• New York City doormen guard the entrances to some of the city's most expensive residences.
• Their jobs are notoriously private, and some are under strict NDAs that keep them quiet about the residents they guard.
• Photographer Sam Golanski photographed the doormen of Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Many of New York's wealthiest people reside in multimillion-dollar condos on Park Avenue on the Upper East Side. There's 740 Park Avenue, where John D. Rockefeller, Blackstone founder Steve Schwarzman, and business tycoon David Koch have all lived. Just down the street at 730 Park Avenue, "billionaire bidding wars" have led to some sky-high home sales, including a penthouse that reportedly sold to hedge funder Daniel Benton for $39 million in 2012.

Guarding the entrance to these and other tony buildings along Park Avenue are the doormen who often live vastly different lives than those inside. A doorman's tasks can vary greatly, as they assist residents with everything from running errands, to loading up their cars, to calling cabs, and most importantly, providing security. As of 2014, unionized doormen in New York City made an average of $49,402 a year. 

It was the unusual job of the doorman that photographer Sam Golanski was most interested in when he visited New York in 2015. He convinced them to pose briefly for his camera. "These guys are real people who need more attention. [They're] not pampered celebs wearing their Gucci bags and expensive watches," Golanski told Business Insider.

Ahead, see 11 doormen pose outside their posts.  

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Golanski noted that many of the doormen he spoke with have been working in the industry for years.

"In many cases it's a job for life," Golanski said. "One gentleman said he had been working as a doorman at the same building since [the] late '70s."

An important part of the job of a doorman is to keep residents' personal lives private. "They do witness a lot about resident life, but there is a secret agreement between them and the people they serve not to talk about it to outsiders," Golanski said.

• The origin of the term "Black Friday" is murky.
• The most popular story says that the name came from the fact that the day's sales are so great, it can push retailers "into the black." But the earliest reference to that is 1981.
• But a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter claims he helped popularize the term.

Though most shoppers likely don't stop to think about why we call the day after Thanksgiving "Black Friday," all the same, many have wondered.

The most popular explanation is that the day's sales are so high, it can singlehandedly push a retailer from being "in the red," or losing money, into "the black," or solvency.

That reasoning first appeared in 1981, according to Snopes, but that's apparently years after the Philadelphia police had already coined the term "Black Friday." According to a 1994 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer that was written by one of the reporters who claims to have popularized the term, "Black Friday" was actually coined in the 1960s.

Black Friday has long been considered the start of the holiday shopping season, and since Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday, many schools and some businesses would be closed the day after. 

Stores, however, were not closed, causing a spike in traffic and crowds in Philadelphia's Center City. Police officers in the city started calling the day Black Friday, as they had to work 12-hour shifts to mitigate the madness. From there, the media got a hold of it, and the name was popularized.

The nickname caught on even after PR firms hired by department stores tried to change the name to "Big Friday" in the 1960s. It didn't work, and eventually, Black Friday spread across the US, morphing into the monument to holiday shopping we know today.

SEE ALSO: Amazon has already launched its Black Friday store

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• Amazon has been quietly selling private-label sportswear brands.
• It launched a high-performance brand, Peak Velocity, in October, as well as two other brands earlier this year.
• These new offerings make Amazon a bona fide sportswear maker.

Amazon has been quietly diving into the world of sportswear, a spokesperson confirmed with Business Insider.

Its new sports-oriented clothing brand, Peak Velocity, which it launched in late October, offers performance sweatshirts and sweatpants with features like moisture-wicking and stretch. It has two lines: "Quantum Fleece" which the website says is "built for work," and "Metro Fleece," which is higher-priced and "built for everyday."

The most expensive item is the Metro Full-Zip Fleece sweatshirt at $79, and the cheapest is the Quantum Fleece shorts at $29. Only men's clothing is available right now for this particular line.

Each item can only be purchased by Amazon Prime members, just like many of Amazon's other in-house clothing brands, such as GoodThreads and Amazon Essentials.

Peak Velocity is one part of Amazon's larger push into sportswear. It has two other, more general, sportswear lines: Rebel Canyon, a lifestyle streetwear take on sportswear, and Goodsport, a wider-ranging line of traditional workout gear with tops, bottoms, and outerwear.

Both lines offer both men's and women's clothes at prices lower than the Peak Velocity line, and they're also limited to Prime members. They were released earlier in 2017. 

This new offering puts Amazon squarely in competition with sports brands like Nike and Lululemon. Nike is currently in a pilot program to sell product on Amazon, which a Nike executive described as successful. Peak Velocity, in particular, goes after the high-performance sportswear niche that Nike is known for.

SEE ALSO: Amazon has already launched its Black Friday store

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If you really want to impress with your holiday snaps, you'll need to venture further afield than sunny Spain or the USA, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Brits made 70.8 million visits overseas in 2016, with 49% of all trips taking them to either Spain, France, Italy, the Republic of Ireland, or the USA.

Spain was named the UK's favourite holiday destination by a landslide, accounting for 14.7 million overseas trips and over a fifth of all international travel in 2016.

With British holidays getting increasingly predictable, Business Insider has compiled a list of the 48 locations that were least visited by UK residents in 2016, according to the latest Travel Trends report from the ONS.

Passengers arriving and departing from the UK were surveyed on the main country they visited as part of their trip in order to produce the data, which was scaled up to represent national figures.

The report does not take into account instances where multiple destinations were visited as part of one trip. In these cases, only the country visited for the longest period was included in the data.

The ONS data includes locations which the Foreign Office currently warns against visiting, as explained in each entry, however travellers can still aspire to visit if they become more peaceful.

Scroll on to discover the 48 least visited destinations that should be on every seasoned globetrotter's bucket list, ranked in descending order by the number of visits made by UK residents in 2016 — as well as a hand-picked list of must-visit attractions from each place.

48. Cameroon — 7,172 visits.

Cameroon has its fair share of museums, waterfalls, lakes, safari lodges, and national parks.

For a great picture opportunity, meet the chimpanzees at the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Centre just outside the city of Edéa.

47. Brunei — 6,610 visits.

This small country on the island of Borneo features breathtaking beaches, stunning mosques, and regal riverboats.

Take a water tour of the gorgeous art galleries, museums, and historic architecture in Kampong Ayer — a district in the capital city of Bandar Seri Begawan.

46. Republic of Congo-Brazzaville — 5,603 visits.

Despite the former French colony declaring independence in 1960, the Republic of Congo's capital city of Brazzaville still has obvious French influences.

Just outside of the capital, witness the choppy waters of the Congo River Rapids against the rocky, stark landscape. Alternatively, head to Point-Noire — a port city known for its expansive beaches and nearby rainforest.

• A new website from Inkifi has created a tool that can calculate how much your Instagram posts are worth based on your number of followers.
• Business Insider's lifestyle reporter tested it — and her posts turned out to be worth very little.
• Micro-influencers with as few as 3,000 followers, though, are charging brands as much as £100 ($130) a post.

It can feel unfair heading to a 9-to-5 job each day when some people are there travelling the world for free, getting paid large sums to take photos of themselves in incredible destinations.

But if you've always aspired to live the influencer lifestyle, there's a simple way to find out whether your profile would make the cut.

A new website from Inkifi has created a tool that can calculate how much your Instagram posts could be worth based on your number of followers — you just type in your Instagram handle.

And don't be fooled into thinking you need hundreds of thousands of followers to have a chance of earning any cash.

"Micro-influencers," people who have as few as 3,000 followers on the photo-sharing app, are charging some brands to feature their products in Instagram posts. The influencer marketplace Tribe told Business Insider that micro-influencers with 3,000 to 10,000 followers could charge brands £50 to £100 ($65 to $130) for a post, while people with over 100,000 followers could demand more than £350 per photo.

I do not fall into that category, sadly, and have a modest following of just over 400.

Inkifi used data from "The State of Influencer Marketing 2017" report and calculated that, on average, each Instagram follower was worth £0.0043 — though it noted that deals between influencers and brands differ.

So to find out my worth to brands, I entered my Instagram username on the Inkifi site.

It turns out my measly 417 followers wouldn't get me very far in the influencer world — I'm apparently worth just £1.79 a post for brands.

But it's still something to work from. Elma Beganovich, a 31-year-old "superstar influencer" who has over 735,000 followers on Instagram, told Business Insider that things could ramp up pretty quickly once you've applied yourself.

Beganovich and her sister quit their corporate jobs in 2013 to become social-media personalities — something that barely existed at the time.

Beganovich told Business Insider that over two years, she and her sister went from charging brands £75 for a single sponsored post to an enormous £15,000.

Below is an example of a collaboration Beganovich recently did with The Pierre, the five-star hotel that's the iconic US flagship of Taj Hotels on New York's Fifth Avenue.

According to Inkifi, based on her follower count, Kim Kardashian could make £448,100 from just one Instagram post, while the supermodel Gigi Hadid could earn £156,100. However, their names alone are likely to come with a bigger price tag for brands.

It's also worth noting that those in the know in the influencer-marketing world say your worth to brands is based on more than just your follower count.

"Now the metric brands should be looking at is the cost per engagement — the cost of the post divided by the number of comments, likes, and shares — because these days anyone can buy reach," Lisa Targett, the UK general manager of Tribe, told Business Insider.

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Business Insider was invited to trial the recently launched "Fashion Now" in-suite personal shopping experience at the 5-star Hotel Café Royal in central London.
• Mari Solazzo, head of private shopping for London-based luxury retailer Matches Fashion, curated a designer edit for our Lifestyle Reporter.
• Solazzo's clients include British clients among the top 1%, celebrities, and wealthy foreigners.

The discreet world of personal shopping is a luxury usually afforded only to the top 1% who have both money to burn and time to kill.

So when Business Insider was invited to trial a new personal shopping service that was recently launched by Hotel Café Royal with Matches Fashion, our interest was piqued.

I — a lifestyle reporter at BI — met with Mari Solazzo, head of private shopping for the British luxury retailer, at the glamorous five-star hotel on Regent Street.

Solazzo and her team are usually based at the Matches Fashion headquarters on the 11th floor of The Shard, but we met in the hotel's exclusive Regent Suite for a consultation under the new "Fashion Now" private shopping experience.

This is what the suite looked like.

Its bathroom was equally as stunning.

Emergency fashion

Fashion Now was initially designed as an emergency service for guests whose luggage had gone missing in transit.

Eliot Sandiford, director of PR at Hotel Cafe Royal, told Business Insider: "If we have a guest who has flown in for two to three days from Paris or New York, they don't have the time to go to Selfridges or Harrods.

"This way concierge can arrange a call with a Matches personal stylist to discuss sizing and have items for any occasion delivered to their door within 90 minutes."

It now encompasses a specialised in-suite private shopping experience. The service involves a phone consultation with a stylist, after which a curated wardrobe edit is assembled in your suite, accompanied by the stylist who will run through the garments with you.

It's complimentary to all of Hotel Cafe Royal's guests who are staying in a suite, which cost from £1,500 and go up to £14,000 per night. The Regent Suite is one of the latter.

I was met by Solazzo and Indre Dauniene, one of her Russian-speaking personal shoppers.

Solazzo explained that it's really important to have people who speak different languages on her 16-strong team to cater to their wealthy foreign clientele.

She oozed glamour but also radiated warmth, a far cry from the pushy shop assistant stereotype. Perhaps it's down to the 30 minutes of meditation she said she fits into her morning routine.

The pair were both dressed in pristine monochrome designer outfits, finished with perfect red lipstick and nails. 

Solazzo's crisp white shirt and black trousers are both by Margiella — her favourite designer at the moment. Her outfit cost more than my monthly wage.

She paired her outfit with velvet Miu Miu platforms — £580 each — an "investment buy."

A 24/7 luxury service

Solazzo usually offers the service to guests over Champagne, but I settled for a cappuccino as it was only 9.30.a.m.

"We're usually in the office from about 8 a.m. until 6 p.m., but we're always on call 24/7," she said. "If the client wants something you never say no." This is a phrase I heard uttered several more times during our meeting.

"I always tell my team we're like doctors," she added.

Solazzo's army of personal stylists are constantly on call to deal with any kind of fashion emergency a client might have — and they work across multiple platforms.

Matches recently introduced an online private shopping service, and three of her team are now employed solely to reach customers via WhatsApp and Skype.

They have around 90 clients each and spend their days furiously tapping and swiping away on their phones sending out new edits.

For her "bricks and mortar clients" — who value the face-to-face experience — there's also No.23 the townhouse on Welbeck Street, in the prestigious Marylebone area.

Here's what it looks like.

The elegantly decorated 18th century townhouse offers clients bespoke personal shopping consultations by appointment only — providing their spend meets a certain threshold, which Matches declined to reveal.

In a typical townhouse experience, customers will be presented with between 75 and 80 units of clothing. Solazzo said that while there's no obligation to buy, they expect to sell at least half of those items.

Her team also flies around the world to meet their clients needs. Dauniene recently went to San Francisco, while the others will soon visit New York, Australia, Korea, Singapore, and Kuwait.

While Matches is known for showcasing some of the newest and upcoming designers of the moment, Solazzo said her Middle Eastern clients tend to favour classics such as D&G and Gucci.

"I'm always educating them that if you're wearing Gucci, just wear a simple Joseph piece underneath," she said.

They also apparently love the international delivery service because they hate to carry shopping bags with them. "So with one click we just ship it to their house where the maid is on-hand — so we're both digital and physical, you see."

Meanwhile, Russian clients are big fans of Valentino, according to Dauniene, and often require standout runway pieces for the lavish events that they attend.

As well as wealthy foreigners, the private shopping service reaches celebrities, for whom Solazzo has another small designated team to look after, as well as UK-based shoppers who have grown up with the brand.

My curated edit

At the Regent Suite, Solazzo curated an edit for me to peruse.

"My first question is always 'What's your favourite colour?' then 'What do you hate?'" she said.

"I also need to know if you have kids or whether you're a business woman to figure out your lifestyle."

These kinds of things will typically be ironed out in the phone consultation prior to the face-to-face meeting.

Solazzo picked me out a velvet Racil robe (£630) that she advised would be best worn with a plain white t-shirt, jeans, and backless fluffy Gucci loafers (£720).

"This is one of the best looks you can have of the season," she said. "It's one of the trends that we are recommending the most at the moment."

She also chose a cream jumper from the Olsen twins' fashion label The Row (£1,600), that she said would compliment my light blonde hair. It's a colour I had never considered, but one which I am now determined to incorporate into my wardrobe.

Next up, a blue corduroy suit by Maison Rabih Kayrouz. The blazer (£1,605) would come in handy for other outfit combinations, she said.

As we delved deeper into the haul, Solozzo's eyes glistened with excitement, but also a seriousness. There was talk of empowerment, timelessness, and investment purchases.

Finally, Dauniene curated a sporty street style outfit for me — which they called "ugly fashion."

It consisted of contrast-striped wide-leg velvet trousers by Serena Bute (£350) paired with an oversized cotton shirt from Acne Studios that I could dress up "to empower" with stilettos, or simply wear half tucked in with white trainers and a blazer. "Bedtime wear is very in," she said.

Solazzo's team will usually conduct three of these in-person meet-ups a week and spend the rest of their time researching and putting together edits.

They also offer a wardrobe detox service, whereby they visit some of their wealthy clients' homes to help declutter and create capsule collections.

Contrary to what you might expect of a professional shopper, Solazzo confessed to me that she never plans her own outfits ahead of time.

"I need to wake up and see how I feel, I can't plan in advance," she said. "And to be really honest, if I have a big event it's usually just a day before that I sort my outfit."

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Dan Buettner is a National Geographic Explorer and the author of "The Blue Zones of Happiness: Lessons from the World's Happiest People." Here, he explains how Denmark is consistently ranked as one of the happiest countries in the world. Following is a transcript of the video.

Dan Buettner: I actually think most of the previous stories about Danish happiness were wrong.

The first stories were that: Danes are happy because they have low expectations. Nothing could be further than the truth. Every Dane, from the moment they're born, expects free healthcare, free education. When they get into college they expect to be paid to go to school. If they have a child, they expect to have 10 months of paid maternity or paternity leave. And they expect to be able to retire absolutely securely for the rest of their life. It's huge expectations.

What makes Danes happy, I believe is because their government takes care of all the necessities of life — nothing can ever go too wrong in their lives — they're free to pursue a job that really speaks to their passions.

But actually, Denmark is a place where ambition is not greatly celebrated. So, people aren't in the rat race. They’re not always buying new clothes and new cars and trying to keep up with the Joneses, and that gives them more time to pursue their interests.

So, you have a country here where people are good at architecture and they create the best restaurants in the world and furniture design. And these are jobs suggestive of flow — of optimal using your talents, so that time can absolutely disappear.

When it comes to happiness, I think we often think of it as the attainment of joy, but actually, the bigger part of happiness is getting rid of the stresses of our daily lives. So, this notion of having your health insurance covered, your education covered, and your retirement covered is actually very huge.

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The world is home to many incredible destinations that have yet to be overrun by tourists.

Inspired by a Quora thread about the best unknown travel destinations, we've found 23 lesser-known gems around the globe. 

From a stunning, hidden beach to one of the only places in the world where you can swim between two continents, here's your off-the-beaten-path bucket list. 

Talia Avakian contributed reporting to an earlier version of this article. 

SEE ALSO: The 25 cities with the most expensive five-star hotels

Tucked away under the surface, the Marieta Islands' "Hidden Beach" is a secret beach with crystal-clear waters that travelers can access either by swimming or kayaking through a long water tunnel.

Click here to learn more about Hidden Beach »

Huacachina is a desert oasis located five hours south of Lima, Peru. The watering hole was once a popular getaway for the upper class escaping from nearby Ica, but now it has become a stop for backpackers who come here to enjoy activities like sand boarding and dune buggy rides.

Click here to learn more about Huacachina »

Those who visit Blagaj, a village in Bosnia and Herzegovina, are often in awe at the majestic sight of the Blagaj Tekke — a monastery built for the Dervish cults. Visitors are welcome to enjoy its wooden interiors or have a cold drink while overlooking the striking Buna river.

Click here to learn more about the Blagaj Tekke »

• A New York Times article suggests that millennial parents — 'parennials' — are raising their kids differently from previous generations.
• One major difference is that they search for parenting advice online, instead of asking friends and family.
• All that information may leave them feeling overwhelmed. Fortunately, experts have tips for finding reliable resources.

Meet the "parennials." That's millennial parents, for the uninitiated.

In The New York Times, Bruce Feiler coins this term and outlines a series of ways in which today's parents are raising their kids differently from previous generations.

One simple but crucial difference Feiler notes is that today's moms and dads are what one expert calls "high-information parents." In other words, they're accustomed to turning to the internet for any and every question that pops up.

According to that expert — Rebecca Parlakian, who is the program director for Zero to Three, an organization that has been studying new parents for three decades — "Google is the new grandparent, the new neighbor, the new nanny."

As in: How do I bottle-feed my baby? When should my kid start talking? Don't call someone who's been through this before and can share their wisdom — simply page Dr. Google.

Parlakian told Feiler, "The good news is that parents know more about child development than ever before."

The bad news? As anyone — parent or not — who at 3 a.m. has found themselves on the ninth page of a Google search for "do I have the plague?" knows, it's overwhelming. Sometimes, it's even disempowering.

The internet may be a source of virtual support for parents

Interestingly, this phenomenon isn't limited to those who are inexperienced in child-rearing. In a Quartz article, child psychiatrist Dawn Barker wrote that even she turned to the internet as a first-time mom.

Barker came up with a few theories to explain why this happens. She wrote:

"For women who have been successful in other aspects of life," — such as their careers — "failing to live up to being a textbook mother, by not having a textbook baby, can be very challenging, triggering the obsession to 'fix' the problem rather than relaxing into parenthood."

What's more, Barker said today's parents are less likely to live near family and to be chummy with their neighbors, so the internet provides some "virtual support."

Parennials certainly shouldn't feel bad for turning to the internet for parenting advice. That said, it's best to approach all that online advice with some degree of skepticism.

In The Washington Post, Alice Callahan — an author and a mom who has a Ph.D. in nutritional biology — recommends starting your search on sites from universities, medical organizations, children's hospitals, and governmental organizations. She also urges parents not to assume that something natural is necessarily safer.

Above all, Callahan writes: "Know that no Web site can be a substitute for a healthcare provider. If you think your child is really sick, don't bring her symptoms to Facebook. Get real medical care."

SEE ALSO: Parents of successful kids have these 12 things in common

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• Spectacles resembled an ephemeral 1970s fad.
• The devices failed to attract interest from Snap's youthful users.
• The big question is now whether CEO Even Spiegel can keep the company cool in the face of Wall Street pressure.

I don't know much of anything about Snap because I'm frankly just too old to get it.

But I have a 14-year-old daughter, and she and her friends get Snap and then some. They use it constantly — it's by far their most beloved app.

But their enthusiasm isn't helping Snap succeed as a public company. On Tuesday, Snap reported third-quarter results that disappointed Wall Street. The company also took a $40-million loss on Spectacles. 

When Spectacles broke cover, I seriously wondered whether my daughter and her crew would take to them. At $129 a pop, they weren't a super-major outlay for a parent, or even a teen with some money saved up. I prepared myself to be asked for a pair as a holiday gift.

At the time, I thought there was something oddly brilliant about Spectacles. To me, they proved, that CEO Evan Spiegel is able to leverage his youth — he's in his mid-twenties — to dial into some interesting business opportunities.

Mood rings and pet rocks

That said, Spectacles didn't look to me a like a built-to-last kind of thing. Actually, they very much reminded me of a bunch of el-cheapo fads from my own pre-digital youth in the 1970s. You may have heard of some this goofy stuff, like pet rocks and mood rings.

Spectacles looked large and kind of silly — Spiegel called them a "toy" — and they came in basic black as well as two offbeat colors, the always popular teal and coral. They could only record up to 10 seconds of video, so they were clearly only useful as a Snapchat accessory. You played around with them for a few months and then moved on. Fad finished.

They were almost designed to not stick around or be improved. And Spiegel was too cool to have missed the negative reception that Google Glass received.

One thing I've noticed about digitally sophisticated kids who aren't yet of driving age is that they cycle through their enthusiasms quite a bit faster than previous generations. This appears new because they're all using the mobile internet, but it also feels very '70s to me. That was a decade when all kinds of trends came and went rapidly, in music, culture, fashion, and even politics.

I tried this theory out on my then-13-year-old, and she agreed that Spectacles were possibly a neat gimmick — they reminded her of some other recent fads, like hoverboards, something I hadn't thought about, but something that Spiegel probably had.

But here's the thing: Spectacles were completely ignored by my daughter's cohort. They love Snap. But they showed zero interest in Spectacles. 

Snap is still cool

So Spectacles flopped. That doesn't mean that Spiegel wasn't onto something. Despite Snap's struggles, it's still about a million times cooler than Facebook or Twitter. The teens are making tentative forays into Instagram, but they seem wary of it, whereas they continue to obsessively engage with Snap. 

It isn't hard, especially in light of the news coming out of the 2016 election, to see Facebook and Twitter and companies that sold their souls to the markets — Twitter because it was getting desperate, and Facebook because it needed to FACEBOOK, strategically sacrificing its early disdain for advertising so that it could reward investors.

I wonder if Snap will again leverage Spiegel's seemingly innate sense of teen culture to introduce another faddish device. After all, Amazon has experimented will all manner of stuff, showing the failure doesn't mean a broad initiative is conceptually flawed.

Then again, Spiegel badly misjudged a core audience with Spectacles. Do that too many times, and you won't be cool anymore at all.

SEE ALSO: Snap flops with disastrous Q3 earnings that send shares diving

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• Bartenders can tell a lot about a person based on their drink order.
• Some drinks scream boring idiot, while others make you look polished and knowledgeable.
• Several bartenders shared what specific drink orders indicate to them about a person.

Bartending isn't just about mixing cocktails and serving up beers. 

Perhaps one of the most social jobs out there, bartending requires constant contact with others and a great deal of social perceptiveness.

So, when you're a bartender, you come to understand quite a few things about human nature and behavior, and you have some go-to tools that help.

"You can tell what type of person someone is by their drink order in specific bars," Anjali Sharma, a former bartender with eight years of experience from Atlanta, told Business Insider.

For example, "if you're in a bar with tons of other people and it's loud and you order something complicated, you clearly don't value people's time," she said. "How you react to the bar being out of your 'usual' is also very indicative of your personality," she said.

Rebecka, a bartender with 10 years of experience in New York and Glasgow, told Business Insider that someone's drink order can also indicate that they have no idea where they are and what's possible to be made in a certain bar. 

Other things bartenders said they can pick up on based on their drink order include if the person is underage, has no clue about mixology — "which is fine but disappointing because there are so many great cocktails out there!" an anonymous bartender said — is boring, wants to use money to impress people, know their alcohol, or is looking for a cheap buzz.

Business Insider surveyed more than 30 bartenders on what they think about your drink of choice. Here's what they had to say: 

SEE ALSO: Bartenders reveal why they judge anyone who orders shots of top-shelf liquor

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Shots are often a bad sign to bartenders

"When you go for shots, I think 'trouble,'" a bartender in New York with eight years of experience told Business Insider.

Or, as another bartender in the US Virgin Islands put it, "Shots equal jacka-- juice."

Ordering expensive shots in particular makes you look foolish

"Some people will buy loads of expensive shots when out in groups," a bartender from Ireland with 12 years of experience told Business Insider. "They're trying to look flash."

But for all your attempts to look cool, bartenders say you just wind up looking the fool.

"You look stupid when you order expensive shots," a former bartender from New York with 10 years of experience told Business Insider. "The whole point is to get it down quickly — you're not enjoying the quality."

Read more on what bartenders think about ordering high-end shots »

Overly sweet shots don't make you look great either

"Shots of Chartreuse, Jager, Goldschlager, or Fireball are abhorrently sweet and low on alcohol and tell me that you are a hipster who has no clue what you are doing," Jennifer Sun, a bartender with five years of experience in New Haven, Connecticut, told Business Insider.

• There's increasing evidence that smartphone use can be bad for our mental health.
• People have reported feeling anxious when they don't have access to their phones, or have low battery.
• Automatically reaching for our phones to text friends could mean we are less able to deal with things on our own.
• Psychotherapists recommend a digital detox now and then so we don't become too dependent on messaging and social media.

Our smartphones mean our friends and family are just a message away. If you can't reach them on one app, you have countless others to choose from.

However, while being more easily connected to our close ones sounds like a good thing, it could also be problematic for us psychologically.

A recent study, conducted by wireless charging technology provider CHARGit, found that out of 2,000 participants, 65% claimed to feel anxious when low on phone battery, and 42% felt vulnerable when losing any battery.

This "battery anxiety" was reported to be highest when participants were in an unfamiliar place or out and about, such as travelling (72.6%), when alone (50.9%), on a night out (29.7%), or while shopping (21.3%).

About 43% of respondents said they felt frustrated and anxious when they were low on battery, and 42% said they felt vulnerable when they completely ran out. Others said having having low battery made them feel cut off, isolated, angry, and scared.

We might be too dependent on constant contact

Having our faithful smartphones by our side all the time means we can send a message to our friends, family, or partner when we see something funny on the internet, when we want to plan a meet-up, or when we're dealing with something more serious, like having anxiety about a situation at work. However, this accessability to our loved ones for support on issues may make it more difficult for us to face things alone when we need to.

Being able to message our friends constantly means our lives become more reliable, when actually a little bit of unpredictability is good for us. According to one study, published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, people with anxiety or depression don't cope well with uncertainty.

Reaching for the phone to text your friend, partner, or relative when something happens, before you've had the chance to really think it through yourself, can be problematic, because they reassure you. This makes you feel better in the short run, but all you've done is put your mind at ease. You haven't really had the time to analyse the situation properly.

Another study, published in the journal Clinical Psychology Science and Practice, looked at peoples' intolerance of uncertainty. The researchers concluded that preventing being able to predict the outcome of situations could be valuable for people who struggle to relinquish control.

Next time something happens that worries you, such as your boss requesting a meeting at work, try not to reach for the phone. Receiving instant soothing words from a friend could mean you're putting yourself at risk of getting even more worried next time you're faced with something anxiety-provoking.

Phones shouldn't be our only coping skill

According to Amy Morin, a psychotherapist and clinical social worker who appeared on TEDx with her talk The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong, using a smartphone for emotional support from friends can be helpful, but if people become overly reliant on it then it could become their only coping skill.

"That's a problem because it makes people dependent upon their phones and [on] others to regulate their emotions for them," Morin told Business Insider. "You don't want to become overly reliant on any one coping skill. Instead, it's important to have a toolbox full of tools that you can use to cope with tough challenges and uncomfortable emotions."

As well as being an emotional crutch, there is increasing evidence that smartphone use can take a toll on our mental health in other ways. In one study of 496 students, published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, smartphone use and texting was negatively related to good grades at school and positively related to anxiety.

"When people receive notifications or messages, they find it rewarding, and they become addicted to that positive feeling which can lead to compulsively checking their smartphones," said Morin.

"People are becoming addicted to their phones, the same way they might become addicted to gambling. Heavy smartphone users often experience a sharp spike in anxiety and withdrawal-like symptoms when they're away from their phones."

Morin says it's important to establish healthy limits with our phones, which means being willing to turn them off sometimes.

"Take a digital detox for a weekend, a week, or even a month," she said. "Taking a break from technology could be good for your mental health."

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• Microsoft founder Bill Gates married Melinda French in 1994.

• They met at Microsoft when Melinda was brought on a product manager — she initially turned down Bill's request for a date at a company picnic.

• Today, they run the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has an endowment of $40.3 billion.

Melinda French was less than impressed when her boss asked her out on a date.

It was 1987, and the recent Duke graduate had just joined Microsoft as a product manager. CEO Bill Gates approached her at a company picnic and inquired if she'd be interested in grabbing dinner in two weeks. Business Insider reported her response was, "That's not spontaneous enough for me."

Flash forward three decades, and Bill and Melinda Gates are married with three kids, worth $89.6 billion, and run a namesake philanthropic enterprise boasting a $40.3 billion endowment.

Here's a look inside their 23-year marriage:

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DON'T MISS: Inside the daily routine of billionaire Bill Gates, who loves cheeseburgers, tours missile silos, and washes the dishes every night

At the picnic, Melinda did give Bill her number and told him to call her closer to the day he had in mind.

Source: Business Insider

Instead, he called her up later that night with a wry question: "Is this spontaneous enough for you?" Turns out, it was.

Source: Business Insider

Melinda and Bill dated for seven years before they wed. Melinda told Fortune her mom didn't think seeing the CEO was a good idea, in the beginning.

Source: Business Insider, Fortune

• Drake told The Hollywood Reporter that he has been pursuing a first-edition copy of the first "Harry Potter" book for four years.
• A first-edition copy just hit the market for $160,000, and Drake said he's interested in buying it.
• The rapper has an estimated net worth of $90 million.

In a revealing new profile in The Hollywood Reporter, Drake said that he has been pursuing a rare copy of the first "Harry Potter" book for four years. 

Drake told the publication that he has read all of J.K. Rowling's best-selling book series, and that he is interested in buying a first-edition copy that reportedly just hit the market for $160,000. 

After THR's Tatiana Siegel told Drake that she was reading the series to her children, the rapper, "as if to talk himself into the purchase" of the rare book, responded, "I should get it. My birthday's coming up. Maybe I'll buy it for myself as a treat."

While THR lists the book as "Sorcerer's Stone," the first edition he's chasing is more likely one of the rare first hard-cover printings of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (the UK title), which the UK publisher Bloomsbury printed just 500 copies of in 1997.

Nonetheless, the purchase would not make much of a dent on Drake's fortune.

The 31-year-old rapper was named the fifth richest hip-hop artist in the world by Forbes this year, with an estimated net worth of $90 million. 

SEE ALSO: The 50 best-selling music artists of all time

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A low-carb, high-fat diet that's been described as "Atkins on steroids" is gaining momentum in Silicon Valley. The ketogenic diet — "keto" for short — encourages eating bacon, butter, eggs, nuts, avocados, and other healthy fats, and tech workers say it super-charges the human body.

Eat lots of fat might sound great, but the keto diet is harder to maintain than you might expect.

Urban Remedy, an organic food company that sells ready-to-eat meals, juices, and snacks in the Bay Area and online, launched a pre-made keto meal kit to help people dive in.

The plan includes three days' worth of low-carb, high-fat meals, so customers don't have to keep track of their carbohydrate intake in the early days of the diet. The plan costs $210.

I am an experienced keto-dieter, and I decided to give Urban Remedy's Keto Meal Plan a try. Here's how it went.

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Urban Remedy wants to take the work out of maintaining the keto diet. And it is work.

The keto diet, which first became popular in the 1920s as a treatment for epilepsy and diabetes, limits carbohydrates to no more than 50 grams a day. That's roughly the equivalent of a cup of white rice. (The US Department of Agriculture recommends 225 to 325 grams of carbs a day.)

On the keto diet, the body switches from burning carbs to burning fat as its primary fuel source — a process known as ketosis, which gives the diet its name. Adherents of the keto diet often fill up on healthy fats, as well as leafy greens and animal protein, in order to prime the body for this state.

I tried the keto diet for two months earlier this year and struggled with its restrictions.

In the first weeks on the diet, I experienced symptoms including headaches and fatigue, as well as urges to eat every sugary substance in sight. This phenomenon is known as the "keto flu."

Meal planning became a bore. I felt restricted to the same heavy foods, such as eggs, cheese, nuts, and avocados. There was little variety in my new routine.

Eating at restaurants was the hardest part. I ate taco fillings out of tortillas and scraped the breading off fried chicken. Every menu had just one or two things I could order guilt-free.

But overall, I felt amazing.

After being diligent for about three weeks, I felt the difference of the keto diet.

Even on days when I ate bunless cheeseburgers for lunch, my energy was sky-high. I drank less coffee and felt more alert. And because protein and fat send signals to the brain when you've had enough to eat, my snacking was less frequent and I was more focused on work as a result.

But I've struggled to maintain the keto diet since my personal challenge.

London-based artist Adam Hale makes incredible collages using pictures from free magazines.

He has worked with big brands like Adidas, YouTube, Mulberry, Christian Louboutin, and ELLE magazine.

Plain paper is his signature background. He says he likes to keep his 'splices' simple.

Some collages are made using digital tools too.

Produced by Claudia Romeo

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A year after President Donald Trump's electoral upset that shocked the world, Democrats won big in several gubernatorial and local races on Tuesday.

While many were quick to point out how different the stakes were going into the elections and how differently they turned out, perhaps nothing captured this sentiment as well as the before-and-after memes people have been sharing.

Here eight of the best ones:

SEE ALSO: Ralph Northam wins Democratic primary for Virginia governor in closely watched race

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A year after left-leaning Twitter users went into the 2016 election unprepared for Trump's surprise win, many voters felt tired and spent on election day 2017.

Naturally, SpongeBob memes were deployed in full-force to capture voters' feelings before Tuesday's election.

The year since Trump's election has aged many.

• Former President Barack Obama began lifting travel and trade restrictions with Cuba in 2014.
• In 2016, the island had a record-breaking 4 million visitors.
• This week, the Trump administration's new travel and trade restrictions will be enacted.

On Thursday, new restrictions for Americans traveling to Cuba will be enacted by the Trump administration. According to the new policies, those traveling for educational purposes or "people-to-people" travel must be accompanied by a representative from an authorized organization. 

In 2016, former President Barack Obama had lifted restrictions on tourists, and the island was reaping the benefits.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made a statement on the new restrictions: "We have strengthened our Cuba policies to channel economic activity away from the Cuban military and to encourage the government to move toward greater political and economic freedom for the Cuban people."

The Trump administration has published a list of hotels, marinas, stores, and rum factories that have ties to the Cuban military and are therefore off-limits. 

This September, Cuba was hit by Hurricane Irma, the strongest storm to land on the island in over 80 years. The Category 5 storm killed 10 people and destroyed hundreds of homes.

Here's a look at what daily life was like on the once-restricted island pre-Irma. Cuba which will enter its tourist high season in December.

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From Havana's National Museum of Fine Arts to the smaller art markets in the streets, tourists can find beautiful and colorful art all across the city.

Soccer games are played everywhere, even in the street.

Cubans are known for their love of vintage cars.

• Amazon has launched two new furniture brands: Rivet and Stone & Beam.
• Rivet is a midcentury modern-inspired brand, and Stone & Beam is focused on family-friendly comfort and durability.
• Both brands ship for free.

Amazon is inviting its customers to take a load off — preferably on a sofa from one of its new furniture brands.

The retailer is launching two new furniture brands. Rivet is a midcentury modern-inspired brand with a focus on urban, small-space solutions and high style. Stone & Beam is much more tailored to the "modern family" with comfort and durability in mind.

Both brands sells sofas, accent furniture, chairs, rugs, lamps, and decor.

Stone & Beam's prices are generally higher than Rivet's prices.

These are Amazon's first home furnishing brands, though it also sells things like office chairs through its AmazonBasics brand.

Both new brands offer 30-day returns. Rivet offers a one-year warranty, while Stone & Beam comes with a three-year warranty.

Both brands are also offering free shipping. Smaller items, like decor or furniture with some assembly required, are shipped like normal Amazon packages. 

Larger items like couches offer scheduled deliveries, and a signature is required.

Notably, the furniture does not require an Amazon Prime membership to purchase, unlike some of Amazon's clothing brands. Prime membership is also not required for free shipping.

Shipping and delivery is often considered a pain point for furniture shopping. Ikea, one of the most popular furniture sellers worldwide, rarely offers free shipping, and it charges an expensive delivery fee of $50.

Ikea also doesn't sell many of its items online, requiring a trip to the store. Much of Amazon's furniture is made from solid wood and does not need to be put together like Ikea's flat packs.

SEE ALSO: Amazon has been quietly launching sportswear brands all year

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• The most expensive available listings in New York City range from $50 million to $85 million
• Many feature scenic views of Manhattan and vast amounts of indoor and outdoor space.
• Some of the most luxurious amenities include yachts, chef services, wine cellars, and steam rooms.

New York City is no stranger to expensive homes and apartments, many of which have astronomical price-to-square-footage ratios.

While celebrities and billionaires continue to snatch up the city's most luxurious residences, sometimes as financial investments rather than living spaces, there are still plenty of options available for anyone with $50 million to spare.

These are the 15 most expensive listings currently available in New York City, according to Streeteasy.

SEE ALSO: The most expensive New York City neighborhoods right now, according to PropertyShark

15. 854 Fifth Avenue — $50 million

With nine floors and plenty of views of Central Park, this townhouse was designed by the architects behind Grand Central Station, who were inspired by the Palace of Versailles.

Source: StreetEasy

14. 219 East 44th Street — $53 million

Featuring six units on the top seven floors of a 35-story building, this "mansion in the sky" penthouse has floor-to-ceiling windows that provide scenic views of Manhattan.

13. 4 East 66th Street — $55 million

Combining architectural styles from the 1920s with modern flourishes, this apartment features a private elevator and views of Central Park.