleep, melatonin also functions as an antioxidant. And while more research is needed, researchers have pointed to "uninterrupted darkness" as potentially protective against cancer. People whose natural melatonin production is suppressed are at a higher risk for a variety of cancers, though a causal relationship has not been found.

5. Blue light may also take a toll on mental health. Research also shows that people whose melatonin levels are suppressed and whose body clocks are thrown off by light exposure are more prone to depression.

Our Weird Relationship With Blue Light

Despite the way this may sound, it doesn't mean that blue light is bad all the time. At times, it's actually beneficial to your health.

Light tells us when to wake and when to sleep. When bright blue light sends a signal to the brain to stop producing melatonin, it also primes your brain to start production of the hormone again later — in theory while you are getting ready for bed.

Experts say that getting an hour of sunlight in the morning helps people regulate their melatonin production and sleep cycle. They recommend getting some morning light without wearing sunglasses, so light gets through the retina and reaches the pineal gland, which is what actually controls melatonin production.

That's great in the A.M., but when nighttime screen usage convinces our brains that it's morning and they shouldn't produce melatonin, that starts to wreak havoc on our bodies.

We can't avoid smartphones, computers, and tablets all the time. But we should try to limit our exposure at night. Sometimes, wearing amber glasses that block blue light or using apps that limit the amount of blue light coming from our screens may help.

Taking breaks from screentime is a good idea too – especially right before and in bed.

READ MORE: Your Smartphone Is Destroying Your Sleep

See also: 25 Horrible Things That Happen If You Don't Get Enough Sleep

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In his new photo series "Trailer Park," photographer David Waldorf gives us a glimpse of life inside a trailer park. Waldorf photographed the residents of the Brookside Trailer Park in Sonoma, California, over several months, trading printed portraits for time with his subjects.

The veteran photographer chose Brookside Park because he had a mutual friend with the owner, so he was able to easily gain permission to speak with residents. Waldorf told Business Insider he has "always kind of liked trailer parks." 

Waldorf said he gained trust from the locals and even became friends with them over the 5-month project. "I enjoy talking with the people who have had a harder life and who are a lot more open to telling their stories," he said. "For me, I think their stories are little more interesting."

Waldorf says when he first entered the park, the residents were hesitant to speak with him and didn't want him in their homes.However, once he took a few photos of them and showed them the results, they spread the word in the community and suddenly, everyone wanted their photos taken with their families.
He says that on the second day, he stayed taking photos until 1 am.  Once he knew he was on to something, Waldorf returned to the park every couple of weeks to shoot more.Cody, the son in the photo below, has epidermolysis bullosa, a skin disorder which causes blisters. "He was just a really nice kid," Waldorf said. Because of his disease, Waldorf originally thought Cody was 14 or 15, but he was actually in his 20s at the time. His family ended up liking this portrait so much that they blew it up and put it on their wall. Today, Cody is living in his own apartment, according to Waldorf.These three brothers, all of whom worked at Walgreens, stood out to him as well. He had them wear their uniforms in this shot because one of them had to go to work right after.Waldorf adds that they were a lot of fun to hang out with, too. 
He says he also enjoyed photographing this grandmother and granddaughter.Certain shoots were memorable, as well. During the making of the photo on the left, Waldorf said the mother shouted for the daughter to join her, even though she was showering. For the photo on the right, he said he brought a taxidermied fox to place in the corner of the shot. 
He said staging the shots were part of the fun for him, artistically. A group of migrant workers who labored in the nearby Sonoma fields also lived in the park.  One of the most surprising things was the strong sense of community in the park, Waldorf said.
He added that regardless of circumstances, the residents really looked out for each other.

SEE ALSO: 21 Stunning Portraits Of Humans Around The World

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Canada announced on Sunday the discovery of one of two British explorer ships that went missing in 1846 after becoming trapped in Arctic ice.

In a statement, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the event a "truly historic moment for Canada," noting that one of Canada's "greatest mysteries" had been solved.

The ship was found using a remote-operated underwater vehicle. The first underwater video of the ship is posted to the Parks Canada website.

Franklin's Lost Expedition

The HMS Erebus and HMS Terror left England in 1845, led by British captain Sir John Franklin. The ships were headed for the Northwest Passage, but they hit trouble in the Canadian Arctic. Icebound for more than a year, the crew eventually ran out of supplies. Franklin and more than 20 of his men died. The hundred or so who did survive abandoned the ships in 1848 and headed for dry land, but none of the crew made it back home alive.

According to the AFP: "In the 1980s, Canadian researchers said the remains of expedition members found on Beechey Island indicated they had died of cold, hunger, and lead poisoning from canned food."

More than three decades would pass without a sign of the actual ships. Since 2008, six major government-led searches were initiated to locate the ships, according a statement released by Parks Canada. The Victoria Straight Expedition discovered the first ship with the help of a remote-operated underwater vehicle.

Researchers were yet to determine whether the newly discovered vessel was the HMS Erebus or HMS Terror, however, Harper said he was confident that finding the first ship would "provide the momentum" necessary to locate its mate.

This is "a really important day in mapping together the history of out country," Harper said in a video announcement. Watch below:

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Be it because of a language barrier or just bad planning on the company's part, many people go around mispronouncing high-profile brand names. 

Produced by Matthew Stuart and Alana Kakoyiannis.

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This post is sponsored by Spark Business from Capital One. 

In 2008, friends Paul Trible and Paul Watson were graduating from Oxford University's Saïd Business School. Their careers in finance looked bright — until Lehman Brothers collapsed. Panic rippled through the financial world, and jobs vanished.

Trible and Watson had to come up with another way to make a living. They decided to follow through on their collective dream and start Ledbury, a luxury men's clothier. "We said to each other, we've been talking about this thing for a year, why don't we see if it's something we can actually do," Trible says.

First, they had to do some research. Trible apprenticed with esteemed Jermyn Street tailor Robert Emmett, while Watson learned everything he could about the clothing business. At night, the two would meet up in a London pub and go over their business plan. 

Today, Ledbury is doing extremely well. Paul Trible is the CEO, and he designs the shirts. Paul Watson is the COO. About 96% of Ledbury's business is online, but there's also a store in Richmond, Virginia, where the Ledbury headquarters are located. "We've doubled for every year we've been in business," Trible says. "We've got about 25 employees and about 25,000 customers."

We interviewed "the Pauls" as part of our Fast Track Q&A series in which we're asking various small business owners 11 questions about their professional and personal inspirations. "The Pauls" shared stories of their days selling used golf balls and how indecision can lead to failure. Read more in the series »

Interview conducted by Business Insider Studios and edited for clarity and length.

BI Studios: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Paul Watson: I wanted to be a marine biologist. I grew up on the water in the New Orleans area, and the aquarium was my favorite place to go when I was little. I asked the people there, "How do I work here?" They were like, "Be a marine biologist."

Paul Trible: I wanted to be a professional football player [both Pauls laugh]. It's funny, because I'm a very small, small person. I was a large kid, though. When I stopped growing, I realized that I should look into other professions.

How did you get the idea for your business?

Trible: We were studying in England, and we really liked how they often did one thing really well there. You can go Jermyn Street to get your shirts. Or go to High Street, to the cheesemonger to get your cheese. We really liked the idea that the rise of online shopping was bringing that idea back to the forefront of commerce.

How did you pick the name for your business?

Trible: It's the name of the road where one of our favorite pubs in London was. It's where we spent many evenings drafting and redrafting the business plan for the business of Ledbury. 

What's the biggest risk you've taken in your career?

Trible: Starting a luxury clothing business in the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. That's probably up there.

Watson: Way up there. It might have seemed like a bad idea to some. 

What’s the strangest request you’ve ever gotten from a customer?

Trible: Every summer a handful of women come into the store and buy a dozen of our shirts to use as beach cover-ups. They buy these beautiful, Italian cloth, luxury men's dress shirts. Then they just use them as bikini cover-ups. They often request that we do more florals. You can use these shirts for anything, but sometimes we forget that they get used as bikini cover-ups.  

What is your greatest talent, professional or otherwise?

Watson: Patience. [both Pauls laugh]

Trible: Paul is definitely patient with me. I would say I'm a generalist. I'm average-to-good at a handful of things and not spectacular or terrible at other things. 

What's the first job you ever had?

Trible: I worked at McDonald's. Working on your feet for six- to seven-hour shifts, helping people through a drive-through will definitely teach you something about customer service. 

Watson: My first job, I was a used-golf-ball salesman. I lived in a neighborhood that had a golf course in it. And I used to collect the balls out of the ponds. I'd go swimming in the ponds, clean up the balls, and sell them back to the golfers.

Trible: And fight gators! He was in Louisiana.

Watson: No, no gator fighting, fortunately. The ponds were filled with chemicals, though, from the golf course. 

What's the weirdest job you've ever had?

Watson: Fighting gators.  

Trible: I spent the summer reading court depositions. I'd have to go into court and read insurance depositions for the courtroom. I loved it when I could use an accent. 

Which entrepreneur or business personality do you most admire?

Trible:Remo Ruffini, the CEO of ski-jacket company Moncler. Moncler just does ski jackets. Ruffini bought the business less than 10 years ago and built it into a $4 billion enterprise. We talk about him a lot at Ledbury and how he does such a good job with ski jackets and how we can learn a thing or two from him with shirts. 

Watson: One entrepreneur I've always liked is the founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard. In his book "Let My People Go Surfing," he tells the story of how he built a company on his beliefs and values. And he's done a great job of being the standard-bearer of Patagonia for over 40 years. 

If you had a superpower, what would it be?

Trible: I'd fly. It would get me to the beach quicker. 

Watson: He took mine.

Trible: You could look into the future. That would be good for business. 

Watson: That's a superpower? OK, but I'd rather fly. 

What advice would you give to an aspiring small business owner?

Watson: Go for it. Don't hesitate. 

Trible: One of our board members gave this advice to us when we first started: More often than not, it's not the wrong decision that leads to business failure, but indecision. If we sit there and ponder too long, then we're not making progress. Indecision is the business killer. Always move forward.

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Martin’s Beach is a beautiful, secluded stretch of oceanfront located just south of Half Moon Bay in San Mateo County, California.

But this idyllic beach also happens to be the setting for a heated legal battle between environmental organization Surfrider Foundation and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who blocked public access to the beach after purchasing a 53-acre parcel there in 2008. 

Khosla, who is also a cofounder of Sun Microsystems, paid approximately $37.5 million for the property, which he purchased from a local family who had owned it for more than a century. In the past, visitors to Martin's Beach have accessed the shore from a gated road off of the Pacific Coast Highway. The family that previously owned the property charged anywhere from $2 to $10 for parking at the beach, which also once had a restaurant and convenience store that catered to visitors. 

But now the gate that leads down to the beach is locked, with signs forbidding entry. A billboard that once advertised public access to the beach was mysteriously painted over several years ago. Though surfers longing for waves could conceivably walk around the gate, only those with the correct key code could get it to open wide enough for cars to access the parking lots below.

"It’s a family beach that was open to the community for generations," Angela Howe, Legal Director for the Surfrider Foundation, said to Business Insider. "That’s the most egregious offense here." 

The California Coastal Act was created in 1976 to maximize public access to the state's beaches. There are now more than 1,150 public access points on the California coast, in the form of state parks, stairways, and narrow paths. 

According to Surfrider lawyers, Khosla was in violation of the California Coastal Act when he changed the nature of public access to Martin's Beach before obtaining a permit from the California Coastal Commission. They also claim that Khosla made road and drainage improvements without the necessary permits. 

Most of the arguments in the case took place in July, and a decision is expected any day now, eighteen months after the organization first filed suit against Khosla in March 2013. 

Beach access is a hot topic in a culture as tied to the ocean as California, and Martin's Beach is a particularly beloved spot.

"It’s a little gem in the Bay Area," Chad Nelsen, Environmental Director for the Surfrider Foundation, said to Business Insider. "Historically it's been known for its ease of access and consistent waves." 

The beach has long been a well-known fishing spot and family picnic destination. It’s also popular within the surfing community — the surf team from a local high school once held their practices here, and Jeff Clark, the surfing pioneer known for discovering the giant waves now known as Mavericks, used to come here as a child.

"I learned to surf there," Clark told the San Jose Mercury News in 2011. "My family's been going there since the 1940s. It's one of those places that's part of my history."

In 2012, in an incident that has since been made into a short film by the Surfrider Foundation, a group of five surfers were arrested for trespassing when they ignored the signs, walked down the road, and paddled out in the water.  

Though the trespassing charges have since been dropped, the incident has led to litigation as well as legislative efforts.

Earlier this year, State Senator Jerry Hill proposed a bill that would help the State Lands Commission restore public access to the beach through eminent domain. That bill has been approved by the state Senate and is awaiting approval by Governor Jerry Brown. 

"It really shows the popularity of the issue, that the local Senator thought it was important enough to his constituents to push this bill through the Senate," Nelsen said. 

Neither Khosla nor his lawyers Dori Yob and Jeff Essner responded to Business Insider's requests for comment. 

Khosla has spoken publicly on the issue only once, in a piece with the San Francisco Chronicle during the trial in July. He said that he tried to meet with the Commission several times, and that it was unreasonable to expect him to pay exorbitant fees to keep the beach open to the public. He claims to have paid between $500,000 and $600,000 a year in costs for maintenance, liability insurance, and infrastructure, among other expenses. 

As a longtime investor in green technology, he added that he has no plans for the property and would never do anything to harm the environment.

"There is nothing I would do with it in the next 10 or 20 years," he told the newspaper. "But I do want to preserve my rights as a property owner."

Even if Surfrider does prevail in court, essentially all that means is that Khosla would have to apply for a permit through the California Coastal Commission, who would negotiate the terms of public access to the beach and the use of the gate on Khosla's property. The court could also rule in Khosla's favor, and there's always the possibility of a lengthy appeals process. 

"It’s unlikely that this will be the end of it," Nelsen said. "But we’re going to see it through."

SEE ALSO: Former EBay President Jeff Skoll Paid $6 Million For The House Right Next Door To His Beverly Hills Home

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This year, Harvard University admitted just 5.9% of applicants, a testament to the school's centuries-long tradition of excellence. 

Narrowing down the 6,700-person student body to just a handful of go-getters was a challenge John Harvard himself wouldn't have struggled with any less. We spoke with campus leaders, sought the counsel of student journalists, and combed the internet to find the 19 Harvard College undergrads who will knock your socks off. 

The semester may have just started, but these kids are already hard at work, making breakthroughs in cancer research, launching innovative startups, and creating a better community at Harvard.

David Boone overcame homelessness to achieve his dream of working in tech.

Class of 2016

David Boone grew up in a violent Cleveland neighborhood, losing his home when a gang burned it down for Boone's refusing to join them. Boone still managed to make excellent grades and, now a junior, received a coveted spot in Microsoft's Co-Op program.

This past summer Boone worked as a software development engineer in test intern in Microsoft's Seattle office, a step up from the previous summer when he worked as a software developer intern. In the Co-Op program, which starts in the spring, Boone will work out of the New England Research and Development Center, one of just a few undergraduate interns among mainly Ph.D. and graduate students.

On campus, Boone is the founder of the Harvard Undergraduate Robotics club. HURC solves real-world problems by designing robots "that defy traditional applications to solve everyday problems," Boone says. He and members of HURC collaborate together and compete in robotics competitions.

Boone is also a passionate photographer who loves experimenting with his DSLR. His life goal, he says, is to change the world, and he plans to get there by starting his own company next summer.

Shree Bose runs a startup that teaches kids about computers by having them build some.

Class of 2016

Shree Bose cofounded Piper, a startup currently based in San Francisco that gives kids hands-on lessons in computers and coding by having them build their own computers.

The company, now about nine months old, was just accepted into an accelerator program in Silicon Valley. Most of Bose's team is moving out there to work on Piper full-time while Bose continues her degree and plans a Kickstarter campaign to raise more funds.

The molecular and cellular biology major made headlines back in high school through her study of the protein AMP kinase and its reaction with the cancer chemotherapy drug Cisplatin. She noticed that when she inhibited AMP kinase, Cisplatin began destroying cancer cells, leading to a breakthrough, first prize at the Google Science Fair, and praise from President Barack Obama.

At Harvard, Bose serves as a student EMT on campus. She says she doesn't have a firm five-year plan laid out but that she hopes to do something related to medicine and science when she graduates.

Eric Chen discovered a new type of drug to treat the flu.

Class of 2018

Chen's Intel Science Talent Search-winning project involved finding compounds capable of blocking endonuclease, an enzyme that the influenza virus needs in order to spread. His research could lead to new, more effective drugs to treat the highly contagious illness. His Intel prize includes copious bragging rights, a serious résumé builder, and $100,000.

But the modest Chen told his hometown newspaper, The San Diego Union-Tribune, that he didn't expect to win Intel, despite the fact that he won the grand prize at the 2013 Google Science Fair and the top individual honor at the 2013 Siemens competition.

Chen's interest in new treatments for the flu was sparked by the 2009 H1N1 "swine flu" outbreak, which first appeared in the U.S. in the San Diego area.

When he's not curing the flu, Chen plays piano and tutors Mandarin-speaking elders in computer skills. He just began his first semester at Harvard and is considering a career in academia or social entrepreneurship.

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We've all experienced the broken stall locks, mysteriously wet floors, and general grossness that plague public restrooms.

However, Cintas Corporation is celebrating the best of the facilities with their 13th annual America's Best Restroom Contest.

A team of editors picked the 10 most creative and clean public restrooms across the country, and are leaving it to the public to determine a winner.

The lucky loo will receive a $2,500 credit to spend on Cintas services like restroom cleaning and supplies.

You can cast a ballot for your favorite restroom online through October 31.

The American Girl store's bathroom in Chicago is perfect for their young visitors with bright pink colors and miniature-sinks.

There are even signature doll holders in each bathroom stall.

"Moms and girls alike are delighted with our restrooms," a spokesman for the company said. "Girls are thrilled that their special doll companions are safely secure and off the floor while they use the facilities."

America has "Top Chef," the U.K has "The Great British Bake Off."

It's about baking.

And seriously, Brits love it. 

How much? The country ground to a halt over a scandal involving an alleged dessert "sabotage" that occurred on an episode from the latest season. Contestant Iain Watters had an on-camera freak out after fellow baker Diana Beard supposedly removed his Baked Alaska from the freezer, causing it to melt. Watters was sent home, Beard accused BBC of editing the footage to make her look bad, London was in disorder for a few days.

It dominated the news cycle.

The commotion over so-called "bingate" pushed the show to it's biggest audience ever: 10 million viewers. (That's 1 in 6 of all British people.) And now, people in Britain can't stop talking about it.  

There is even a second TV show, An Extra Slice, whose only purpose is to dissect the highlights of the actual show from the previous evening.

Want more? Here's an online gallery of Bake Off cakes.

The series, now in Season 5, is getting off of a strong start. Bake Off pulled in 7.2 million viewers in the current season's opening episode, up from the 5.6 million who tuned in to watch the first episode of Season 4, according to The Guardian. And last week, it drew in nearly double the number of viewers who watched England's first soccer game, against Norway, since it lost to Brazil in the World Cup. 

Other than the controversy, "The Great British Bake Off" follows the basic formula of many other reality cooking shows. Contestants fight it out in challenges that test their technical skills, creativity, and performance under time constraints designed to drive bakers to the brink — maybe even far enough to purposely vandalize a competitor's pudding. 

In each one-hour episode, contestants are tested in three different ways on one type of dessert, such as pies or tarts.  

The contestants fall across a wide range of ages, too. There is an adorably nervous 17-year-old (who is an excellent baker) and an old military veteran (not quite such a good baker). So everyone has someone different to root for.

Season 5 started off with twelve. Eventually, that will be whittled down to one — and winner will be named Great British Bake Off's Best Amateur Baker. 

The star of the show is arguably English food writer Mary Berry. She's 79, adorable, and who can deny the obvious — her last name is berry and she writes about food!

The Great British Bake Off airs at 8 p.m. BST on BBC One every Wednesday. 

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Located just steps from San Francisco's Union Square, the 36-story high Grand Hyatt offers fantastic views of the city and the greater Bay Area.

But there's one room that literally towers above all the others in every way, from its spectacular views of the city in all directions to its gigantic 2,200 square feet of space.

It's the Presidential Suite located on the 35th floor, and it's so exclusive you can't even reserve it.

The suite is typically booked on a case-by-case basis for "high profile" executives and VIPs, we're told. It's also not cheap. While the rate can fluctuate, one night will cost at least several thousand dollars.

The Grand Hyatt is located at 345 Stockton St. right next to Union Square, a popular spot for tourists with plenty of shops, restaurants, and other attractions close by.

After a quick elevator ride to the 35th floor, we find the front door to the suite.

The first thing you notice once you open the door is a long hallway, which features wood floors and nice artwork along the walls.

For the discerning millionaire who wants a gorgeous coastal vacation getaway (and has no fear of heights), the Australian real estate firm Modscape has created a dream home.

Spotted by Inhabitat, the aptly named Cliff House quite literally hangs off a cliff face the same way a barnacle hangs off a ship’s hull. The design uses engineered steel pins that drive into the rock, thereby keeping the home attached to the cliff.

“The design is a theoretical response to clients who have approached us to explore design options for extreme parcels of coastal land in Australia, Modscape says on its website.

Looking out over the ocean, the five-story home has three bedrooms, a living area, kitchen, and gigantic floor-to-ceiling windows that display a breathtaking (or vertigo-inducing) view of the horizon.

The top story has a patio and two-car garage, and there’s even an open-air deck area in the bottom with a Jacuzzi and barbecue. All the levels are connected by stairs and an elevator.

And though the building looks unsafe, former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects Maxwell Hutchinson assured BBC News that there was no reason why the design wouldn’t be structurally sound.

You can check out more designs from Modscape here.

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If you stand at the end of the dock in Crisfield, Maryland, and gaze out over the water, you might not catch the tiny shape of a water tower barely visible on the horizon. And when you look at a map you can just as easily miss the tiny island that the tower sits on, 12 miles from either coast in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. Largely unknown, Tangier Island, Virginia, is one of the most isolated and extraordinary places in the continental U.S.

It’s also in danger of disappearing. In 50 to 100 years, the water tower in the center of town may be all that’s left of the place.

Many of us have heard about far-off islands, like the Maldives or Kiribati, which are slowly sinking into the ocean because of erosion and rising sea levels. Far fewer know of Tangier, an island right here in the U.S. that's currently only 4 feet or so above sea level at its highest point and that may soon suffer the same fate.

An Island Apart

"Tangier’s laid back," says Ricky Laird, the man who became my surrogate tour guide on a recent visit to the island. "It's a nice place and everything's reasonable here," he says as he paints a newly purchased dingy in the yard of his house.

Laird, 44, was born on Tangier, and, after a stint on a farm in Appalachia, he moved back.

“I don’t care who the president is — I don’t even know who the governor or senator of Virginia is,” Laird says. The isolation of the island, an hour-and-a-half ferry ride from the coast, and largely closed off from the rest of the world, makes it unique. Some islanders go years without seeing the mainland, getting the supplies from the trusty mail boat that arrives in the harbor every day, rain or shine.

The men on the island, virtually all of whom work as commercial crabbers and oyster fishermen, or “watermen,” pack their catch on a separate boat that makes daily trips to the mainland, further reducing the need to leave.Just 1.2 square miles in all, Tangier Island is home to more than 500 full-time residents whose families have known one another for decades.

“You don't have to worry about traffic jams and murders, child molesters, rapist, and thieves," Laird says. "You can leave your doors open. You don’t have to lock anything.”

Although he knows pretty much everyone, he doesn’t share one of the island's prevalent last names, which include Parks (93 residents had that name in 2009), Pruitt (75), and Crockett (65). Many of these names can be seen on tombstones in the front lawns of the homes on Tangier, placed there out of necessity because of the island's low elevation and lack of space. Laird speaks in a thick accent native to the island, equal parts Southern twang and English brogue. The traces of Elizabethan English still present in the accent may have been influenced by working-class Brits who came to the island early in its settling. Vowels are extended to multiple syllables, making certain words hard to understand to outsiders.

I was confused when Ricky referred to what I heard as “terrorists” visiting the island. I soon realized he was referencing the “tourists” who flock there every summer.

Europeans, led by Captain John Smith, explored Tangier Island in 1608, though it had been a summer camping spot for the Pocomoke Indians long before that. Legend has it that John Crockett, still a common surname on this island, was the first to inhabit Tangier full-time when he and his eight sons arrived in 1686. In the 19th century, Tangier became home to annual Methodist tent meetings, and the island has been a stronghold of religion ever since. The island shuts down every Sunday morning, and once denied Hollywood filmmakers permission to shoot the PG-13 Kevin Costner movie “Message in a Bottle” there because of the script’s mentions of swearing, sex, and drinking.

Tangier is dry, with booze unavailable for purchase. But don’t let that fool you. “Everybody drinks, but they do it inside the house,” a man we’ll call Mike tells me as he passes a Sprite bottle filled with vodka from the cup holder of his golf cart, the preferred mode of travel on the island (there are few cars).Still, while minor transgressions occur behind closed doors, the religious ethos prevails, causing many young people to feel stifled. “When I was a teenager, there was a pool hall, but you had to be 16," Mike says. "Otherwise, they're ain't shit to go on for teenagers. When they graduate, that's why they want to move off.”

After walking the island and reading the historical signs in the streets, one gets the sense that the heyday of Tangier, once home to movie theaters, factories, stores, and an opera house, is long past.  The population has declined from about 1,500 at one point to a third of that today, and the total drops every year.

One of the main reasons for that may be that the island itself is disappearing.

Losing Land And Time

Records indicate that in the mid-1800s, Tangier Island encompassed some 2,062 acres. It was home to watermelon farms, grazing cows, and a variety of plant life. In 1997, the total land mass amounted to just 768 acres, of which just 83 acres are habitable. Today, the island is even smaller.

While Tangier Island has been slowly losing ground to erosion for hundreds of years, the combination of rising sea levels and more devastating weather — both spurred by global warming — have greatly increased the rate of land loss. Until around 1900, sea levels in the Chesapeake Bay rose at an average of three feet per thousand years, geologists calculate. However, the rate greatly increased in the 100 years that followed,  seeing levels already increase by one foot and growing. Research shows that Tangier is now losing nine acres of land a year to erosion and rising tides.“It’ll be gone. If we don’t get a seawall — that’s been in the process for years — it’s just gonna wash away,” Mike tells me when I ask what the island will be like in 50 years.

The proposed seawall, a long rock barricade that would run the length of the eastern shore of the island, is expected to be completed in 2017. A similar seawall to the west was completed in 1990 and now protects that shore, which had previously seen houses falling into the sea.One of the most striking signs of the rapidly disappearing island is the Uppards, a beautiful area on Tangier's north end, where multiple families once lived year-round. Today, the Uppards has almost completely succumbed to the rising water levels, turning into a marshy, swampy wetland with major portions of fully submerged. 

I ask Ricky Laird to take me to the area on his skiff, now the only way to reach it. He tells me how he used to play with his friends in the Uppards and hunt ducks with his father. Now the only sign that humans ever lived there is a solitary mobile trailer on the beach, seemingly minutes from being taken completely by the surf.
Laird doesn’t seem worried, though. “The island ain’t goin’ nowhere. They talk about erosion, but it’s been here forever and it ain’t gone nowhere in forever,” he says.

But as I walk around the island on my second day and see front yards turned into shallow ponds as high tides come in, I'm not as confident. And neither are most scientists.

"We have a pretty high degree of certainty that things are going to get wetter and wetter," Carlton J. Hershner Jr., a climate-change scientist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, recently told the AP. "Not to be a bearer of bad news for Tangier, but that would suggest that sometime in the next 50 to 100 years the island would basically be underwater."

Tangier's physical fate may not be the most pressing problem on the island today, however. The more urgent question on the minds of residents seems to be whether anyone will still want to live there in the future, even if the island does survive the next 100 years.

A Different Kind Of Disappearance

“I’d like to be able to do this for the rest of my life," Laird's son, Nick, declares over egg sandwiches in his family's kitchen. "It’s kind of scary to think you might not be able to.” Nick, 24, has decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a waterman. Years ago, this career path was the norm for boys on the island. Nowadays, Nick is in the minority.

"I think the work part deters a lot of people," Nick says. "I don't want to say they're lazy, but there's not much else here to offer young people." Kids are leaving Tangier in droves, some for college, others for the military or elsewhere. Many will never return to the island full-time.

“A lot of kids nowadays, it just doesn’t appeal to them. They see mainstream culture, and they say ‘Hey, I think I’d like to move off, get a car, get a house, go to the mall," Nick says.
It certainly doesn’t help that being a waterman is becoming increasingly difficult. For the past 15 years, in an effort to prevent overfishing, Virginia has placed a moratorium on any new crabbing licenses. And other restrictions have greatly reduced the length of fishing seasons.

With more and more young people moving off the island every year, Tangier Island truly is entering a twilight stage. Nick guesses that about half the island is at or above the age of 60. On an island this small, it’s hard to find a partner and, increasingly, young folks move away for romance as well.

“Some people that are married here today, they’ve been together since the seventh grade. But if you don’t get someone in the seventh or eighth grade, you’re in trouble,” Ricky says, adding that the fourth-grade class at the island's only school has one lone boy. 
The once prosperous town now looks a bit beat down and lonely, too. Houses sit abandoned and dilapidated. Ricky tells me that I could buy a house and land on the island for about $7 to $10,000, a steal in any other island community. It sounds tempting until you remember that such an investment might well end up being the equivalent to throwing money in the ocean.

Before I leave the island, I stop a boy working to clear water out of his fiberglass dingy. I ask him what he plans to do when he gets older. "They say in about 100 years, this island’s gonna be disappeared, but I'm not going to college. I'm gonna work on the water here," he says. "I'm not gonna be living in another 100 years, either." 

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The 14th Dalai Lama was born as Lhamo Dondrub in a village in Tibet in 1935. 

He fled his home during the Chinese occupation of Tibet and soon set up a government in exile in India. 

The monk has been the spiritual leader of his people and his religion since he was 15 years old. He's also one of the foremost authors and philosophers within Tibetan Buddhism, having authored books like "The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living,""How To Practice: The Way To A Meaningful Life," and "Beyond Religion: Ethics for the Whole World." 

In 1989 he won the Nobel Peace prize, and he continues to travel the world giving talks on compassion, the nature of truth, and happiness. 

On responsibility

On impact

On necessity

Apple has officially unveiled its long-awaited Watch, and while some in the tech and fashion industries are praising the latest gadget, don’t expect it to take over the traditional watch market anytime soon.

Watches have been around for more than 500 years, surviving wars and technological revolutions. We may have advanced past the mechanics of the classic wristwatch, but we're still a long way from trading our Rolexes for smartwatches.

"The Apple Watch ... won't have a dramatic impact on the Swiss watch market at this stage, as the majority of the market is composed of brands at a luxury level, David Sadigh, founder and CEO of the Digital Luxury Group, told Business Insider. "Folks at Vacheron Constantin, Rolex, and Patek Philippe can still sleep well at night."

Here's why we aren't concerned about the fate of classic watches.

Design And Function Fall Short

Although the Watch wasn’t what some in the tech community were expecting, Apple no doubt attempted to appeal to watch purists, the fashion world, and the general public with familiar dials and watch faces (fashion editors were even invited to attend the Apple keynote for the first time).Apple’s Watch is designed to be recognizable as a wristwatch. It's shaped like a traditional timepiece with a square clock face and even a digital crown on the side that can be spun and twisted to control what appears on the touch screen.

Yet the gadget looks first generation, to put it mildly. Clunky and thick, the Watch tries too hard to look analogue, and not hard enough to look like the new-age smartwatch Apple fans were anticipating.

Aside from its appearance, another concern is the battery life.  The Watch must be charged each night, which means you can't sleep with it on your wrist, as Business Insider's Jim Edwards points out.

What the Apple Watch does have going for it is customization. Don’t like your watch face? Tap for a new one. Can’t decide between a leather wrist band or sporty fluoroelastomer band? Get both. This is by far the most customizable product Apple has ever introduced.

Another pro is how sporty the Watch is. It can provide plenty of data for fitness enthusiasts and will compete with the FitBit and Nike FuelBand, as well as wearable devices from tech industry rivals. But the Apple Watch is still not handsome or long-wearing enough to compete with real watches.

Craftsmanship And Nostalgia

Mechanical watches have remained popular through the digital age because of their craftsmanship and superior quality.

"We're all extremely attached to our cameras, our phones, our computers, our iPads, and I think there's something charming about owning something analogue," Stephen Pulvirent, former associate editor of online watch publication HODINKEE, told Business Insider last year. "I'm going to replace my iPhone sometime in the next few years. But a really high-quality watch I can wear and enjoy on a daily basis.” 

Watch buyers accept that they're paying tens of thousands of dollars for what went into making their watch because they expect it to last.

It takes master watchmakers months and sometimes years to create the elaborate interior mechanisms that make collectors' watches so special, such as a split-second chronograph (two second hands to time different events) and perpetual calendars (which are designed to display the correct date on any given day in the future).

And never underestimate the power of history and nostalgia. Watch brands recognize that even if people aren't necessarily wearing watches to tell time, the watch can still be a symbol of something more personal.

 "I can give my watch to my children and they can give it to one of their children," Pulvirent said. "It's something that works in perpetuity since watches aren't something that needs to be changed constantly."

 On the other hand, if you buy an Apple Watch when it's released next year, it will quickly become obsolete once the next generation of the product is released.

Luxury Smartwatch, Not A Luxury Watch

Apple announced that the watch will be available beginning in 2015, with a base price of $349. 

At that price, the Watch only competes with a small segment of the market. “While the new Apple Watch won’t replace the inherent beauty and elegant utility of a vintage Patek Phillippe, it will disrupt the low-end market for overpriced quartz wristwatches (and maybe even some mechanical watches),” writes Kelly Jasper at HODINKEE.

High-end Swiss watchmakers shouldn't blink an eye at the Watch, but it could compete with mass-market watch brands like Rado, Citizen, and Fossil, which sell timepieces at similar price points. And while Swiss watchmakers now export more than $20 billion worth of watches, growth within the segment has been uneven, Pulvirent, now at Bloomberg Businessweek, writes, noting:

Dollar and unit exports of battery-powered electronic watches have been flat, while the market for luxury mechanical watches has nearly quadrupled. In 2000, mechanical watches accounted for only 8 percent of the watches leaving Switzerland; in 2013 they represented 27 percent. Nearly all this growth is coming from watches priced over 3,000 francs.

Global consumer interest in luxury watches grew 5.7% worldwide in 2013, with China, India, and Russia experiencing the biggest year-over-year increases. And the market for vintage luxury watches remains strong as well.

Apple is equipped to handle these challenges down the line. The Watch's design can be made more streamlined, and the battery life can be improved as technology advances.

Designers and celebrities may also start to team up with Apple to make more fashionable versions of the Watch (à la Google Glass and Diane von Furstenberg), giving it more clout and desirability in the marketplace.

The Apple Watch is just the newest player in the game though, and there will always be people who want impeccably made watches that last for decades (and don’t need to be charged every night, or used exclusively with an iPhone). 

The classic wrist watch has lasted this long, and it isn't going anywhere. 

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The tech world is known for having a bit of a coffee addiction.

Square CEO Jack Dorsey, for example, is a longtime investor in San Francisco-based roasters Sightglass Coffee. And, of course, there's Blue Bottle Coffee, which in January raised $25.7 million in funding from such big names as Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, Twitter cofounder Evan Williams, and Silicon Valley investors Chris Sacca and Joanne Wilson. 

But not everyone knows how to navigate the complicated world of artisanal coffee.

That's where Craft Coffee comes in. By analyzing each subscriber's taste and price preferences, the coffee subscription service moves users away from big coffee brand names and towards independent American roasters, including Sightglass. Subscribers receive three different roasts each month on Craft Coffee's plan, which can be adjusted to fit each household's needs. 

"Coffee is so personal and subjective, but it's a lot like wine in that people are intimidated," Craft Coffee founder Mike Horn said to Business Insider. "They might not understand the label, or the jargon or flavors might sound too fancy. People want a lot of guidance when they're picking their coffee, and they want a convenient experience."

The company, which is currently based in Brooklyn, spent 10 weeks in Silicon Valley this summer, building their product in a San Jose rental house as a part of Y Combinator's Summer 2014 class. Craft Coffee is the only coffee company to be backed by Y Combinator in the accelerator's nine-year history.

"We're taking an old industry, using tech and algorithms to understand taste — but taste is so subjective," Horn said. "We went to Y Combinator and said, 'We have a real tech problem with a real tech solution,' and YC agreed."

Their solution is what they call the Coffee DNA Project. After analyzing thousands of coffees — all from independent roasters — they were able to identify certain traits and flavor profiles that were consistent among them. 

When someone signs up for a subscription with Craft Coffee, all they're asked is what coffee they currently drink. The service's recommendation algorithm then tries to find a coffee from an independent roaster that has a similar taste quality and price point.

As users rate more and more coffees over their months with Craft Coffee, the service will be better able to understand each person's preferences. 

"The solution is personal. It collects information from you and knows you better over time," Horn said. "It could potentially say something like, 'Hey, you really like Ethiopian coffees, and you didn’t even know.'"

The product has resonated with startups, who can sign up to have bags of coffee delivered to their offices each month. Uber's New York offices, Shout, and Lua are among those who have signed up so far. Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian is also an avid supporter.

But Horn is even more excited about how well Craft Coffee is catching on with the general public, who can customize how often they want beans delivered based on how much coffee they drink a month. 

He says that more than 130 million Americans spend $4 billion a year on coffee they make at home, hardly any of which is sold online. That's not even including Keurig and other single-cup brewers. 

"Every single day we have sales to people who live in maybe a dozen different states, where the customer tells us they typically drink Starbucks or other grocery store coffees," Horn said. "Every time we have a sale like that, we know we're onto something." 

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Sir Richard Branson is the quintessential self-made, idealistic, and off-the-wall entrepreneur. He's never stopped doing things differently over his 40-plus-year career, from dropping out of high school to run a magazine to buying his own island in the British Virgin Islands — not to mention starting a commercial airline from scratch and kite-surfing across the English Channel in his 60s.

Today he's worth an estimated $5 billion and is the chairman of the eclectic Virgin Group of businesses, which is most recently expanding into the hotel market.

In his new book "The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership," Branson writes that his love of a crazy marketing stunt or world record attempt is just an extension of the way he runs his businesses. "The problem is that being told 'You'd have to be pretty crazy to even think about doing that' has to me always been like the proverbial red flag to a bull," he writes.

To celebrate his huge personality — and unparalleled marketing savvy — we've collected some of Branson's most outlandish photo ops.

Branson arrived to his 2007 "Rock the Kasbah" benefit for Morocco atop a horse and in traditional Moroccan garb.

Because he lost a bet with Air Asia CEO Tony Fernandes over which of their Formula One teams would beat the other, Branson agreed to dress in drag.

Here he is getting his legs shaved in preparation for his transformation into a stewardess.

Only in New York. 

A new residential building in Soho is selling its 10 underground parking spots for $1 million a pop, The New York Times reports.

Even for Manhattan, the price is astronomical. According to the Times, residential parking spots run an average of $136,052, or about an eighth the cost of the spots at 42 Crosby Street.

But with the condos selling for $8.7 million to $25 million, maybe a million for parking isn't out of the question.

"We’re looking at setting the benchmark," Shaun Osher, the founder and chief executive of the brokerage firm which is handling the sales and marketing at 42 Crosby, told the Times. "In real estate, location defines value and parking is no exception to that rule."

According to the Times, residents would be shelling out between $5,000 and $6,666 per square foot for the parking spots, in comparison to about $3,150 per square foot for their actual apartment.

Owners will essentially have the parking spot for life (or 99 years), but would have to sell if they ever moved out of the Annabelle Selldorf-designed building.

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