Sarah Scharf wrote about gastro-diplomacy and how Thailand used it to conquer the world’s culinary scene:

• In 2002 there were only 5,500 Thai restaurants in the world. Most of them in Thailand. Today there are 15,000.
• The rise is the result of a concentrated effort by the Thai government to promote its food abroad.
• Chefs were trained and loans were offered to encourage entrepreneurs to open Thai restaurants. Cooks willing to move overseas were offered incentive packages and special visas.
• The success built on itself. As Thai food become more popular, the ingredients required to make it became more commonly available, in turn encouraging even more people to try the food.
• The program targeted countries as far flung as Iceland.
• The initiative has played a role in the 200% increase in tourists headed to Thailand since 2002. Over a third of the tourists say that Thai food is a critical reason for their visit.
• Other countries such as Taiwan, Peru, and South Korea have been inspired to set up their own gastro-diplomacy programs

Read more about the Thais that despair over the lack of authenticity in overseas Thai food, why Kimchi is having a moment, and many other details here.

It seems the Thai government has a history of creating food policies that meet with remarkable success. We’ve previously covered how Pad Thai was created just a few decades ago by a lone dictator.

Source: Priceonomics

Earlier in July, rogue elements of the Turkish military attempted a Coup d’état in Turkey. The Economist used the opportunity to take a look at the history of coups:

• Between 1950 and 2010 there were about 460 coup attempts in the world, and they were successful 49.7% of the time.
• Since 2003 though, coups have a 70% success rate.
• This seems to be in part because best practices on coups have spread. Anybody looking to overthrow the government can, literally, purchase a book called “Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook“.
• That book points to why the Turkish coup failed. While they followed key points of advice such as taking over media outlets and controlling traffic, they ignored others such as launching it late at night, when most people are asleep, and taking key leaders into custody.
• But technological change might also have made coups more difficult. While the Turkish military did try to take control of the media, Turkey’s President was still able to get a message out to the people asking them to mass on the streets, with the assistance of social media.
• Coups have become rarer over time. This seems to largely be because people are getting richer. Doubling income per person causes the probability of coups to fall by 27%.
• Growth rates also matter. Every extra percentage point of growth, reduces the probability of a coup by 4.4%. Growth in Turkey had, notably, stalled in the years preceding the coup attempt.
• In democracies coups are harmful to a country’s economy. They cause income per person to fall by over 10% in the decade after a coup.
• In a non-democracy however there is no long-term impact to the country’s growth. Possibly because coups are the only real way for governments to change.
• After a successful coup there is usually a reduction in social spending. This might be because the new rulers are looking to reward themselves for the risk that they took by re-directing funds to their personal accounts.
• A lack of political legitimacy may also make it harder for coup leaders to collect taxes.

Read more about what all of this means for the future of Turkey’s economy, and other details about coups past and present over here.

Source: The Economist

Hotels are looking to get into the movie screening business writes Liza Hamm:

• People like doing dinner and a movie, and many people already come to expensive hotel restaurants for dinner. So why not complete the evening experience and offer the movie as well?
• The theaters are typically open to both guests and non-guests and offer a premium theater going experience.
• Tickets can cost as much as $90 and include dinner as well as movie theater snacks like shiitake mushroom and cheese flatbread.
• One hotel allows parents to drop off their offspring at a children’s movie theater where they will be supervised by attendants, leaving the happy couple to enjoy an evening on the town.

See what some hotel movie theaters across the world look like and have to offer over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

When most people are unsure about what to get someone for their birthday, they usually just give up and get them a gift card. Norway is considering going a slightly… different direction:

• The 100th anniversary of Finland’s declaration of independence is coming up.
• To commemorate the occasion, Norway is considering moving its border 40 meters inwards, so that the summit of a mountain the two countries share, will be in Finland’s side of the border.
• While Norway has several, far more impressive mountains, Finland, as a country, is vertically challenged. The gift would become Finland’s highest point.

Read more here.

Source: CNN

It seems like it was just yesterday, but it’s been a full two years since ALS Ice Bucket Challenge mania swept the world. And we’re finally beginning to see some useful ALS research come out of it, writes Joseph Lovinger:

• Researchers found a gene that seems to have a role in causing ALS.
• Those responsible for the study were given about 1% of the $115 million that was directly raised as a result of the challenge.
• This is, of course, an election year, and Donald Trump took the ice bucket challenge while neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama did. Given how the election season has gone so far, don’t be surprised if this somehow turns into a talking point.

Read more about the actual study and what it found here.

Source: The Verge

Jim Yardley wrote about the police officers from China who keep the peace over in Italy:

• Italy is a big destination for Chinese tourists, but reports about crime in the European country spread like wildfire on Chinese social media.
• Therefore, under a bilateral police cooperation agreement, China dispatched four police officers from its biggest police department to Rome for a couple weeks during the height of tourist season.
• The official mandate of the officers was to protect Chinese tourists.
• While the officers didn’t have powers of arrest, they were paired with Italian cops who did have that authority.
• For the Chinese government this helps bolster its domestic image by allowing it to talk about its commitment to safeguarding Chinese nationals overseas.
• Italy, for its part, earns several hundred million Euros a year from Chinese tourists and wants to see that grow. In addition to the police initiative it is also considering having some signs in Mandarin.
• This isn’t Italy’s first brush with international law enforcement. Officers from Spain, Poland, and the United States have all done patrols.

Read more here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

Ever seen a renowned celebrity with the paparazzi hanging onto their every word? Some wish they were the celebrity. Others decide to become the paparazzi. Malia Wollan wrote an article for the latter group:

• Joining the paparazzi is expensive. You’ll need $8,000 worth of equipment in cameras, lenses, extra batteries, and the like.
• This cost doesn’t include the weight training you may want to consider since all of the gear weighs around 50 pounds and is carried in a backpack.
• Nor does it include the self-defense classes you might need, given that it’s a dog eat dog world out there and other members of the paparazzi have been known to resort to violence in order to secure a prime photograph.
• Expect to spend some money building up a network of valets, restaurant servers, hotel staff, and airport employees, who will act as tipsters about the movements of your mark.
• You’ll also need an agent who will hawk your wares to top magazines.
• But becoming a successful member of the paparazzi requires more than just gear and a network. You need to have a creative bent. For a picture to be worth anything it must have narrative tension, and needs to tell a story.

Read more about what it takes over here.

Source: The New York Times

Neil Connor wrote about the unfortunate experience of one custom license plate owner:

• “8” is considered a lucky number by many in China, and one motorist in the country shelled out £113,000 on a license plate with five 8s on it.
• He then put it on a truck that was worth £3,000 – thus the car was worth about 2% of its license plate number.
• But while the police are used to seeing custom license plates on high end cars, when they saw it on the truck they assumed it was a fake plate and started pulling the driver over.
• On the first day alone the truck-owner was pulled over eight times – he spent more time pulled over than he did driving.
• To compound the problem crowds would gather to take photos of the lucky license plate making it even more difficult for the truck to get back on the road.

Read more here.

Source: The Telegraph

J. Bennett had the opportunity to visit Taco Bell’s food development lab. In addition to an expanded waistline he got insights on Taco Bell’s menu development process:

• Taco Bell is now known for its more esoteric menu items like the Taco Shell made out of Doritos, or a quesadilla inside a burrito.
• Taco Bell sees itself as a food innovation company. Bringing creative items to the menu is key to remaining relevant by generating headlines in the news, and discussion on social media.
• Things begin with ideation sessions where as many as 600 ideas a year are considered.
• For the 30 that are selected for advanced consideration, the next step is to nail down the recipe – an iterative process that requires as many as 40 tries.
• Reactions are gauged in part through sensory rooms, where tasters are led into small cubicles equipped with cameras to record the reaction as they try the product.
• The product is then tried out in test markets, and various metrics are measured, such as the ratio of likes to dislikes (7:1 is considered good), percentage of customers who order it (12% is good, though with the Doritos Taco it was 33%), and if the product is generating new sales, or is merely redirecting money from existing products.
• If the product is received well it rolls out nationally. The entire process takes about six to nine months.
• Most items that result from this process don’t stay on the menu for too long. Once the buzz has died down and the headlines stop coming, the items are quietly removed.
• Some of the products that Taco Bell is experimenting with include a burger burrito, a maple-butter flavoured cone filled with crispy chicken, a mac & cheese quesadilla, and multiple variations of food on an edible tortilla stick.

Read more about what it’s like in the labs over here.

Source: Thrillist

Conventional wisdom states that sex sells. But, according to Mark Duffy, that’s no longer true:

• Internet porn has meant that sex has lost its edge somewhat.
• Death, however, is still exciting, and draws attention.
• Therefore, brands are increasingly using the concept of death to get their message across.
• The example above is from Superette, a boutique that instead of using a model’s sex appeal to drive sales, displayed her impaled body and encouraged people to “be caught dead in it”.
• And people still appreciate a good laugh. So often you’ll see someone’s death played for comic effect, which is weird if you think about it.

The full article is full of fascinating examples. Read it here.

Source: DigiDay