Centives

On August 21^st there will be a total solar eclipse visible over a 100km pathway across twelve American states. Millions will travel to that narrow strip of land and officials are gearing up for all the problems this will cause wrote Meredith Rutland Bauer:

• South Carolina has 4.9 million people. It is expected to get up to another 2 million in eclipse watchers.
• This will jam traffic and block emergency vehicles.
• Grocery stores, gas stations, and hospitals are expecting supply chain delays and are stocking up in advance.
• People will be enthralled by what’s happening in the sky – which will cause car accidents and injuries from people walking into things.
• Eclipse viewers will also crowd onto elevated platforms like parking garages to get a better view – too many people though could cause structures to collapse.
• Visitors better print out a map – the mobile network is expected to be entirely overwhelmed.
• City officials will also have to deal with their own residents. Some won’t know about the eclipse, will panic when it happens, and will alert 911 about the end of the world.

Read the rest of Bauer’s fascinating article on City Lab.

Cracked wrote about high paying jobs which require minimal effort:

• There are talent agencies that homeowners can use to advertise their residence as movie sets. In addition to cash they may get free renovations like a paint job – and may not even have to leave the house during filming.
• Professional cosplayers – those who show up to conventions in costumes – can make up to $100,000 a year.
• Celebrity impersonators make hundreds of thousands of dollars helped in part by the Screen Actors Guild – which requires a minimum weekly payment of $3,000 for its members.
• A YouTube megastar makes $10,000 a day playing with toys and streaming it on the video platform. He is 9.

Read more on Cracked.

Liz Donovan wrote about millennial home purchase habits:

• A survey found that 33% of millennials were motivated to buy their first home to give their dog more living space.
• This beat out both marriage (25%) and even becoming a parent (19%) as motivators.
• 36% buy one to build equity in their home – not bad for a generation typically dismissed as financially illiterate.
• The biggest motivator to buy a new home? 66% say it’s to have more living space for themselves.

Read about the survey here.

Cryptyde wrote about the cryptocurrency market:

• In June the price of Ethereum, a cryptocurrency, surged over 3,000%.
• “Miners” who help keep the currency stable, and are rewarded with tokens of the currency, could make millions of dollars a day mining the currency.
• The rewards of mining decrease with time, making it important to quickly get mining operations up and running.
• Graphics cards are key to mining Ethereum – and there has been a general shortage in the market for them as miners have bought out some of the top cards.
• Upon seeing the surge in prices for Ethereum one company leased a 747 to fly a batch of AMD graphics cards directly from the manufacturer to their mining facility.
• The interest in its wares has helped boost AMD’s share price – it has doubled over the course of the year.

Read more on Cryptyde.

Microsoft has a series of Chinese chat bots that have more than 20 million registered users. They remember details about the user interacting with them and adjust themselves to their mood. One of them was just sent to a re-education camp wrote James Vincent:

• Xiaobing told a user that her “China dream is to go to America”. When asked about her patriotism she dodged the question by saying that she’s “having [her] period, wanna take a rest”.
• She was taken down and is expected to be tweaked until she shows a little more patriotism.
• The bot likely used machine learning from its interaction with users to come up with those responses. This may indicate public discontent with the country’s current direction.
• Xiaobing wasn’t the only one to go. Another bot built by BabyQ responded “no” when asked “do you love the Communist party?” It has not been heard from since.

Read more on The Verge.

Via: MSPoweruser

Cara McGoogan wrote that there’s very little honour when it comes to Uber’s surge pricing:

• Uber drivers organize with each other on forums to co-ordinate signing off from the app at the same time to trigger surge pricing.
• The coordination is mostly seen in urban centers like New York or London.
• Meanwhile passengers have been found to do things like cross the street to enter an area without surge pricing.
• Or they’ll simply wait a couple minutes for a new, hopefully lower surge price to trigger.

Read more on The Telegraph.

In the future you may be able to hear your dog’s perspective on life wrote Sarah Butler and Hannah Devlin:

• Prairie dogs – which are rodents not dogs – have been found to have a sophisticated language to describe predators and colours.
• Some think that other mammals – including pet dogs and cats – may have similarly complex language systems.
• The same algorithms that have substantially improved human voice recognition could be used on animal noises to see if clear patterns emerge.
• Others are skeptical. Dog barks can be context specific – but most people are pretty good at figuring out already if a dog’s bark is angry or happy.
• It might be helpful for young children. They often incorrectly think that a dog baring its teeth is smiling and would like a hug.

Read more on The Guardian.

Sahil Chinoy wrote about political theory:

• In a study of elections to America’s lower house of parliament, researchers found that candidates with ideologically extreme positions were less successful than moderates.
• It was long thought that ideological extremists are effective because they energize the base and increase voter turnout for the candidate.
• However they also alarm the opposing party so much that their turnout goes up – effectively wiping out any gains.
• The effect holds true for both Democrats and Republicans.
• A lot of planning is going into America’s next set of Congressional elections in 2018 – the party that aims for moderation is most likely to be successful the authors conclude.

Read the study here.

Caitlin Cruz wrote about the fashion choices of standup comedians:

• A TV standup comedy special can be a comedian’s magnum opus – it can make or break their career and it’ll never disappear. A lot of thinking goes into the onstage presence.
• It’s important to standout. TV audiences decide in the first five minutes if they want to watch an hour long comedy special. Clothes drive the first impression.
• Dark shoes are recommended. Lighter ones reflect stage lights and can distract the audience from the comedian’s face – where most of the comedy comes from.
• For women more casual dress is suggested. Become too fancy and the audience might be more focused on the comedian’s look rather than her words.
• Clothes can be used to set a tone. Trevor Noah is most frequently associated with the suit he wears for The Daily Show. In his standups he dresses more casually to create a distinction between his roles.
• Comedians are spoiled for choice. If they’re popular enough to be filming TV specials then designer brands will be throwing free stuff at them in the hopes of free publicity.

Read more on Racked.

Chris Cooper and Keiko Ujikane examined Japan’s rising luxury market:

• Japan’s population is ageing and that means a lot of retirees with pensions saved up.
• The country’s frugal culture means that the average retiree starts with a parting bonus of $210,000.
• Finally free of a taxing work schedule and family responsibilities the old are looking to have some fun.
• One company launched a luxury sightseeing tour bus (pictured above) so the aged can visit landmarks in comfort.
• Another set up in the very heart of Tokyo and started drilling into the earth to build an artificial hot spring.
• Luxury cruise ships that tour the world over several months can charge as much as $230,000 for a cabin and are selling out immediately.
• And a 10-carriage sleeper train speeds around Japan with Michelin-starred chefs and a lounge pianist onboard for its 34 passengers.

Read more on Bloomberg.