The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is one of the premier art institutions in the world.
But with tens of thousands of works of art on display at any given time and two million square feet of exhibition space, it can be difficult to choose which works of art to seek out. In fact, it seems like you could spend days inside the museum and still not see everything.
Christine Kuan, the chief curator at Artsy, selected 15 must-see works of art at the Met.
"The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a treasure trove of masterpieces from every culture, time period, and medium, so choosing a mere fifteen is almost impossible," Kuan said. "The ones shown here are personal favorites — they stun me with their beauty, imagination, and power. More than just exceptional works of artistic achievement, these objects also demonstrate what human civilization can produce at its best."
Kuan also provided descriptions of these works, and told us why she thinks they're so important.
"The Harvesters" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. "One of the never-ending delights of Pieter Bruegel the Elder is his depiction of everyday Netherlandish life. You can bask in every detail of the peasants enjoying a delicious picnic at the end of a day of hard labor in the golden fields."
Rodarte ensemble (2004) on view in The Costume Institute from May 9 to August 14. "This Rodarte knit dress captures that feeling of rebellion and sexiness that ground-breaking fashion designers inspire in all of us. The Met’s Costume Institute is one of the most important costume collections in the world and continues to wow us each year with spectacular exhibitions (and parties!)."
Fragment of a Queen's Face (ca. 1353–1336 B.C.). "Of all the extraordinary objects in the Met’s Egyptian collection, this fragment of a queen’s face blows me away with its exquisite and sensuous modeling. The yellow jasper seems as palpable as flesh and the sculpture is as modern as a Brancusi."
Ranking cities by factors like medical care, climate and cost of living*, they sought to find the kind of places wehre retirees can kick back and relax but still engage in a bustling city culture when they want.
Cost of living used was based on the ACCRA cost of living index. The nationwide ACCRA average is 100. The numbers noted on each slide are percentages of that average.
Tucson received higher marks for walkability than most cities on the list. It has plenty of nearby hiking trails and birdwatching locations.
8. Louisville, Ky.
Cost of living index: 91.6
Percentage of people over age 65: 12.6 percent
Cost of a doctor's visit: $83
Behind Miami, Louisville has the second-highest concentration of people over 65 noted on the list. The city has also been named one of the country's safest cities and is home to the Kentucky Derby.
The apartment, which belonged to late investor Martin Zweig, encompasses three floors and was originally the hotel's ballroom.
Commenters over on Curbed NY have pointed out that the apartment's history as a massive ballroom means its an awkward living space today; that doesn't mean it's not pretty to look at.
The apartment is a triplex, taking up floors 41, 42, and 43 of the Pierre.
It formerly housed the famous hotel's ballroom, and "the living room is considered the most magnificent privately owned room in the world," according to the listing.
There are 16 rooms in total, including five bedrooms.
Now that Yale acceptance letters have been sent out, Bulldogs-in-waiting can start planning their college experience.
And in the grand tradition of that venerable institution, some freshmen may want to consider joining a secret society. The thing is — they're not that secret.
Last summer The Yale Herald conducted a survey of over 1,000 students that showed that a whopping 50.6% of seniors were in secret societies, while 63% of juniors were under consideration to join one.
That isn't to say these clubs aren't attractive anymore. Over 73% of underclassmen surveyed said that they wanted to join one. Lucky for them, some upperclassmen were kind enough to share the questions they were asked while they were pledging.
Now we're passing those along to you.
Carrie Hojnicki contributed to the reporting of this story.
If you had a house made of anything, what would it be?
Two Peruvian food importers told The Salt that they are importing more guinea pigs than ever before. The rodents are sold frozen and hairless, and usually eaten whole after being cooked, grilled, or deep fried.
When beetles killed scores of pine trees in the Rocky Mountains, making them highly flammable — and a major source of forest fires — custom furniture designer Corbin Clay saw beauty amid the damage. He started building furniture from the blue-tinged beetle-kill pine, breathing vibrant new life into this otherwise unusable wood.
Now Clay is ready to take his ambition even farther. The winner of Ketel One Vodka's A Gentleman's Call program, he'll receive $100,000 to expand his Colorado-based business, The Azure Furniture.
Quality and Craftsmanship
For A Gentleman's Call, Ketel One asked people what they would do with $100,000, drawing upon the pillars of entrepreneurship, craftsmanship, and philanthropy.
Since 1996, almost 4 million acres of woodland had been destroyed by the mountain pine beetle. Clay had the vision to create affordable heritage-quality furniture while also helping save the ravaged land.
Given his dedication to sustainability and to the quality of his craft, Clay was selected as the A Gentleman's Call winner for embodying the values and passion of the Nolet family, which founded Ketel One Vodka and has been distilling spirits for more than 300 years.
With the money awarded to him by A Gentleman's Call, Clay hopes to hire staff and acquire resources to open a retail store.
Congratulations to Corbin Clay and the four runners-up, all of whom received an exclusive Ketel One and Tumi mixology set, for their game-changing "gentleman's" ideas.
He might be the boss, but in a meritocracy, people have power based on the respect they earn from their peers and once respected, they are entitled to speak their minds.
We also told you that Red Hat is hiring like crazy. It just moved into a new headquarters building in downtown Raleigh, N.C.
In the old building, Whitehurst was working in what he described to us as a "crummy" little office. But the new one, while bigger, isn't any grander.
He knows the difference, too. Whitehurst was once the COO of Delta Airlines working in a huge, grand space.
The new space is an office with a door. He isn't sitting a cubicle a la HP CEO Meg Whitman, or at a desk in the middle of the room a la Mark Zuckerberg. But the space surely doesn't scream CEO of a hot billion-dollar company, either. He just sent us a picture.
New office (note the model airplanes on the cabinets):
A skyscraper in Chechen capital of Grozny is on fire, according to multiple reports.
Russia Today reports the 35-story-high building in the Grozny City complex is the tallest in Chechnya, and the tallest in South Caucasus region. Another 65-story building in the same complex will be the tallest Russian building outside of Moscow when it is completed.
The building houses a five-star hotel and apartments All people inside the building have been evacuated and Ria Novosti reports that none of the evacuees needed medical treatment.
This video shows a large amount of smoke coming from the building:
Another video shows from how far away the smoke can be seen:
The Grozny City complex was part of an ambitious attempt to rebuild Grozny — devasted by wars and terrorism in the past two decades — into a modern city. Here's how the New York Timesdescribed the development in 2011:
The buildings look out from as high as 45 stories over an entirely new city, with parks and broad avenues, fountains and flower beds, and hardly a scratch to remind it of more than a decade of separatist warfare.
According Itar-Tass news agency, French actor Gerard Depardieu owns an apartment in the building, a gift from Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
Over 80 percent of Singapore's population lives in government housing.
That's because the cost of housing is astronomically expensive in the dense city-state. Generally, only millionaires live in private condos, while the rest of the population — anyone who makes under approximately S$120,000 per year — resides in public housing complexes.
But Singapore's version of public housing is glamorous, and looks much more like luxury condos than what we typically think of as public housing in the U.S.
I recently toured the Pinnacle @ Duxton, a public housing complex in Singapore which opened in 2010. There are 1,848 units — almost all of which are spacious and modern three-bedrooms — in the seven towers. The towers are connected by a furnished roof deck on the 50th floor, which has gyms, running tracks, playgrounds, and spectacular views of the city and harbor.
Of course the Pinnacle @ Duxton represents the higher end of public housing and plenty of people live in older units, but it also marks the direction that Singapore's Housing & Development Board (HDB) will go in the future.
Architecture firm ARC Studio constructed the complex with the goal of housing an extremely dense population in a very livable way. One of the ways they do that is with greenery: the outdoor spaces have gardens and leisure facilities.
"We are fascinated by how greenery and nature collide with architecture," principal architect Khoo Peng Beng said.
The result is a modern, livable housing complex that feels surprisingly intimate despite its huge scale.
Disclosure: Our trip to Singapore, including travel and lodging expenses, was sponsored by the Singapore Tourism Board.
Here's what the Pinnacle looks like from the outside. There are 7 towers, which are connected by a roof deck on the 50th floor and an observation deck on the 26th floor.
We met a 73-year-old resident named Rahman, who showed us his 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment on the 41st floor.
Rahman lives with his son and his cat, Sess. (Most extended families live together in Singapore.)
Featuring every Marvel film from "Iron Man" up until "The Avengers," the $219 limited edition set comes boxed in a briefcase with the logo of S.H.I.E.L.D., the secret intelligence agency of the Marvel universe.
If you already have all of the films on Blu-ray, the real appeal to the set — other than getting your very own S.H.I.E.L.D. briefcase and (fake) spy documents – is some bonus footage from upcoming releases.
Here's what's inside:
A glowing Tesseract prop from "Thor" and "The Avengers."
"The Avengers" on Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray.
"Captain America: The First Avenger" on Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray.
"Thor" Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray
"The Incredible Hulk" on Blu-ray.
"Iron Man" on Blu-ray.
"Iron Man 2" on Blu-ray.
A bonus disc featuring deleted and extended scenes, along with content from upcoming sequels to "Thor," "Captain America," "Iron Man," and upcoming movies "Ant-man" and "Guardians of the Galaxy."
There are also some "classified" documents featuring images of the tesseract ...
… a file on Captain America …
… and another on Bruce Banner (The Hulk).
If you want an extended look at what's inside, IGN gave a full look at the collector's set.
She may have spent more than a decade playing coveted teen socialite Kelly on Beverly Hills 90210, but Jennie Garth, now 41 and a single mom of three, is clearly ready to embrace her frugal side.
"As a newly single mom of three, I’m trying to juggle everything: my kids, my career and, if I’m lucky, some sort of personal life," she wrote in her debut post. "Every minute is precious, and now more than ever, every dollar I bring home, or manage to save, means more safety and security for my family and our future."
Garth has been a star on the small screen since the 80s and spent a decade married to Twilight star Peter Facinelli, whom she divorced last year. She was recently featured as a contestant on Dancing With the Stars and nabbed her own reality show on CMT.
It may sound like an unlikely pairing, but Garth insists her roots are about as humble as they come.
Garth grew up in Urbana, Illinois, more than 2,000 miles from her alter ego on Beverly Hills. Her family grew their own food on their ranch, where she was raised with five siblings.
"I can still remember flipping through the tattered pages of my mom’s favorite cookbook, about feeding a family on $12 a week," she writes.
If anything, we hope Garth fares better in the realm of celebrity coupon blogging than Kate Gosselin. The reality TV mom of eight was fired from her gig as a weekly blogger for CouponCabin.com due to creative differences in October.
“Our goal at RetailMeNot continues to be to help consumers make sense of a world where they are inundated with deals, and to use a blend of news reporting, expert advice and entertainment to help shoppers make well-informed choices," Kristen Remeza, the editor-in-chief of The Real Deal by RetailMeNot said in a statement.
I recently spent a week driving the 2013 Smart coupe. I loved driving it. I had a ton of fun zipping around Manhattan and Brooklyn.
But I wouldn't buy one.
Why I Loved It
I've been intrigued by Smart since my approximately 12-year-old mind was blown on a trip to Paris by the first one I ever saw. I had never come across a car like it.
That's part of the sales pitch, Heiko Schmidt, Smart Product Manager, told me: Target customers include people who appreciate new and interesting design (along with Millennials, environmentalists, and city dwellers, but more on that later).
So I was pumped to get behind the wheel. And when I did, I wasn't disappointed. The Smart is powered by a 1.0-liter, three cylinder engine, which produces a measly 70 horsepower. But the car is so small (its curb weight is just 1,600 pounds), that's plenty.
I picked up the car outside our Park Avenue office and jumped right into Manhattan traffic. It measures just 8'10" long, so rapid lane changes were a breeze. The car is built for urban driving, but on a few short highway trips, I felt comfortable (not that I would take it for a road trip).
I didn't care that there was no rear view camera or blind spot sensors. The Smart is so small, you really don't need them: The visibility is great.
And parking! Parking was a breeze. When I couldn't find a single spot in a parking lot, I just put the Smart in a corner, where a larger sedan or SUV would have blocked the way of other, legitimately parked, cars.
And finding a spot in my Brooklyn neighborhood can be tricky, but in the Smart, small stretches of curb became viable spots. That's a big plus, especially considering how much of my life I currently spend trying to park the old Camry I drive on a regular basis.
I liked driving the Smart so much, I didn't even care when a little girl pointed and laughed at me.
Two Caveats
Two things about driving the car did trouble me. First, it uses an "automated manual transmission," which offers the convenience of an automatic — the car changes gears automatically — coupled with the slow, jerky shifting of a poorly driven manual.
One way to deal with it is to ease off the gas when the car starts to shift, which makes things much smoother. Or, you can put the Smart in manual mode, and change gears using the lever, or paddles mounted on the wheel. You still have to take your foot of the gas, but you won't have to guess when the gear changes will kick in.
And second, while I felt fine on the highway, I had a rude shock when I got on the Whitestone Bridge to cross from Queens into the Bronx. The car suddenly shifted to the side, enough so that I thought a tire had blown.
Then I realized: Without buildings providing protection, all 1,802 pounds of the car were being knocked around by the wind. It was a scary, unpleasant sensation.
Watch the 2013 Smart coupe in action below:
Why I Wouldn't Buy One
To be clear, I'm not saying I don't want a Smart: If I found one outside my apartment with a bow on it, I would be thrilled.
But two very important things bothered me: The price and the fuel economy.
The Smart coupe starts at $12,490, but the model I drove cost $19,490.
In comparison, a 2013 Nissan Sentra — a perfectly fine car with room for five people — starts at $15,590.
The Smart I drove was comfortable, but hardly loaded with features. The seats were heated, but there was no satellite radio, a common convenience in new cars. Fancy features are not necessary, but their absence makes spending more than $15,000 harder to justify. The spec sheet notes alloy wheels, air conditions, and power windows as extras.
Put another way, if you're going to spend $15,000 on a Smart, why not spend a few thousand more and get a small sedan? Or a Fiat 500, which is only three feet longer than the Smart, and has a back seat?
I asked Heiko Schmidt what sets the Smart car apart, and he said it "is really the perfect solution for many Americans." As a commuter car, it fits the driving behavior of many potential buyers, who don't have far to go and usually drive alone.
And it works as an extra car for drivers who own a ride better suited for long trips, and want a second vehicle for shorter trips.
I was also disappointed by the fuel economy. For a lightweight car with a one-liter engine and only 70 horsepower, I expected better than 34 mpg in the city and 38 mpg on the highway.To compare, the Sentra gets 30 mpg in the city and 40 mph on the highway.
Smart makes an electric version that gets the equivalent of 122 city mpg, but it starts at $25,000, bringing us back to my complaint about the car's pricing. Schmidt said there are no plans at the moment to make a hybrid, but the company is keeping an open mind.
In Conclusion
To wrap up, Smart has made a car that is eye-catching and fun to drive. Its sales have been good, especially with the marketing muscle of Mercedes-Benz USA behind it.
Year over year sales climbed 92.2 percent in 2012, and the brand has logged 14 consecutive months of sales increases.
But if Smart wants to become a common choice for young buyers (like me) who care about the planet (like me) and live in cities (like me) they need to shrink their price tag and up their mpgs.
Offer me a well-equipped Smart with about 45 mpg combined, for $13,000, and I'm in.
Opening arguments in a $328 million lawsuit against Las Vegas Sands casino mogul Sheldon Adelson begin in Las Vegas today, says Bloomberg.
At question is how Adelson built his multi-billion dollar empire in Asia, specifically in gambling hot spot, Macau.
This trial really goes back to 2008 when Richard Suen, a Hong Kong businessman, alleged that Las Vegas Sands agreed to pay him and his associates $5 million and 2 percent of the net income from the company’s Macau casinos if they persuaded the Macau Special Administrative Region to award the company a license to operate in the former Portuguese colony in 2002.
At the end of the 2008 trial, a Las Vegas jury awarded Suen $43.8 million but that decision was overturned by an appeals Court because the judge had allowed "so- called hearsay evidence" to be considered during the trial.
Now Suen is seeking $98 million in past damages and $230 million in future damages based on Las Vegas Sands’s profit from its Macau casino resorts, Bloomberg reports.
Suen isn't the only one suing Adelson for alleged bribery, though. Asian American Entertainment Corp. is also suing Las Vegas Sands over its dealings in Macau to the tune of $376 million.
Former Sands China CEO Steven Jacobs is also suing the company, alleging that he was fired when he would not engage in inappropriate conduct and use "improper leverage" against Chinese officials.
Las month, in Las Vegas Sands' latest regulatory report to the SEC, the company admitted that it may have violated anti-bribery laws.Specifically, the filing said that “there were likely violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions.”
Now here's the thing: $376 million is a drop in the bucket to Adelson, who threw $20 million of his own personal wealth at the 2012 U.S. Presidential election without even batting an eye. Bloomberg estimates that he's the 17th richest person in world with a net worth of $26.4 billion.
The law bars American companies from bribing officials overseas for business (from the Department of Justice):
...Specifically, the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA prohibit the willful use of the mails or any means of instrumentality of interstate commerce corruptly in furtherance of any offer, payment, promise to pay, or authorization of the payment of money or anything of value to any person, while knowing that all or a portion of such money or thing of value will be offered, given or promised, directly or indirectly, to a foreign official to influence the foreign official in his or her official capacity, induce the foreign official to do or omit to do an act in violation of his or her lawful duty, or to secure any improper advantage in order to assist in obtaining or retaining business for or with, or directing business to, any person.
The Las Vegas Sands has three casinos in Macau, so if Suen wins this lawsuit, it could open the floodgates to dealings that began in 2001 when the Macau government invited bids for casino concessions for the first time.
Turns out, I needed new glasses, too. So when I toured the SoHo showroom, I decided to see what it was like to buy glasses with the trendy brand.
I tried on about four different pairs before finding the ones that fit me perfectly. The experience was really easy and sociable, as I spoke with Warby Parker associates about what looked best as I shopped.
Ultimately, I was impressed with the level of quality, customer service, and especially the price ($95 for prescription lenses with anti-scratch and anti-reflective coating).
Note: I purchased the glasses with my own money and received no discount from Warby Parker.
Since I was already going to Warby Parker's SoHo showroom, I decided to try the glasses on there, even though the company does most of its business online.
The NYC showroom was on the fifth floor, inside Warby Parker HQ.
The walls were lined with glasses, but I made my way over to this table, which had the brand's most popular frames.
Sosh is all about curation and it believes in the ideal, less is more.
The app has already gained a lot of momentum in San Francisco and is launching in New York City today. Sosh will extend its reach to Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, and Seattle in the near future.
Sosh is the product of astrophysicist Rishi Mandal who is also a former NASA employee and ex-Googler.
"Sosh understands how humans work, it focuses on beautiful photos and really good, short informative descriptions," Mandal said in an interview.
In San Francisco Sosh already has great response, in fact, "1 in 8 adults in San Francisco are Sosh members," Mandal said.
Mandal describes Sosh as a personal concierge that "really gets to know you and goes well beyond just your interests."
Behind the scenes, Mandal and his team have built an impressive algorithm that trims away the fat from the most credible reviews and articles written about a event or place. It's then curated by a human editor who will sometimes write an article of his specifically tailored for the app.
"Sosh stands out because it gets very specific, its not just a list of venues and dishes," Mandal says.
The Carnival Triumph cruise ship, which became infamous in February for being stranded in the Gulf of Mexico for five days after an engine room fire, broke loose from its port Wednesday afternoon.
The ship, which was undergoing repairs in a Mobile, Alabama shipyard, drifted across the 700-foot wide Mobile River, crashing into its western bank and hitting another ship docked there, according to a local NBC station.
The Triumph has sustained damage, including a large hole in the right side of its stern, visible in the above photo.
A Carnival spokesperson said all crew members and contractors working aboard the Triumph, about 800 people in total, have been accounted for.
The ship, knocked loose by 70 mph wind gusts, has been moved back to the eastern bank of the river by tug boats.
According to a Mobile Fire and Rescue Department spokesperson, a guard shack nearby the Triumph was knocked into the water with two people inside. One was recovered and taken to a local hospital.
The search for the second person was suspended Wednesday night at 9 p.m., after 15 hours. Coast Guard boat and helicopter crews, and the Mobile fire and police departments "saturated a search area covering three square miles" near the mouth of the Mobile River, and the investigation continues, a Coast Guard spokesperson said.
After the 14-story Triumph was left adrift in February, it took five days to tow the enormous vessel back to port. Passengers were stuck onboard without power and very few working toilets.
Baseball’s 2013 season began Sunday night. To mark the annual start of America’s national pastime, we looked at home prices in the neighborhoods near major-league stadiums.
If you want to live close enough to the ballpark to hear the crowd and see the lights from home–and of course, walk to the game–it’ll cost you. We examined asking home prices from the past year onTrulia in the neighborhoods within a mile or two of each stadium (excluding Toronto). It costs most to live near AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants: $653 per square foot. Living near Atlanta’s Turner Field or Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium costs only one tenth as much:
Top 5 Most Expensive Baseball Stadium Neighborhoods
Note: median price per square foot in the neighborhood approximately one or two miles around the stadium. Final column is the ratio of stadium-area median price to metro median price. Values above 1 mean the stadium area is more expensive than the metro area overall.
It’s no surprise to see that California stadiums are in more expensive neighborhoods, right? San Francisco, for instance, is expensive almost everywhere: even the cheapest San Francisco neighborhood would give sticker shock to Kansas City or Atlanta residents.
So to even out the playing field, we also looked at which stadium neighborhoods are expensive relative to the surrounding metro area. Of the 29 major-league stadiums excluding Toronto, 20 are located in neighborhoods that are more expensive than the average for that metro. That means the stadium area price relative to metro price is greater than 1. The Fenway Park neighborhood is 2.6 times as expensive as the Boston metro area overall – making it morerelatively expensive than San Francisco’s AT&T Park, which is only 1.3 times as expensive as the San Francisco metro overall. Cincinnati, in fact, has the most expensive stadium neighborhood relative to the metro area, at 2.8x.
The most expensive stadium neighborhoods relative to their metros are in or near downtowns. In contrast, stadiums in neighborhoods that are inexpensive relative to the metro area tend to be at least a few miles outside of downtown. Yankee Stadium, for instance, is in the Bronx, six miles from Grand Central Station, and in an area that’s much cheaper than the typical New York metro neighborhood. At $198 per square foot, homes near Yankee Stadium may be expensive relative to most of the country, but they’re inexpensive compared with the rest of New York.
It Costs More to Live Near a Winner The most diehard fans might want to live next to the ballpark no matter how the team is doing, but if you’d pay more to live near a winner, that’s good – because you might have to. Based on the odds that bookies are offering on the 2013 World Series, the teams with a better shot at the championship play in more expensive neighborhoods – though the correlation isn’t strong. (We looked atoddschecker.com, a British website that aggregates odds from multiple bookies, and took the most favorable odds for each team minus the extreme values.) Using this method, the team with the best shot at winning the 2013 World Series is the Washington Nationals, followed by the CaliforniaAnaheim Los Angeles Angels. For instance, the odds for the Angels winning are 9-to-1, which implies a 10% likelihood that the Angels will be this year’s World Series champs. Here’s the scatterplot of (1) each team’s chances of winning the World Series and (2) home prices in the neighborhood around the team’s stadium, with the upward-sloping line showing the positive (but weak) correlation:
It costs a lot to live near the Nationals, Dodgers, and Angels, but maybe it’s worth it since they’re expected to do well this year. However, you’ll pay the same premium to live near the Red Sox, Padres, or Mariners–but with a much lower chance of seeing and hearing a World Series victory from your roof deck. That’s an expensive way to get a lot of disappointment, if the bookies are right. However, at $110 per square foot, living near the Detroit Tigers’ Comerica Park is a much cheaper way to be walking distance from a potential 2013 World Series winner.
Cheer for Your Team, Not For Your Home Value Is buying near a stadium a good real estate investment? Many academic studies, summarized here, have looked closely at the impact of new stadiums on wages, property values, and other economic indicators, and the results are mixed. New stadiums often have a disappointing impact on local economies, though they often end up raising nearby home values and rents. Since new stadiums don’t open that frequently, we looked instead at whether home prices rise in seasons when a baseball team wins more games?
Sorry, stadium-neighbors: the answer is no. Home prices near stadiums don’t rise more in the years that a team wins more games. (Technical note: we use panel regression with a team fixed-effect and controlled for metro-level price changes.) Living near a winning team may bring you happiness and bragging rights, but it won’t raise your home values. There are lots of reasons to cheer for the home team if you live near the ballpark–who wants a bunch of grumpy fans walking around your neighborhood after the game?– but the effect on your home’s value isn’t one of them.
Money is never a more sensitive subject than when it comes up in relationships. In fact, fighting about money is one of the biggest predictors of divorce.
And—newsflash—not only can knowing how to talk about money make your relationship more peaceable, knowing that you know how to handle it makes you more attractive to your significant other.
Don’t believe us? We asked nine guys ages 28 to 40—some married, some about to be, some on the market, some straight, some gay—to reflect on the financial issues they take into account before getting serious with someone.
Hear how they really feel about everything from the “wallet reach” and cheap tippers to settling down with someone who has a lot of debt.
LearnVest: What do you think of ‘the reach’—when your date reaches for his or her wallet when the check comes?
“It’s appreciated and the polite thing to do. Within the first three dates, the guy should politely say ‘I got it,’ but the woman should offer. It shows she isn’t being a user.” Kevin, Westfield, NJ
“‘The reach’ is a bit awkward—it’s like, ‘I’m going to make a very obvious, slow-motioned movement just to be considerate, but I’m expecting you to pay.’ The gesture is nice in a way, but honestly, I just want a woman to give a sincere ‘thank you’ afterward. I’d prefer she say something like, ‘Would you like me to help pay?’ It acknowledges the elephant in the room in a direct, but polite way.” Greg, Houston, TX
“Depends on when it happens in the relationship. A girl can’t go wrong doing the reach early. It’s the safe play. If there was no reach after date number two—or an offer to pay the tip or, ‘At least let me treat next time’ – then that’s a problem and would give me a little pause.” Brian W., New York, NY
At what stage of the relationship should a significant other start picking up the tab?
“I’m very old-fashioned, and I still think the person who asks someone out should pick up the check. At least on the first date. I think it starts pretty naturally from the beginning of a relationship and gets easier over time.” Pat, Pittsburgh, PA
“I think the bigger deal is kind of the opposite—I’d know I’m close to ‘something real’ if we stop thinking so much about who gets what and we started thinking more like we’re making decisions like a pair and less like two individuals.” Dan, New York, NY
“I think after three or four dates, or once it has become an exclusive relationship, it is probably time to start sharing the cost.” Brian W., New York, NY
How do you feel about dating an over-spender?
“Won’t do it. Not interested.” Dave, Philadelphia, PA
“If a girl is an over-spender with a ton of credit card debt and a closet full of stuff she never wears or uses, I think it demonstrates an undisciplined ‘live for the day’ type of attitude. I would be fine dating someone like that but that is as far as it would go—dating.” Kevin
How do you feel about dating a spendthrift?
“HATE IT. Perhaps I don’t have much willpower, but having money for the sake of having money isn’t something that works for me.” Pat
“Would not enjoy that.” Brian S., Covington, KY
“I have never dated one, but would not like to. YOLO, and you can’t take it with you.” Chad, Richmond, VA
How do you feel about dating someone who makes more money than you?
“Totally fine, as long as it isn’t used as a weapon for leverage in other aspects of the relationship.” Frank, New York, NY
“No problem. I think I’d like it, actually. Ego is not important to me, but what is important is understanding the consequences of that high salary. Making good salaries typically means more responsibility, working more and sacrificing other parts of your personal life. If that negatively affects the relationship, that’s not good. If kids are involved, it becomes more complicated. How does it impact the family? Plenty of dual-income families are successful, but it’s important to have a good, strong understanding of the true costs and benefits.” Greg
“I don’t really care, as long as it’s not too much more. If the other person was making $1 million a year, that may be a problem.” Dave M.
Devotec Industries started a Kickstarter project for a charger roughly the size of a quarter that fits on your keyring. Designed to be used in emergencies where you need to make calls, send an email, or use the GPS, Fuel can give you an extra 20 to 30 minutes of talk time, or a few hours on standby.
The Fuel measures about an inch tall, and is only compatible with Android phones at this time (though the company is working on one for Apple products). Fuel is able to keep its charge for at least a month before needing to be recharged.
Where To Buy: Through the company's Kickstarter page, which has almost tripled its fundraising goal of $20,000 so far.
It doesn't mean that women shouldn't visit foreign places or that no parts of those countries are safe. But women traveling in these areas should do so with extreme caution and a knowledge of the culture.
We rounded up eight popular tourist destinations where women should be extra cautious, based on reports from Human Rights Watch, the State Department, and crime reports in the media.
India
From the Taj Mahal to river boat cruises, India's tourism industry generates $17.7 billion each year.
And Human Rights Watch writes that reports of violence against women have been increasing, and "the government had yet to properly investigate and prosecute sexual abuse in police custody."
The three suspects were arrested, but Brazil is known for its a machismo culture and history of gender-based violence, according to Human Rights Watch.
It will be hosting next year's World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.
Turkey
Tourists in Turkey largely flock to historical sites in Istanbul or the country's gorgeous seaside resorts.
But violence against women is a major problem in Turkey. The State Department reports that the Embassy and Consulates have received numerous reports of crimes against women, particularly incidents involving "date rape" drugs.
The police and courts also have a bad track record with helping women who have applied for protection orders against their attackers, according to Human Rights Watch.