Jane Helpern wrote about how stripper culture is becoming increasingly mainstream:

• Sites like Instagram seem to have a large proportion of young females who wear revealing outfits and high heels.
• The characteristics commonly associated with strippers – being trashy and sexy is increasingly being seen as “cool”.
• This is helped in part by mainstream celebrities like Lady Gaga – who was a stripper before she found fame.
• Pole dancing has also become an athletic sport that is pushing for Olympic recognition. Its practitioners take pains to clarify that they’re athletes not strippers.

The full article talks in particular about how strippers feel about these changes, and why they wish that they were better embraced by society at large. Read the article here.

Source: Vice

Malia Wollan wrote about the pros and cons of at-work dining:

• Breaking for lunch in the middle of the day made more sense when people toiled in the fields or did back-breaking manufacturing work.
• Now less so – though there are still benefits to it – some studies indicate that teams that eat lunch together collaborate better.
• But these days’ people seem to prefer the ability to multi-task their professional responsibilities for the day…or even scroll through Facebook, than eat with colleagues.
• This might be good for our health on one level – eating alone usually means eating less food.
• But people also seem to snack more throughout the day, now that lunch is not a well-defined time period. And employees know where they can find free leftover food from senior company meetings, sometimes adding an extra meal to their day.

Read more musings and hard science that has been done on the topic over here.

Source: The New York Times Magazine

When Meghan Nesmith’s boyfriend broke up with her, she wondered what to do with all the gifts she had accumulated from him over eight years. Then she found Never Liked It Anyway:

• On the website people list the gift they got, what it’s actually worth, the “breakup price” they’re willing to sell it for, the reason for the breakup, and what they’ll use the funding for.
• Engagement rings are the most popular item on the site.
• Common plans for what jilted lovers will do with the funds include exotic vacations, and sessions with “life coaches”.
• Letting sellers explain what they’ll do with the funding helps remove some of the stigma of purchasing what could be a cursed engagement ring. Think of it instead as a way to help fund a person’s dreams and efforts to bounce back.

Read more about the site, as well as other things you could do with your ex-lover’s presents over here.

Source: Racked

Steve Mollman wrote about Amazon’s monk delivery service:

• After the death of a loved one, finding a monk to administer the last rites is an administrative burden surviving family members can do without.
• People are often gouged – being charged as much as ¥100,000 ($830) or more for a monk’s services, as they’re probably not in a place to start price shopping.
• Enter Amazon which is offering a monk, and a donation, for ¥35,000 ($300). Free shipping is, of course, included.
• Additional services – such as giving the deceased a posthumous name – important in certain strains of Buddhism, cost extra.
• Some of the biggest fans of the platform are monks who are pleased that they no longer have to go through temples to find clients.
• The temples themselves – many of which were already struggling to stay in business – are less happy about this development.

Read more over here.

Source: Quartz

Via: Marginal Revolution

Michaela Cross wrote about a trick that some have used to substantially reduce the cost of college:

• When determining eligibility for financial aid those deemed as “dependents” are evaluated based on their parent’s ability to pay – even if parents don’t way to pay.
• While those deemed as “independent” are evaluated based on their own income which, typically, for a college student, is next to nothing.
• There are many ways to be considered an “independent”. You could be an orphan or serve in the military. Or you could get married.
• Not only could this make your tuition free, it may also allow you to opt out of requirements like living in expensive on-campus housing.
• In the past a budding entrepreneur even set up a website to facilitate marriages between college students looking to save on costs.
• This is, of course, all highly illegal, and, if caught, perpetrators could be sentenced to several years in jail and be forced to pay multi-thousand dollar fines.

Read from people who have gotten married for the purposes of college, and what their experiences have been like over here.

Source: Vice

The falling price of oil is wreaking havoc in markets across the world, including the pirate one, writes Cassie Werber:

• As we’ve reported before, rates of piracy have been in decline for a while now.
• However, the little bit of piracy that did remain usually focused on oil tankers. The black gold could be siphoned off for a nice profit.
• Now with oil prices having dropped by $100 in less than a year, to about $30 now, pirates seem to be calculating that it’s no longer worth the effort and are stopping their attacks.

It’s unclear what the drones will target next.

Read more here.

Source: Quartz

Zheping Huang wrote about the peculiar role that Uber has gone onto play in China:

• Due to the one-child policy, few middle-aged middle-class people have individuals like cousins or siblings their own age to spend time with.
• In China one is also less likely to see random conversations being struck up at places like bars.
• Some have taken to driving for Uber. It gives them short bursts of conversation with varied strangers.
• Often these people make far more from their standard day jobs, than they do driving for Uber.
• If they’re interested in finding someone to play tennis with, they may try to pick up passengers around tennis courts and form weekend plans with them.
• At times Uber itself becomes the subject of socialization – some Uber drivers looking for social contact have come together to form communities.
• For others Uber is about business opportunities. One driver who sells electronics parks in front of the aerospace academy and picks up passengers from there in an effort to keep up with industry trends.
• And yet others just like the thrill of exploring massive cities like Beijing through people’s lives.

Read more about why Uber, rather than some of its more successful Chinese competitors, is the app of choice for those looking for socialization, and interviews with Chinese Uber drivers here.

Source: Quartz