Donald Trump lives in a penthouse that he says is on the 66th to 68th floors of his eponymous building. There's only one problem with that: According to New York City documents, Trump Tower has only 58 floors.

It turns out the real-estate-mogul-turned-presidential-candidate frequently misstates the floor counts of his buildings to exaggerate their height without changing the actual numbers.

Taking Trump Tower as an example, an atrium takes up the first 300 feet of the building's height, according to an interview Trump did with The New York Times in 2003, which was quoted by The Associated Press.

Because of that, Trump was able to estimate — by taking into account the average height of a ceiling on a floor in New York City — that it took up about 30 stories. He was thus able to name the first real floor the 30th — 10 more than it should have been, according to the AP. The building is 664 feet tall.

Many buildings use this principle, to an extent. There's no legal requirement to tie the building floor numbers to the actual floors the buildings have, except in official documents. Many hotels skip the 13th floor in their counts for superstitious reasons, and other buildings with large atriums must use a mathematical formula to estimate how many floors they take up.

Unfortunately, Trump fudged the numbers a bit, as his formula didn't take into account the fact that Trump Tower's luxury residences and commercial space had ceiling heights that are much higher than the average. The crude formula does not include the space left between floors for utilities. As Bloomberg noted, the developer skipped the sixth through 13th floors.

It's not uncommon for a building to have a different floor count than is stated in the elevators, especially in New York City, where a building with more floors could be seen as a more desirable place to live.

"Developers have a tendency to exaggerate the floor count," Ben Mandel of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats told the AP.

Most developers don't blatantly exaggerate the number of floors so dramatically, however. Trump required some buyers in other Trump buildings to sign a document acknowledging that their apartment unit was not really on the floor stated, according to the AP's report of the Times story.

Even more egregious than Trump Tower? Trump World Tower, at 845 United Nations Plaza. Supposedly, it has 90 floors. But if you stand on that top floor, you may be disappointed to learn you're only 72 stories above the ground.

SEE ALSO: Here's why Donald Trump's skin is so orange

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NOW WATCH: 'Mr. Trump, would my son have a place in your America?': Watch Clinton's new emotional ad featuring Khizr Khan

Ever wonder what your life would be like if you weren't married? Or imagined how things might've turned out if you'd tied the knot with someone else?

Don't worry — it's perfectly normal to daydream about alternative life scenarios.

What matters is how you answer the two questions you should ask yourself next:

1. On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being much worse and 5 being much better, how do you think your level of happiness would be different if you and your partner separated?

2. How do you think your partner's level of happiness would be different if you and your partner separated? (Use the same scale.)

If you answered the first question with 5, meaning you'd feel much happier if you and your partner split up, chances are you might be headed for divorce. (Nothing too unexpected there.)

But it's your answer to the second question — and whether that answer is correct— that can be the more surprising red flag for a split.

How economists used 2 questions to predict divorce

University of Virginia economics researchers Leora Friedberg and Steven Stern looked at how 3,597 couples answered those two questions (which had been asked as part of a national survey) at two points in time — once during the survey's first wave in 1987-88 and again about six years later.

Over the six-year period, about 7% of all the couples in the study divorced. Couples where both spouses said they would be "worse" or "much worse" off if they separated had — unsurprisingly — a lower-than-average divorce rate (4.8%). Couples who said they'd feel happier if their marriage ended, meanwhile, were more likely than average to split.

But here's where it gets interesting. Couples who had "incorrect perceptions" of each other's happiness — meaning they thought their partners were either happier or less happy than they suspected — had a higher rate of divorce overall (8.6%). And, those with "seriously incorrect perceptions" — meaning they were at least 2 points off when guessing how happy their partner would be after separating — had a much higher divorce rate (around 12%).

Here's the breakdown — keep in mind that "happiness" and "unhappiness" in this chart is not in general but in answer to the questions (rate happiness/unhappiness if you and your partner were to separate):

What's the big takeaway? Some kind of disconnect — when a person isn't in touch with how their spouse actually feels about the marriage — could be a forerunner of trouble down the road.

And the partners who are most at risk are those who don't realize that their spouses harbor secret fantasies of how great their post-separation life might be.

In fact, people who assumed their partners were happy in the relationship when they weren't at all were more than twice as likely (13-14%) to be divorced six years later than those who correctly judged their partner's feelings.

Thinking your unhappy spouse is happy can screw up your marriage

Why exactly is it so bad to overestimate how content your partner is in your relationship?

Stern suggests one possible explanation: Imagine for a minute that your husband or wife is satisfied with the way things are going in your marriage. As far as your relationship is concerned, they are completely happy. Would knowing this — or assuming it (as tends to be the case) — affect how you behave in the relationship?

Stern says yes. When you operate on the assumption that your significant other is happy with your relationship, you tend to act a bit more recklessly with that person. You might be a little more demanding, says Stern, or slightly less considerate.

You might be more likely, for example, to cancel dinner plans so you can stay a bit later at the office, or forget to be gentle when you suggest that your partner could contribute more to the family finances.

Now, Stern suggests, imagine you were way off about your partner's feelings. As it turns out, they aren't actually all that happy with your marriage — as a matter of fact, they have been eyeing someone else at work and seriously considering splitting up with you for months.

These feelings would likely transform how your partner interprets your last-minute decision to cancel dinner, for example. Instead of thinking em>He must have a lot of work to get done, for example, an unhappy partner might think something like, He's always canceling our plans. He obviously doesn't care about this relationship.

If partners aren't open with each other about their emotions, needs, and concerns, these types of severe misunderstandings are impossible to avoid.

"The more private information there is [and] the more information two people keep hidden from each other, the worse decisions they make and the more they have an incentive to take advantage," Stern said.

The fact that these questions might reveal how much information you and your partner keep from one another isn't the only reason they could be predictive. Misjudging your partner's satisfaction with the relationship could also suggest that you aren't paying attention to their feelings, needs, and desires — something that's critical for any successful relationship.

What the finding adds to existing relationship research

Decades of relationship research has linked specific negative behaviors — from contempt and defensiveness to a failure to resolve conflicts quickly and openly— with divorce. And psychologists have long observed that people in happy relationships are less tempted by other potential partners, although it's unclear whether it's satisfaction that makes people more committed or that people who are already more committed are therefore more satisfied.

But this is one of the first studies to suggest that misjudging your partner's satisfaction with a relationship could make you more likely to split up several years down the road.

Don't freak out just yet, though. If you're worried your partner isn't as happy as you'd assumed, the best way to find out is to ask. Being honest with each other about your feelings, concerns, and desires is the best way to start identifying any problems — and finding solutions together.

NOW READ: The secret to a healthy, happy marriage is ridiculously simple

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NOW WATCH: Kanye West explains how marriage has helped him become a better man

Having kids is expensive.

The average American family pays over $11,000 just in the first year of a child's life, and nearly $250,000 by the time they're 18. The cost of childcare for young children has even eclipsed the cost of tuition at in-state colleges in 33 states.

With those numbers in mind, it's never too early for parents to start putting money away to cover the cost of having kids.

On a recent episode the "Listen Money Matters" podcast, Kim Palmer, author of "Smart Mom, Rich Mom: How to Build Wealth While Raising a Family" and mother of two, said that she and her husband started saving up to have kids as soon as they got married — even though their daughter wasn't born until five years later. Why so early?

"That was when it was easy, before we had kids," Palmer told Andrew Fiebert and Thomas Frank of Listen Money Matters. "That was the easy time to save."

Having kids brings a mountain of added expenses that don't exist when you're younger and newly married. Parents need to fork over cash for everything from a new car seat to months worth of diapers — not to mention the rising cost of childcare — making it much more difficult to save diligently for future outlay at the same time. So once you and your partner know kids are in your future, it's time to start saving for them. 

For Palmer, taking time off of work to have a baby also meant a dip in income.

"Like a lot of people in America, I didn't have fully funded maternity leave, so I had to have the savings for that because I took six months off with each baby," she says. "That's a big loss of income and it's hard to keep up with your other costs."

If you're planning on having kids someday, it doesn't hurt to start saving up right away. As a new parent, you'll thank yourself when money is one less stress to worry about.

SEE ALSO: I saved 50% of my income for a month and the hardest part wasn't cutting back my spending

DON'T MISS:  11 mistakes holding you back from becoming a millionaire

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NOW WATCH: Drivers are wasting $2.1 billion on premium gas a year

Two years ago, college friends and entrepreneurs Jordana Kier and Alex Friedman quit their jobs to disrupt the multi-billion dollar tampon industry.

They set out to solve a problem most women have experienced: Your period comes and your tampon stock is out.

Their startup, LOLA, makes sure that never happens by letting subscribers order tampons to their door and customize their pack according to their flow.

This week, the company announced it was bringing a cult-favorite feminine hygiene product to its monthly delivery service: the non-applicator tampon.

Until now, one manufacturer, O.B., has dominated the space and attracted diehard fans. (Even Amy Schumer wore an O.B. tampon to the Emmys.) Lola is offering another option.

The average American woman uses more than 16,000 tamponsin her life, according to the National Center for Health Research. Those end up in landfills and take centuries longer to degrade than the lifespan of the user, especially when wrapped in plastic wrappers.

The latest from Lola, which has been called the "Birchbox for tampons," prevents waste by never manufacturing the applicator in the first place. It's made of 100% organic cotton and looks like a tiny, white rocket ship with a string trailing from the end.

The company also claims its new non-applicator option is easier for traveling and more discreet. Each pack comes in a small, white and stone-blue box that wouldn't look out of place among high-end cosmetics on a bathroom shelf. It costs $9 and includes shipping.

But, if there's no applicator, how do you insert it?

Kier and Friedman, who met in college and did stints at tech companies before launching Lola, have no trouble speaking plainly about women's bodies and hygiene.

"Get up in there," Kier says.

"It's not a dainty push," Friedman adds.

In 2014, when the pair started doing research on the tampon market, they learned most of the big brands use synthetic materials — usually a blend of the artificial fibers rayon and polyester, among others — in their tampons.

Business Insider's Natalie Walters and Jacquelyn Smith reached out to Tampax, Kotex, and Playtex earlier this year and were told the percentage of materials used in their tampons was proprietary information or unavailable.

With that in mind, Kier and Friedman created biodegradable tampons (that do use applicators) and made their "ingredients" easily discoverable on the company's website and packaging.

The non-applicator option carries on this tradition of transparency, while also catering to an environmentally conscious buyer.

SEE ALSO: The 12 most popular IKEA products of all time

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NOW WATCH: The color in your face reveals a lot about your health and age

After a long, rough day, nothing sounds quite as appealing as crawling into a soft, warm, bed — and sleeping.

Yet for many of us, even when we've set aside the time for it, rest doesn't come easy.

Part of the problem has to do with light. In the evening, our crisply lit smartphones, tablets, and laptops keep our eyes and brains on high alert— making it tough to relax and potentially robbing us of the long and peaceful slumber we need to be productive during the day.

We recently talked to Keck Medicine of USC professor of clinical medicine and fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Raj Dasgupta, to find out what the science says about the best way to get healthy, restful sleep.

Many sleep doctors, including Dasgupta, advocate trying out a practice they call "sleep hygiene." Sleep hygiene generally refers to broader set of healthy behaviors designed to prepare our bodies for a night of rest. Here are three of the biggest highlights:

1. Reserve your bed for sleeping

If you're tempted to crawl into bed with your laptop to punch out a few last work emails, don't, says Dasgupta.

For those of us who struggle with sleep, it can be helpful to set aside the bed as a place of rest. If we get used to doing work or other activities in or around bed, it could make it harder to fall asleep there.

This is where smartphones and tablets can become a problem, says Dasgupta. "When people can't sleep, what do they do? They pull out their phones and start scrolling. But that's in direct conflict with stimulus control, which says you reserve the bed for sleeping."

2. Clear away distractions

Another component of good sleep hygiene is preparing for sleep by decreasing our exposure to stimulating content, like TV, social media, and the news, as we get closer to bedtime. Some experts suggest avoiding devices for an hour before bed.

"When you're going to bed, you want to do things that are relaxing, like reading a book. You want to gradually transition into sleep; you don't want your mind to be stimulated," Dasgupta says.

3. If you can't sleep, get out of bed and do something else

Tossing and turning? The best solution might be the one you'd think of last — get out of bed.

"If you can't sleep, good sleep hygiene suggests that you get up, get out of bed, and do something else, something relaxing, like going and reading a book," says Dasgupta.

When we're struggling to sleep, trying to force our brains to shut down only causes the mind to work harder and get frustrated. If you're having a hard time powering down, then, try distracting yourself with an easy, relaxing task. You might be surprised to discover how quickly your eyelids start to feel heavy.

SEE ALSO: There's a fascinating reason why it feels like it gets harder to sleep as you age

DON'T MISS: We asked a sleep scientist if the iPhone's new Night Shift feature will actually help you sleep, and his answer surprised us

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NOW WATCH: This is what happens to your brain and body when you check your phone before bed

Tuesday night, the Chicago Cubs begin their quest to win their first World Series championship since 1908 as they face off against the Cleveland Indians in Game 1 of the Fall Classic.

Here's a look at how much the world has changed in the 108 years that have passed since the Cubs won the title.

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The iPhone 7 Plus has a new feature, rolled out via a software update Monday. It's called portrait mode, and gives users the option of artificially adding bokeh to the background of their shots. (Bokeh is the word for that fuzzy, out-of-focus texture you're used to seeing in the background of images from expensive cameras.)

Apple seems to think this is the most exciting thing about its 2016 smartphones. The company went so far as to sprinkle some fake bokeh across its iPhone 7 launch event invitations.

That's a heavy burden for a single feature to bear on an otherwise somewhat uninspired smartphone. (The iPhone 7 Plus's camera quality is very good, but not amazing. It does feature a telephoto lens, which is very cool.)

Some people, including my colleague Melia Robinson, love portrait mode.

I spent some time with it this week and...it's fine. Adequate. Good enough. Seems to do the job, as long as the job is "digitally fuzz some smartphone photo backgrounds."

But I'm not entirely clear as to why you should care, if you're a consumer.

I don't see why background fuzz would improve anyone's photography, and I'm not sure I understand why people think it would.

Do the images look like they came from a wide-aperture lens on a DSLR? Not even a little bit. The texture has neither the richness nor dimension of bokeh from an honest-to-god DSLR lens. It reminds me more of a thin film of a spilled milk.

The texture can't even match the natural bokeh of an iPhone 7 lens without any software enhancement. 

But the deeper issue here is that the iPhone is (poorly) mimicking the wrong feature of DSLR and mirrorless cameras.

The point of a fancy camera isn't to fuzz your background out of focus. A DSLR or mirrorless camera exists to offer you a level of control over your framing and exposures impossible with a device you stick in your pocket.

That kind of camera lets you change up your lens, and fine-tune your focal length and exposures to make precise, careful shots. Depth of field is just one of the many things you can play with — impacting the degree and intensity of the bokeh in your image. But it's not the point of the camera.

And portrait mode isn't about offering you control. Instead, it takes control away. Flip over from regular shooting into portrait mode and your camera will only work if the light's just right, if you stand just so, and if you're the right distance from your subject. Plus, the autofocus slows way down, so everything in the scene has to freeze while it works.

Your reward on the other side of that process? A more or less successful effort to apply a flat surface blur to everything the camera thinks is behind your subject. It's a completely binary setting. There's no tweaking or adjustment to be done. And the result, as often as not, looks more than a little unnatural.

(Two big tells: Nothing in front of the subject gets fuzzed up, only the background. And the line between the bokeh and the in-focus region of the image is unnaturally sharp.)

To Apple's credit, portrait mode doesn't often make massive errors either. That isn't something you can say about the Chinese Huawei P9, the last phone to attempt this feat with a dual lens. And there are some idealized situations where it could almost fool you.

But mostly, portrait mode seems to feed the same desire that drives sales of the crummy, overpriced, low-end DSLRs that crowd the consumer market: Not to make better photos, but to make fancier photos.

Portrait mode images are, if nothing else, recognizably different from the photos you'd get from any other major smartphone (excluding the more regional P9). Throw them on your Instagram, and you'll benefit from an Oooh! factor next to everyone else's photos. But it's the Oooh! factor of a high-end lifestyle product, not a more interesting or higher-quality image.

The effect's value then is as a class signifier. It's basically an Instagram filter available only to people willing and able to hand over at least $769 for an Apple phone. And that cache will inevitably erode away as more and more people buy in and swamp each other's social feeds with bad digital bokeh.

This is too bad, because the technique behind portrait mode is incredibly exciting. For many people, the iPhone 7 Plus will be their first encounter with computational photography, a technology I wrote back in April will change the world. Computational cameras use multiple lenses and sensors to build images that are greater than the sum of their parts.

The 16-eyed, computational Light L16 has the body of a thick smartphone but promises to offer users the opportunity to intuitively create images as interesting and varied as a mid-range DSLR with a pack of lenses. When that power shows up in the back of smartphones in a big way, it could really change the way normal people shoot photos.

But this overblown filter effect will get stale and boring fast, and it's not a good reason to shell out for a smartphone.

SEE ALSO: Sorry, Apple: The iPhone 7 camera is not better than Samsung's Galaxy S7

DON'T MISS: Why computational photography is going to change the world

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NOW WATCH: Why your iPhone alarm snooze is automatically set to 9 minutes

Before she became First Lady, New York's first female US senator, and the first major-party female presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton was a city girl who dreamed of being an astronaut or a baseball player.

Clinton, sprinting to the finish in a marathon campaign for president against Republican nominee Donald Trump, celebrates her 69th birthday Wednesday.

With 13 days left until Election Day, we decided to take a look back at how Clinton became one of the world's most powerful people.

SEE ALSO: The epic story of how the Bushes took over America

Born October 26, 1947, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois, an upper-middle-class Chicago suburb with tree-lined streets, shopping centers, and church spires dotting the skyline.

The family lived in a two-story brick house on the corner of Wisner and Elm Streets, since named Rodham Corner by the city. It was a central hub for the neighborhood children.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Clinton's mother, Dorothy, cared for the family and taught Sunday School, and her father, Hugh, ran a small drapery business after serving in the Navy during World War II.

Whether she likes it or not, a first lady's style is put under the microscope from the inauguration ceremony onward.

First lady Michelle Obama has exuding grace and elegance with her style choices no matter the event.

While she's been applauded for rocking affordable clothing from stores like J.Crew and H&M, she really shines at formal events. From state dinners to State of the Union addresses, here are Michelle's 24 best looks from the past eight years.

SEE ALSO: Take a tour of Cartier's glittery, jewel-filled mansion, which has special rooms for private shopping

At the Southern Inaugural Ball on January 21, 2009, in Washington, DC, Michelle wore a dress designed by Jason Wu, who did not know that Michelle had chosen his design to wear. Wu designed the dress to symbolize hope; its organza flowers are adorned with Swarovski crystals.

Source: Smithsonian

Michelle wore this silver patterned dress by Indian-born designer Naeem Khan during a state dinner at the White House in 2009. The dinner was hosted in honor of Dr. Manmohan Singh, who at that time was the prime minister of India.

Michelle wore a gorgeous red dress at the Annual Alfalfa Dinner at the Capital Hilton Hotel in 2009.

The Trump International Hotel Washington DC made its grand entrance today after an official ribbon-cutting ceremony opened the new property to the public.

But it may not have been ready for prime time just yet.

For instance, the cocktail menu for the hotel's upscale bar, called The Benjamin, has been snapshotted and posted on the internet. And it's confusing.

Not only is the menu full of typographical errors with many of the name brands of liquor misspelled, it also has highlighted at the top an eponymous drink with potato, caviar, raw oysters, vodka, and rye.

The price? A tall ask at $100 — likely mostly attributed to the caviar involved in the concoction.

That's not the only egregious part of the menu, as Twitter has pointed out. The "Please Sign Here" is not actually a cocktail unique to The Benjamin, but contains the same ingredients as the "Naked and Famous" cocktail made famous by the bar Death + Co. in New York City. Also on the menu is a $20 vodka drink that uses a brand of vodka that runs about that same price for an entire bottle. 

If cocktails aren't your bag, elsewhere on the menu of The Benjamin is a section called "By the Crystal Spoon," according to The Daily Beast. It sells only spoonfuls of wine costing between $15 and $140.

SEE ALSO: Trump Tower is actually 10 floors shorter than Donald Trump says it is

DON'T MISS: Inside the $200 million hotel Donald Trump just opened a mile away from the White House

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NOW WATCH: Here's how Donald Trump can function on barely any sleep

Your epitaph — the text written on a headstone — is the last thing you can say to the world.

Sometimes it's a matter of getting your own account of your life out there. Richard Nixon, disgraced by Watergate, wanted to be remembered as a peacemaker.

Others, like F. Scott Fitzgerald or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., highlight a favorite line from their major works.

Or you might just want your bones to be left alone, like William Shakespeare, who was buried with a curse.

Keep scrolling for the best in headstones.

Drake Baer contributed to an earlier version of this story.

Since it was started by Tim and Karrie League in 1997 in Austin, Texas, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has become an oasis for movie lovers while also revolutionizing the theater experience with the inclusion of food and drink service.

With 25 locations across the country, it's now widely regarded as the best theater in the world, and if you live in the New York City area, you can finally experience it in all its glory. 

Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn will officially open its doors on Friday, and Business Insider got a glimpse inside what we can call without argument the most unique theatergoing experience in the city. 

Come take a tour with us inside the newest Alama Drafthouse Cinema in Brooklyn:

SEE ALSO: The 50 best movies of all time, according to critics on Metacritic

Walking in, Stanley Kubrick fans will feel instantly at home as the familiar carpet design from "The Shining" will lead you into the fun.

You can do your best King Kong impression atop the Empire State Building with this photo setup.

This Drafthouse also has a gender-neutral bathroom, a move Tim League made in many of his theaters in the wake of the bathroom controversy in North Carolina.

A former warehouse and light industrial district, South of Market is San Francisco's biggest tech hub. It's not uncommon to watch entrepreneurs and Uber cars whiz by tent cities, or look out at the tallest man-made structures west of the Mississippi River rising over dilapidated auto body shops.

South of Market, often referred to as SoMa, is a neighborhood in flux. It always has been.

Photographer Janet Delaney arrived in the summer of 1978 with her massive, old-fashioned view camera in tow. At the time, the financial sector put a squeeze on small businesses and affordable housing to make room for the Moscone Center, the city's largest convention hall, which has hosted Apple, Google, and Microsoft special events over the years.

Delaney, a graduate student of photography then, wanted to capture the working class communities that made up SoMa, before they disappeared.

Delaney shared some of her images with Business Insider. You can find more on her website.

SEE ALSO: I just visited New York City after moving to San Francisco — here are the 5 things New Yorkers get right

When Janey Delaney arrived in San Francisco's SoMa District in the late '70s, her rent cost $250 a month. Neighbors knew each other by name. But change came quickly.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

"I experienced San Francisco as the new frontier," Delaney tells Business Insider.

One late fall night, Delaney (pictured) watched a demolition crew take out a hotel from which dozens of poor and elderly residents had been removed. It was her wake up call.

October 26 marked the grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony of the latest hotel in Donald Trump's empire: the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC. The hotel is located inside the Old Post Office Pavilion, which dates back to 1899 and required $200 million in renovations.

Although the Boston Globe has reported that Trump hotel reservations are down nearly 60% compared to this time last year, the DC location stayed on track to open ahead of schedule— however, it wasn't without a few hiccups. A group of protesters gathered outside during the grand opening Wednesday, as well as during the soft opening in September. Earlier this year, celebrity chefs José Andrés and Geoffrey Zakarian both backed out of their agreement to oversee restaurants inside the hotel, citing the GOP presidential nominee's inflammatory comments on immigration.

In honor of the grand opening, let's take a look inside the hotel, which makes plenty of design references to the presidency. 

SEE ALSO: 24 photos that show why Michelle Obama will be remembered as the most stylish First Lady of all time

DON'T MISS: Here's why Donald Trump's skin is so orange

The hotel is located near the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th Street, just a short 15-minute walk to The White House North Lawn.

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Crystal chandeliers hang in the lobby. The hotel's ballroom — the largest in Washington, DC — was named the "Presidential Ballroom."

An old mail chute remains, a nod to the building's past as a busy post office.

Adidas is here to stay.

German sportswear Adidas, which has been aggressively mounting a push for market share in the American market, has finally pulled ahead of #2 Under Armour, according to NPD analyst Matt Powell.

Under Armour had previously passed Adidas 2 years ago to become the #2 largest sportswear seller in America.

Losing market share was a wake-up call for the German giant, as it is further entrenched than its American competitor, has been around for a lot longer than UA's young 20 years of life, and has nearly quadruple its revenue worldwide.

Adidas had been relying on its European style and sensibility, notes Fortune, to sell its merchandise in the US, which had failed to gain traction when compared to the blinding technological hype of Nike and Under Armour. But Adidas has been looking to turn that around in recent years with a refocusing on the American market started by Adidas President of North America Mark King started in 2014.

Adidas has opened a new design lab in Nike's hometown of Portland, Oregon, launched new high-priced models that gets sneakerheads talking, repositioned their heritage models as fashion icons — the most famous being the Stan Smith, and high profile partnerships like Kanye West's Yeezy line. For apparel, Adidas has refreshed its offerings and leaned into athleisure with an upmarket line called Zne.

SEE ALSO: Canada Goose — the celebrity-endorsed maker of $800 parkas — is reportedly worth $2 billion

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NOW WATCH: This lingerie company stopped using Photoshop on all of its models and it paid off big

Guys, I'm really worried about my editor, Erin.

She's blown up an image on her screen, is squinting at it, and keeps wandering back and forth to see it from different angles.

But whatever she's trying to do, it isn't working:

Here's the photo that's causing this kerfuffle:

As my colleague Jacob Shamsian explains, the weirdly glossy look of the legs is actually an illusion. Instagram user Hunter Culverhouse created it by accident.

"I had some white paint left on my brush and put random lines on my legs, turned out to be a completely confusing picture for everyone on the internet," Culverhouse told Shamsian in an email.

All I can see is bizarrely glossy legs. But some people don't see the shine at all — just some boring old white paint.

The illusion is freaking people out all over the internet.

Why do some people see the shine? Why do others see the white paint? My theory: The smaller it shows up on your screen, the more it looks like shine.

My own ideas aside, there's a deeper level to what's going on here. The photo is revealing that our eyes aren't actually windows onto the real world. Instead, they gather lots of bits of information that your brain assembles into a coherent stream of images based on what it knows about the real world.

Illusions are flaws in that system that shine a light on how amazing it is in the first place.

The psychologist Claus-Christian Carbon explains in his paper "Understanding human perception by human-made illusions" why optical illusions such as these legs or The Dress are so exciting:

"We can ... interpret illusory perceptions as a sign of our incredible, highly complex and efficient capabilities of transforming sensory inputs into understanding and interpreting the current situation in a very fast way in order to generate adequate and goal-leading actions in good time. ... By taking into account how perfectly we act in most everyday situations, we can experience the high 'intelligence' of the perceptual system quite easily and intuitively."

In other words, when your brain misinterprets a visual clue — like the lines on Culverhouse's legs — it lets us know a bit more about how it builds images of the world the rest of the time, when it works properly.

And for some people, such as Erin, the visual system works too well to trick — even with an illusion this effective.

What do you see?

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Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Black Mirror" season 3, episode one.

There's a reason the first episode of the new season of the hit new Netflix series "Black Mirror" is called "Nosedive."

It envisions a world in which we're completely dependent upon social media. Each of us chases after a desirable "rating" — an average score (out of 5 stars) that's affected by everything from that sideways glance you gave the woman walking past you on your morning commute to the lack of enthusiasm you displayed for the birthday gift your co-worker gave you.

It's not too far-fetched from the world we live in now. Just imagine if you combined your Uber rating with the amount of likes you got on Facebook and the number of replies you received on Twitter in the last month. Now imagine that that singular rating determined everything about your life, from where you worked to the home you were eligible to live in.

Voila! Welcome to "Nosedive."

This is precisely the reason "Black Mirror" is so compelling. It's not your typical science fiction, which envisions the world 100 or 1,000 years from now. It imagines next year. Next month.

A psychological principle called the "hedonic treadmill" is the real fuel that would, in theory, drive us toward this pathetic and debilitating future. In essence, because we're always on the hunt for that next thing that'll make us feel good, it's almost impossible for us to just be— and just being, research suggests, is one of the key ways to feel truly happy.

'A lifestyle community'

In one particularly evocative scene, the main character, Lacie Pound (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) discovers the only way she can afford the apartment she wants — in the prestigious Pelican Cove Lifestyle Community — is by raising her rating and becoming a "preferred" member. A higher score of a 4.5, the leasing agent tells her, would qualify her for a 20% discount. But she's several percentage points away at a meager 4.2. The remainder of the plot focuses on Lacie's initially promising — but ultimately devastating — attempt to raise her score by speaking at the wedding of a childhood friend with an envious 4.8 rating.

In the end, after brandishing a knife in the middle of a very public nervous breakdown, Lacie is arrested and jailed. The episode ends in the middle of a vicious but comical insult-throwing match between Lacie and the man in the cell across from her.

The hedonic treadmill

All of Lacie's pursuits fall into line perfectly with the hedonic treadmill principle, which some psychologists have used to explain why so many of us feel unsatisfied with our lives. If we get a job promotion, for example, we'll celebrate and feel good for a moment, but those joyful emotions are fleeting. Soon enough, we'll be back to where we started — on the hunt for the next feel-good thing and, therefore, unhappy. In the early 1990s, British psychologist Michael Eysenck likened this constant starvation for more and more to a treadmill— hence the name.

"You're running but you're on that treadmill and you're not getting anywhere in terms of happiness," science journalist Wendy Zukerman explained on a 2015 episode of her podcast series "Science Vs" about happiness.

Eventually that temporary boost in happiness you get from a job promotion or marriage proposal will abate, and you'll be back to the same baseline level of happiness you were before the exciting change.

And that's precisely what Lacie Pound experiences. Every time she gets a four or five-star rating, her bright blue eyes light up. She smiles and giggles with a high-pitched glee. But at the end of the day, Lacie is lonely and unsatisfied. She lives with her brother. We don't meet any of her close friends. She feels alienated by her co-workers. The wedding she's attending is for a friend who she has not been close with for ages and clearly doesn't trust.

In the part of the episode where Lacie views the apartment of her dreams, she's shown a virtual reality scene of herself making dinner in the kitchen with a lover — and it's this romantic vision that seems to goad her into pursuing the 4.5 rating. She wants companionship. She wants relationships. And she'll do anything — even if it goes against her instincts, even if it's all, ultimately, a big lie — to get there.

Social media doesn't make us happy

Unfortunately, Lacie continues to pursue what she thinks will make her happy, like a high social media rating, while completely disregarding the things that might actually make her happy, like friendships with her co-workers or a real relationship with her brother. In the real world, many of us make Lacie's mistake over and over again.

Study after study has found that when we engage with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, we may feel a temporary boost from likes or favorites, but there's absolutely no link between social media use and long-term happiness. Some research suggests the opposite, in fact: that social media use is linked with an increase in negative feelings. A January study of 1,787 young US adults sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, for example, found a “strong and significant association between social media use and depression." Participants' depression levels, the researchers found, increased alongside the total amount of time spent using social media and the number of weekly visits to social media platforms.

Nevertheless, driven by the hedonic treadmill, we keep using it. We "check" Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as if there's something real there for us to find there. But all we ever get is a "like" or a "fave." And a swipe or a scroll is all it takes to wipe them away.

A limit to our dependence upon ratings

Fortunately, some research suggests there's a limit to how far this hedonic principle will ultimately drive us. That research helps explain why we don't merely spend all of our time doing pleasurable activities, and why we still somehow manage to do things like work and chores. Sure, we do sometimes gravitate towards things that make us feel good in the short-term. But we also manage to do things that aren't inherently pleasant — like the laundry or the dishes — because we know those activities will help us feel satisfied in the long-run.

This could be good news for those of us concerned with turning into Lacie Pound. So long as we're aware that social media doesn't turn into long-term happiness, we'll always withdraw from it — at least temporarily — to do things that will give us those long-term rewards.

A study published in August in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which looked at the type of activities people engage in when they're either feeling happy or feeling sad, for example, found that we tend to gravitate towards boring activities like chores when we're in a good mood. On the other hand, we do things like going on a hike or getting drinks with friends when we're feeling low. This suggests that our happiness is something of a reserve, the study authors told Business Insider.

"Our positive emotion, perhaps, can be seen as a resource," Dr. Jordi Quoidbach, one of the study's lead authors and a psychology professor at Barcelona's University Pompeu Fabra, told us in August. "When we don't have enough, we need to replenish it, but as soon as we have enough, we can potentially use that to get things done."

Of all the logged activities the researchers studied, spending time with other people had the strongest link to positive emotions, while using social media had either a neutral or slightly negative link.

In other words, since social media doesn't do anything for our longterm happiness, it's tough to imagine a functioning society that's 100% dependent upon it. If we ever tried to create one, most of us would probably end up like Lacie Pound does at the end of the episode — screaming at a stranger from inside a prison cell.

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Parents in the US have a lot of leeway when it comes to naming their children.

Just look at siblings Adolf Hitler, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation, and Heinrich Hinler Hons as an example. Though you could argue there were other repercussions, their parents were totally within their legal rights according to New Jersey law to give their kids these Nazi-themed names. 

And though some states do have restrictions on what parents can name their children for certain practical reasons, the US Constitution affords parents a great deal of autonomy in raising their kids.

Other countries, however, take a different view, many feeling that if a parent doesn't have their child's best interest at heart when naming them, it's the government's responsibility to step in. And other countries are particularly concerned about maintaining cultural identity.

Here are some of the names banned around the world:

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Denmark

Denmark has a list of about 7,000 approved baby names, and if your name choice doesn't make the cut, you have to seek permission and have your name choice reviewed at Copenhagen University's Names Investigation Department and at the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs.

More than 1,000 names are reviewed every year, and almost 20% are rejected, mostly for odd spellings.

France

In France, local birth certificate registrars must inform their local court if they feel a baby name goes against the child's best interests.

The court can then ban the name if it agrees, and will do so especially if it feels the name could lead to a lifetime of mockery.

Germany

Germany has a number of baby-naming restrictions, including: no gender-neutral names; no last names, names of objects, or names of products as first names; and no names that could negatively affect the child's well-being or lead to humiliation.

Italian artist Dario Gambarin has created larger-than-life portraits of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in giant fields near Verona, Italy.

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