Welcome to Club Getaway, the adult summer camp for 'sinners and saints'
↧
↧
32 massive parties everyone should go to in their lifetime
Click here to see the story »
↧
20 new high school grads who are changing the world
↧
Why the Chinese say 'The ugly wife is a treasure at home'
Relationship expert Melissa Schneider, author of The Ugly Wife Is A Treasure At Home, shares the differences between China's beauty standards and our own.
Produced by Joe Avella and Alana Kakoyiannis
Follow BI Video: On Facebook
Join the conversation about this story »
↧
The perfect Father's Day gift for every type of dad
↧
↧
Take a tour of one of the biggest and fastest growing Chinatowns in the world
↧
Silicon Valley matchmaker gets 6-figure bonuses for matching the tech elite with their future spouse
When it comes to dating, even the most successful people in the tech and business worlds could use a little bit of help.
Amy Andersen knows this all too well. In 2000, she started Menlo Park-based Linx Dating, a matchmaking service that helps people in Silicon Valley meet potential matches.
A membership with Linx Dating starts at $25,000, though Andersen charges more to clients who want more introductions to matches or more extensive date coaching.
Andersen also sometimes gets a pretty hefty bonus if two people she matches end up going the distance.
It's a three-tiered bonus system: She gets a bonus if the two people start dating exclusively, a larger bonus if they get engaged, and the largest bonus if they get married.
"The marriage bonus is any amount that a client wishes to make it for," Andersen told Business Insider in an email. "I will say most clients put something for exclusive and marriage — even if it's modest amounts like $500 for becoming exclusive and $1,000 for marriage."
It may not seem all that modest to the average person, but $1,000 is chump change for entrepreneurs and investors who have made millions in tech.
"I work with a very accomplished set of clients — many are in technology and are generally very smart, type-A, industrious, compulsive, and results driven. These people understand the notion of aligning incentives and paying for performance — they either work in companies that promote this practice, or they run startups that live and die by that rule," Andersen said.
"When they are finally ready to find commitment and get married, most don’t have the time to waste pursuing low yield channels. They need high-yield service that will ensure that every minute of their time that they invest is well spent."
Finding "the one" means so much to some Linx clients that they'll offer bonuses in the six-figure range, Andersen says.
"I accept only extraordinary people into the Linx Dating network, and that may or may not mean they make a lot of income or possess huge financial assets," she said. "Though they all seek commitment, some may be on a fast track and willing/able to pay a lot of money to accelerate the process, to allow me to conduct a broad geographic search beyond the Bay Area with a ton of individual attention and sometimes intense date coaching."
Andersen's latest client is one of the most successful men in Silicon Valley. Though she wouldn't reveal his identity, she shared that there's a six-figure marriage bonus on the table.
Here's what else she had to say:
"He is extremely private and is not the type to ever do online dating nor date colleagues. He runs the company so dating someone under him would be an extreme no no and beyond off limits. His bar is very high- he is looking for someone who can hold her own in any situation (one day he might be socializing with a head of state, the next day having a dinner party with colleagues and old chums from his alma mater)."
Andersen will be doing a nationwide search to find this tech mogul's perfect match.
SEE ALSO: Brit Morin, the Martha Stewart of Silicon Valley, just raised $23 million for her DIY site
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: This fashion brand used drones instead of models at their runway show in Silicon Valley
↧
The cheapest way to end homelessness is ridiculously simple, according to the largest-ever US study
The Economic Roundtable just came out with the largest study on homelessness in American history.
And it turns out the best way to combat homelessness is to provide homes.
The study's focus was on Santa Clara County, California, home to the extreme wealth of Silicon Valley and the highest percentage of homelessness in the entire US.
The methodology is enough to make a social scientist swoon: Researchers analyzed information about everyone in Santa Clara County who had been homeless between 2007 and 2012 — 104,206 people.
Homelessness, the report details, gets very expensive.
Between costs related to healthcare, social welfare, and the justice system, Santa Clara County as a whole spent $520 million on services for homeless residents.
Those costs didn't come from everybody who was homeless in that time period. As Gabrielle Canon at Mother Jones notes, much of those costs came from the roughly 2,800 people who were persistently homeless.
"Close to half of all county expenditures were spent on just five percent of the homeless population, who came into frequent contact with police, hospitals, and other service agencies, racking up an average of $100,000 in costs per person annually," Canon writes.
That's a ton of money.
And it's why the simplest solution to ending homelessness — giving them homes — makes so much sense.
The study detailed the efforts of the nonprofit group Destination: Home, which housed 400 of the people tracked in the report. Before they received housing, these homeless created public costs of $62,500 a year — and housing cost less than $20,000 per person.
That's more than $42,000 in savings every year, more than offsetting the costs of housing.
For that reason, the report's authors argue that the best way to work with homelessness is to identify the people who put the biggest strain on community resources and give them homes.
The strategy, known as Housing First, has a track record of success.
New York University psychologist Sam Tsemberis was the first to propose it back in 1992. He tested his theory on 242 chronically homeless people in New York City. Five years later, 88% were still living in their apartments at a lower cost to taxpayers and the state government.
The model spread to Washington, Colorado, and Massachusetts.
Most recently, it's had huge effects in Utah. Using the Housing First method, the state is projected to end chronic homelessness by the close of 2015.
What's counterintuitive about housing first is that people get to keep their homes even if they keep using drugs or alcohol. As we reported last February, this method is better at keeping people from lapsing back into homelessness than traditional housing methods, where homeless people have to lock down jobs and stay sober to keep their temporary housing.
So you could say that the Housing First method isn't just more compassionate to the people who suffer from homelessness, it's also more effective at keeping them off the streets and preventing the drain on community funds.
"If you move people into permanent supportive housing first, and then give them help, it seems to work better,” Nan Roman, the president and CEO of the National Alliance for Homelessness, told The New Yorker in September. “It's intuitive, in a way. People do better when they have stability."
Natasha Bertrand contributed research to this article.
SEE ALSO: Brooklyn is officially the most unaffordable housing market in America
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: We tried In-N-Out Burger's 'secret menu' — and there was only one thing that we really liked
↧
Why a wife bonus makes complete sense
A week ago, The New York Times revealed that some women on Manhattan's Upper East Side were receiving so-called wife bonuses.
A wife bonus is just what it sounds like. A wife is given a nice year-end chunk of cash for performing her wifely duties. For instance, "how well she managed the home budget, whether the kids got into a 'good' school," The Times said.
This predictably led to outrage. But guess what?
The wife bonus is completely defensible!
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: This is the Excel trick that will change everything about how you work with data
↧
↧
Meet the proud owners of the world's 15 most expensive mega-yachts
↧
The most important technology for moms hasn't changed in nearly 100 years
↧
The 10 best gifts for new high school graduates
↧
Two of the women whose Instagram photos were hijacked by Richard Prince admit they didn't even shoot the originals
↧
↧
Lawn maintenance, bug repellent, and 41 other bizarre things you can do with a can of Coke
↧
The Hollywood headquarters of this YouTube gaming giant looks awesome
Gaming and fandom streaming service Machinima is one of the biggest video producers on the internet. With over 32,000 creators in its network, Machinima is the fifth-largest channel network on YouTube, according to ComScore data for April.
It's no surprise Machinima is on the rise. It hosts popular shows like talk show ETC, cartoon Battlefield Friends, and top gamers such as Minecrafter JeromeASF and Zack Scott.
With famous YouTubers always dropping in and all the latest video-game consoles available to play, Machinima looks like a fun place to work. We recently stopped by the company's Los Angeles headquarters to check it out for ourselves.
Machinima's offices are located in an oddly shaped building in West Hollywood. You might miss it if you were driving by. Because of building regulations, Machinima can't have signs announcing its location.
Look for their iconic "M" logo on the door.
Enter the lobby and you'll be greeted by a TV playing some of its latest and greatest YouTube videos. When we got there, Machinima's popular show ETC with cohosts Ricky Hayberg and Eliot Dewberry was playing.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
↧
Here's what people eat for breakfast around the world
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, keeping us healthy and sharp.
But breakfast foods vary wildly from place to place.
Inspired by a HostelBookers.com post by Victoria Philpott and a Quora post, we took a look at some classic breakfast choices from countries around the world.
Whether it's bread and cold cuts in Germany or baked cheese pancakes in Russia, each country does their first meal of the day a little differently.
An earlier version of this post was written by Max Rosenberg.
AUSTRALIA: The typical breakfast consists of cold cereal and toast with vegemite.
BRAZIL: Expect to find ham, cheeses, and bread, served with coffee and milk.
CHINA: Traditional breakfasts vary based on the region, but dim sum, small plates of food prepared in a variety of ways, is popular.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
↧
Step back 25 years in time to the gritty days of New York City's Meatpacking District
It's almost hard to conceive how much New York City has changed over the past 25 years. Derelict industrial zones and abandoned buildings have been transformed into a hub of industry; what was once a wasteland now is a clean, safe, and very expensive city.
Photographer Grégoire Alessandrini remembers the old days, though, before all that gentrification. He recently began posting images he shot of Manhattan during the early and mid-nineties on his blog, and they create a fantastic window into another time. Alessandrini captured all sides of the city, and all the characters who inhabited its scenes.
We put together a slideshow of old photos of Chelsea and the Meatpacking District, two neighborhoods that have seen extensive growth and change over the years. You can see many more images of New York on Alessandrini's blog, where you can also buy prints of his work.
Since the 1900s, the Meatpacking District was used for just that...
...packing meat and shipping it off to retailers.
However, by the time Alessandrini got there, times had gotten rough.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
↧
↧
A designer handbag just set a record with its outrageous price
A designer handbag just sold for a record-setting $221,846 at a Christie's auction in Hong Kong.
The crocodile Hermès Birkin bag is the most expensive handbag ever sold at auction, Bloomberg reports. The bag is fuchsia with diamond and gold hardware.
Oooo, "@WSJ: Hermès Birkin handbag w/diamonds fetched record $221,846 at Christie's auction http://t.co/XAXcyudPtqpic.twitter.com/JjipipVkJQ"
— Sandra Pakosh (@sandrapakosh) June 1, 2015The previous auction record for a handbag was $203,150, for another Birkin bag at an auction in New York in 2011, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The latest record comes at a tough time for the luxury industry in China.
Designer labels such as Chanel and Gucci have been dropping prices to boost sales in the region, The Journal notes.
SEE ALSO: Michael Kors faces a huge new threat
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: Forget the Apple Watch — here's the new watch everyone on Wall Street wants
↧
Striking photos from the villages surrounding Chernobyl, taken by people who still live there
On April 26, 1986, a catastrophic accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine sent radioactive particles into the air, distributing toxic pollution over a vast area. It has gone down as one of the worst disasters of its kind.
Thirty-one people died in the blast, and the long-term effects have been felt ever since. Cancer and other radiation-exposure problems still plague citizens, and contamination in their water and soil remain a burden.
No people know these problems better than those who live near the "Nuclear Exclusion Zone," the area within a 19-mile radius of the plant, where radiation levels are still exceedingly high. Some 350,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes after the accident, and many still form a community on the edge of a wasteland.
Photographer Thom Davies, who is also a trained geographer and ethnographer, has been working to understand and document this community since 2008. As part of his studies, Davies gave people who lived close to the exclusion zone disposable cameras and asked them to document their everyday lives in their extraordinary surroundings.
"The photographs give a rare glimpse into the unseen realities of everyday life in this post-atomic hinterland," Davies says of the project, called "Disposable Citizens." "No one understands the realities of Chernobyl like those who live there."
"There is something truly enigmatic about nuclear landscapes," Davies says when asked why he is drawn to nuclear radiation zones. "They are places where broken science and everyday life have collided, leaving disputed consequences and many unanswered questions."
As a geographer first and a photographer second, Davies tells Business Insider he is "fascinated by the relationship people have with landscape, and in a post-atomic space such as Chernobyl, this relationship becomes strained and contested."
"The invisibility of radiation adds another layer of mystery to these places and the communities who live there," he adds.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
↧
I waited nearly 2 hours to visit the new skydeck atop One World Trade — and it was worth every minute
Thousands of New York City locals and tourists flooded One World Trade Center on Friday for the public opening of One World Observatory.
The line to soak in the panoramic views was like waiting to ride Space Mountain at Disney World.
But once you reach the top and remember what used to stand in the observatory's place, you forget about the hour or two it took to get there.
I arrived at the nation's tallest building — clocking in at 1,776 feet tall — about 40 minutes before the assigned time on my ticket.
After waiting outside for over 30 minutes, with people of all ages and nationalities, I went inside and stood in more lines.
Post-security check, I shuffled through media-walled rooms and learned about the construction of One World Trade. Then I entered a cave-like room made of Manhattan schist, the granite that serves as the building's foundation. Fun fact: The granite is 450 million years old.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
↧
More Pages to Explore .....
