Who are the most eligible bachelors and bachelorettes in New York City?
Hinge, the dating app that introduces you to friends of friends, thinks it knows.
Hinge shows users the profiles of single people close by. You can swipe right if you like someone's profile or swipe left if you aren't interested. You'll see only friends of friends and third-degree connections on the app, which adds social credibility to every person with whom you're matched.
Founded in 2011, Hinge made a huge comeback and rebranded as a mobile app in February 2013. Its number of active users has grown by five times over the past year.
Hinge has made more than 8 million matches, up from 1 million in March of last year, and the service has expanded to 29 cities. It is most popular in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C.
"Hinge cuts through the randomness of Tinder,” one daily user told The New York Times in March. "I can take some comfort that she knows some of the same people I do." In December, Hinge raised $12 million from venture capitalists, bringing its total amount raised to over $20 million.
Hinge picked the top 30 men and women in NYC on its app by considering two factors: high "swipe right rates" on their profiles (profile details like appearance, workplace, and education are all taken into account) and influence, or how socially connected they are.
30. Teddy MacKenzie
Work: Underwriter at ACE
Education: University of Denver, Bucknell University
Influence: 504 friends on Hinge
Worst pre-Hinge date: "Taking a girl to a sushi restaurant but completely forgetting I'd lost my wallet the night before. She had to pay, and it was a pretty hefty bill. Not my best moment."
29. Amanda Usher
Work: Teacher, 12th Grade British Literature
Education: Columbia University
Influence: 417 friends on Hinge
Worst pre-Hinge date story: "Don't do brunch if you had an engagement the eve before. You may not be as good on your toes and forget that dates are like an interview. This particular interviewer met me in the Lower East Side, and midway through his eggs Benedict he said, 'You know we’ve met before?' I immediately blushed and wished I'd ordered a mimosa over iced coffee … definitely did not remember him."
Instacart, a startup that delivers groceries on demand, has raised $220 million at a nearly $2 billion valuation in a Series C round led by Kleiner Perkins.
Instacart hires shoppers to buy groceries at local stores and then deliver them to customers within a few hours. Unlike competitors such as Fresh Direct, which keep their own inventories, Instacart relies on grocery stores to fulfill orders.
I decided to try out Instacart to see if it lives up to the hype.
To get started, first enter your ZIP code to see if Instacart delivers in your area. The entry page boasts that it will deliver your groceries in an hour.
You then get to choose the grocery store you want to order from.
After I chose Fairway as my store, the app showed me what food items I could buy.
The Hollywood awards season has officially begun — and with it, the often entertaining acceptance speeches. But even when winners go up to the podium alone, their speeches reflect that they didn't win that award by themselves.
As it turns out, the people whom Best Actor/Actress and Best Supporting Actor/Actress winners thank in acceptance speeches has evolved drastically over the years. A decade ago, winners thanked an average of 11 people in their speeches. Today, that average has risen to 15. Fellow nominees are thanked twice as often now as they were 10 years ago — in fact, a surprising 99% of 2014 awards winners began their speeches by crediting their fellow nominees — while parents were less likely to have a starring role.
HSBC Bank USA, N.A., reviewed 20 years of acceptance speeches from Best Actor/Actress and Best Supporting Actor/Actress television and motion picture winners as part of its #TogetherWeAdvance campaign, highlighting the importance of support networks to personal success.
The research showed that successful actors' personal and professional networks are larger and more diverse than ever before. Friends play a more prominent role in actors' lives these days: One in four winners thanks his or her friends, and 54% of winners thank their significant others. The practice of thanking cast and crew rose 21% over the past decade.
Personal ambitions are rarely achieved alone, and celebrities are no different than the rest of us. Like us, they increasingly rely on a cast of friends, family, coaches, and colleagues to inspire them to aim higher.
Check out more surprising facts on the evolution of actors' awards show acceptance speeches in the infographic below. And let HSBC help you thank your own supporting cast by creating a personal video to share at www.hsbcadvance.com/together.
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In our recent ranking of the Most Elite Boarding Schools in America, we considered the school's endowment, acceptance rate, and average standardized testing scores.
Phillips Exeter Academy, a 1,200-student-strong high school located in the sleepy town of Exeter, New Hampshire, rocketed to the top of the list.
When Dr. John Phillips, a graduate of Harvard and resident of Exeter, opened the Academy in 1781, he set out to teach young men "the great and real business of living." More than two centuries later, the now co-ed school prides itself on the strength of its network, its commitment to spreading kindness, and on its use of the Harkness Method, a unique teaching model that schools around the world strive to imitate.
Many millionaires and a handful of billionaires are products of the Exeter community and have helped grow the school's endowment to $1.2 billion. The fund supports many students' tuition, which otherwise costs $46,905 a year for boarding students.
Last fall, I spent the day as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy to see why it's the best.
Phillips Exeter Academy, recently named the most elite boarding school in America, has a reputation as a "feeder school" — a school that sends a high number of students to Ivy League universities. As I drove to the quiet town of Exeter, New Hampshire, I expected to hate it.
Before arriving on campus, I imagined the quintessential boarding school stereotype — Vineyard Vines-wearing, silver spoon-fed teenagers crumbling under academic pressure, bragging about their college acceptances, and sneaking off into the woods to get high.
But I spent the day as a student in "the bubble," as students call the Exeter community, and it was nothing like I expected. I never wanted to leave.
Stora Rulligen, a private island in Sweden, is on the market for $7.1 million, listed with Valdi Private Islands.
The island was originally designed for and owned by Tiger Woods and his ex-wife Elin Nordegren. But the couple never moved in, and sold it to a Swedish millionaire, the current owner, when they split up.
It boasts a private harbor, a rocky shoreline, several acres of untouched woods, a hunting lodge, a large, open yard, and six golf tees.
The island from above.
The private harbor has a docking area. The property also has a private landing strip.
Sebastián Siseles plans to work from five countries in the first quarter of 2015.
As the Latin America regional director for Freelancer.com, Siseles expects to travel to Canada, Australia, Spain, the UK, and his home country of Argentina.
"Many people think that traveling and working is just fun," he says. "They imagine you go to a place and rest, drink some martinis or margaritas, and/or work in PJs from your hotel or Airbnb place. It's not really like that."
He calls traveling while working "amazing but tough. The personal belongings and comforts that someone has at their office — a printer, WiFi, assistants, your own place — are not available when traveling."
Eight years ago, Siseles started traveling regularly as part of his job as a lawyer. He continued to do so as the interim chief operating officer of a Patagonian vineyard, then the cofounder of a tech company, and now with Freelancer.com.
After years on the road, he shared some of the recurring, unexpected costs and considerations of earning a living remotely:
The cost of avoiding extra fees
While Siseles clarifies that his lodging and food is generally covered by his employer, he makes a point not to spend company money that he wouldn't spend if it were his own. That said, he finds planning his costs out ahead of time to be critical in order to avoid spending more money than he has — quite literally, in cases where he has limited amounts of foreign currency.
"In my country we are suffering certain currency restrictions with limitations to buy foreign currency, and some extra tax when purchasing abroad," he says. "Therefore, planning is a must in my case in order not to run out of money and/or limits with my credit cards."
"I necessarily plan very precisely all my costs and expenses when traveling, both those to be approved by my company and also for my personal expenses, setting up either daily/weekly limits in order not to run out of cash," he continues. "You don't want to be in the middle of a strange city — fabulous or not — and miss awesome things to see and visit, or be stuck in a place you are willing to leave ASAP."
The cost of experiencing new places
Business travel can be a blur of hotel rooms and meetings, so Siseles shells out the nonreimbursable cash to spend some time exploring wherever he happens to be.
He says wandering the area and visiting the restaurants that serve the best local cuisine are his must-dos.
"Also, if I have time, I go to museums and therefore get to know the places and culture through their food, their history, and their architecture," he adds. "It's a routine I have followed since starting to travel for work abroad, and I will continue to do so. All of these activities are paid by me and, believe me, it's a huge extra cost. However, I like to call them investments."
The (time) cost of commuting
If time is money, Siseles says, expect travel to be very expensive. "Going to the airports — every day more and more hours in advance between things like traffic and security checkpoints — is not only getting dramatically harder," he explains, "but also in trips with even two- or three-hour flights, you end up wasting all day, and then you need to work."
Siseles minimizes this cost by consolidating his workflow into just two easily portable devices that let him work en route: his smartphone and laptop (he uses a MacBook Air and says that for traveling, "a light computer is a must"). "For applications, Skype, Dropbox, Google Drive, and many other tools offered by Google, like talk and Gmail," he adds. "I'm also a heavy user of Microsoft Office tools, mainly Excel, Word, and PowerPoint."
Despite the costs, Siseles wouldn't trade his lifestyle for one limited to a single city. For people who want to work like he does, he advises, "Don't wait. Life is too short and the world is too big to be only in one place. But be aware of the pros and cons: Be responsible, work hard (and then if you have time, party hard!), be proactive, and always, always, deliver."
Winter break is over, and students are heading back to school for their second semesters.
And for the most famous students, a new semester brings more than just schoolwork as they balance Olympic training, political careers, and TV show filming.
Here's what celebrities and famous offspring are up to this semester, both inside the classroom and out.
Melia Robinson, Melissa Stanger, and Sara Bower contributed to this article.
Alexander Ludwig is a member of one of USC's most sought-after fraternities.
Canadian actor Alexander Ludwig played the ruthless District 2 tribute Cato in the first "Hunger Games" movie — he's the one who fights Peeta and Katniss on top of the cornucopia in the final fight scene.
Angus T. Jones left "Two and a Half Men" to pursue religion and his education at UC Boulder.
After starring on hit sitcom "Two and a Half Men" for 10 seasons — as the highest paid child actor at the time no less, making $350,000 an episode — Angus T. Jones left the show in order to fully dedicate himself to Christianity.
Now a sophomore at the University of Colorado at Boulder, he also tours the country speaking at churches.
Chiara de Blasio still keeps up with her father's career in New York — even from school in California at Santa Clara University.
The Santa Clara University senior and floral-headband-wearing hipster made headlines of her own with a powerfully candid video about her struggles with depression and history of drug and alcohol abuse.
Although the college quad first became associated with academia on the campuses of Oxford and Cambridge, most of America's great universities now feature a central space surrounded by residence halls and classrooms.
Many of these collegiate spaces appear on the US National Register of Historic Places and are considered among the most iconic examples of American architecture and design.
We've compiled a list of some of the most beautiful and iconic examples of American campus quads:
Harvard University — Harvard Yard
Harvard Yard is the oldest part of Harvard's campus, and the buildings surrounding it include freshman residence halls and some of the school's main libraries.
University of Alabama — The Quad
The Quad at the center of UA's campus once hosted football games, but now might be best known as the home of Denny Chimes, a 115-foot tower.
Cornell University — Arts Quad
Cornell's Arts Quad is the academic home of the Arts and Sciences college, and is watched over by two statues of the university's founders, Ezra Cornell and A.D. White.
University of Virginia — The Lawn
The Lawn at UVA was designed by school founder Thomas Jefferson, and the Rotunda at the north-end of the quad was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome.
University of Missouri — Francis Quadrangle
Mizzou's Francis Quadrangle — known on campus as The Quad — features two of the school's most recognizable structures, Jesse Hall and The Columns.
Yale University — Branford Courtyard
The courtyard of Yale's Branford residential college is considered by many — including, reportedly, poet Robert Frost — to be one of the most beautiful spaces of any college in America.
University of Washington — The Quad
The UW Quad is known for the scenic cherry trees that bloom in the springtime, bringing a beautiful light pink overtone to campus.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Killian Court
The center of MIT's Killian Court is the Great Dome, which is surrounded by marble buildings engraved with the names of prominent thinkers and philosophers.
University of Pennsylvania — The Quad
The UPenn Quad hosts the majority of freshman residence halls and is the most desirable place to live your first year on campus.
University of Maryland — McKeldin Mall
UMD's McKeldin Mall is flanked on either end by the school's main library and a statue of its mascot — Testudo — a diamondback terrapin turtle.
Stanford University — Main Quad
The Main Quad is home to the Stanford Memorial Church, considered to be the earliest nondenominational church on the West Coast.
University of Wisconsin–Madison — Bascom Hill
Bascom Hill is actually a drumlin — literally a "small hill" — that was likely formed by a glacier 20,000 years ago.
University of Michigan — The Diag
The Diag — known for the diagonal walkways that cut through the square — is a central meeting place at UMich.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign — Main Quad
The UIUC Main Quad houses Foellinger Auditorium, a concert space and lecture hall that can seat over 1,500 students.
University of Texas at Austin — South Lawn
High above the UT South Lawn stands The Tower, a 30-floor structure that is one of the most recognizable buildings on campus.
Southern Methodist University — Main Quad
A hundred years old this year, SMU's Dallas Hall is named in recognition to the city that houses the university and is modeled on UVA's Georgian-inspired architecture.
The gorgeous Fifth Avenue mansion that Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich almost bought for $75 million is now available to rent for $80,000 a month, according to Curbed New York.
Now the triplex is back, this time for almost half the rent. Curbed reports that the owner, heiress Angelika Ivanc, is spending time out of town with her children and is hoping to find a suitable tenant.
More than a year ago, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich was in contract to purchase three of the five apartments in the building at 828 Fifth Avenue from the family of late British real estate developer Howard Ronson, which included the penthouse, a triplex, and a duplex apartment.
The deal fell through after the seller — Ronson's widow, Ivanc — reportedly held out because she thought she could get more money from the Russian mogul.
Abramovich had reportedly bought another apartment in the building, and was trying to purchase the final unit so he could restore the mansion to its former glory. Now it looks like that dream may never happen.
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This PSA, "Too Late," created by Deutsch NY for Champions Against Bullying, depicts teenagers reading messages from the actual social-media pages of teens who were bullied.
Champions Against Bullying, one of the oldest international nonprofits, is passionate about creating a society in which "every child has the opportunity to develop, learn and thrive in an environment without fear," to not only raise awareness, but to do something about bullying.
The organization provides proven prevention strategies, intervention know-how, and immediate practical solutions that address issues unique to bullies and their targets and to bystanders. Established in 2004, CAB brings workshops, programs, and award-winning resources for kids from preschool to high school, as well as for parents, educators, associations, and corporations across North America.
Alexandra Penn, Founder, Crisis Intervention Specialist
And now Redzepi and his acclaimed food have arrived in Tokyo.
From January 9 until February 14, the famous chef and his entire 50-staff team will be serving guests at Tokyo’s Mandarin Oriental.
The pop-up Noma restaurant seats just 56 people for lunch and dinner with each meal spanning 20-courses with local ingredients and fresh produce, per Redzepi's signature style.
Reservations for the experience had to be made all the way back in June of 2014. Lunch costs ¥39,000 or about $381 without tip. The dinner package includes a one-night stay for two people at the Madarin Oriental and costs ¥149,500, or about $1,462 before service charge, according to the Mandarin Oriental.
The Guardian reported that more than 60,000 people applied for a chance to dine at the event with only a small percentage making the cut.
One of the lucky diners was Ivan Orkin, the New York chef behind Ivan Ramen. He documented his amazing lunch on his Instagram @ramenjunkie and gave Business Insider permission to run his photos. Keep reading to see the incredible menu at Noma Tokyo.
“And so it begins! Fuji in the background is an excellent omen!”
The first course was a freshly-killed langoustine topped with ants. Orkin described it as "still moving [and] super fresh [with] acidic notes from the ants.”
Next were under-ripe strawberries, a signature of Redzepi. They were topped by what appear to be thin slices of cheese and sea salt to balance out the acidity. Orkin called this dish “Awesome!”
Next came "Shaved ankimo toast." Ankimo is a delicacy in Japan made with monkfish liver rubbed with salt and rinsed with sake. Instead of serving it traditionally, Redzepi shaved it into tiny pieces and put on toast.
This next dish was scallops, but it appeared to be prepared in some unknown way. Commenters suggested it was freeze-dried or magic, but Orkin simply says, "Can't explain, just delicious.”
“Fermented black garlic leather. Grown up candy.” Black garlic is a kind of caramelized garlic delicacy that tastes sweet or syrupy with a hint of balsamic vinegar. It's made by roasting a whole head of garlic for weeks at a time.
Orkin says the meal was definitely worthwhile. “Probably didn't describe everything correctly," he wrote on Instagram. "Great meal, fabulous experience, and only first day! Hats off.”
Photographer William Karl Valentine grew up visiting the Pasadena Police Department, where his father was a reserve police officer. When Valentine enrolled at Arizona State University to study photography, he decided that his first project would be a documentation of the police department.
Over the course of four years at ASU, Valentine logged over 1,000 hours shadowing officers in the department, photographing every major operation and event that he was there to witness. What has resulted is a fantastic time capsule of what it was like to be police officer in an LA suburb when the Drug War was on full blast.
At the time Valentine began his photo project in 1984, Pasadena was extremely dangerous. Valentine was given the chance to document officers like Officer Bill Walton, seen here, because he was well-known around the department due to his father.
Growing up, Valentine would visit the station while his father did paperwork. This is a view of the "report writing room," where much of that paperwork was done.
Valentine continued the project any time he went home for holiday breaks. During the summers, he worked as a reserve officer in the department’s photo lab. This helped him gain trust with the officers, who gave him “almost unlimited access” to the department, he says.
Several months ago I shot up in bed and starting screaming. A mild leg cramp had made its way into a bad dream that started to evaporate even as I yelled, "Ahhh, ahh, ahh!"
My alarmed girlfriend also popped up next to me in bed. "Leg cramp," I said, sheepish and confused, with my heart racing. The next day, I finally made an appointment with the NYU Sleep Disorders Center. Much later, I would get a diagnosis from a sleep doctor that I didn't expect.
A Bad Sleeper
I'm an anxious person. I've also always had the impression I'm not getting as restful a night's sleep as everybody else, which makes me more anxious. My mind races and I have crazy, vivid dreams. Often, I wake up in the middle of the night and move from the bed to the couch. Even after nine hours of sleep, I wake up tired and have to fight off the urge to crash the next night by 9 p.m.
My girlfriend, who's a doctor, quickly noticed my sleep troubles and had theories about what might be ailing me. Recently, we were sitting around with her friends playing the board game Taboo in the early evening when I crashed hard on a comfy chair and started to snooze during the rowdy game. Her friends admired my ability to sleep. She thought I had a sleep disorder.
In fact, my girlfriend had been urging me to see a sleep specialist for months. She's a psychiatrist, not a sleep specialist, so she couldn't diagnose me — even if it were a good idea to treat your significant other. However, my girlfriend has noted several odd things about my sleep patterns. For example, I often fall asleep on the subway and feel like I start having my crazy dreams right away.
She speculated that I might go directly into the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stage of sleep, when most dreams occur.
When you first go to sleep, you're supposed to enter non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) before entering REM. My girlfriend thought perhaps I was skipping NREM, a symptom of sleep disorders including narcolepsy.
The night I woke up screaming, I hadn't been asleep for very long, so I thought maybe my girlfriend was onto something. Maybe I was immediately drifting off into REM sleep. Of course, I would need to see a professional.
The Doctor Orders An Overnight Sleep Test
When I told my primary-care doctor about my sleep troubles, he immediately referred me to NYU's Sleep Center. I went there for an initial screening and answered a very long questionnaire about my sleep habits and how easily I could nap. (Very easily, I said.)
Then I met with a doctor, who listened to my story about the screaming and my vivid dreams and my urge to nap. She told me I had some of the symptoms of narcolepsy and that I would have to spend the night in the lab to rule that out. (Narcolepsy makes you sleep poorly during the night and fall asleep during the day.)
The prospect of spending the day napping sounded delightful, even if I would be hooked up to recording devices — until the doctor told me coffee wasn't allowed. She suggested I bring ibuprofen and something to do the next day when I wasn't napping. I was psyched about getting to the bottom of my sleep troubles and terrified of going a day without coffee.
A 32-Hour Sleep Fest
The doctor told me to arrive for the sleep study at 9 p.m., where I would meet a tech who would conduct the study. The night of the study, I walked 16 blocks from my East Village apartment to Bellevue, America's oldest public hospital and home of the NYU Sleep Center. It was drizzling out, and I felt nervous trudging along in the dark with the bag I packed for the night.
I arrived 10 minutes early and waited outside the sleep center, which included several "bedrooms" for patients, doctors' offices, and signs telling people to keep quiet.
A man who smelled heavily of cologne and looked like he was in his early 40s approached me.
"Here to sleep?" he asked, with a smile. "I'll be taking care of you tonight."
The tech showed me to my bedroom, which looked like a regular hospital room. He left me to change into my pajamas. I awkwardly left my bedroom and sat on a chair outside so the tech could hook me up to various monitors. Wires were connected to my head, arms, legs, and chest, and I wore a huge monitor around my neck.
The tech and I chatted as soft rock played in the background. He told me the most common sleep problem was sleep apnea and that some patients had no problems at all. After he finished hooking me up, he brought me back to my room so he could take care of the other patient there that night.
"Be good to my wires," he said, still smiling.
It was well after 9 p.m., and I desperately wanted to snooze. But I had to wait for the tech to come back a little after 10 p.m. to hook me up to a few more wires and connect some of them to a monitor next to the bed. I couldn't move, so the tech had to cover me with two blankets, which made me feel like a small child being tucked in.
He closed the door and left the pitch-black room. Then his voice came into the room over an intercom, asking me to look up at the ceiling, look left and right, up and down, grind my teeth, and say "hello." I assumed he was testing the equipment.
My sleep felt crappy. I drifted off quickly and then woke up. It was one of those restless nights when I would have felt antsy and gone to the couch, only this time I was hooked up to the thing next to the bed. I eventually slept. The next morning around 7 a.m., the tech arrived to wake me up. By 7:45 a.m. I desperately wanted coffee or a nap, but I had to wait until 9 a.m. before I could sleep again.
A new tech had come for the daytime portion of my sleep study. The new tech asked me to sit on the bed so he could connect my wires, and then he asked me to lie down. "Try to sleep," he said, before turning off the light. After I slept for 20 minutes, he flipped on the light. He asked me how long I slept and whether I dreamed.
This happened five times, with roughly 90 minutes between snoozes.
After a couple of naps, I yawned when the new tech arrived like a dog that salivates at the sound of a bell. Between naps I slouched in a chair in my room, listening to the radio and making half-hearted attempts at doing work. Several times, I went to the bathroom, trying not to make eye contact with doctors and techs in the office. My hair looked funny, and I felt like a dazed lab rat.
My last nap ended by about 5:30 p.m., and the day tech told me, "They'll call you and tell you what's what."
I left the hospital, swigged a Diet Coke, and went to spend the evening with a 101-year-old relative in Queens. I couldn't begin to explain to her what I'd just been through.
A Diagnosis I Didn't Expect
More than a week later, the doctor called and told me my results were somewhat inconclusive. The original test indicated my breathing might have been interrupted at night, and she wanted me to wear a wrist monitor for several nights to test my oxygen. It was possible I had mild sleep apnea.
I obliged and got my diagnosis several weeks later. The wrist test ruled out sleep apnea, and in fact, the original sleep test showed that I actually slept 463 minutes even though I felt restless all night. I went into REM sleep in 100 minutes, which is a totally normal amount of time, the doctor told me. I also cycled in and out of REM sleep in a normal fashion. My sleep felt crappy to me but looked completely normal to the doctor.
Despite getting nearly eight hours of actual sleep, I fell asleep quickly for all five of my naps, averaging 11 minutes before I went into nap mode and as fast as seven minutes before I passed out for one of my naps. Still, I never entered REM sleep during my naps. My ability to snooze so frequently without going into REM supported a diagnosis of idiopathic hypersomnia, according to the doctor, which meant I'm very sleepy and the doctors aren't sure why. (If I had gone into REM, that would have supported a diagnosis of narcolepsy.)
The doctor went on to tell me that my crazy, excessive dreams — the main reason I went into the doctor — were likely a side effect of the anti-anxiety drug I take, Lexapro.
People who have hypersomnia are sleepy during the day no matter how much sleep they get. I suppose that's true for me. I could definitely take a nap at any time and want to crash right after work. But I'm also productive. I exercise every morning and go to work every day, and I often socialize with friends at night. They make fun of me for yawning by 9 or 9:30 p.m., but they're never surprised when it happens.
My doctor said I could do nothing and accept my hypersomnia as part of who I am. I could also "medicate" myself with coffee (which I do already!) or go a step further and take a stimulant called Nuvigil.
I'm wary of taking a drug that could make me more anxious than I already am (which it can), but I also love the idea of instant wakefulness.
When I visited the doctor to ask more about Nuvigil she brought up one other possible diagnosis for my sleep problem.
I could be a "long sleeper." That is, I could just be a person who needs up to 11 hours of sleep to feel rested.
It's hard to determine whether I'm a hypersomniac or just a long sleeper, though. Like most New Yorkers with a social life and a job, I don't have the time to sleep a dozen hours to see whether it does the trick and makes me less sleepy. The doctor acknowledged that between work and life, it's probably not realistic to spend nearly half the day sleeping.
She gave me a prescription for Nuvigil. I'll probably give it a try. The world might look completely different when I'm not sleepy.
OmSignal's new smart shirt combines sensors in a fabric with a transmission device in the garment to provide users with instant feedback from a host of health sensors. All of the data captured by the OmSignals shirt is viewable in realtime on your smartphone.
OmSignal says their Up and Running kit, which includes a shirt, USB and data module costs $249.
Produced by Devan Joseph. Video courtesy of Associated Press.
Featured here are 19 of the 23 buildings and designs from the architecture and interior architecture catagories, chosen by a jury of the nation's top architects.
The original Cambridge Public Library is a Romanesque masterpiece designed in 1889, but its size wasn't adequate for its 2,000 daily visitors. The solution was a beautiful new 76,000-square-foot glass building seamless attached to the original structure, creating a huge, open, and inviting space open to all. (William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc.)
The Beats By Dre headquarters in Culver City, California was designed especially to be warm and inviting, as well as facilitate contact between the 650 employee's different departments. Skylights, bright and airy spaces, warm woods, and walls panted blue and red help accomplish this goal. (Bestor Architecture)
The Danish National Maritime Museum was housed in the the Kronberg Castle in Elsinore (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), but was evicted so the interior could be renovated. It moved into a dry dock next door, forming a multi-tiered design with gentle sloping paths. (BIG | Bjarke Ingels Group)
At 88 and in failing health, Fidel Castro has been the subject of numerous death rumors of late.
Rumblings on social media last week suggested, once again, that the former Cuban dictator had died, but they were debunked again. The actual dead man is Fidel Castro Odinga– a Kenyan opposition leader from Nairobi.
Whether or not you agreed with Fidel Castro's politics, he had an impressive rise to power. Castro was responsible for establishing the first Communist state in the western hemisphere, beginning what would become a nearly five-decade reign as leader of Cuba, less than 500 miles from US shores.
Castro was born Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz on August 13, 1926 in the small eastern village of Biran. His father was a wealthy sugarcane farmer; his mother worked as a maid to his father’s first wife.
Fidel’s father reportedly would not recognize him as his own son until Fidel turned 17, when his father ditched his first wife and married the maid.
Castro received a Roman Catholic education through high school. He later excelled as an athlete and went on to law school at the University of Havana, where he would find an interest in politics.
A more radical bent would soon emerge, when Castro joined an anti-corruption Orthodox Party movement in 1947 that tried and failed to overthrow Dominican Republic dictator, Rafael Trujillo.
Castro graduated college in 1950, and opened a law office. Two years later, he launched a bid for Cuba’s House of Representatives, but the election never happened. Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista squashed it after staging a coup and seizing power in March 1952.
From there, Castro would discard any further attempts at legitimate party politics, launching his own offensive with more than 100 men who stormed the Moncada army barracks in 1953. “From that moment on, I had a clear idea of the struggle ahead,” Castro said in a 2006 book, My Life: A Spoken Autobiography.
That attack failed, many of the men died, and Castro was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Batista ordered Castro released from prison in 1955, after which, Castro ended up in Mexico, where he would plan another coup attempt. The next year, Castro, plus 81 men including Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and Fidel’s brother, Raul sailed to the eastern coast of Cuba. They were ambushed. The Castro brothers and Guevara fled into the country's southeastern mountains.
COUP d'ÉTAT
Following a series of offensives between 1957 and 1959, Castro would seize control from Batista in January that year, and solidify his power grab in July.
Early on, Castro gained the support of many Cuban citizens with promises to restore political and civil liberties. But later, Castro began to take a more radical tone, nationalizing American businesses on the island, and further angering the US with an increasingly anti-American rhetoric, and aligning with the Soviet Union in a 1960 trade deal.
The US officially cut all diplomatic ties with Cuba in January 1961.
By April that year, the US government armed about 1,500 Cuban exiles to try and overthrow the regime at the Bay of Pigs. It failed. Cuba and the Soviet Union later strengthened their partnership.
In 1962, the Soviet Union began secretly placing ballistic missiles in Cuba that were capable of firing nuclear weapons into American cities. That ushered in the Cuban missile crisis. Both the US and Soviet Union later stood down when the former agreed to remove its missiles stationed in Turkey and the Soviet Union removed its weapons from Cuba.
Meanwhile, Castro instituted a one-party government, gaining control over all aspects of Cuban life. While that drove away many of Cuba’s upper and middle class citizens, Castro expanded the country’s social and educational services, free of charge, to all economic classes.
Castro’s economic power was further concentrated, but that didn’t bode well for the Cuban economy, which failed to gain momentum. The country became increasingly dependent on Soviet policies while, at the same time, enduring the squeeze of a United States trade embargo.
1976 -- Cuba created the National Assembly, Castro became president of that body’s State Council.
1980s -- Castro was recognized as one of the prime rulers of unaligned nations. And while the country still had strong ties to the Soviet Union, Castro regularly hinted his willingness to restore diplomatic ties with the US if the US ended the trade embargo.
The Castro regime later released some 125,000 immigrants to the US, which overwhelmed America’s immigration officials.
STANDING BY THE SOVIET UNION
Later in the 1980s, Castro held his ground on the strict tenets of Communism, even as Mikhail Gorbachev began employing democratic reforms that allowed some countries to break ties with the Soviet bloc.
1991 -- in response to the Soviet Union’s collapse, and the loss of subsidies from the regime, Castro tried to stem his country’s subsequent economic decline by implementing some free-market policies. It was a tempered move; Castro still maintained tight control over life in Cuba.
1993 -- the tide began to shift when Castro’s daughter, Alina Fernandez Revuelta, went to the US to seek asylum. She then publicly denounced her father and his regime’s policies.
The next year, Cuba saw its largest anti-Castro uprising in 35 years, leading to another large release of people – more than 30,000 – sent to the US on makeshift boats and rafts. It’s been called Cuba’s largest exodus since the “freedom flotilla” of 1980.
DIMINISHING DICTATORSHIP
Cuba's insular policies began to thaw a bit in 1998, when Pope John Paul II became the first pontiff to visit the nation. Pope Benedict would follow more than a decade later.
2003 -- Castro was confirmed as president for another 5-year term. Now in the waning years of his rule, Castro oversaw several initiatives that led to a major crackdown on independent journalists, dissidents and activists, and a strengthening of ties with Venezuela. The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas was birthed from that, in which Cuba sent health professionals to Venezuela in return for discounted oil.
2006 -- Castro handed provisional control of Cuba to his brother, Raul, while Fidel reportedly recovered from a major intestinal surgery. That was the first time he surrendered control of his power in 47 years.
He would not return.
In 2008, when the National Assembly prepared to reconfirm Fidel as Cuba’s leader, he declined in a letter. At that point, he hadn’t been seen publicly for nearly two years. The letter was posted to the Communist Party’s website, Granma, in which Castro said, “I do not bid you farewell. My only wish is to fight as a soldier of ideas.”
Castro would make several more public appearances in 2010, but officially stepped down from the Communist Party of Cuba in 2011, leaving the younger Raul Castro to introduce possibly the most significant change in Cuba since the 1960s, reaching a deal with the Obama administration to reinstate diplomatic ties with the US.
The New Silk Road is catering to millions of Chinese feeding a new Bling Dynasty. Within this substantial empire, many characters stand out.
Let me introduce you to five of them.
Spending time in China and meeting Chinese consumers abroad has shown that some stereotypical luxury consumers do actually exist. Rather than quote real people who may find it uncomfortable or rude, I have decided it was easier to present you with five avatars.These are representatives who embody the thoughts and feelings of luxury consumers coming from very distinct subsets of the Chinese culture.
Here they are. (See Figure I-1.)
Calvin Li
Calvin is 26 and is brand obsessed, loves logos and while he's not that affluent, he wants people around him friends, family, business partners to know he's succeeded.
He is what the managers of Coach would call a ‘status lover', a somewhat disappearing breed of Chinese luxury consumers. He's after brands as he's eager to fit in to what he sees as modern China.
Calvin doesn't speak English and I don't speak Putonghua so every time we've hadto chat, I brought a friend along with me for translation purposes.
Calvin works as a manager in a textile manufacturer. He lives in Jinjiang, a third‐tier city, and an hour away from Xiamen, where Calvin goes some evenings for fun.
His favorite brand is Louis Vuitton, but that's way too costly for him so midmarket imported brands like Calvin Klein work well. Three years ago, some Xiamen‐based friends made fun of him as he was wearing suit labels outside the cuffs these were the labels he was supposed to have cut off.
He is part of a few people in his entourage who bought brands that they thought were legit but ended up being interpretations of Western or Hong Kong–based brands: Qiaodan Sports (sued by Michael Jordan for using his Chinese name and a similar logo), Gio Amrami (instead of Giorgio Armani) suits and others.
Lewis Wang
Calvin's older cousin he's 30 now runs a property business in Xiamen, the city known to some as China's Saint Tropez. He is very rich by local standards. He was smart to begin with and has great business acumen and connections.
His English is not great, and some mistakes he makes are opportunities for us to spend more time talking and laughing and less time understanding each other. But he's a real entertainer and as long as he can get by, he's happy with that.
He seems fearless and clearly is enjoying life to the fullest. He's a loud man, likes a drink and a few more but he's a great laugh. Lewis has no inhibitions and when I think of him, it reminds me of Dr Seuss's words: ‘Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind'.
A bit like Calvin, Lewis has ‘nouveau riche' habits, loves brands but can actually afford quite high‐end kit. Unlike Calvin, he's got a passport like 4% of Chinese (or more than 50 million in total) and he can afford to buy a Louis Vuitton bag and has travelled in many Chinese cities. He went to Taipei late 2011, to Hong Kong for the first time last October, to Macau earlier this year and dreams of Milan and Los Angeles for his first ‘true overseas' trip.
I write ‘true overseas' as Calvin, like most Chinese, considers Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau part of China.
He's what the press calls Tuhao: tu is dirt; hao is splendor; so the meaning is along the lines of ‘parvenu peasant.' Chinese popular culture despises Tuhao and at the same time secretly is envious and jealous of them. Lewis bought the gold iPhone 5s that came out in 2013, the one Apple put out specifically for the Chinese market, known in China as the Tuhao Gold and in the Apple HQ as the Kardashian iPhone.
Tiffany Ma
Tiffany just started her first job in Guangzhou at age 22 in an advertising agency. She's ambitious, graduated from a good school but has limited revenues in this first job. She's never been abroad but would love to go to Seoul or Tokyo as they seem so refined.
Her English is conversational and fine. She recently started taking a few Korean lessons, just because it's cool, and she'd like to figure out what on earth the K‐Pop bands she loves so dearly are singing about. She also follows many of the Korean soap operas that air on Chinese TV channels. She's the Chinese equivalent of the Japanese Office Lady (or “OL”) and has relatively limited needs, so she has quite a bit of disposable income to purchase brands. She's connected, quite active on Internet forums and blogs and a first‐time buyer of imported luxury brands. She won't be spending often but she'll be saving up to buy brands where she gets the sense that she's rewarding herself.
Her wealthier boyfriend by that I mean he's wealthier than she is; she only has one boyfriend bought her a Tiffany ring recently, and she was absolutely delighted. Yes, it cost more than a similar ring at a family jeweller but the blue box, the Tiffany guarantee and the discrete yet recognizable design thrilled her.
She is one of the 2 million Weibo followers of Angelica Cheung, the editor in chief of Vogue China and a veritable fashion guru. She likes brands with history and reads about them a lot.
Brittany Chen
Brittany is Tiffany's aunt though she's just ten years older. She's a marketing director for a fast‐moving consumer goods company in Shanghai.
She's Chinese in her style and has a slight, recognizable accent when she speaks in English but if I hadn't met her in Shanghai, I would probably have never guessed she was a local as she could really be from anywhere, sounding as cosmopolitan as she does. Brittany goes to London for business and enjoys relaxing weekends in Taipei. She's planning to go to New Zealand with her husband and daughter soon.
She has known foreign luxury brands for a while and is very knowledgeable. Louis Vuitton doesn't do it for her. She likes more niche‐y concepts like Miu Miu and Céline but has seen many Italian and French fashion brands and thinks British Burberry or Mulberry or American Tory Burch and Marc Jacobs are great alternative options.
Tiffany and Brittany are at the heart of the Chinese luxury market growth.They are putting pressure on traditional, historical brands as they are very knowledgeable and won't be moved by what most Chinese consumers have an interest in.
They know what they want, they are uncomfortable with brands that seem to cater too much for the Chinese, and they are much more subtle in displaying wealth than Calvin or Lewis.
Hermes Zhou
When I asked him where he was from, Hermes said he was Canadian even though I now know he was born in Beijing. True, he spent more time growing up in Vancouver and studying in the United States and London than in China, where his parents have a place they are globetrotters too.
He speaks and writes English much better than I do; but hey, what do you expect, I'm French!
He's 34. After working for a leading American consultancy firm, he's now in asset management at a hedge fund, which has offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore. For the past three years, he's been based in Hong Kong and is hopeful he can become a partner at the firm.
He buys his girlfriend Saint Laurent bags and Van Cleef & Arpels jewellery and buys himself Hermès clothes though he will not go for the too‐obvious H‐buckle belt and he always wears a pair of Tod's, at work or on weekends. He's into Italian wine, Japanese whisky, complication watches and Maldives holidays. His consumption profile is that of a very affluent New Yorker, Londoner, Parisian or Tokyoite more than that of other Chinese.
The Middle‐Class Kingdom
Our five avatars are relevant for luxury demand today.
Tomorrow, they will dominate it. (See Figures I.2 and I.3).
Why?
Luxury demand is not just going to increase with consumers trading up. The bulk of the increase in sales should come mechanically from the fact that the number of Chinese nationals able to afford the products will increase dramatically.
Sales to Chinese should broadly triple over the next ten years.This may read like a bullish statement, but it is not if the basic metrics of income creation in China is considered.
In 2015, Chinese should represent about 20% of luxury consumers (or 75 million) and as much as 35% of sales, as their average spending is much higher than that of other nationalities. (See Table I-1.) The table below shows the evolution of luxury sales by nationality over the next ten years.
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