Quantcast
Channel: Business Insider
Viewing all 115285 articles
Browse latest View live

10 Things You Didn't Know Your iPhone Could Do


Top Chef Explains How To Grill The Perfect Steak

Meet The Mysterious Man Who Controls The Beer Industry

0
0

drinking beer

The shroud of mystery has been (slightly) lifted from the so-called King of Beer.

Daily Beast reporter Tim Mak wrote a fascinating article about Kent "Battle" Martin, whose work you see every day but whom few know anything about.

Martin is known for approving practically every beer bottle and label on the market for the Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). He is also known for being highly enigmatic.

He's so secretive, in fact, that the publication wasn't even able to interview the regulator.

Regardless, here are some interesting tidbits about the most powerful man in the brewing world that they were able to dig up: 

  • He goes by the name "Battle."

  • Martin has approved over 29,500 beer labels just this year. 

  • The Tax and Trade Bureau would not even tell The Daily Beast any basic biographical details about Martin. Good luck Googling him.

  • He is described as awkward and robotic. Brewers say they have received approvals and notices coming in the middle of the night. There was even one anecdote of him at a craft brewers' conference working on several laptops at once, simultaneously looking at different labels.

  • Martin once rejected a beer label for the King of Hearts because the image of the heart on the bottle implied that the beer would have health benefits.

  • He also rejected a beer label called St. Paula’s Liquid Wisdom because he thought it made the medical claim of granting wisdom. 

  • He rejected the label of a beer called Bad Elf because it featured an "Elf Warning" that said elves should not drink while making toys. Battle thought the warning was confusing to consumers.

Read more about Kent "Battle" Martin over at The Daily Beast.

NOW WATCH: Is Draft Beer Better Than Bottled Beer?

SEE ALSO: Experts Say These Are The 20 Best Beers In The World

DON'T FORGET: Follow Business Insider's Life on Facebook!

Join the conversation about this story »








Forget Viagra — Here Are 5 Plants Found In Nature To Boost Your Sex Life

13 Simple Cooking Hacks That Anyone Can Use

UK Property Prices Suffer 'Largest Decrease Ever' As London Real Estate Goes Into Full-Scale Collapse

0
0

formula one racecar crash upside down

Property prices in the U.K. can't go on rising forever — and now they're not.

A survey of 90% of the market by Rightmove, a real estate price tracking company, shows that real estate prices fell 2.9% in August, the second consecutive down month this summer.

Prices fell nearly 6% in the overheated London market.

That news dovetails ominously with the rumors of "panic selling" in London as owners try to cash in on their overpriced houses at the very top of the market.

While prices generally cool off in summer when fewer people feel like moving, according to Rightmove, the decline was the worst the agency has ever seen:

... this is the largest decrease ever recorded by Rightmove at this time of year, and a lead indicator of a slower market in the second half of 2014. The price fall has been exacerbated by London recording a 5.9% drop, which is the largest of three consecutive monthly falls.

Here are the data in charts. 

This average price tracking line shows a clear decline over recent months:

Rightmove

Here's the same data expressed in terms of percentage growth. Note that this August's seasonal dip is worse than 2013:

rightmove

People are selling far fewer properties now than they were last year — perhaps because sellers can't get the prices they want.

Rightmove

If you want evidence that London is in a full-scale collapse, here's Rightmove's current chart of the best-performing neighborhoods in the city. They're all down:

rightmove

Rightmove's staff and estate agent network had several explanations for the news: They attributed the declines to the season, the Bank of England's talk about raising interest rates soon, and buyers being priced out of the market.

SEE ALSO: 'Panic Selling' In London Drives Fear That The UK Housing Bubble Is About To Burst

Join the conversation about this story »








J. Crew Is Now Making A Suit For Guys With Bigger, More Athletic Bodies

0
0

jcrew crosby suit

At 6-foot-6, Dan Layfield has had a lot of trouble finding suits that fit him. Before he started using a made-to-measure service, he would often go to the kind of big box stores where, he told us: "You can never really find anything that fits correctly. I had to get stuff heavily tailored — and even then, it didn't look great."

But Layfield, pictured above at left, told us last week that J. Crew's new Crosby suit, which is designed to accommodate a bigger, more athletic frame, is one of the few that actually fit him well off the rack.

"They took the jacket in a touch," he said over the phone. "And they had to adjust the sleeves and the bottom of the pant legs down a bit, because I'm tall. But I thought it fit great."

jcrew crosby suit dan layfieldLayfield, a VP in JP Morgan's risk department, told us he played ice hockey and lacrosse in high school and college.

He now plays for the New York Knights rugby club, whose members J. Crew enlisted to help illustrate whom the suit is intended for.

His teammate Calder Orr, who is 6-foot-4 and weighs in at 250 pounds, said he had also found it difficult to buy a suit off the rack.

"Either you get a baggy suit, or a suit that's too small," he said. "I always think of Tommy Boy: 'fat guy in a little coat.' You're going to rip right out of it like the Hulk."

J. Crew's menswear director Frank Muytjens said comments like that from customers who didn't quite fit into the brand's much-loved Ludlow suit were what spurred him and his team to create something for men with larger frames.

"It took a long time to perfect. The shoulder's a little wider; we opened up the chest and waist a little bit. The lapel is a little wider to keep the proportions in check," he said. "It's an opportunity for this guy to wear the Ludlow suit, but it's not called the Ludlow anymore."

jcrew crosby suit calder orrAnd Orr, who tore a ligament during a game just before the shoot for the Crosby, said the new suit would work just as well in his office (he's an environmental compliance specialist for New York City's Transportation Department) as it would at formal events.

"It's cut so that you can move around," he noted. "You could dance and not have to worry about ripping your crotch out."

Muytjens didn't put it exactly that way, but he did say he wanted "guys to feel as comfortable as in the suits as they do in a pair of jeans. I think that's the key."

Even though the Crosby is a bigger suit, its pricing is pretty consistent with the Ludlow; jackets cost $425, and pants go for $225. It'll be available (in navy and charcoal wool) in J. Crew stores Monday.

Both of those suits, as well as a herringbone windowpane version and another in gray flannel, will make their way to J. Crew's website on Wednesday.

jcrew crosby suit 15

cover_details_500

More from Details:

Why Kate Upton Hasn't Posed Nude

What to Do If Your Hair Starts Thinning

5 Foods That Make You Look Younger

Dos and Dont's of Vacation Romances

5 Weird Signs That You're Vitamin-Deficient

 

 

Join the conversation about this story »








Here's The Dirty Little Secret IMAX Doesn't Want You To Know


Some People Are Using Lucid Dreams To Be More Productive While They Sleep

0
0

dreaming sleeping

In lucid dreaming, every night offers up the ultimate choose-your-own-adventure—a dreamscape confined only by the limits of your imagination and entirely under your control.

The horizon-expanding results are often felt long after you've awoken. Which is why a growing number of LD practitioners aren't just having more fun in bed—they're using their dreams to get ahead.

I'm lost in the woods. It's nighttime. The light of a full moon shows me I'm surrounded by menacing-looking trees, curiously similar to the ones that pelted Dorothy with apples in The Wizard of Oz. Then I spot it, smack in the middle of the forest—a brightly lit office cubicle with a laptop inside. "That's funny," I say to myself. "You don't usually see office cubes in the woods." Suddenly it hits me: The cubicle is my dream sign, a signal to my subconscious that I'm actually asleep, that everything around me is a projection of my imagination. After weeks of practice, of studying ancient Tibetan dream techniques, of wearing a special sleep mask that flashed lights in my eyes in the middle of the night, of ingesting questionable subconsciousness-raising drugs purchased from untrustworthy sources over the Internet, I'm finally doing it. I'm having my first lucid dream.

RELATED: 5 Weird Signs That You're Vitamin-Deficient

This clarity hits me even within my dream state. I'm so thrilled by the revelation, I plop myself down in the cubicle and start typing. Yes, I wrote this story in my sleep.

This is merely one manifestation of the state of being known as lucid dreaming. You're asleep. You're dreaming. But you're aware it's a dream—unconscious but conscious (or is it vice versa?). On the one hand, this is a common enough phenomenon—one study concluded that as many as 70 percent of people experience lucid dreaming at least once in their lifetime. On the other, the ability to have lucid dreams on demand can be a difficult skill to acquire.

A growing army of LD practitioners are training their sleeping brains to take maximum advantage of that lucid state, learning to control it in search of a mind-blowing natural trip. Imagine turning the inside of your head into the ultimate virtual-reality chamber, living out your deepest, most daring fantasies and desires, all without ever leaving your bed. Go ahead, fly to Zanzibar in your underwear. Play guitar like Jimi Hendrix—with Jimi Hendrix. Steer yourself not to a cubicle but to the corner office. Have sex with a supermodel. Or two supermodels. Literally anything you can imagine is possible in a lucid dream, because you have the keys to your subconscious.

Of course, the desire to control one's dreams is as old as dreaming itself, and unlocking the secret to lucid dreaming has long been a goal of philosophers, theologians, and scientists. Aristotle was said to have dabbled in it. Saint Augustine wrote about it. Eighth-century Buddhist monks devoted lifetimes to teaching a form of lucid dreaming known as dream yoga. Your hippie parents might have experimented with it at Esalen in the 1970s. But unlike many other New Age fads, lucid dreaming has a strong scientific foundation. And over the past 30 years, study after study has shown that lucid dreaming can have a profound impact on waking life. Researchers in Canada are using LD as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

RELATED: Why Kate Upton Hasn't Posed Nude

Sleep scientists in Germany are studying its applications for sports training—to improve both focus and performance in athletes. Closer to home, a doctor at a VA hospital in Los Angeles published a paper in January detailing the case of a patient with a 22-year history of chronic pain who cured himself overnight with a single lucid dream. "I'm no expert on lucid dreams," says Dr. Mauro Zappaterra. "But the man woke up with no pain. He said it was like his brain had shut down and rebooted. A few days later, he walks into the VA pharmacy and actually returns his medication—300 tabs of levorphanol. To me that's pretty convincing evidence."

Outside the scientific realm, lucid dreams serve as an idea lab for creative types: Actors and admen, inventors and game designers, fine artists, musicians, and filmmakers—like Michel Gondry and Guillermo del Toro—have practiced lucid dreaming. As the buzz about LD builds, it's gotten to the point where you can't stay up late drinking in the bar at the Chateau Marmont without overhearing a group of English indie musicians on their way home from Coachella going on and on about having lucid dreams in the desert or a starlet and a former professional athlete nearby gushing that LD is "better than TM."

There are now scores of lucid-dreaming websites offering online courses and dozens of LD-training apps on iTunes (one of which was downloaded more than 500,000 times in its first six weeks) promising to prepare your mind for dream flight. There are weeklong workshops in Hawaii, seminars in the Hamptons, and—the obligatory indicator of an incubating trend—TEDxTalks. And why not? Who wouldn't want to be "the producer, writer, director, and star of your dreams," as the promotional copy for one lucid-dreaming meet-up in New York City promised.

RELATED: What to Do If Your Hair Starts Thinning

"Yeah, it is becoming trendy," acknowledges Charlie Morley, a 30-year-old British lucid-dream teacher and the author of Dreams of Awakening: Lucid Dreams and Mindfulness of Dream & Sleep (previously he was a rapper in a Buddhist hip-hop group). "But it's not just hipsters doing it. It's all sorts of people, because there's no equipment to buy, no club to join, no money you have to spend. Anybody can do it."

However, not everyone has the same aptitude for lucid dreaming. There are those who pick it up instantly—Morley taught himself at 16, with no training—zooming to the moon on their first trip, while lucidity-challenged dreamers plod along for months before achieving liftoff. The reasons elude scientists, though a recent—and perhaps unsurprising—study at MacEwan University in Canada discovered that gamers are more likely to experience lucid dreams than non-gamers ("Virtual reality is virtual reality," explains one of the researchers). Also, those who tend to remember their dreams seem to have an easier time mastering LD than those who wake with no memory of them. But another recent study, this one at Goethe University in Germany, holds out hope for even the hardest cases: Sleep researchers there found that a mild electric current delivered to the frontal lobe for 30 seconds during REM sleep triggered lucidity 77 percent of the time. Can it be long before wearable LD brain shockers start appearing alongside Google Glass and Oculus Rift?

The more people experiment with lucid dreaming, the more distinct manifestations of it we will find, yet there is a certain universality, too—almost all lucid dreamers have the impulse to do the same thing. They fly. "Oh, man, being able to fly," Morley says, smiling broadly at the memory. "Flying is amazing. The feeling of floating above the earth, free from gravity—it's so liberating. I used to go to bed early on Saturday nights just so I could fly in my dreams. I got stuck doing that for two years. All I did was fly around and go to orgies."

You'd think it would be addictive, but sooner or later boredom sets in. "After you've flown for the thousandth time, you start looking for other, less superficial applications," says Tim Post, the 30-year-old founder of the LD website Snoozon.com, who taught himself to lucid-dream after being inspired by The Matrix. "You start trying to bridge your lucid-dream experience with your waking life. You start asking, 'How can I learn from this? How can I use it to be a better person, or get ahead at work, or rehearse for a sporting event?' Eventually, you look for practical applications."

You don't have to look far. Like that case of the VA patient who cured his pain with a single lucid dream (involving beautiful musical tones and strands of giant DNA made out of cookie dough—hey, whatever works). It can be useful for coping with nightmares, overcoming shyness, or dealing with bereavement, and it can be helpful for practicing for a big presentation, pumping up one's confidence, or solving creative problems (Paul McCartney famously puzzled out the troublesome melody of "Yesterday" in a lucid dream). In many ways, LD is the perfect self-help trend for our super-busy, technology-obsessed times. Not only is it just the right mix of ancient Eastern philosophy and cutting-edge brain science, but it also lets you get twice as much done in a day by turning your sleep hours into a night shift.

sleep clinicExactly how lucid dreaming works in the brain is still something of a mystery. Research shows that lucid dreaming stimulates the mind in the same ways as waking life. If you sing during a lucid dream, for example, the right hemisphere lights up, just as it would if you were awake. If you do math, the left hemisphere becomes active. And the effects reverberate through your body even after you wake up. It can, for instance, improve motor skills. Sleep researchers at Heidelberg University proved that practicing a task in a lucid dream—tossing a coin into a cup—makes the dreamer significantly better at it during waking hours. They're currently experimenting with more complex tasks, like running and jumping, to see if eventually athletes might be able to train in their sleep.

RELATED: 6 Unspoken Rules of Casual Sex

But the real power of lucid dreaming, according to those who've mastered it, is how it alters your perception of, well, pretty much everything.

"When I'm flying in a dream, what's moving?" asks Robert Waggoner, the author of Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self and a popular speaker on the lucid-dream lecture circuit. "What's the nature of space in a lucid dream? It's just a mental construct. Early lucid dreamers, the Buddhists who practiced dream yoga, they wouldn't even bother to fly to the mountain in their dreams. They'd just pull the mountain to them."

"It does tend to blur the lines between reality and dream life," agrees Sean Kelly, a 27-year-old longtime lucid dreamer from California who studied perception and cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley, and now splits his time between Thailand and India, studying yoga and consciousness. "Not to the point where you can't function. It's not like, 'Oh my God, I can't cook this egg because I don't know if it's real.' But when you start to experience a lucid dream—consciousness without being encased in a physical body—it starts to shift your idea of the world, of what reality really is. Reality in a dream and reality in the physical world—they're both constructs of your consciousness. You start to realize that we don't have any idea at all what reality really is."

If taking flight via lucid dreaming sounds like a different sort of trip, there's a reason.

• • •

"I was climbing K2 and there were snowdrifts all around," says Dr. Stephen LaBerge, recalling the dream that would ultimately bring LD into the mainstream. "But I was dressed in shorts. And I thought, 'Wait a minute, I'm not properly prepared to go to the top of a mountain. Of course, it's a dream!' I was so reeled by it, I just flew off the mountain."

Meet the godfather of lucid dreaming, the researcher who brought LD from the fringes of alternative psychology to the razor-sharp edge of modern sleep and dream science. LaBerge, who bears a passing resemblance to Christopher Lloyd's Doc from the Back to the Future movies (though he drives a Subaru, not a DeLorean), is 67 now, living in Arizona and leading seminars. His dream about climbing K2 in shorts came when he was a graduate student in chemical physics at Stanford in the late sixties. Like so many others of his generation, he was drawn to psychedelics—only in his case, as a subject for study. He was researching their effects on consciousness. The substances, though, were illegal, making research difficult. LaBerge's eureka moment—his mountain-climbing dream—"set the seed," he says. "I couldn't study psychedelics, but here was a state—one that happens naturally in the REM cycle—that had similar potential."

RELATED: 5 Foods That Make You Look Younger

The breakthrough came in the early eighties, while LaBerge was conducting research at Stanford's prestigious Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine. He had come up with an ingeniously simple study that proved once and for all the reality of lucid dreaming: Subjects with a history of lucid dreaming were given instructions to send specific signals—two pairs of left-to-right eye movements—once they slipped into the deepest level of REM sleep, where lucidity occurs. "That was something," LaBerge recalls proudly. "A communication from the dream world while it was happening."

He spent the following decades sharing his findings in books (Lucid Dreaming, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming), establishing the Lucidity Institute, and inventing devices like the NovaDreamer, a now-discontinued sleep mask designed to nudge dreamers into lucidity with light pulses powerful enough to penetrate the unconscious and alert dreamers that they're asleep, but not so disruptive as to wake them.

Whether you're delivered there by light or by luck, the moment you achieve awareness that you're in a dream is when it becomes lucid. LD practitioners train themselves to recognize dream signals—in my case, an office cubicle in the middle of a forest; in LaBerge's, inappropriate mountain-climbing attire—that tip them off to the fact that they're dreaming (think of them as unreality checks). Sean Kelly suggests giving yourself the finger: He pushes his middle finger into the flesh of his palm, and if it goes through, he knows he's dreaming.

During my first few unsuccessful weeks attempting lucidity, none of this worked. Nor did the Remee, a red-light-emitting LD mask made by a Brooklyn company, which just kept me from sleeping at all.

There is another, chemical option for those stuck on the lucidity launchpad, something that several lucid dreamers had quietly clued me in to: galantamine, a brain-boosting drug used as a treatment for Alzheimer's that's said to have powerful lucid-dream-triggering side effects. Like many other nootropics, a.k.a. smart drugs, galantamine requires a prescription in the U.S., but low-dosage capsules containing its active ingredient—derived from the flowers of the Galanthus causcasicus plant—can easily be obtained. You wake up to take it at three in the morning, then go back to sleep, perchance to lucid-dream.

RELATED: Dos and Don'ts of Vacation Romances

It didn't have an effect on me, at least not initially. But then, a couple of nights later, when I wasn't expecting it, I had my lucid dream. It may have been a delayed reaction to the galantamine. Or perhaps it was simply because I'd been concentrating on lucid dreaming so intensely (all the experts agree that a strong desire to lucid-dream is a key factor in achieving lucidity)—and on my looming deadline. But there I was, in a cubicle in the forest, typing these words into a laptop: This is exhilarating. Although next time, I want to try to dream bigger. I'm going to fly.

SEE ALSO: Scientists Figured Out How Magic Mushrooms Alter The Mind — And It Has To Do With Dreaming

Join the conversation about this story »








The Mistake Everybody Makes With Emotional Intelligence

0
0

Emotional intelligence is an "it" thing in business, or so say the 11,000 books on the subject on Amazon

At Google, people are joining six-month wait lists for a class on it. Chade-Meng Tan, the engineer who founded the class, says that emotional intelligence is what differentiates one tech whiz from another. 

"Everybody knows this [emotional intelligence] thing is good for their career," Meng said. "And every company knows that if their people have [it], they're gonna make a shitload of money."

Still, there's lots of confusion about what emotional intelligence is. 

Thus this infographic.  

BI_graphics_EmotionalIntelligence

SEE ALSO: 14 Tactics For Reading People's Body Language

Join the conversation about this story »








The Best Vodka On The Market

0
0

vodka shots

Whether you're shooting back shots or sipping a cocktail, good vodka goes down smooth.

Our friends at FindTheBest helped us find the 10 best vodkas on the market.

To rank the vodka, they considered expert reviews and awards from the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, Wine Enthusiast Magazine, the 2013 International Wine & Spirit Competition, and the Beverage Tasting Institute.

10. Serebryaniy Zamok ($5)

Russia has a lengthy history with vodka, and the word even means "little water" in Russian. Serebryaniy Zamok is an extremely cheap Russian-made vodka that is clear and crisp, with an alcohol by volume percentage of 40.

9. Sibirskaya Strong ($5)

Another vodka from Russia, Sibirskaya Strong is, as the name implies, slightly stronger with an ABV of 45%. The vodka is made only from natural products, with fine wheat and fresh water used in the distilling process. 

8. Sun Liquor UNXLD ($29)

Sun Liquor UNXLD Vodka is a U.S.-made alcohol manufactured in Seattle. They distill their product five times total, which helps contribute to a very pure vodka.

7. Svedka Colada ($13)

Rain Organic Cucumber Lime Vodka

Svedka is a popular choice of alcohol here in the U.S., even though the brand is based in Sweden. Svedka Colada in particular is a winning vodka, with coconut flavoring infused with pineapple and other tropical tastes. 

6. Rain Organics Cucumber Lime ($21)

Sazerac Company in California manufactures this flavorful cucumber lime vodka, with an ABV of 35%. This Rain Organics vodka is made from fermented corn instead of the usual wheat, and it is distilled seven times for ultimate purity.

5. Effen Cucumber ($32)

Effen Cucumber is a Netherlands-based product, with premium wheat from Northern Holland as its foundation. It is a cucumber-flavored vodka and is slightly more expensive than average.

4. Exclusiv ($20)

Originated in Moldova, Exclusiv Vodka is an unflavored product made from distilled wheat. The product is simple and crisp, great either plain or mixed.

Froggy B Vodka

3. Froggy B ($20)

Froggy B is French imported vodka that is clear and pure after being distilled six times. Wine Enthusiast Magazine describes it as "Relatively neutral on the palate with a clean, citrusy touch on the finish."

2. Grand Teton ($19)

Grand Teton is the only potato-based vodka on the list so far, and it is distilled 20 times for an extremely clean and smooth product. It is a U.S.-made vodka, with an ABV of 40%.

1. Smugglers' Notch ($27)

With the finest grains and ingredients straight from Idaho, Smugglers' Notch is a clear, neutral vodka with just a hint of underlying flavor. 

SEE ALSO: The 10 Best Bottles Of Scotch On The Market

Follow Us! On Instagram

Join the conversation about this story »








Ugg Hopes These Photos Will Change Your Mind About The Brand

0
0

Ugg Ugg Australia wants to be known for more than its ubiquitous sheepskin boots. 

The company is trying to refashion its image with a new marketing campaign featuring intimate moments with famous icons, including New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, Ernest Hemingway's great-great-granddaughter Langley Fox, and California architect Harry Gesner. In the ads, the icons talk about their passions, their family life, and what the Ugg brand means to them.

The campaign is meant to redefine Ugg as a "premium lifestyle brand" that has relevance beyond the winter season by showcasing the company's many other products, including shearling rugs, sneakers, and footwear styles for men.

This is the Gesner family wearing Uggs on the beach "in a nod to Ugg's surfing roots," the company says. 

Ugg

In the next ad, the company features items from its men's line, which launched in 2012.

"For women, the Classic boot is an on-standby style staple," the company writes on its blog. "For men, however, styling the boot can be a bit daunting. Enter Marcus Troy, Creative Council member and ambassador of all things cool."

Ugg

Ugg asked Troy to "re-envision" the Classic boot.

"The result? A dose of swagger and a lesson in styling," the company says. "We have to say, the barometer has been set."

Ugg

Ugg's sales growth peaked in 2004. Since then, the company has endured a lot of criticism. 

"The high fashion crowd has largely dismissed the boots as ugly," writes Huffington Post's Kim Bhasin. "Podiatrists have said the boots don't provide proper support, leading to health problems. A U.K. judge warned that the boots are dangerous to wear while driving. Animal rights group PETA mobilized against Ugg, accusing the company of "extreme cruelty to animals."

Ugg

Ugg hopes its new campaign will deepen customers' connection with the brand, or as the company puts it, to bring "emotional power" to the Ugg brand. 

"The stories with Langley, Tom and Harry and his family are both personal and authentic," Ugg Vice President of Marketing Nancy Mamann said in release. "Because each of our moments highlights real people, we’re able to dive deeply into who they are and what moment they’re experiencing – whether it’s on our blog, on our website, even our social channels – and bring to life the environment in which people from all walks of life, doing very different things in their private lives, live with UGG."

In an interview with the company, Fox, a sketch artist, is asked what her "UGG moment" is about. 

She responds, "My moment is all about creativity and spontaneous bursts of passion for what you truly enjoy doing in life. In the campaign, you will see me pulling an all-nighter, completely engrossed in my illustrations."

Here's Fox with a $795 Ugg sheepskin rug, a $145 Ugg pillow, and $160 boots.

Ugg

Here's another one of the new ads featuring the brand's woven blankets and pillows.

Ugg

SEE ALSO: Michael Kors Says Menswear Is The Future Of The Brand

Follow us: On Pinterest

Join the conversation about this story »








Here's Why North Carolina Keeps Getting Poorer

0
0

attached image

Poverty is growing steadily in North Carolina.

A recent Brookings Institution report found four North Carolina metro areas (Winston-Salem, Greensboro-High Point, Raleigh, and Charlotte) fell within the top 10 in the nation for both growth in poor population and growth of poor neighborhoods.

From 2008 to 2012, the poverty rate within the state has grown from 14.6% to 18%, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

University of North Carolina professor Gene Nichol — who has written extensively on poverty in North Carolina — has some interesting insights into why so many people in the southern state continue to be destitute. Nichol told us North Carolina "has suffered a double-whammy in a way that is uncommon."

raleighFor one thing, Nichol says, North Carolina has felt the impact of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement more than potentially any other state in the nation. NAFTA allows free trade between Mexico, Canada, and the U.S., and opponents of the agreement believed it would lead to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs as well as plummeting wages, according to Public Citizen. Those who supported the agreement believed it would increase the standard of living in America.

As a result of NAFTA, Nichol says, the state lost massive numbers of manufacturing, agricultural, and tobacco-related jobs, and North Carolinians were forced into structural unemployment.

"Many folks lost their jobs in that period," Nichol said. "They either didn't get successful replacements or frequently got other jobs but they had dramatically diminished salaries. That's had a big impact on poverty levels in North Carolina."

The second part of that double-whammy came in the form of the housing collapse and the great recession in 2008, which happened right as North Carolina was beginning to turn the corner after the NAFTA fallout. 

"Since that time, we've embarked upon a number of decisions that radically wound poor people," Nichol said.

One of those decisions came after the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that states had the option to opt in or opt out of the expanded Medicaid plan outlined in President Obama's Affordable Care Act. North Carolina was one of 20 states that decided not to expand Medicaid coverage to low-income residents, according to the Advisory Board Company

Winston-SalemEarlier this year, North Carolina also cut unemployment benefits to a 14-week maximum, which is the shortest amount in the U.S, according to The Wall Street Journal. Previously, the maximum allowed in the state was 19 weeks. In addition, North Carolina became the only state in 30 years to eliminate a state Earned Income Tax Credit, which reduced taxes for low- and moderate-income people, according to WUNC.org.

In conducting interviews with impoverished people in cities such as Charlotte, Nichol said the solution isn't as complicated as one would think.

"There are some jobs to be had in Charlotte, in Raleigh, but they are so dominantly low-wage, minimum wage, service-sector jobs. You just can't live on $7.25 an hour in Charlotte or Raleigh or Winston-Salem," he said. "What I think we need to do first is, a small step, raise the minimum wage in NC."

Thirteen states raised the minimum wage on Jan. 1, and those states are seeing a larger increase in the number of jobs created compared to the 37 states that did not, NPR reports. Even cities have raised the minimum wage, such as Seattle, which raised it to $15 within the city, USA Today reports.

GreensboroSan Jose raised its minimum wage from $8 to $10 and then to $10.15, and it has led to a better quality of life for residents, USA Today reports.

"It's not a huge help, but it helps," Cherry Lunario, a 49-year-old San Jose resident, told USA Today. "It makes your life a little better."

Nichol sees a higher minimum wage as the obvious and easiest way to put a dent in North Carolina poverty, even though it's not the most realistic prospect.

"God knows our legislature would be among the last to approve it," he said, "but we ought to raise the minimum wage in North Carolina."

SEE ALSO: The 15 US Cities Where Poverty Is Soaring Fastest

Join the conversation about this story »








Bizarre Photos Of People Running With The Bulls — In The United States

0
0

The Great Bull Run

For adrenaline junkies, the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain is on the top of the list of must-do activities. Every year during the San Fermin Festival, thousands of people line up for the chance to run down narrow streets, risking life and limb in the pursuit of thrills. 

But what about all those excitement seekers in the U.S. who can't make it to Spain? How will they get their rush?The Great Bull Run

Now, thanks to a new event called the Great Bull Run, you can run with the bulls at one of many locations across the U.S. The quarter-mile runs model themselves after the real races in Pamplona, where participants line a course and wait for the bulls to speed past, running along side the massive beasts as they barrel down the course.

Some brave souls even take selfies, though we wouldn't recommend it.The Great Bull Run

Runs have already taken place in cities like Dallas, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Atlanta, and more continue to be scheduled.

"This isn’t a charity 5k or a simulated bull run with people dressed in bull costumes chasing you down the street," the Great Bull Run's website boasts. They do, however, explain there are a number of further safety precautions made for runners, so you'll be somewhat safer than you would be at the real Running of the Bulls.

From these pictures, it still looks pretty scary.The Great Bull RunTickets to the Great Bull Run also get you access into a reproduction of another Spanish festival tradition: the tomato fight. While Spain's Tomatina occurs separately from the Running of the Bulls, the Great Bull Run's "Tomato Royale," which it mimics, happens on the same day. Participants hurl tomatoes at friends, loved ones, and strangers, creating the messiest and most fun event we could think of. 

Great Bull Run events also include live music, food, other games, and beer (of course). It sure looks like a great party.The Great Bull RunMore runs are being scheduled, with the next one happening in Southern California. So, if you're in the mood to live one of the ultimate rushes but don't want to hop a flight to Spain, check it out.

SEE ALSO: Pamplona's 'Running Of The Bulls' Is One Insane Street Party [PHOTOS]

FOLLOW US: Business Insider is on Pinterest!

Join the conversation about this story »








8 Jaw-Dropping Photos Of Earth From Space

0
0

As satellite technology has improved over the last half-century, our view of Earth has gotten more and more breathtaking. Earth observation satellites like the SPOT satellites (operated by the French), the European Space Agency's Envisat, and NASA's Landsat have greatly expanded our knowledge of the environment and the effects of human development.

Many satellite images, like the ones featured here, are made especially beautiful (and useful) through "false-color," which uses data from outside the spectrum of light that we can see to produce images in viewable colors that accentuate certain features of the landscape. Infrared, near-infrared, ultraviolet, and other such data illuminate important phenomena like weather patterns, plant life, and pollution.

Environmentalist and aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand has collected 150 incredible images from these and other satellites in a new book, Earth From Space. The images in the book are paired with information and essays of environmental themes, such as pollution, desertification, urban sprawl, agriculture, and disasters.

Arthus-Bertrand shared a selection of the images with us here, but you can check out the rest in the book.

The Lena River in Russia is the eastern most of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean (the other two are the Ob and the Yenisei). For seven months of the year, the delta is frozen tundra. The other part of the year, it turns into a lush wetland. The colors in this photo have been altered to accentuate certain elements: plant life is green, sand is pink, water is blue.

p.147 landsat_art_lena_lrgThis is what the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana looked like two months after the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill. Red indicates plant cover, shades of white and blue represent the water, and bright white represents the oil slicks. As can be seen in the image, the oil slicks penetrated the delta marshlands, which are rich in unique plant and animal life.

p.107 PIA13165The Betsiboka River in Madagascar empties into Bombetoka Bay. The river carries large amounts of sediment which form islands and sandbars. The islands are primarily covered by mangrove trees, seen here in red. The surrounding areas are cassava and rice plantations planted on cleared forests.

p.193 S1_1986_bcs135bis_S15.50E46.21The Senegal River is a 1,110 miles long river that forms the border for Senegal and Mauritania. Because the river historically reached into the Ghana Empire and The Mali Empire, it has been known as the River of Gold.

p.3 S5_mauritanie_2008_2Surprisingly for some, Antarctica is actually the largest desert on Earth, covering 5 million square miles. While it is covered in ice, it actually doesn't get much snow yearly. The Lützow-Holm Bay (shown here), a massive bay in Antarctica, is 120 miles wide. It was discovered in 1931.

p.242 Lutzow_HolmStretching for 550 miles, the Ebro River is the most powerful in Spain. Due to rich soil and an intricate system of irrigation channels (seen as the patchwork of lines below), the Ebro River Delta produces Spain's famous Bomba rice, as well as citrus fruits and vegetables.p.190 S5_DeltaEbre_rougeThe Aleutian Islands are a volcanic archipelago that lies south of the Bering Strait, the closest point between North America and Asia. The swirls on the photo are low altitude marine clouds that follow the "Kármán vortex street," a repeating pattern of swirling vortices, caused by wind flowing around the islands.

p.171 von_karman_vortices_aleutian_islands_largeGotland Island, Sweden's largest island, is located in the Baltic Sea. Agriculture and food processing are the main industries on the island. The green swirls in the water are from microscopic phytoplankton, which are prevalent in the area because deep currents swelling up bring nutrients to the surface.

p. 148 phytoplankton_bloom_gotland_large

EarthFromSpace09623J

SEE ALSO: More Breathtaking Views Of Earth

Join the conversation about this story »









Artificial Limbs Have Gone Through An Amazing Evolution

0
0

Egypt Mummy's leather and wood toe

Artificial limbs have come a long way.

Long before the bionic man, prosthetics designed to replace lost body parts offered limited movement and might be crafted out of materials found at hand, like wood and other fibers. 

"In the past, prosthetics looked very much like what they were replacing," said Jacky Finch, a researcher in the KNH Center for Biomedical Egyptology at the University of Manchester. Finch was the lead author of a 2012 study published in the Journal of Prosthetics & Orthotics that describes two different artificial toes from ancient Egypt, believed to be the earliest known artificial body parts. "Nowadays, implants are placed in the sensory system to control nerve action, rather than devices attached to the body by straps or artificially powered," she said. 

Prosthetics have been around since ancient times, but the technology did not really take off until the two World Wars. A large number of amputees from war injuries tested the ingenuity of engineers and spurred the growth of artificial limb manufacturers. 

The London Science Museum's "Brought to Life" exhibit chronicles this period of technological advancement, providing a general overview of the major milestones in artificial body parts. We have republished a selection of these images along with more recent innovations. 

An artificial toe found on the foot of an Egyptian mummy that dates from somewhere between 950 B.C. and 710 B.C. is believed to be the earliest known example of a prosthetic body part. The wood and leather fake toe, housed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, is made out of three parts and would have strapped on to the foot of the owner.

Source: The University of Manchester



Another artificial big toe, the Greville Chester toe, dates back to before 600 B.C. The prosthetic device is fashioned from a type of paper maché called cartonnage, which is made from a mixture of linen, glue, and plaster. The toe is on display at the British Museum in London.

Source: University of Manchester



Until the discovery of the Cairo toe, the earliest tangible evidence of prosthetics was an artificial limb found in a grave in Capua, Italy, dating from 300 B.C. The original bronze leg was destroyed during World War II, but a copy of the leg, shown here, is housed at London's Science Museum.

Source: Science Museum London  



See the rest of the story at Business Insider






Scientists Have Debunked These 5 Common Myths About Meat

0
0

In our increasingly health-conscious world, people are increasingly sensitive to the impact of the foods they eat. 

A particularly controversial food is unprocessed red meat, which some believe to be a source of various health problems. However, many of these beliefs have no scientific basis.

Here are 5 common myths that have developed about eating red meat.

Produced by Ryan Larkin.

Follow BI Video: On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »








The World's Tallest Roller Coaster Is Coming To Orlando

0
0

Skyscraper in SkyplexOrlando, Florida will soon be home to the world's tallest roller coaster, with a 570-foot drop. That's equivalent to around 27 stories.

But the ride won't be located in one of Orlando's popular theme parks, Instead, it's being built in the city's International Drive neighborhood, about 15 minutes away from Disney World and Islands of Adventure.Skyscraper in SkyplexThe coaster, called The Skyscraper, will be part of a 12-acre, $200 million dollar indoor entertainment complex called Skyplex located at Mango’s Tropical Café Orlando, a "restaurant and nightlife entertainment destination." Skyscraper at SkyplexThe heart-pounding drop on the ride will actually spiral down a monolithic tower and will include "loops, dives, spirals and inversions," weaving in and out of buildings throughout the complex. Skyscraper in Skyplex“We’re extremely excited about creating a record-breaking, must-try attraction on International Drive,” said Joshua Wallack, Mango’s Tropical Café chief operating officer. Designer Michael Kitchen also emphasized the ride's "very small footprint," due to the spiral drop.Skyscraper at SkyplexThe Skyscraper will be 193 feet taller than Dreamworld's Tower of Terror in Australia, the current record holder for tallest roller coaster.

Skyplex will break ground in 2015 and is expected to open in 2016.

SEE ALSO: 39 Things You Should Do In The US This Summer

FOLLOW US: Business Insider is on Instagram!

Join the conversation about this story »








Here's When Cops Are Justified In Using Force Against Protesters

0
0

Ferguson Cops

Ferguson, Missouri, is chaotic once again, more than a week after a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old who was unarmed. 

After a few nights of relative peace, tear gas and stun grenades are part of the news as protestors assemble and police disperse them. 

This onslaught of chaos raises the question of when and how police officers should use force. 

Within the police studies community, it's agreed that every encounter between police and citizen is "defined by the potential for the officer to use force," Mike White, a criminologist at Arizona State University, tells Business Insider. "For the citizen, for the officer — (force) is an underlying theme." 

Yet while the specter of force is always present, it's rarely used in the United States. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has found that force is only used in 2% of all police-citizen encounters. In the case of encounters that result in arrests, that number bumps up to 20% of the time. 

So what's happening in Ferguson? 

ferguson

"When things are about to boil over," White says, the appropriate tactic is "a show of force rather than use of force."

This translates as a police presence, which he says acts as "a visual deterrent" to violence, looting, and other criminal acts that can happen when frustrated people gather.  

Cops are taught what level of force to use by their police departments, usually decided on as a state policy. White says most of the time this policy is taught as a "use of force continuum," which the National Institute of Justice defines as "an escalating series of actions an officer may take to resolve a situation."

Here's the NIJS example of the appropriate use of force

• Officer Presence: No force is used
• Verbalization: Force is non-physical.
• Empty-Hand Control: Officers use bodily force to gain control of a situation.
• Less-Lethal Methods: Officers use less-lethal technologies to gain control of a situation.
• Lethal Force: Officers use lethal weapons to gain control of a situation. 

Ferguson protests

White says the point is to use the "least amount of force necessary to accomplish the objective, usually to resolve police-citizen encounter peacefully."

In Ferguson, the use of force has escalated with the behavior of the crowds. University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist David Klinger says that if protesters are throwing Molotov cocktails, bricks, and rocks — as has reportedly been the case in Ferguson— then using higher degrees of force is appropriate. 

But "some of it doesn't make any sense to me," he says, "like pointing lethal rifles at the crowd — there's things (that the police in Ferguson) are doing that have me and my colleagues scratching our heads." 

Another element in the escalation: how militarized the police have become, a topic that Business Insider has dived into here

SEE ALSO: 13 Photos From The Protests In Ferguson, Missouri, You Won't Believe Happened In The United States Of America

Join the conversation about this story »








The Best Places To Eat And Drink In New York City's Flatiron District

0
0

Pastries from Maison Kayser

So many startups have made their home in New York City's Flatiron District that it's considered an unofficial hub of Silicon Alley: Tumblr, Yipit, and Quartz are based here, as is Business Insider.

So where do these techies meet investors for lunch? And what are the hottest places to have drinks after work?

We've found the best restaurants and bars in the Flatiron district. For the purpose of this list, we're considering the boundaries of this area to be 6th Avenue to the west, Park Avenue to the east, 26th Street to the north, and 17th Street to the south. 

Best Farm-To-Table Cuisine: ABC Kitchen

35 E. 18th St.

Helmed by Michelin star Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, ABC Kitchen has been one of the most buzzed-about restaurants in the Flatiron since it opened in 2010.

The restaurant serves a menu that is "free of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, antibiotics, hormones," and more. The menu changes but always features fresh, local, and organic ingredients.

 



Best Pizza: Trattoria Zero Otto Nove

15 W. 21st St.

Dining at Zero Otto Nove, with its faux stone facades and weathered Italian posters, feels as if you're eating al fresco in an Italian city. 

The restaurant serves specialties from the southern Italian town of Salerno, like Rigatoni Salernitana (baked rigatoni with meatballs, cheese, and tomato sauce) and Ragu Salernitano (meat slowly cooked in tomato sauce). But it is most renowned for its wood-fired pizzas, made with fresh ingredients and homemade tomato sauce that uses tomatoes from Italy's San Marzano Region.



Best Burger: Shake Shack

Madison Square Park

The original Shake Shack location still stands in Madison Park, with lines of people eagerly waiting to try the Shack Burger.

Before heading over to the burger joint, check the "shack cam" to see when the line is shortest.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider






Viewing all 115285 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images