interesting things
Brooklyn renters are feeling the pain. The hotly sought-after borough saw its average rent climb to $3,035 in July, a hefty 8.2% jump from July 2012, according to a report from Douglas Elliman.
via NYDN Rss Article only http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/brooklyn-rents-soar-closing-gap-manhattan-article-1.1420948
Yes, yes, we know that China has a lot of fake handbags, knockoff watches, and pirated DVDs. That’s ho-hum, but the country seems to be all about pushing the envelope and testing the limits of what can be faked. Let’s take a look at the 9 most outrageous things ever faked in China.
1. Fake Receipts
Photo: China’s Ministry of Public Security
What? Why in the world would anyone need phony receipts? To claim fake tax deductions and defraud employers for reimbursements, of course! In fact, fake receipts or “fapiao” is big business in China – for example, employees of the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline managed to submit $6 million worth of fake receipts over the years.
You can get any kind of fake receipts you want. Need travel receipts? How about something more, uh, specialized like waste material receipts? Not a problem – in fact, the business of forged receipt is so consumer friendly (after all, it is a service industry) that you can get special discounts and same-day delivery of the goods. [Source: NY Times]
2. Fake Businessman or “White Guy in a Tie”
Writer Mitch Moxley was approached by a friend of a friend in Beijing and offered a sweet deal: “Basically, you put on a suit, shake some hands, and make some money. We’ll be in ‘quality control,’ but nobody’s going to be doing any quality control. You in?”
He was, and the deal was indeed very good. Moxley was paid $1,000 a week, put up in a fancy hotel, wined and dined. All he had to do was be himself, a white guy in a tie:
… so I became a fake businessman in China, an often lucrative gig for underworked expatriates here. One friend, an American who works in film, was paid to represent a Canadian company and give a speech espousing a low-carbon future. Another was flown to Shanghai to act as a seasonal-gifts buyer. Recruiting fake businessmen is one way to create the image—particularly, the image of connection—that Chinese companies crave. My Chinese-language tutor, at first aghast about how much we were getting paid, put it this way: “Having foreigners in nice suits gives the company face.†[Source: The Atlantic]
3. Fake Apple Store
The Apple Store in Kunming, China sure looks the part: gleaming iPads displayed on minimalist beechwood tables, crisp marketing graphics and eager associates in blue shirts ready to assist you with the latest gadgets. But something juuuust doesn’t seem quite right, as blogger BirdAbroad noted.
Well, as you’ve guessed, though the Apple products were real, the store itself was completely fake. But you know what’s amazing about the level of fakery? Even the employees working there believed that they were actually working for Apple!
4. Fake IKEA Store
Photo: Reuters
If you think about it, Apple Stores are small and therefore quite easy to copy. But how about the Swedish furniture behemoth IKEA? Now their warehouse-styled stores are SO huge that they’d be impossible to knockoff, right? Not in China!
Meet 11Furniture, which has copied not only IKEA’s products but also its signature blue-and-yellow color scheme, 100,000-square feet warehouse complete with showrooms, mini pencils, and cafeteria-style restaurant! Well, at least they don’t have products with unpronounceable Swedish names … [Source: Daily Mail]
via Neatorama http://www.neatorama.com/2013/08/08/9-Most-Outrageous-Things-Ever-Faked-in-China/
The Discovery Channel kicked off their annual Shark Week week last night with Megalodon: The Monster Shark That Lives. The last two words of that title were particularly telling. See, Carcharocles megalodon was a giant shark -but it is extinct. The show was a “mockumentary” that raised the possibility that C. megalodon may still be alive. Brian Switek at Laelaps puts that idea to rest: Â
The fossil record for C. megalodon peters out in sediments about 2 million years old. The only teeth so far found in younger deposits have been reworked from older strata. Furthermore, there are no giant, fresh teeth littering the seafloor, no whale carcasses with distinctive bite marks washing up on shore, and no tangible evidence whatsoever that the shark exists. And all the stories… are just stories. Tales such as those Stead shared are not evidence that C. megalodon or other monster shark lives.
Christie Wilcox at Science Sushi is angry.
Here’s what I don’t get, Discovery: Megalodons were real, incredible, fascinating sharks. There’s a ton of actual science about them that is well worth a two hour special. We’ve discovered their nursery grounds off the coast of Panama, for example. Their bite is thought to be the strongest of all time—strong enough to smash an automobile—beating out even the most monstrous dinosaurs. The real science of these animals should have been more than enough to inspire Discovery Channel viewers. But it’s as if you don’t care anymore about presenting the truth or reality. You chose, instead, to mislead your viewers with 120 minutes of bullshit. And the sad part is, you are so well trusted by your audience that you actually convinced them: according to your poll, upwards of 70% of your viewing public fell for the ruse and now believes that Megalodon isn’t extinct.
And Wil Wheaton thinks Discovery should apologize to its audience.
And then I realized why I was (and am) so angry: I care about education. I care about science. I care about inspiring people to learn about the world and universe around us. Sharks are fascinating, and megalodon was an absolutely incredible creature! Discovery had a chance to get its audience thinking about what the oceans were like when megalodon roamed and hunted in them. It had a chance to even show what could possibly happen if there were something that large and predatory in the ocean today … but Discovery Channel did not do that. In a cynical ploy for ratings, the network deliberately lied to its audience and presented fiction as fact. Discovery Channel betrayed its audience.
Facebook users are upset. In fact, the whole internet is mad about the fake documentary. Some people are calling for a boycott of Shark Week. Did you watch the show? Is this reason to believe that Shark Week has jumped the shark?
POLL: Has Shark Week jumped the shark?
via Neatorama http://www.neatorama.com/2013/08/05/Has-Shark-Week-Jumped-the-Shark/
Call him Citizen Bezos.
With his surprise purchase of the Washington Post, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has become an instant media mogul with a potential soap box for airing his opinions on contentious issues such as taxes, labor and corporate monopolies.
Insiders speculated yesterday that the tax-hating tech tycoon had…
via NY Post: Business http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/wapo_could_be_platform_for_bezos_gfEnjJ4FRfujLimV98pqfN?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=Business
Progressive Insurance is acclimating consumers to having their driving habits tracked in exchange for discounts. Now mobile app developer Dash Labs hopes consumers will be willing to divulge even more data it could then sell to insurance firms, automakers, and even use for ad targeting based on driver location. The company counts Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley among its advisers.
The firm is testing its Dash mobile app on around 400 different car models driven by a small number of closed beta participants. Dash pulls data from a small device — the same kind used in Progressive’s Snapshot program — that can be installed under the steering wheel of any vehicle made after 1996. Though typically used by mechanics to diagnose car problems, the devices actually track a variety of data points that can be valuable to drivers and corporations.
The app tracks 300 data points, including the type of vehicle being driven, who’s in it and the time of day she’s driving and vehicle location. The system can even infer why the driver is going where she’s going (is it for work, school, home, or some other purpose?). And, because Dash has a game component that ties into a user’s social accounts, the company can measure that information against Facebook friends, or connections on Foursquare, Instagram and Twitter.
via Advertising Age – Homepage http://adage.com/article/digital/data-startup-create-automotive-graph/243454/?utm_source=Digital&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+AdvertisingAge/Digital
What makes a publishing house great? The easy answer is the consistency with which it produces books of value over a lengthy period of time. That would include in our day, beyond the obvious candidates, houses as unalike as Oxford University Press and New Directions. But there’s also . . .
via The New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/08/12/130812crbo_books_gottlieb
On a bright Thursday afternoon in 2007, Jennifer Boatright, a waitress at a Houston bar-and-grill, drove with her two young sons and her boyfriend, Ron Henderson, on U.S. 59 toward Linden, Henderson’s home town, near the Texas-Louisiana border. They made the trip every April, at . . .
via The New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman
Justin Bieber partied in the Hamptons in the early hours of Sunday, and seemed to be uncharacteristically on his best behavior. The star arrived at…
via NY Post: Page Six http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/biebs_behaves_Dgx0ZRQ3bfqJnzEfR6sR5O?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=Page
Calvin Klein’s on-off boy toy Nick Gruber has been questioned by cops after he was involved in a bloody fight at a top Hamptons…
via NY Post: Page Six http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/cops_quiz_gruber_on_fight_R9yFABW4FAvDuc2f9CBT4M?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=Page
Twitter likes to carry a free-speech banner, but as the micro-blogging site expands globally, freewheeling tweets are clashing with divergent laws and standards in markets.
via WSJ.com: Media & Marketing http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323997004578643883120559180.html?mod=rss_media_marketing