In 2015 and 2016 humanity’s star dimmed a little. We stopped believing in our aspirations and decided that it was ok to settle for mediocrity. We accepted that the wheeled monstrosity depicted above could be called a “hover board”. Besides being a depressing reminder of our mortality, The Economist looked at other lessons from the hover board industry:

• Marketing is everything. The products that generate the most buzz today are those that seem to combine fantasy and reality. In this context calling them “hover boards” was key to their success.
• Product placement matters too. A-List celebrities like Justin Bieber started using it.
• This inspired B-listers to jump on the hot trend. Kendall Jenner released a video of herself on it.
• And this set the tone for everybody else who wanted a bit of attention. A Filipino priest sang to his flock while riding on one.
• The industry showed the strength of global supply chains. In just a few short weeks there were hundreds of brands selling hover boards.
• But they also show their weakness. When the hover boards started catching on fire it wasn’t clear who was responsible since no one was fully sure where each of the components came from and who put them together.
• Despite their danger they quickly spread on the market though, demonstrating another recent trend in business: products and services are sold before their legal ramifications are fully thought through.
• The hope is that if the product is popular enough the legal environment will adjust itself to allow the product – as some have argued is happening with Uber being able to ignore regulations aimed at taxis.

Read other lessons from the hover board industry and what their fate could mean for some of America’s hottest tech startups over here.

Source: The Economist

Alex Mayyasi pulled the curtain of off Judge Judy:

• Judge Judy’s show is the highest rated on daytime television, with more viewers than Oprah.
• For this she earns $47 million a year, making her television’s highest paid woman.
• While she was once a judge she isn’t one any longer. The set is made to look like a courtroom.
• But the judgments are real. Judge Judy is an arbiter at a binding arbitration – the system is a legitimate alternative to the courts.
• Extras are paid to mill about so that the bailiff has someone to say “come to order” at.
• TV producers hunt across America for real cases. Those who agree to have Judy as their arbiter are given a free trip to the set in LA where all meals and hotels are paid for.
• They are also given an appearance fee of up to $500.
• And while Judge Judy might rule that one party owes another party money, it’s actually the television producers that pay the settlement.
• Those who know they are likely to win the case agree to appear on the show for the money and the quick settlement.
• Those who know they will lose agree to Judge Judy’s arbitration because they know they will have the settlement paid on their behalf.
• Experts help prepare the parties involved in the case by giving them tips on how they can best communicate their position.
• They may also be taken to a hairdresser or be given a set of clean clothes if they are particularly destitute.
• Once this prep work is done however the action is mostly real. There is no pre-established script and there are no re-shots to get a better take of a line.

The full article contains many more fascinating details, including an account of Judge Judy’s rise at the age of 50, and the competitors that have arisen. You should read it here.

Source: Priceonomics

Rumors strongly indicate that the next iPhone will not have the typical 3.5mm headphone connector. Owners of the device will instead have to use Bluetooth headphones, or headphones specifically designed to use the Lightning port that is also used to charge the device. Vlad Savov took a look at some of the implications:

• It’s been reported that Apple is removing the 3.5mm jack in order to slim down the device – but that probably won’t have much of an effect since the lightning port is about as big.
• Instead the real benefit might be to boost sales of devices that use Apple’s proprietary lightning port.
• Headphone makers are excited by the prospect of selling users a new class of headphones since the old ones they use will suddenly become obsolete.
• Since Bluetooth and lightning port headsets can be priced at a premium this should also mean higher margins for manufacturers.
• Ultra-elite audiophile headphone makers may not want to create wireless products since those don’t always have the best audio quality. However people who buy those sorts of headphones probably don’t want to use something as pedestrian as a phone to listen to their music anyway.

Read more over here.

Source: The Verge

The Economist took a look at the current state of the Nobel Prizes:

• A Nobel prize is only worth about $1 million and is often split by multiple recipients.
• When the prize was established this was about 25 times the salary of the average Professor. Now it is only about 10 times an average salary.
• Other prizes such as the Breakthrough prize will net a scientist $3 million.
• Plutocrats trying to brighten up their legacies are establishing even better endowed prizes that more scientists will have an incentive to strive for.
• One way to increase the value of the prize would be to accept donations, but the Nobel foundation worries that this will infringe upon their independence.
• The prize categories themselves no longer seem as relevant. Chemistry gets its own prize but most of the prizes being awarded to chemists are really for advances in physics, physiology, or medicine rather than pure chemistry.
• Meanwhile important fields such as ecology or neuroscience languish without a prize at all.
• The Nobel foundation isn’t sitting idle however. It is hoping to maintain the importance of its brand by opening a visitor and conference center in Europe.

Read more about the state of the Nobel prizes here.

Source: The Economist

The history of the bikini is fascinating:

• The invention of the bikini was driven in part by war-time rationing of fabric during WW2.
• It was called the bikini after the atoll on which the US tested nuclear missiles. Like the atom bomb it was “small and devastating”.
• The name also fit because before the bikini the most popular swimsuit was a one-piece called the atom. Just like the bomb, the bikini “split the atom” into a two piece.
• There are various bikini styles, but its creator thought that the best ones revealed “everything about a girl except for her mother’s maiden name”.

Read more about the history of the bikini here.

Source: Wikipedia

Via: Reddit

You’re not going to be in a plane crash. If you assume that every single person who visited Centives since the website began was a unique visitor, then about one fifth of one Centives reader has been in a plane crash.

But Sophia Warren took a look at what happens if you were to survive one:

• International law stipulates that if a crash causes injury then each victim must be paid a minimum of $176,000.
• The average settlement in the US though is $4.5 million across all victims of crashes.
• Beyond that things depend on things like the amount of emotional suffering that a passenger went through in the lead up the crash.
• Air incidents are uniquely well investigated with a report that will make clear who deserves the most blame. If it is found that the manufacturer was 60% at fault, then they will pay 60% of the settlement.

Read stories from air crash survivors and the amounts they received over here.

Source: Hopes and Fears

Ellie Woodward and Rebecca Hendin looked at the unfortunately sexist fall and, then subsequent rise of Taylor Swift:

• Rewind back to 2013. Taylor Swift was ranked 18^th on the list of most hated celebrities and articles such as “Swift is a feminist’s nightmare” were frequently published.
• In part this was because she seemed to criticize other women by having songs revolve around negatively portraying a sexy woman who stole a boy away from an innocent girl.
• Then came her latest album, 1989, where the focus wasn’t on a boy or another woman – but Swift’s own relationship experiences and feelings.
• It includes songs such as “Clean” which discuss getting over a partner single and happy.
• It probably helped that during the album’s promotional period the country singer remained single.
• She also used the album to make jokes about herself. In “Blank Space” she mocks the idea of unstable serial daters, and in “Shake It Off” she lampooned her own dancing ability.
• By owning the jokes, she robbed her critics of the ability to make the same attacks against her.
• And she seemed to spend more time with a “squad” of iconic feminist friends – some who make appearances at her live performances.
• She revamped her social media strategy by directly reaching out to some of her Tumblr fans and offering them relationship advice.
• The results speak for themselves. She is the most followed celebrity in the world after recording a 73% increase in Instagram followers this year.
• She has used her influence to change the industry. She criticized Apple’s music policies and forced them to implement changes.
• And her album sold five million copies in five months. Her previous album took 2.5 years to reach that mark.

The full article is much longer and includes many more details. It discusses Swift’s scruffle with Nicki Minaj, the unfair pressure on her to remain single, how she eased back into having a relationship, and the privileged history that aided her success. You can find it here.

Source: Buzzfeed

The prize for the Powerball lottery drawing for today is estimated to have grown to US$1.3 billion. It’s actually the result of a rather clever strategy by the team behind Powerball – they recently increased the jackpot, and made it less likely that any one person would win, in the hopes of generating the types of headlines that have dominated the American media cycle over the past week.

But this bulletin is about lottery winners past, courtesy of Ed White:

• In 1984 a 42-year-old man won a lottery prize that guaranteed $1,000 a month for the rest of his life.
• Now 73, he’s looking to cash out in order to pay off accumulated debts.
• One buyer has offered $40,026 for the ticket that will only pay out as long as the original winner remains alive.
• This indicates the buyer expects the original winner to live for roughly another three years.
• It may not be a bad deal – according to the Social Security Administration (SSA), the average 73-year-old will live another 13 years.
• If the SSA is right, then the ticket should pay out about $156,000 by the time the original winner passes away.

You can read the full article here. Centives has previously covered a similar story about the elderly auctioning off their life insurance – you can read that here.

Source: Detroit Free Press

Via: Marginal Revolution