Countless hours have been wasted in offices across the world playing Solitaire on Windows PCs. James Hunt looked at Microsoft’s secret agenda in having people do so:

• Solitaire arrived on Windows in 1990 for a generation of users that were used to text based command line input ways of interacting with computers.
• People didn’t know how to use a graphical user interface which involved dragging and dropping things with a mouse. So through the game Solitaire Microsoft trained an entire generation to use the mouse to manipulate things.
• Two years later Minesweeper come out for similar reasons. It taught people how to effectively right and left click on their mouse.
• Similarly Hearts came out for the first networked version of Windows, and taught people how to connect with other players over networks.
• Now in Windows 10 those who want to play Solitaire have to use the Windows app store. The company’s aim is to teach users how to use the store to find other apps.

Read more here.

Source: Mental Floss

Communities are experimenting with creating their own cash writes Dan Crane:

• Individual artists and communities are providing their own take on what currency should look like.
• Some designs honour people such as JK Rowling or other contemporary figures.
• They may also commemorate local landscapes, culture, and heroes.
• This currency is then sometimes used to pay for goods. The currency only works in small, localized communities where people agree to use the notes as a form of exchange, since technically the notes aren’t real currency.
• This system of a specialized currency that can only be used by local merchants and vendors, instead of by chain stores, appeals to a generation that tries to support local businesses.

Read more about why this might be “the last burst of glory” before cash disappears entirely from our world, how such currencies address piracy concerns, and what some of the currencies look like over here.

Source: The New York Times

Relentless consumption promoted by economic growth is killing the planet, or so some people argue. Adam Posen outlined why, in fact, economic growth is the key to saving the planet:

• A cleaner planet requires that unclean industries are overhauled.
• This is easier to do if there’s economic growth. A dirty power plant might be shut down but industrialists and workers can hope for a different, brighter future in a new industry.
• Growth also promotes efficiency – doing more with less – key to helping the planet.
• The empirical evidence backs this up – over the decades it is economies that were growing such as Japan, Germany, and China, that have led the fight to reduce carbon emissions.

The full article fleshes out other reasons for the importance of economic growth, and provides a rebuttal by Tim Jackson who argues that low or no growth is the key to stability. Read it here.

Source: The Economist

The next time you go to a restaurant, these are the things that servers are looking at found Jessica Sidman:

• Long sleeves in the summer indicate a person with cash and good tips.
• Gay people are also thought to be better than average tippers.
• Those with reservations are normally searched for on the internet in advance to figure out what they do. The menu recommendations and alcohol price range that is mentioned will be adjusted accordingly.
• Those that get alcohol early are normally in for a long expensive night and are worth a lot of money.
• Servers can take control of their tips by accurately assessing the situation. Lawyers have a lot of money but lawyers who won their case should be offered wine, while those that lost should be encouraged to get a Scotch and bourbon.

Read other things that your waiters and waitresses are thinking about you when you walk through the door over here.

Source: Washington City Paper

Via: Marginal Revolution

Pushkaram is an Indian festival that takes place once every 12 years along one of 12 spiritually important rivers. This year it was the Godavari River’s turn. Kamalakara Rao took a look at an odd challenge the government faced:

• Because the festival takes place so rarely, it is expected to draw thousands of beggars.
• To avoid this the local state government announced that those seeking alms would be paid ₹5,000 (US$ 77) as compensation for lost wages if they agreed to stay away from the event.
• The biggest problem was, of course, verification, as relatively well-off people claimed to be beggars in order to get compensation.
• Still the idea has worked in the past. In 2000 those seeking alms were given similar financial incentives if they agreed to move ahead of President Clinton’s visit.

Read more here.

Source: The Times of India

Turns out countries around the world have segregated parking spaces:

• German law requires some regions to reserve 30% of parking spaces for women.
• These spots are bigger than usual parking places in order to make it easier to maneuver.
• It’s not just Germany. Austria, Switzerland and China have similar laws on the books. One Chinese mall went so far as painting the parking spots pink.
• Critics point out that this is sexist against women because it implies that they’re worse drivers than men.
• On the other hand some say its sexist against men because they are stuck with less than ideal places to park.
• The laws seem to have come about in the 90s when people became concerned about sexual assault in unlit parking lots.

Read about the men only parking spots that are available and other details here.

Source: The Washington Post

Dan Kopf looked into what makes a region’s food distinctive:

• A cuisine becomes associated with certain ingredients usually because of either geography – such as fish in Japan – or cultural history, such as ham in Spanish food.
• An analysis of the most popular ingredients by cuisine shows that for Americans butter is the most common part of any recipe.
• This isn’t confirmation of the trope about Americans and obesity – in most cuisines (including European, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern) some sort of cooking lubricant like butter or oil is the most common ingredient.
• But an analysis of the most unusually distinctive ingredients is more interesting. For example Galangal – Siamese ginger – is in over 10% of Thai dishes, but only in 0.1% of other cuisine’s dishes, making it 100 times more common in Thai food.
• In the United States, the land of freedom and apple pie, applies are the most unusually common ingredient.
• For the Greeks its feta cheese.
• For Southwesterners its grits.
• For the Irish it is, of course, whiskey.

The full article talks about many other types of cuisine including Chinese, African, Mexican and Indian. It also has some musings on things such as the centrality of eggs in Jewish food. You should read it here.

Source: Priceonomics

Via: Marginal Revolution

In the Star Trek universe “replicators” – machines that can make anything – have removed the problem of scarcity – the defining point of economic theory. Noah Smith wrote about what our society may look like if it was similar to the world presented in Star Trek:

• In the Star Trek universe there is a large amount of automation. In our own universe more automation seems to have led to more income inequality.
• Yet as people got richer governments would probably impose progressive tax rates that would redistribute money from the richest to the poorest.
• Even if they didn’t, as people got richer it is possible that they would increasingly want to give their wealth away to those who don’t have enough.
• Therefore, over time, our society should evolve into one that has a high absolute level of living – similar to the world of Star Trek.
• The lack of scarcity probably means that the population isn’t growing.
• This isn’t too hard to imagine in our own world: rich countries are seeing their populations shrink not grow, a trend that is expected to continue as poor countries grow richer.
• People currently get a feeling of self-worth from their jobs. In a Star Trek like future where there doesn’t seem to be much commerce, they may increasingly be getting it from art and hobbies.
• Economic theory usually assumes that we’re the slaves of our own desires and interests. But in the future we could hack our brains to change the kind of person that we are, to match what we want to be.
• Some people will be able to choose to just always be happy – without the side effects of drugs. Others may choose to have a yearning for exploration, and to “go where no man has gone before”.

Read other musings on the topic here.

Source: Bloomberg

Flights get overbooked and people are told that they can’t fly that day. Melanie Pinola looked into this:

• Passengers should never volunteer to give up their seat. Airline compensation for doing so is as little a $200.
• In contrast if no one volunteers and the airline is forced to deny passengers boarding, then Federal Law requires compensation of up to $1,300.
• Passengers who want to avoid overbookings should shy away from United, Southwest, and, especially, Delta.
• Instead they should consider Hawaiian, jetBlue, and Virgin America which have the lowest rates of passengers getting bumped.
• Those who are signed up for frequent flyer programs also usually get to avoid being asked to get off the plane.

Read other details here.

Source: Life Hacker