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DogVacay, The 'Airbnb For Dogs,' Just Raised $25 Million — Here's How It Works

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DogVacayThe online dog-sitting community DogVacay just raised $25 million, bringing its total venture funding to $47 million, Fortune reports.

The so-called "Airbnb for dogs" got the Series B1 round of funding from Omers Ventures and GSV Capital, as well as existing investors including Science Inc., First Round Capital, Benchmark, Foundation Capital, and DAG Ventures, according to Fortune. 

I tried the service, which connects pet owners and sitters online, for the first time last year after avoiding boarding my dog Rupert for six years. 

I'm admittedly overly sensitive when it comes to Rupert's comforts and I have never been crazy about the idea of leaving him in a small pee-covered kennel for days at a time. 

But I ran out of options last fall when I had to leave town for the weekend and everyone I knew was gone for the holidays. 

So I decided to explore DogVacay.

I went to the homepage and input the dates that I would be out of town and the search yielded hundreds of potential hosts for Rupert, many of whom were located within a half mile of my apartment.

DogVacay

The options ranged from $35 to $80 a night. Most of the traditional boarding locations in Manhattan charge at least $80 a night.

Most of the DogVacay hosts' profile pages contain detailed summaries of their services, reviews from former customers, and photos of themselves, their living quarters, and their previous animal tenants. I spent an embarrassing amount of time scrolling through all of Rupert's options before carefully selecting four potential hosts.

I contacted the hosts through the website's internal messaging system, because DogVacay doesn't initially give out the hosts' email addresses or last names. This is to partially help ensure that the hosts don't book appointments outside of DogVacay, as the company gets a 15% cut of all boarding fees.

I heard back from every host within a couple hours and settled on Rebecca, whose last name I'm excluding from this article to protect her privacy. At $50 a night — a little pricier than the average DogVacay stay — I booked Rebecca for three nights. 

RupertThen came winter storm Hercules. My flight out of New York was cancelled and then repeatedly delayed. 

I ended up dropping Rupert off one day later than planned. I had prepaid for the boarding, but Rebecca called DogVacay for me and had one night's fees removed to reflect the change. She handled the travel issues with ease.

After dropping him off, I got a text from Rebecca almost immediately giving me a status update. (Rupert was "having tons of fun already" and romping in the snow with her pug, Wilbur).

Then I got nightly emails with photos, like this one, of Rupert and Wilbur:

DogVacay reviewI was pleased with the updates. I heard about Rupert's naps, his trips outside, and his general well-being all weekend. And when my flight back to New York was delayed by one day, it was easy to extend my reservation. 

Rebecca later told me that she's been a DogVacay host since August 2012 and takes care of 10 dogs a month on average, for varying amounts of time, from one day to weeks at a time.

For some hosts, working with DogVacay has led to a full-time job that pays the rent. Pet-sitter Michael Lam told CNBC he started working with DogVacay when he was a programmer for Goldman Sachs. He's now a full-time dog host and certified dog trainer.

The company won't reveal details on its revenues, though CEO Aaron Hirschhorn told CNBC in August that the site's bookings had grown 10-fold in 2013.

"DogVacay has paid out millions of dollars to its 11,000 hosts across more than 2,500 cities in the U.S. and Canada," DogVacay spokeswoman Corinna Pieloch told Business Insider. "The U.S. pet services market is $11 billion annually and surprisingly there are 78 million dogs in the U.S. – more dogs than there are kids (73 million)."

According to the American Pet Products Association, Americans spent an estimated $55 billion on their pets in 2013, including an average $327 annually on boarding.

As I noted earlier, DogVacay keeps 15% of hosts' charges, which range from $20 to $70 per night for boarding in New York City. Hosts can also offer dog walking, cat sitting, grooming and other services through the website. 

Some have questioned, however, whether the company can generate enough revenue to survive. 

From a purely personal perspective, I hope it does; because I'll definitely be using it again. 

SEE ALSO: 6 Alternatives To The Trendy Vitamix Blender

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The 12 Books The Marine Corps Wants Its Leaders To Read

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marines 2005

The job of a US Marine means much more than knowing how to patrol and shoot a rifle.

The Corps, which celebrates its 239th anniversary on Nov. 10, wants troops who can think clearly under fire and make calm and intelligent decisions.

So it comes as no surprise that the Corps' top officer — a four-star general known as the Commandant — publishes a list of books that Marines of all ranks have to learn from.

The books cover a range of topics, from the warfighting techniques discussed in "Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1: Warfighting" to leadership in "Battlefield Leadership." Even the anti-war novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" makes the list.

The Corps has led a recent push for Marines to pick up a book from the always-expanding list, of which you can see in full here. We picked out 12 of our favorites.

This post was originally written by David M. Brooks.

"The Red Badge Of Courage" by Stephen Crane

"The Red Badge Of Courage" is considered a classic of American literature.

This book is recommended for new recruits. It follows a bravado-filled enlisted man who flees in cowardice during the Civil War.

War is easy to romanticize until you're in the middle of it, as Crane's work makes clear. And while the battle scenes in the book still receive high praise for their brutal realism, the author never experienced war firsthand.

Buy it here >



"Making The Corps" by Tom Ricks

In "Making The Corps," journalist Tom Ricks follows a platoon of recruits through the rigorous training of Marine Corps boot camp. Many Marine recruits are fresh out of high school, and this book chronicles the process that transforms young men and women from civilians into Marines.

This book is recommended for midshipmen and officer candidates whose initial training is different from the enlisted Marines they hope to one day lead. If you've ever wondered what life is like in a Marine Corps boot camp, this book gives one of the best accounts.

Buy it here >



"Blink: The Power Of Thinking Without Thinking" by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink" is one of two books by the author on the Commandant's reading list ("Outliers" is the other). Military leaders are often required to make quick decisions with limited information and "Blink" addresses the ability of the mind to make snap decisions as well as the influences that corrupt the decision-making process.

"Blink" also has a fascinating chapter on the Millennium Challenge 2002 exercise where the military brought Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper out of retirement to lead enemy forces in a wargame against the United States. As the book notes, Van Riper thought outside the box in countering his US military foe and obliterated their forces in the exercise.

Van Riper later charged leaders with "rigging" the game and taking away his decision-making power.

Buy it here >



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People Are Outraged That This Is Calvin Klein's Idea Of A Plus-Size Model

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Calvin Klein is facing online backlash over a new lingerie ad campaign featuring a "plus-size" model who is only a size 10, (though New York Magazine reports that she's closer to a size 8).

Generally, plus sizes start at size 12.

The model, 27-year-old Myla Dalbesio, "obviously doesn’t fit in with the skinny girls but she certainly isn’t shopping in the plus-size section and her representing the category is perplexing to many people," writes Yahoo's Lauren Tuck. 

In an interview with Elle.com, Dalbesio said, "I'm a bigger girl ... I’m not the biggest girl on the market but I’m definitely bigger than all the girls [Calvin Klein] has ever worked with, so that is really intimidating."

Calvin Klein does not explicitly label Dalbesio as a plus-size model in the campaign for its new "Perfectly Fit" line.

A Calvin Klein spokesperson told The New York Times"The new Calvin Klein Underwear Perfectly Fit imagery features models Myla Dalbesio, Jourdan Dunn, Amanda Wellsh, Ji Hye Park and the face of the brand, Lara Stone, in several styles. The Perfectly Fit line was created to celebrate and cater to the needs of different women, and these images are intended to communicate that our new line is more inclusive and available in several silhouettes in an extensive range of sizes."

Victoria's Secret also recently landed in hot water for a lingerie ad campaign. The ads featured images of Victoria's Secret angels next to the slogan, "The Perfect 'Body.'" The company changed the slogan to "A Body For Every Body" following online backlash. 

Here's what people are saying about the Calvin Klein campaign on Twitter. 

 

 

SEE ALSO: Victoria's Secret Ditches 'Perfect Body' Campaign After Outrage

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Amazon's 10 Best Books Of 2014

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guy reading on a couch books

Even though we’re not even halfway through November, Amazon has already announced its Best Books of 2014.

The annual feature included the best 100 books that were published this year, as well as the top 20 lists in categories from nonfiction to children’s books.

This year's top ten ranking spanned genres, from an historical thriller of an Arctic expedition gone awry to a flawlessly written novel about immigration in America.

Keep reading to see the 10 best books of 2014 and find your next great novel.

1. "Everything I Never Told You" by Celeste Ng: After the gorgeous teenage Lydia is found dead, the mixed-race Lee family is sent reeling. With themes of alienation, race, gender, family, and identity, Lydia’s parents and siblings are forced to confront the Lydia they never knew and their own expectations in this quietly beautiful novel.

2. "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr: This National Book Award Finalist follows both Marie-Laurie, a blind French Girl living with her father during World War II, and Werner, a German orphan with a knack for building and fixing radios. The haunting story will stay with you and make you question how life and art are influenced by war.

3. "In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette" by Hampton Sides: In 1879, the wealthy owner of The New York Herald James Gordon Bennett funded a US naval expedition to the North Pole. But things take a turn for the worse when the ship becomes trapped and the hull is breached. The men must fight to survive as they battle starvation, polar bears, and madness while trying to get home.

4. "The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace:A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League" by Jeff Hobbs: This story is about the life of Robert Peace, a black student from the poor streets of Newark who made it into Yale on a scholarship. Yet even though he seemingly achieved the American Dream, he never felt like he truly belonged — and ultimately, it cost him his life. This reported memoir will influence how you think about race, class, and family.

5. "Redeployment" by Phil Klay: Phil Klay tells twelve short stories about the Iraq War and its aftermath. From horrifying patrols to what it’s like coming home, Klay doesn’t rely on platitudes, machismo, or patriotism — instead, he masterfully pushes back on our assumptions without veering into the maudlin.

6. "Revival" by Stephen King: King's most recent thriller spans five decades and focuses on the rock n' roll obsessed Jamie Morton and the small town reverend Charles Jacobs. Both men are haunted by tragic pasts and share a secret obsession, so they are naturally drawn together into a partnership as they search for answers — and find terrifying conclusions. 

7. "Savage Harvest:A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest for Primitive Art" by Carl Hoffman: Hoffman believes he has finally solved the decades-old mystery of Michael Rockefeller’s disappearance in New Guinea in 1961. The murder mystery involves a local tribe of warriors, headhunters, and colonialism in this fascinating (and real) whodunit.

8. "The Book of Unknown Americans" by Cristina Henríquez: After a tragic accident leaves 15-year-old Maribel with a brain injury, the Riveras are forced to leave their beloved Mexico and go to America in search of a better life. The book follows them while also telling the stories of the other Latin American tenants sharing their apartment complex in Delaware.

9. "Big Little Lies" by Liane Moriarty: This book focuses on three Australian moms, all with pre-schoolers in the same class. Sounds straightforward — except by the end of the book, one of them will be dead. Each mother carries a secret in this witty book that takes a deeper look into the lives of suburbia.

10. "Station Eleven" by Emily St. John Mandel: After a horrible virus spreads across America, people barricade themselves inside apartments, highways are flooded with cars, and people are murdered as they struggle to survive. This novels follows life before, during, and after the virus and illustrates both the good and evil sides of humanity in a crisis.

You can see the rest of Amazon's top books for 2014 here.

SEE ALSO: 25 Books That Changed The Course Of History

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Microsoft Billionaire Paul Allen's Most Over-The-Top Toys

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paul allen

With an estimated net worth of $17 billion, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen can afford to buy himself some fancy toys. 

But with interests that range from electric guitars to World War II aircraft, Allen takes expensive hobbies to a whole new level. 

We've rounded up some of the billionaire's most ridiculous toys, from submarines to professional sports teams.

Allen loves rock 'n' roll. An expert guitarist, he pays a band to travel with him so he can jam whenever he wants. He owns a number of valuable guitars, including some previously used by Woody Guthrie and Jimi Hendrix.

Source: 60 Minutes

 



In May, Allen showed off his skills at a celebrity-packed party he threw on his 414-foot yacht, "Octopus."

Source: Business Insider

 



Octopus is truly one-of-a-kind, decked out with two helicopter landing pads and its own submarine. Allen has sailed to Antarctica, Europe, and other exotic destinations. "During the day we explore, and at night we jam," he told "60 Minutes" in 2011.

Source: 60 Minutes

 



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Watch A Pair Of Daredevils Risk Their Lives Crossing A Gigantic Waterfall On A Tightrope

A Colorado Restaurant Accidentally Served Hard Liquor To Six Children

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Shark Bite Drink

A Joe’s Crab Shack in Colorado accidentally served hard alcohol to six children, KKTV reports

The children, ages two to eight, were supposed to receive a sweet blue drink called a “Shark Nibble," which the Montoya family had ordered off the kids' menu

But instead they were served the "Shark Bite," which is a cocktail loaded with rum, vodka, and curaçao.

Whoops.

The mix-up might have occurred because the children’s "Nibble" is not very different from the adult “Shark Bite” version. 

Both kinds of drinks are blue and served with grenadine and shark toys. The main difference is that the “Nibble” is served in a plastic cup while the “Bite” is served in a glass — oh, and the latter also contains a whole bunch of alcohol. 

Shark Bite The children downed a hefty amount of their drinks — the two-year-old reportedly even finished hers, according to KKTV —  before the waitress came back and abruptly collected the drinks, saying they had been made with the “wrong ingredients.” 

"Then the managers actually came back with the tray of drinks and then let us know that they had accidentally poured alcohol into our kids' beverages," Omar Montoya told KKTV news. Paramedics were called when one of the children said she didn't feel well. 

Fortunately, all six kids were fine and were sent home after a quick check up.  

Joe's Crab Shack released this statement to KKTV news in re ponse:

Joe’s Crab Shack is aware of this incident at the Colorado Springs Location, and we are investigating this matter internally. We do not condone underage service of any kind. Our guests can rest assured that our processes are continuously examined so that incidents like this are avoided.

SEE ALSO: 9 Surprising Facts About Trader Joe's

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43 Meals Everyone Should Eat In Their Lifetime

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maine lobster roll

A memorable meal can define a destination and keep you salivating for years to come.

From unpretentious fried fish tacos in Baja, Mexico, to the foraged tasting menu at Copenhagen's Noma (the best restaurant in the world), we found 43 meals that are worth traversing the planet for.

Foodies will want to put these spots on their travel bucket list.

Slurp up a bowl of steaming hot Pho, a tangy beef noodle soup, in Hanoi, Vietnam.



Feast on a juicy, dry-aged steak from the famous Peter Luger Steakhouse in Brooklyn, New York.

Read more on Peter Luger >



Bite into a chewy, gooey slice of Neapolitan-style pizza in Naples, Italy.



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A Tailor Once Advised President Eisenhower On Foreign Policy By Slipping Notes Into His Suits

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martin greenfield clothiers suit factory cutting fabric

Earlier this year, 86-year-old Martin Greenfield took us behind the scenes of his Brooklyn clothing factory, which for more than 60 years has tailored bespoke suits for America's most powerful men.

For Greenfield, the road to the American dream was filled with hardship.

At the age of 15, he was taken from his Czechoslovakian home and transported to the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, where he worked in the alteration shop.

After being liberated in 1945, he came to the US and found work as a floor boy at GGG Clothes, a menswear factory he bought 30 years later.

This month, Greenfield releases his memoir, "Measure of a Man: From Auschwitz Survivor to Presidents' Tailor." We've printed an excerpt below with his permission. 

“Politics is show business for ugly people,” or so the old saying goes.

Since my early days at GGG, I’ve worked hard to make sure America’s political power brokers look anything but ugly. That’s important. In politics, perceptions become reality. Especially today, when a president’s every move reverberates around the globe.

Even in the old days, though, most of the politicians I dressed understood that a leader’s appearance represents something much larger than his political views. It symbolizes America herself.

Few of my political clients have understood the power of a fine suit better than those from military backgrounds. I learned about that power myself during my brief service in the Czechoslovakian army. Soldiers wore suits every day, and the importance of maintaining a crisp appearance was pounded into them. They knew an officer’s rank and authority by his uniform. Indeed, the relationship between men’s fashion and the military is longstanding. Civilian staples like pea coats, khakis, t-shirts—they all started with the military.

martin greenfield clothiers suit factory bill clinton photoOne of my first political clients was my liberator and hero, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. After the war, when he needed a civilian wardrobe, he turned to his friends the Goldmans. One day in 1949, Mr. Goldman pulled me aside. “I’ve got a special assignment for you,” he said. “I need you to oversee the production of suits for President Eisenhower.”

“Eisenhower?”

“Yes.”

“He liberated me! He’s not the president, he’s a general!”

“No, not the president of the United States. He’s now the president of Columbia University. He needs suits. They have to be perfect, and I know you’re the man for the job.”

That man saved my life. I will make sure we make him the best suits GGG’s has ever made!”

martin greenfield clothiers suit factory floor

I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d been given the chance to use my skills in the service of a man who had my complete respect. In my mind, General Eisenhower was ten feet tall. But, according to the measurement card, he was five feet ten inches, 172 pounds, had a forty-inch chest, wore a size 41 jacket, and had a thirty-six-inch waist. I supervised the making of the suits—watching the button-hole makers, the pocket makers, the under-collar makers, everyone involved with the process—to ensure that every stitch was flawless. I’d never been so obsessed with a suit order. Nothing could be wrong. Everything, as Mr. Goldman said, must be perfect.

Mannie Goldman, who was close with Eisenhower, would have an idea of what the general thought of the suits. The next time I saw Mannie, I jumped him.

“Well, what did he think?” I asked.

“He loved them. Said they were absolutely perfect.”

General Eisenhower

I’d never been more proud in all my years as a tailor. We dressed Eisenhower throughout his tenure at Columbia University. Any time he needed a GGG suit, pants, vest, anything, the order went straight to me. I followed Eisenhower’s political rise closely. His ascension to the White House felt like a personal victory, a confirmation that I was not alone in my admiration of the man whose leadership helped win World War II.

I continued making Eisenhower’s suits into his presidency. He was the first president I dressed. But given the Goldmans’ personal relationship with him, they got all the face time. If I were going to communicate directly with President Eisenhower, I had to get creative. The Suez Canal crisis that unfolded in 1956 and 1957 prompted me to do just that.

martin greenfield clothiers suit factory pressing machines flags

America’s tepid response to Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal frustrated me. I didn’t like that we were sitting on the sidelines while Britain, Israel, and France were already in the thick of the fight. I believed America needed to send Egypt’s president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, a strong response, one that could not be ignored.

Foreign policy expert that I was, I determined that President Eisenhower, the former Allied commander and one of only nine five-star generals in American history, was in dire need of my strategic advice. I wrote him a brief, anonymous note. I knew it would never reach him if I sent it through the mail, so I put it in the outer pocket of a jacket I was making for him (and a duplicate in the inside pocket, in case someone found and discarded the other one). “If you want to end the Suez Crisis, you’ll send [Secretary of State] John Dulles on a two-week vacation,” I wrote.

martin greenfield clothiers suit factory arm hole

A few weeks later, I had another brilliant, penetrating insight into international relations on which the leader of the Free World needed my counsel. So I jotted it down and slipped it into another jacket pocket. This unconventional form of presidential advising continued until the Goldman brothers paid a visit to President Eisenhower at the White House. When they returned, I asked them what he thought of his most recent suit.

“The president loves the suits. But he said someone keeps writing and leaving notes in his jacket pockets. He said there were even letters in the golf pants we made him. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you, Martino?” said Mr. Goldman with a suspicious glance and a raised eyebrow.

Eisenhower was so amused that he eventually told reporters there was a Brooklyn tailor who kept slipping foreign policy advice into his clothes, and the story became more widely known.

Click here to buy "Measure of a Man: From Auschwitz Survivor to Presidents' Tailor" »

SEE ALSO: Inside The Brooklyn Factory That Makes Suits For America's Most Powerful Men [PHOTOS]

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Peter Thiel Explains How An Esoteric Philosophy Book Shaped His Worldview

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Peter Thiel

Billionaire Peter Thiel is as well known for being the cofounder of PayPal and the first outside investor in Facebook as he is for his free thinking.

He outlines many of his contrarian views, such as why successful companies should strive to be monopolies, in his book "Zero to One."

Thiel has previously said that the contemporary French philosopher René Girard has had a tremendous impact on his life, and he told author and investor Tim Ferriss that he considers "Things Hidden Since The Foundation of the World" to be Girard's masterpiece.

Girard's main concept is "mimetic theory," which states that most of human behavior is based upon imitation. The imitation of desires leads to conflict, and when a buildup of conflict threatens to destroy all involved, they use a scapegoat to return to balance.

Much of Girard's work delves into Christian theology, which has also had a profound effect on Thiel.

We had a chance to ask Thiel how his favorite Girard work has shaped his worldview, career, and even his faith. Here's what he said.

Business Insider:When did you first read "Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World"? Has your interpretation of Girard's philosophy changed as you've gotten older?

Peter Thiel: I first read "Things Hidden" when I was an undergraduate at Stanford. Girard ranges over everything: every book, every myth, every culture — and he always argues boldly. That made him stand out against the rest of academia, which was and still is divided between two approaches: specialized research on trivial questions and grandiose but nihilistic claims that knowledge is impossible.

Girard is the opposite of both: He makes sweeping arguments about big questions based on a view of the whole world. So even when you set aside the scandalous fact that Girard takes Christianity seriously, there is already something heroic and subversive about his work.

"Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World" is an intimidating book. Girard warns on the very first page that he has "deliberately left out all concessions to the reader." However hard it seems at first, Girard's philosophy always stresses a few key points. Simplest of all is the idea that imitation is at the root of all behavior.

I've noticed that it takes a long time to really sink in. You can understand what his words mean as philosophical concepts without understanding how those concepts play out in life. It's hardest of all to see how they apply to yourself. I would say that there is no difference in my interpretation of Girard at the level of ideas, but now I have a better sense of how deep his ideas go.

BI: You've mentioned that you are conscious of your desire to not become distracted by competition in your pursuits. How much has Girard's theory of mimetic desire and its negative outcomes influenced this approach?

things hidden since the foundation of the world

PT: According to Girard, imitation is inescapable. As a rule, we do what we do just because other people are doing it, too. That's why we end up competing for the same things: the same schools, the same jobs, the same markets. Economics will tell you that competition dilutes profits, and that’s one big reason to question it.

Girard gives at least two more reasons: (1) competitors tend to become obsessed with their rivals at the expense of their substantive goals, and because of that (2) the intensity of competition doesn't tell you anything about underlying value. People will compete fiercely for things that don't matter, and once they're fighting they'll fight harder and harder. You might not be able to escape imitation entirely, but if you're sensitive to the way it drives us then you're already ahead of most.

BI: How have you seen both the theories of mimetic desire and the scapegoat mechanism manifested in Silicon Valley?

PT: When the payments company Square came out with its flagship credit card reader, competitors jumped in one after the other to do the same thing with triangles or half-moons instead of squares. That's the comical example I cite in "Zero to One." A more dangerous phenomenon is the desire for the same position within a company: startups are small, they move fast, and roles are fluid, so there is lots of potential for conflict.

As for scapegoating, what happened to Bill Gates during the antitrust prosecution of Microsoft is a great example of the tendency to gang up and blame one person.

BI: How has Girard's interpretation of Christianity affected the way you practice your religion? Has your spirituality influenced the ways you've decided you would like to leave an impact on humanity?

PT: To see the difference Girard makes, consider the Book of Revelation. It's the last thing in the New Testament. It's very strange. What could it mean to someone today? There are two common views: Secularists see a bunch of crazy gibberish that should be ignored or mocked. Fundamentalists see an authentic prophecy of divine vengeance.

Girard says there is another, deeper answer: The destruction that Revelation describes is real, but we can't blame it on an angry, violent deity. We have created weapons capable of violence on a biblical scale. In the event of apocalypse, we will be responsible. Blaming the gods for our own violent acts is what humans have done throughout the whole history of religion.

But as Girard reads them, the Gospels reveal that God is not violent. He has no need to get into a fight. He is not our rival. What God actually is and what it means to be created in God's image is not something to capture in a sound bite, but it certainly begins with creation and continues with life.

BI:Is there a particular section of "Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World" that has particularly influenced you or that you suggest readers new to Girard become familiar with?

PT: There's not an easy way into "Things Hidden." It's not obscure; it's just densely packed. The best place to start reading Girard might be with whatever part of culture you're most interested in, because he's probably written about it.

If you like classic novels, read his first book, "Deceit, Desire and the Novel." If you're interested in mythology, read "Violence and the Sacred." If you like Shakespeare, read "Theater of Envy." If you know the Bible, read "I See Satan Fall Like Lightning." If you want a view of his whole career over time, look at "The Girard Reader." And if you want to immerse yourself in all his ideas at once, stick with "Things Hidden."

SEE ALSO: Billionaire Peter Thiel Explains Why He Would Tell His Younger Self To Be Less Competitive

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The New Billionaire Yacht Craze Is A Full-Size IMAX Movie Screen

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IMAXyacht1

The mystery owner of the world's new largest sailing superyacht will also have the first IMAX Private Theater at sea.

The ambitious project is part of a collaboration between legendary superyacht designer Ken Freivokh and yacht communications purveyor Yacht Intelligence. The theater is in lowest part of the ship, charmingly called the Nemo Room. 

Everything has been considered down to the most minute detail, from the shape of the room to the position of the furniture for a truly authentic IMAX experience. Nothing about the Nemo Room is your typical superyacht screening room.

The trademark IMAX dual 4k projection screen isn't just for Hollywood movies, either. It will also use the ship's live underwater CCTV footage to spy on the sea critters underneath and around the 492-foot yacht, projecting it onto the big screen.

IMAXyacht2Building the room wasn't an easy feat, either. The complicated IMAX system uses calibration sensors and equipment that were quite difficult to fit into the oddly shaped ship's hull, but perhaps the most difficult obstacle to overcome was getting the IMAX corporation to work within the ship's relatively tiny space.

"With IMAX’s strict parameters and incredibly specific technological requirements, our first challenge was to persuade them to take us seriously, and prove that it would be possible to create a truly unique private theater on a superyacht,”Alan Bernardi, founder of Yacht Intelligence, told Forbes.

Another complication was figuring out how to download the huge IMAX files over a satellite Internet connection. 

IMAXYacht3"We’ve always been a company that likes a challenge and to push the boundaries of what’s ‘possible,'" Bernardi said to Forbes. "That’s what we are doing again here and I firmly believe that our work will change the way people look at AV on superyachts in the future.”

No word yet on when the superyacht will be finished or who the mystery owner will be, but the project is sure to look incredible.

SEE ALSO: The 22 Biggest Yachts In The Seas

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A House Designed By Bill Gates' Architect Is On The Market For $6.5 Million

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peter bohlin house

A glassy four-bedroom home in Sacramento, California has hit the market for $6.5 million, Curbed reports.

The home was designed by renowned architect Peter Bohlin, who worked on Apple's iconic glass cube store in New York City, as well as Bill Gates' massive $123 million mansion.

This home may not be as iconic as those buildings, but it'll be the most expensive home ever sold in Sacramento County if it goes for asking price.

Fans of Gates and Apple store architecture may recognize some features in this house. 

The house is located in Sacramento, California. The timber-and-glass design is reminiscent of Bill Gates' Seattle area home.



Rooms are situated over three floors.



The living room is fairly open.



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30 Bizarre Vending Machines From Around The World

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weird vending

If you think vending machines are only stocked with chips, candy, and soda, think again.

These days, vending machines distribute all sorts of goods from cupcakes to crabs, burritos to caviar, and sneakers to cigars.

We rounded up some of the most unique vending machines we could find from all over the world. 

In cities like New York City, Los Angeles, and Dallas, you can walk up to a 24-hour sidewalk cupcake-dispensing machine and purchase a delicious cupcake, like this chocolate marshmallow one below, with your credit card.



Don't like cupcakes? In China, live hairy crabs can be purchased from a vending machine at a main subway station in Nanjing. It's the first live crab vending machine in China (surprising, we know) and sells an average of 200 live crabs daily.



In Taiwan, customers can buy medical face masks from vending machines. These were especially popular during the bird flu outbreak.



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Here's What Happened When A Bunch Of Desperate Filipino Families Were Forced To Move Into A Jail

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philippines jail

When Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines last year, it destroyed more than 1 million homes and caused $14 billion of economic damage. This was especially hard for a country where more than a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line.

On Leyte Island, where some of the worst damage occured, many families ended up moving into the local jail after their homes were destroyed. The jail, which had been almost swept away, too, became an unlikely community in the time of desperation.

After hearing about the jail from journalist John Jevallana, photographer Lawrence Sumulong visited last year.

“The situation at the jail is a microcosm of the overall humanitarian crisis in the Philippines,” explained Sumulong. “There is the disaster situation and the poverty and the surreal way that the Filipino people adapt to those conditions. In many ways, the prison is almost like any other Filipino community.”

This is the Leyte Provincial Jail. It houses long-term prisoners and those awaiting trial. It was almost completely destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan. The sign in the hills was built by inmates to welcome visitors.



After Typhoon Haiyan hit, prison officials allowed many inmates to leave the prison to check on their families. Many found their families OK but their houses destroyed.



Prisoners were allowed them to move their families with them into the jail.



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What Mark Zuckerberg Looks Like All Dressed Up (FB)

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Mark Zuckerberg is famous for something other than Facebook: his wardrobe. More specifically his love of hoodies and gray T-shirts.

On Thursday, during a public Q&A, someone asked him why he always wears the same gray T-shirt. In truth, he doesn't. He's got a few that all look the same and he always wears them just to have one less "frivolous" decision to make every day — what to wear — he says.

So it's a rare event to see him all dressed up, much less in a suit. But on Sunday, flanked by actor Benedict Cumberbatch, Zuck was on hand to present the awards for the the Breakthrough Prize, an annual $33 million jackpot awarded to a dozen top scientists, sponsored by Facebook.

Besides Cumberbatch, the two other men in the photo are two of the math prize winners, Simon Donaldson and Maxim Kontsevich, Zuck said in his Facebook post about the event.

The awards ceremony is supposed to associate STEM vocations with glamour like a Hollywood ball. So it was a black-tie affair. Zuck didn't go quite that far. He's wearing a straight tie. But that is definitely a suit.

Breakthrough Prize awards

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This Couple Sold Everything To Take A Dream Trip Around The World

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Berlin Chris and Danika Park

In October 2013, the Garlottas were out to drinks in San Francisco when Chris turned to Danika and said: "Let's take a sabbatical."

Three cocktails later, Danika remembers, the couple had decided to quit their jobs to travel abroad for six months. "Chris can pretty much get me to say anything when he bribes me with good food and cocktails!" she said laughing.

From there, it was a whirlwind. The plan was originally to spend one year getting things in order, then spend about six months traveling, but as the pair started listing places they wanted to visit, they realized they'd need more time to travel — say, a year. Then, Chris found a cheap $300 airfare to Rome that offered only one departure day in March, so they moved up their schedule by six months.

While Chris had traveled extensively before settling down in San Francisco, Danika's travel was mostly limited to a yearly trip to Mexico. Chris, who worked for tech companies doing graphic design and website development, and Danika, who was the head of marketing for a group of boutique hotels, felt their desire to experience new cultures and see new things was sorely limited by their work schedule.

"It's always difficult to get away from work," Chris explains. "We liked to do frequent trips, so we would do two one-week trips a year. But then we started to realize that at two weeks a year, we would never see all the places we wanted to go."

The Garlottas are now nearly a year into their trip, with no immediate plans to return to the States.

Here, they've shared some of the photos from their Instagram and website, as well as answers to our burning questions: How do they make it work? Which credit cards and bank accounts work best for long-term travelers? What advice do they have for others? And, most importantly, how do they afford it?

They sold everything and rented their home.

Before leaving San Francisco, the Garlottas sold all of their furniture and most of their possessions.

"We didn't sell our stuff so much to raise money for the trip as to not have the expense of keeping it any longer," Chris says. "When we realized we were going to be gone for a while, and weren't sure where we'd end up, why pay every month to keep stuff in storage and then realize later that we don't want it anymore?"

The money from selling their possessions went in the bank to finance furnishing a home at the end of their adventure, if needed.



They've continued earning as they travel.

The Garlottas didn't make any extra effort to save for their trip, because they've both continued freelancing abroad: Chris for tech companies, and Danika for social media and online marketing clients.

Chris says that the logistics aren't that different from working stateside, where he mostly dealt with clients through emails and calls. "Most of the time I never met or saw clients. The fact that I'm sitting here in Berlin dealing with a client is exactly the same as being down the street. A lot of the people I work with have been clients for years, and they're aware that we're traveling. They don't see a difference, but we feel it."



They changed their work schedule to fit their travel schedule.

The Garlottas have banished the 9-5 workday.

"We found that we work more efficiently because we don't want to sit around and stare at the internet," Danika says. "We get it done, and then we can spend the day going out and exploring."



See the rest of the story at Business Insider






Watch This Disturbing Video Showing Harvard Students Trying To Pass Louisiana's 1964 Literacy Test

9 Books Michael Lewis Thinks Everyone Should Read

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Michael Lewis

To get a picture of what a great writer Michael Lewis is, consider this.

"Outliers" and "David and Goliath" author Malcolm Gladwell says that Lewis is his literary "hero" and "the finest storyteller of our generation." 

Gladwell maintains that Lewis' football book "The Blind Side" is as "close to perfect" as any work of nonfiction can aspire to be.

So it's no surprise that his books "Moneyball," "Flash Boys," and "The Big Short" have all become bestsellers.

From where does Lewis — whose pen can shake Wall Street— draw inspiration?

Here's what we found after digging into a decade's worth of interviews with him.

'Charlotte's Web' by E. B. White

The last book that made Lewis cry? 

"Charlotte's Web," he said

We can see why: E. B. White's barnyard parable has a way of tugging on your heartstrings. 

Wilbur, the main character and a pig, might be one of the finest antiheroes in literary history. 

Fair warning for when you read it the first time: You may wish to pick up a tissue.

Buy it here >>



'Reminiscences of a Stock Operator' by Edwin Lefèvre

Lewis wrote an incredible finance tell-all with "Liar's Poker." 

He was following in the tradition of "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator," a book that follows the life of Jesse Livermore, a specular who bet against the US stock market before the great 1929 crash. 

"That something first published in 1923 remains so relevant and readable tells you how little Wall Street has changed in the last century," Lewis said. "(By contrast, it's hard to imagine a book from even 30 years earlier feeling so fresh.) It's crammed with truth about market life: 'Nobody can make big money on what someone else tells him to do.'"

Buy it here >>



'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' by Mark Twain

The first time Lewis was supposed to read "Huckleberry Finn," he shirked the responsibility.

"I remember being made to read it in middle school and so opting for the CliffsNotes instead," he told the Daily Beast. "I picked it up more or less voluntarily in college and could not believe how much better it was than the CliffsNotes. The rendering of the various dialects is one of those remarkable literary feats that writers not named Tom Wolfe should avoid attempting at home."  

Buy it here >> 



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It's Hardly A Surprise Who Paid $101 Million For This 'Chariot'

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9219 Lot 25 Giacometti, Chariot

Hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen is the man who paid $101 million for Alberto Giacometti's "Chariot" scultpure at Sotheby's last week, the NYT's Carol Vogel reports. 

This is hardly a surprise: Cohen is well-known for paying nine figures for coveted pieces of art for his collection. Cohen bought Picasso's "La Rêve" from casino magnate Steve Wynn in a private sale (later confirmed by his art adviser, Sandy Heller) back in 2012 for $155 million. He's one of the only collectors to rival the Al-Thani family of Qatar in the super-high-priced art space.

But while this latest big purchase ranks among the highest prices ever paid (publicly) for a work of art, it actually seems like Cohen got a deal on it.

Sotheby's estimate (which was only given out on request) was "in excess of $100 million." While the final sale price ticked up beyond that, estimates are of the hammer price, which is the amount that gets called out in the sale room and is the final price less the auction house's fee. In this case, bidding never went over $90 million, largely because there was only one bidder beyond the guarantor (who promises the auction house to buy the work if bidding doesn't reach a certain price).

Further, Sotheby's was really looking for a new record for Giacometti sculpture, something above the $104.3 million that Lily Safra paid for a different work in 2010. 

Thus, in the end, the sale was a disappointment, and a relatively good $100 million deal for Cohen.

SEE ALSO: This Is What Makes A Sculpture Worth $100 Million

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The World's Biggest Corn Maze Is So Hard That People Are Calling 911 From Inside

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corn maze

The world's largest corn maze is so hard to complete that people have started calling 911 for help getting out. 

CBS Sacramento reports that emergency calls from inside the 63-acre corn maze at Cool Patch Pumpkins in Dixon, California, "can bog down dispatchers" they are so frequent.

corn maze mapThe maze was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records back in 2007 as the world's largest corn maze.

This year's 60-acre layout is, according to the website, 50% larger than the record-setting maze.

There aren't many images of the maze available. But a small photo of what appears to be this year's map on the website makes it look pretty complicated.

 
This corn maze isn't the only one that has inspired panicked calls to 911. Modern Farmer found a few more.

In 2011, a 911 call from a maze in Danvers, Massachusetts, was recorded and posted by the local CBS affiliate (CBS has the lock on the corn maze panic beat, apparently). 

“We thought this would be fun. Instead, it’s a nightmare,” the callers told the dispatcher.

SEE ALSO: This Is The No.1 Economic Trend To Watch Going Into 2015

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