We've seen plenty of jaw-dropping imagery of Apple's upcoming "spaceship" campus in Cupertino. The Norman Foster-designed campus won't be completed for some time, yet the futuristic renderings of the building have had the tech community excited since they were released in 2011.  

A new video from Technology Integration Services provides a whole new perspective on the project, and this one's from the sky. The company isn't affiliated with Apple, but their engineers were able to create these 3D renderings using design plans that have already been made available to the public. 

The new video gives a better idea of how enormous the new project really is.

As the video swoops around the outside of the building, it's obvious why so many people have compared the building to a spaceship.

We get a look at all of the green space that will be built inside the inner ring of the building.

In addition to the main "spaceship" building, there are lots of smaller developments to be constructed around the campus.

You can watch the whole video below. 

SEE ALSO: Apple Opened A Gorgeous — And Exclusive — New Cafeteria In Cupertino This Week

WE'RE ON INSTAGRAM:  Click Here To Follow Us

Join the conversation about this story »

Many of us have snapped photos of our food at one time or another, to varying degrees of success.

But these 10 photographers take photos of their food for a living, and they're attracting huge followings on Instagram.  

Niche, a startup that helps brands partner with popular social media creators, helped us compile a list of the most-followed food photographers on Instagram. 

From food collages to designs that look like rainbows, these photographers make their food appear almost too beautiful to eat. 

Brittany Wright is a Seattle-based food photographer whose professed goal is to teach herself to cook anything and everything. Her photos feature lots of fun pops of color, and she often arranges her food to look like a rainbow.

(@wrightkitchen, 38K followers) 

Trish Papadakos runs a housewares company called Trish + Co., but she also takes some amazing pictures of food. The Toronto-based photographer shares photos of things she's cooking as well as dishes she tries out at local restaurants.

(@trishpapadakos, 45K followers)

Beth Kirby is a freelance stylist, photographer, and recipe writer living in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The photos on her Instagram account have a rustic, southern feel to them.

(@local_milk, 48K followers)

Freshmen at colleges across the U.S. are settling into their dormitories as a new school year kicks off. But campus living is nothing new: Harvard's oldest dorm is nearly 300 years old.

Dorms have modernized over time. Today, students can expect to find wireless Internet, air conditioning, and cheerful study rooms on move-in day. But some things haven't changed much. A century ago, students still slept in single beds, hung family photos on their walls, and hung out with friends in their dorm rooms.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison's archives department recently put together a fantastic collection of photos showing how student housing has changed over the past 110 years. They kindly shared their collection with us.

This woman's dorm room from 1898 isn't much different from modern day dorms: Pennants, books, and a chair for studying.

Photographs and mementos kept things homey in this room, in 1899.

Male students raised a glass in a boarding house or fraternity in this 1909 photo.

Thank God for Friday—the gateway to a new adventure. Celebrated in movies and songs, the weekend looms large in the imagination.

It seduces us with the heady possibilities of recreation, relaxation, and romance.

It’s our eagerly anticipated escape valve, a release from the daily grind.

For some city dwellers, the siren call of a nearby beach or a house in the country is irresistible. Yet over time, even that can become routine. Every so often, we need to get away from the usual, without making it seem like work.

That’s where Travel + Leisurecomes in. We sent intrepid reporters across North America to scout out easy weekend getaways, and their discoveries range from an affordable nine-room New England inn in tiny North Haven, ME, to renovated bungalows in the hills of Santa Barbara, CA.

Vancouver

Snowcapped mountains and expansive bays form the backdrop for the Northwest’s greatest boomtown—a city of diverse neighborhoods that embraces both outdoorsy culture and innovation.

The 2010 Olympics sparked a major development frenzy, and along with new restaurants and boutiques came renovations of several landmark hotels. Make your base downtown’s 1927 Rosewood Hotel Georgia($$$), with revamped Art Deco–inspired rooms and a slick, dark-wood-and-gold paneled restaurant run by star chef David Hawksworth.

From there, it’s a leisurely stroll to Stanley Park, where you can hike along the 14-mile Seawall Trail. Or head to the Victorian Gastown neighborhood to see Native American art galleries such as the three-story Hill’s Native Art, which showcases ceremonial masks and totem poles, limited-edition prints, and bentwood boxes.

The Skytrain at nearby Water Station will take you to suburban Richmond, home to Vancouver’s Asian culinary scene: dim sum temples; noodle huts; Korean barbecue joints—you’ll find them all here. Don’t miss the standout mushroom dumplings and clay-pot chicken at local favorite Jade Seafood($$).

For the city’s best shopping, the indie district around King Edward Avenue is full of one-off gems. Look for vintage leather clutches and bags at Front & Company and contemporary crafts at Walrus.—David A. Keeps

North Haven, Maine

Sometimes a single hotel can put a relatively unknown destination on the map—and so it was with the cheerful Nebo Lodge($) and the three-mile-wide Penobscot Bay island of North Haven, an hour’s ferry ride from Rockland.

The nine-room property has all the trappings you’d expect from a classic New England island escape—gray wainscoting, shady porches, cast-iron beds, and claw-foot tubs—but the imaginative food of chef Amanda Hallowell is reason in itself to visit.

Summertime North Haven regulars such as novelist Susan Minot and artist Eric Hopkins have come to sample her hyper-local dishes—a peppered-mackerel Caesar salad and a pickle plate of sweet beets, celery, and fennel, to name two. What to do when you’re not eating?

Live the pine-shaded, salty Maine fantasy, of course: bike the island’s 30 miles of roads, climb to the top of Ames Knob, laze on the beaches of Mullen’s Head Park, and explore pint-size Main Street. Find Ping-Pong and evening concerts at Waterman’s Community Center; made-in-Maine ceramics at North Haven Gift Shop(207/867-4444); and farther south, the new Fox I Printworks, which stocks quirky T-shirts silk-screened with lighthouses and tractors.

Don’t leave town without a stop at the North Island Museum, where you’ll learn about the area’s evolution from a Native American territory to the lobster-fishing hamlet it is today. —Kate Sekules

Springdale, Utah

It’s just a 2 1/2-hour drive from Las Vegas to this small town on the Virgin River, but the desert gets empty and wild surprisingly fast.

Springdale is the anti-Vegas: serious canyoneers mingle with fine-art photographers at weekly gallery openings, the Springdale Fruit Company sells organic fruit smoothies, and plein-air painters head to workshops at the Zion Canyon Field Institute.

The biggest draw, however, is nearby Zion Canyon, a narrow funnel of 2,000-foot-high sandstone walls glossy with a crimson patina and top-heavy buttes that appear to shoot straight up from earth to sky.

By far the best place to stay is the understated Desert Pearl Inn($). Like the rest of Springdale, it’s authentic without trying too hard: reclaimed old-growth Douglas fir floors and a tawny palette of neutrals provide a soothing retreat from the blazing red rock outside.

During late spring and summer, crowds are a fact of life here, but the guides at Zion Adventure Company can steer you through the lesser-known hikes. If you absolutely must trek the popular, precipitous, and occasionally terrifying 5.4-mile-long Angels Landing Trail, do as the locals do and set out at dawn when it’s cooler and quieter.

You’ll be back in time for slow-cooked-pork burritos at Oscar’s Café($$), a swim in the hotel pool, and a well-earned siesta on your private terrace. Springdale comes alive in the evenings when residents gather for sweet-potato tamales and fresh tilapia at the Bit & Spur($$) and Saturday-night music festivals at the O. C. Tanner Amphitheater.

Before heading back to Vegas, swing by the Red Mountain Resort(treatments from $60) adventure spa—there’s no better way to end the trip than with a regionally inspired hot-stone massage. —Katie Arnold

NOW WATCH: Here's How Much Soda You Have To Drink To Make It Worth Buying Your Own SodaStream

Follow BI Video: On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

The United States is a majorly Christian nation. 

But this map, first seen on Mark J Perry's Twitter, answers the burning question of what faiths come in second place in each state.

Based on data from Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, which contributes to the religious portion of the census each decade, the map displays colors for various religions.

As you can see, the Northeast gravitates toward Judaism, while Buddhism engulfs the entire West coast. Twenty states across Middle America and the South practice Islam, making it the largest non-Christian religion in the country. But one following sticks out — Baha'i in South Carolina.

Take a look at the spread of Baha'i communities across the Palmetto state, according to the official website of the Baha'is of the United States.  

Baha'i is the world's youngest independent religion, founded in 1817. Practitioners believe that humanity constitutes a single race which should unify into a global society. Belief in one God, as well as daily meditation and prayer, will help the human race achieve oneness. Because of these ideals, Baha'is come from a wide variety of social and ethnic backgrounds.

Here's another version of the second largest religion at the county level, found on the Washington Post.

Join the conversation about this story »

Back in March, Google Ventures partner Kevin Rose and wife Darya bought a historic home in Portland for $1.3 million. 

The five-bedroom home was built in 1892 and reportedly once belonged to the Montague family, who were important public figures in early 20th-century Portland.  

But, according to the Oregonian, the couple's plans to extensively remodel the home have some of their future neighbors pretty upset. 

City development officials submitted a permit to tear down the house on Monday. Usually a demolition would be subject to a 120-day delay, but since the Roses plan to build a new home on the property, the rule doesn't apply.

Now, an online petition begging the Roses to reconsider has earned more than 1,200 signatures from community members.

"When several of us met you at this year’s Easter egg hunt, we were eager to find out about your plans. We were reassured that you had no plans to build on the spare lot, and were relieved to hear that you were committed to remodeling rather than demolishing the house," the petition reads. "Against this background, we were surprised to learn of the events of June 13-17. At seemingly lightning pace, it appears that you notified the City of Portland that you were withdrawing the house from the City’s landmark inventory, applied for a permit to build a new house on the site, and obtained a permit to demolish the house. Because you withdrew the house from the landmark inventory, you were no longer obligated to give public notice of the intended demolition, nor were you required to delay the demolition so that neighbors’ comments could be received."

Rose has twiceresponded to the petitioners' concerns, saying that the home had not been listed on the National Historic Registry or the Portland Historic Registry. Though the home was named as a "potentially significant structure" on a third, separate list, the couple says that an architect who visited the property assured them that there was nothing historically significant about the house. 

Plus, the work required to restore the home would be extensive. 

"After the inspections, we were properly alerted to several areas that needed to be addressed. Electrical, plumbing, foundation/basement work, and asbestos," Rose wrote. "We then explored new construction, as it was clear to us that the cost of repairs was outweighing the cost/benefit of building new."

In a new response posted earlier today, Rose said that he and his wife plan to offer the home back to the people they bought it from, encourage them to fix the asbestos and other problems, then resell it. If the original sellers don't accept the offer, the Roses will carry on with the demolition plans.

"We never intended to deceive anyone, as some of you have accused," he said. "We simply wanted to create a beautiful home for our family."

This isn't the first time Rose has faced conflicts with his neighbors. Back in April, anarchists picketed the entrepreneur's home in San Francisco, demanding that Google do something to solve the city's housing crisis.

SEE ALSO: Nerdy Cook Rosanna Pansino Has Figured Out How To Go Super Viral Without Even Trying

WE'RE ON PINTEREST: Click Here To Follow Us

Join the conversation about this story »

Jean-Georges, a three Michelin-starred restaurant at the Trump Hotel Central Park, is one of the most affordable high-end restaurants in New York.

It recently solidified its status when The New York Times food critic Pete Wells gave Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten another four-star review back in April.

But now the New York power lunch hot-spot is raising the prices on its outstandingly affordable lunch menu, according to Ryan Sutton at Eater NY.

Jean-Georges previously offered a two-course lunch menu with dishes like "sea trout draped in trout eggs" and "foie gras brule" for $38, with each additional course costing $19 after that.

But now the restaurant is raising its prices to $48 for the lunch menu and making each additional course $24. That means a three-course meal for two people will now cost $217, or $39 more expensive than before.

The six-course lunch tasting menu is also being hiked, according to Sutton, to $158 from $148.

Paying $48 for two courses is still one of the best deals in the city compared to some of the other Michelin starred restaurants in New York; for example, Eleven Madison Park is $225 for 16 courses (for lunch or dinner) and Le Bernardin's lunch menu costs $76 for three courses.

If you're looking for a better deal, Chef Jean-Georges also owns several other restaurants in Manhattan, including Mercer Kitchen in SoHo and JoJo on the Upper East Side, both of which still have $32 lunch tasting menus.

SEE ALSO: The 13 Best Restaurants In New York City

SEE ALSO: Business Insider is on Facebook!

Join the conversation about this story »

Companies often design special ad campaigns for New York City that comment on city life in a glib tone, such as Diet Coke hailing the kinds of people moving to the city, Seamless joking about your apartment not having silver wear, and FlatRate parodying hipsters in Williamsburg.

Recently, Boxed, a wholesale delivery startup, took it to new extremes with a set of subway ads that you will only get if you've seen other New York subway ads.

One ad references the ubiquitous and controversial Venmo ads that featured a random software engineer named Lucas and said things like "Lucas has dreams" and "Lucas likes to dance" as well as "Lucas uses Venmo," which debuted earlier this year. As strange as Venmo's ads were, the Boxed ad will read as a total non sequitur except to frequent subway riders:

Boxed also has an ad referencing the legendarily weird subway ads from dermatologist Dr Zizmor, which is clearly what the company had in mind with "Dr. Savezmore":

How did Boxed decide on such a meta campaign and do it within months of Venmo's Lucas ads? Boxed responded to our questions over email:

Why did Boxed.com decide to reference other subway ads in their campaign?

BOXED: As an innovative, mobile-only commerce company that is a free-to-use warehouse club for people who don’t have the time, means and patience, Boxed realized the importance of reacting to what’s relevant today. For subway riders, Lucas and Dr. Saveszmore are extremely recognizable names to them and names that they stare at on long commutes to work every day. We decided to take advantage of this and utilize these popular ads in our own campaign.

How did the campaign come to fruition so quickly?

BOXED: The entire campaign came together in just a matter of days. The Boxed team had few meetings that sparked dozens of ideas and the more we bounced ideas off of each other, we knew we were on to something. We had a keen understanding of what would work and what would not. It was extremely important for us to not sound arrogant or mean-spirited. We worked hard to strike the perfect balance between getting noticed and looking like the friendly shopping alternative that we are, while still having our creative tone come across too."

Has the campaign received a positive response?

BOXED: Yes, we have received great feedback from people telling us how clever they think our ads are – it did get your attention! The ads are simple, yet effective, which is exactly what we wanted to achieve. We want consumers to know that we are here for them, understand their busy lifestyles and can provide convenience and options. We’ve also received an influx of tweets from people sending us pictures of their delivery and telling us how they signed up for Boxed right after seeing our ads on the subway.

SEE ALSO: Awesome New York Subway ads from the 1940s

Join the conversation about this story »

An optical illusion is a kind of visual trick where what your brain thinks you see is actually different from reality. In their new music video "The Writing's On The Wall," the rock band OK Go constructs illusions and then deconstructs them from another angle. Rolling Stone reported that the music video took the band nearly three weeks and 50 takes to get right.

The song itself is about miscommunication between two people right before they break up.

Several of the illusions were inspired by the Swiss artist Felice Varini. From one angle, Varini's installation of "Dynamo" at the Grand Palais in Paris looks like a web of connected circles:

But from the other angle, you can see that the connectedness is a perfectly constructed illusion:

Why do optical illusions work? They rely on the tiny delay between when we "see" something — and when we perceive what it is.

"When light hits our retina, it takes about one-tenth of a second for our brain to translate that signal into perception," explains Nic Halverson at Discovery News. "Evolutionary neurobiologist Mark Changizi says this neural delay makes our brains generate images of what it thinks the world will look like in one-tenth of a second. It's not always right."

In other words: Our perceptions are, to some extent, predictive. We perceive what we expect to see until our brain is presented with conflicting information. That's why it's so visually jarring when an illusion reveals itself.

Here are some of our favorite optical illusions from OK Go's new video.

Watch these stairs disappear...

...and this cube too.

The two illusions above both incorporate solid objects and painted surfaces in order to trick your eyes. For example, the first four yellow stairs are solid. But the last two stairs are painted onto the floor and the pole in the background to create an illusion of depth. Once he steps "through" the last two steps, your eyes then register that those steps aren't real.

The same trick is used with the cubes. At first it appears that all of the cubes are solid. However, once he steps down and "through" the cube, your eye then registers that the cube in the foreground is painted onto the floor and the other surrounding cube surfaces in order to create an illusion of depth.

Notice anything weird about this bike ride?

At first glance, it seems like he is riding a bike with something on his back. However, at the end of the clip you notice that he is actually lying on his back, riding the bike upside down and being pulled along the gray platform by a string.

Do you see the face?

As the camera pans upward, it seems like there is a pile of junk to the left of the ladder. But if you look closely, the items actually form a collage that is the reverse image of the man's face. The red stapler corresponds to his lips. And the spatula sitting on the paint pallette corresponds to his ear.

Here's the still image so you can get a better look:

This guy seems to have two unmatching heads.

For this two-face illusion, it appears upon closer inspection that it is actually the same guy, who has shaved the beard on one side of his face and donned a wig. Later in the video (see the cubes GIF above), he appears with half a beard.

Mirrors can be deceiving.

In the first frame of the GIF, the cameraman (in red) is facing a mirror, and you see his reflection. There are three mirrors lined up in a row. In between each mirror, another band member appears in the frame holding the same position.

And here's the huge team of people who made the video possible.

The band's latest album "Hungry Ghosts" is set to be released in October. Watch the full video below.

SEE ALSO: Optical Illusion Makes It Look Like A Spanish Player's Head Is A Soccer Ball

Join the conversation about this story »

TGI Fridays thinks it's the 'cool' chain.

The all-American restaurant chain is now trying to capitalize on the food truck craze, and has created a traveling TGI Fridays vehicle to appeal to millennial customers, according to The Washington Post.

The Summer of Fridays Road Tour is already halfway done, but there are still plenty of cities on the list that can taste-test their "handcrafted" (I'm starting to forget what that means) meals and beverages.

The truck is hitting up a total of 20 cities from late May to late July that include foodie hotspots like New York, Atlanta, and D.C. 

And their menu includes the brand's slider hamburgers, Ahi Tuna crisps, potato skins, and Oreo ice cream sandwiches. They're also serving drinks like Red Bull strawberry lemonade and peach sangria.

Their mission statement declares that they're on the "hunt to discover and be inspired by the best of handcrafted America." And they're bringing a "tank full of curiosity to explore new places, meet new people, and devour new food and drink, all in the name of craft." 

They even provide a how-to on Instagramming your meals. 

And according to The Washington Post, this is just another step the restaurant is taking to revamp their image to appeal to the youngsters. Recently, they've been working on improving their food quality and redecorating their shops. 

The Post's Jessica Contrera aptly summed up the campaign by saying it's everything you want in a food truck while also being everything you're trying to avoid: "a super-chain (with more than 900 locations), an expensive advertising campaign and standard American food."

Sounds about right.

WATCH NOW: The Best And Worst Deals At A Bar

FOLLOW US: Business Insider is on Instagram!

Join the conversation about this story »

Money doesn't make you happy — just ask a lottery winner — and neither does "making it" into a higher social class. 

Instead, as University of California, Berkeley, business professor Cameron Anderson and his colleagues have found, subjective well-being is best predicted by your status relative to the groups of people that you have face-to-face relationships with, like your colleagues, friends, or neighbors. 

They call it the "local ladder effect." Being a standout in your immediate peer group is way more rewarding than getting ahead in society at large. 

This insight was confirmed in four studies of Anderson's. In each case, individuals with higher local status reported higher happiness levels than people who only had lots of money. 

"I was surprised at how fluid these effects were," he told PsyBlog. "If someone's standing in their local ladder went up or down, so did their happiness, even over the course of nine months."

One reason for this is that people quickly adapt to a new level of income. 

Lottery winners, for instance, usually experience a spike in happiness after winning — only to have their happiness levels soon return to baseline. 

Social scientists call this the "hedonic treadmill": You get used to a pearly way of life in the same you grow accustomed to a tropical beach. After a while, even white sand goes from being exceptional to pretty much normal.

But being a few rungs up the local ladder continues to feel great.

"It's possible that being respected, having influence, and being socially integrated just never gets old," Anderson says.

SEE ALSO: 11 Simple Tricks That Will Make You Happier And More Productive

Join the conversation about this story »

Tonight your co-workers invited you to a game of poker. What should be a fun night, can quickly become embarrassing if you don’t know what your boss means when he says “pocket rockets”.

But don’t worry. We're here to help out with the key words so that you can sound like a pro.

Let’s start with the parts of the game. In poker, not only are you dealt your own cards, but there’s also a shared pile of 5 cards on the table.  The first three cards are dealt at the same time and they’re called the flop.

After a round of betting, the fourth card – the turn– is dealt, and is followed by another round of betting. And finally, the river, or the fifth card, is uncovered.

In between all these card reveals there’s a series of bets. The first bet is the ante, which is a small bet that every player must make before the round starts. Then, you have the blinds, which are also required bets that the first two players to the left of the dealer must make. The first is called the small blind, and the second is called the big blind.

Matching or raising a bet that was made before you is known as calling the bet. And players who call too much are given the insulting nickname "calling station".

Why is it bad to call too frequently? Well, for starters, it reveals that you are an amateur because only players who don’t know the correct pot odds call often. And secondly, amateur players get lucky and end up with winning hands when they do this – which naturally annoys the pros even more.

Pot odds, by the way, is a ratio of the money in the pot to the amount it will cost you to call the current bet. Sounds complicated, but all it means is that if there is $100 in the pot, and the bet will cost you $10, you have 10-to-1 odds.

And even though betting is great, sometimes the odds are low and you don't have great cards. When this happens you have several options.

First, you can check. By quickly tapping their fingers twice on the table, players signify that they want to stay in the game but do not want to bet extra money. 

Other players may want to bet your check anyway, after which you need to decide if you are willing to throw in the chips. Otherwise you can fold– or quit the round – and throw your cards into the dead pile, or muck. 

Another option is to bluff, which is when a player makes a bet, knowing that they do not have the best cards, and hopes that his opponent will panic and fold in his place.

Unfortunately, even with a great hand (known as a monster) a player with even better cards might beat you. This is called a bad beat. And to make things worse, it’s usually because of a lucky last minute draw for the other player.

After a series of bad beats, some players start getting desperate and play too aggressively and carelessly. Others will refer to them as tilts. Needless to say, you want to avoid this nickname.

While we’re on this, you don’t want to be called a donkey or fish either. That’s someone who plays poorly and looks like he’s throwing away his money.

And if you’re feeling really lucky, you might consider going all in, a move when a player bets all his chips. Afterwards, he can no longer bet and a side pot may be created for other players to continue betting. You either win big, or you’re done.

Finally, here’s some slang terms for cards you might have in your hand:

• Two Aces are usually called Pocket Rockets. Star Wars enthusiasts call them Admiral Ackbar when a player holds the aces to trap another player.
• An Ace and King is called Big Slick because it is a slippery hand with which one can easily loose a fortune. Tennis fans call it the Anna Kournikova because it “looks good, but doesn’t win.”
• Two Kings are called Cowboys
• Two Queens are called Canadian Aces, referring to The Queen of England's relationship to Canada.
• A Queen and Jack (QJ) is called the Oedipus, referencing Queen Jocasta from the Greek Tragedy
• Two nines are called the Wayne Gretzky.
• Two eights are called snowmen.
• And two fours are called the Midlife Crisis.

Now get out there and don't make a fool of yourself.

Join the conversation about this story »

Passengers who ignore obligatory pre-flight safety speeches do so at their own peril as they impart handy emergency information. But the passengers on a recent Southwest Airlines flight from Chicago to San Francisco were probably paying close attention to a speech from a particularly lively flight attendant.

Highlights of the speech include sassy gems like, "...folks it's $2,200 dollars for tampering with smoke detectors in the lavatory; and you know if you had $2,200 you'd be on United Airlines in first class," or "...for parents traveling with multiple children, put the [oxygen] mask on the bright one first; he'll contribute more to your retirement." 

According to the passenger who posted the video, the patriotic tie-clad flight attendant even threw a mid-flight cocktail party. 

SEE ALSO: The 20 Best Airlines In The World

Join the conversation about this story »

When the mercury starts to rise, everything is better when it's done outside, including (and maybe especially) cooking.

The summer cookout is a rite and a ritual, but if you don't have a good barbecue to grill on, then you aren't doing the tradition justice. Luckily, our friends at FindTheBest helped us put together a list of the best gas barbecues currently on the market to make grilling easier and tastier.

FindTheBest came up with a "Smart Rating" for the grills by looking at features and specifications, construction material, and warranty. If two grills were tied in FindTheBest's rankings, we used price as a tiebreaker, with the cheaper grill receiving a higher ranking.

13. Napoleon Prestige II PT750RSBI ($3,299)

The Prestige II has enough surface area to comfortably grill food for up to eight people at once. Seven burners provide a ton of flexibility in the heat range and cooking temperatures.

12. Napoleon Prestige Pro PRO600RSIB ($2,599)

Available not only in propane but in natural gas as well, the Prestige Pro PRO600 gets the job done and takes care of the environment to boot. And because the natural gas option is efficient, you won't have to change tanks in the middle of your cookout.

11. Napoleon Prestige Pro PRO500RSIB ($1,899)

Similar to its PRO600 cousin, the PRO500 delivers the same, six-burner efficiency — also in propane or natural gas — for about $700 cheaper. The only down side is that it's a little less effective at heating, and has a smaller cooking area per burner than then PRO600.

10. Blue Ember BE65078-584 ($897)

The Blue Ember BE65078-584 has a porcelain-coated cast iron cooking grate, the most durable material on the market, and it's resistant to chipping. It's affordable and compact, with five burners that can cook for up to six.

9. Blue Ember BE50070-587 ($799)

The Blue Ember BE50070-587 is small but powerful. Four burners deliver 140 BTUs, or British Thermal Units, which is a lot higher than average for a grill of this size. It can comfortably cook for four to five people.

8. Char-Broil Commercial T-36D BBQ Grill ($449)

The most impressive and useful feature on the Char-Broil T-36D is that it comes equipped with infrared technology, which means achieves a higher cooking temperature more quickly than other grills.

7. Char-Broil Commercial 4-burner Gas Grill ($300)

The Char-Broil Commercial packs a punch for the price. It's small and transportable, but its four burners can cook for up to five hungry burger or steak lovers.

6. Napoleon Prestige P500RSIB ($1,399)

You'll have no trouble achieving searing perfection on this model of the Napoleon Prestige, which delivers 160 BTUs of heat energy per square inch. That's a lot of heat for a lot of grilling space: 900 square inches of surface area for anything you care to cook.

5. Kenmore S3218ANB ($699)

The Kenmore S3218ANB has five burners and is perfect for a large backyard or patio. Reasonably priced, it heats well and serves up to six.

4. Kenmore BG1734B ($599)

The four-burner Kenmore BG1734B's grilling grate is made of porcelain-coated steel, which is resistant not only to chipping but to rust as well, which is perfect if you keep your grill outside.

3. Napoleon GEMINI PT750RSBI ($2,700)

If you're really ready to grill for a crowd, go for the Napoleon GEMINI, whose six-burners can evenly prepare food for eight people at a time. This grill also has an infrared cooking option.

2. Napoleon Prestige V PF600 ($6,999)

Before you get intimidated by the price, you should know that the Napoleon Prestige V is very good at what it does. It has a massive cooking area of 1,100 square inches, and a whopping seven burners.

1. Napoleon Prestige V PF450 ($4,999)

The $2,000 cheaper price tag than the PF600 model makes the PF450 the best grill on the market. With 190 BTUs of heat energy and six burners, this barbecue can be propane- or natural gas-fueled, and even comes with a smoker box so you can impress your friends with that authentic smokiness at your next cookout.

NOW FIND OUT WHAT TO DRINK: The Best Scotch On The Market Right Now

Follow us! Business Insider Is On Pinterest

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This Was Marvel Legend Stan Lee's One Big Mistake

Follow BI Video: on Twitter

Join the conversation about this story »

If you are a parent, Google wants to know. And, apparently, it can figure that out on its own and report your child-rearing status to its advertisers, according to Larry Kim founder and CTO of WordStream.

Google just added a "parental status" tab to its AdWords dashboard, allowing advertisers to use that as a criteria for ad campaigns, a WordStream data scientist has discovered. WordStream helps businesses manage their Google advertising campaigns, so it watches for every change that Google makes.

WordStream noticed that the parental status option went live to some advertisers late last week. Advertisers can choose between three settings "“Parent”, “Not a parent” and “Unknown."

This tab joins other demographic choices Google offers such as age and gender. Kim speculates that this is just the beginning:

This isn't just a great way for advertisers to reach increasingly granular audiences with their advertisements, it’s also a glimpse into the possibilities of what Google could offer advertisers in the future. They've already supported targeting by Age, Gender, Interests, and now Parental Status. Could we eventually see demographic subsets based on race? Sexual orientation? The more data advertisers have the better (for them), but is Google going too far?

This situation brings to mind a recent social experiment done by Janet Vertesi, assistant professor of sociology at Princeton University.

She wanted to hide the fact that she was pregnant from Google, Facebook and other big data Internet companies. She had to go to great lengths to do it such as searching for pregnancy and baby care information only using an anonymous browser (Tor), routing the baby items bought on Amazon to a rented post office box, making no mention of her pregnancy on Facebook, and so on.

Knowing that a woman is pregnant (let alone a parent) is a marketing gold mine. A pregnant woman’s marketing data is worth 15 times as much as the average person’s, she said.

But to hide her prenatal status from the Internet took extreme commitment, carefully watching every detail of what she and her husband did online for months.

Most of us wouldn't be able to keep that up for years of parenthood. Plus, we'd like to share photos of our kids now and then, not hide them.

And that's, of course, why Google knows.

Here's the photo that Kim shared showing the new "parental status" in Google AdWords.

Join the conversation about this story »

What kind of Lego kid were you? Follow-the-instructions or anything-goes?

The latter group, those who weren't afraid to make a mess and improvise their own Lego creations, are today able to submit their unofficial Lego builds to the company itself for public consideration and a year-long round of public voting. If the build can successfully garner 10,000 supporters — essentially a vote of "I would buy this if it were on store shelves" — then Lego will investigate releasing it as an official set.

It's a system called Lego Ideas, and it looks a lot like Kickstarter. Each project displays its number of supporters and the remaining time left in its campaign to break the 10,000 supporters mark. Projects will often include multiple photos of the finished item, occasionally a story surrounding its origin story.

As an example, this "Back to the Future" Lego set was originally submitted to the company by user m.togami and is now a standard Lego item available for sale:

If your idea should go so far as to break the 10,000 supporter mark and get Lego's attention, here's what happens next:

Projects selected in the LEGO Review go into production. You give input to our professional LEGO designers, whose job it is to create the final set based on your project. Once complete, it goes to the factory, then it’s shipped around the world and released for sale. You’re featured in set materials, receive a royalty on sales, and are recognized as the product creator. Your supporters can now own the LEGO set they helped make happen on LEGO Ideas.

So check out the attached slideshow of our favorite things currently drumming up attention on Lego Ideas. If one of them catches your eye, there's a link below each picture that you can click to learn more on the site itself.

The first thing that bears mentioning is the variety of projects. They might be beautiful and accurate, like these trees ...

Check it out on Lego Ideas »

... or silly and absurd, like these horses with laser guns on their backs.

Check it out on Lego Ideas »

People make small homages to favorite movies, like this one to "Ghostbusters."

Check it out on Lego Ideas »

Click here to see how to properly eat a watermelon >>

Join the conversation about this story »

Click here to see the office »

Join the conversation about this story »