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A Homeless Silicon Valley Carpenter Built Himself This Amazing Treetop Retreat

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Troy The Jungle 3

Walking the 65-acre homeless encampment called “The Jungle” in Silicon Valley with an outreach team of former homeless workers opens up a lot of doors — but not Troy's.

Troy was reclined in a folding chair behind a green five-foot privacy screen when Business Insider met him in mid-July. He agreed to speak with us, but declined to let us into his camp.

The outreach team asked Troy if he was interested in putting his name on the list for subsidized housing and he shook his head. “Nah,” he said, “This is the first time I haven't had a mortgage in my life. I'm good.”  

Troy explained he'd lost his carpentry job nearly four years ago and finally settled here. His carpentry skills explained the elaborate fencing, shower and makeshift hut with a hinged door standing behind him.

We weren't talking long when Troy said he'd had enough and told us to check out his treehouse 30-feet up in a tree behind us. “Climb it,” he said laughing. When we didn't reply, he continued: “It's there to stay. I'm a carpenter for Christ's Sake.”

The Jungle in San Jose is filled with elaborate shelters and camps, but Troy's compound was unlike anything else around.



Following the path and reading the screen, it was clear Troy had suffered some trespassers and was doing all he could to enforce some personal security.



The farther we walked the more instructions there were. The police had swept the camp four months before so everything here had been built since then.



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Former Napster CEO Is Doing Incredible Work To Help Silicon Valley's Homeless

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Downtown Streets Team 55 1

Silicon Valley's homeless aren't completely without resources.

The Downtown Streets Team (DST) helps homeless people get off the streets by putting them to work and allowing them to become self-sufficient.

DST is a great example of the good that can happen when tech insiders turn their attention to a problem.

Chris Richardson is DST's program director and is the first to admit he's an unlikely homeless advocate. "I grew up pretty privileged and didn't get much exposure to this," he says swinging his arm around at The Jungle where up to 175 homeless people live at any given time. "But my mom had a vision and we're doing what we can to make it a reality."

Chris' mom, Eileen Richardson, was the first CEO of Napster and is a venture capitalist who volunteered with the homeless and realized it was a problem with a solution. Chris explains the family approach: "We come down to these camps three times a week and work with residents picking up trash and hauling out debris." 

"In return," Chris says, the homeless "get food [and] housing vouchers and [access to] services that allow them to work their way into housing and back into society." The Streets Team members work in the camps and on the streets of Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, San Jose, and San Rafael. 

DST's board includes prominent Stanford University officials and the Palo Alto Chief of Police. Chris tells us that their "participants earn everything they get from our organization. We're not a charity and that makes a huge difference to donors and to the people they help." 

Chris Richardson coordinates teams of homeless "employees" throughout four Silicon Valley Cities to sweep streets, pick up trash, and perform janitorial work and other services in return for food vouchers and other necessities.



DST members meet here at "The Jungle" three times a week where they haul away thousands of pounds of trash. The Jungle alone can generate several hundred pounds of trash per day, so there is always work.



Because many members are, or were, homeless themselves, they command respect out here where the disconnect between those trying to help and those needing help can often be immense.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

How Four Former Homeless Women Are Helping Fix One Of Silicon Valley's Biggest Problems

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Extending help to homeless residents of Silicon Valley does little if the people on the streets refuse to hear the offer. To overcome the disconnect and bridge the trust between outreach workers and the people they help, EHC Lifebuilders in Silicon Valley often hires workers who have been homeless themselves.

On our final day visiting Silicon Valley in mid-July, these four outreach workers took Business Insider into the field to meet the people they work with every day. The women had all been on the street prior to arriving at EHC's shelter, and after months volunteering had been offered full-time jobs.

"It makes a huge difference in how people see us," Anita, who overcame breast cancer only to find herself on the street, says.

Spreading her arm out to the group of homeless people around us on the ground, she says: "We have this in common. It's the hardest thing in the world to go through, and to understand it, you really have to have lived it."

These four formerly homeless women from EHC Lifebuilders in Silicon Valley confront their past each day going to homeless camps. 

EHC Lifebuilders Homeless Outreach Team San Jose Homeless Silicon Valley 1The women take on the challenge of convincing homeless people with immense freedom, to exchange that freedom for the rules of the Boccardo homeless shelter.

EHC Lifebuilders Homeless Outreach Team San Jose Homeless Silicon Valley 1 5Teresa was homeless for three years between the ages of 18 and 21 because she didn't want to stay at home and follow her parents' rules. "I was stupid," she says. "Now I try and convince other people to follow rules, like at the shelter. Life is crazy."

San Jose Silicon Valley Homeless Profile Photographs 86Where they once slipped past fences, EHC workers now have keys. Many of Silicon Valley's homeless camps line riverbeds, and the county water authority gives EHC workers access to areas where groups of people are camped.

EHC Lifebuilders Homeless Outreach Team San Jose Homeless Silicon Valley 1 2They walk into the most grizzled camp sites without any judgment. They offer the homeless help getting shelter and even wordlessly deliver things like pet snacks.

EHC Lifebuilders Homeless Outreach Team San Jose Homeless Silicon Valley 1 3"It makes a difference out here that we've gone through the same things they have," Anita says, while sitting on the curb. "It really does." 

EHC Lifebuilders Homeless Outreach Team San Jose Homeless Silicon Valley 1 4

Click here to see our full coverage on the Silicon Valley homeless problem.

Join the conversation about this story »

For Some Silicon Valley Homeless, Staying Sober Is The Only Way Off The Streets

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Drugs are a serious problem among the homeless. If not a cause of becoming homeless, drug abuse can come as a result of being out on the streets. 

It isn't easy to check yourself into a facility to get help, especially when drug use can be a form of escape from the everyday harshness that is being homeless. Christine, who has floated around Silicon Valley's streets for 25 years, finally found the strength recently to check herself in for opiate addiction. She had been taking as many as 30 Percocet a day.

As a result of being in the program, she's temporarily off the streets and in subsidized housing. But even the $40 she's required to pay for the program is too much, with only $147 coming in each month from a general assistance check.

Business Insider met Christine before one of her group therapy sessions at the Santa Clara County addiction center in Silicon Valley.

Santa Clara Valley Health Services Homeless San Jose 1

When she was 14 years old, Christine says she ran away from home because she didn't want to follow the rules. "I was dumb," she says.

Santa Clara Valley Health Services Homeless San Jose 1 2

She has a 22-year-old son who won't speak to her because she won't let him drink at her house or bring over any non-sober friends.

San Jose Silicon Valley Homeless Profile Photographs 10

She's thinks she'll be OK. “Either you wanna be sober or you don't,” she says, knowing that staying sober is the only way she'll end up staying in her home.

CLICK HERE to view our full report on homelessness in the Silicon Valley, California.

Join the conversation about this story »

17 Examples Of Tiger Woods' Insane Competitiveness

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tiger woods golf shushing crowd

This week we learned that Tiger Woods goes all-out in every sport, even when he's playing his girlfriend in ping pong.

It's a small reminder that Tiger is one of the most competitive people in sports.

That competitiveness — even more than his strength and focus — is the attribute that has allowed him to dominate golf for more than a decade.

There are a ton of great anecdotes about how cutthroat the guy is.

He played with a broken leg and torn ACL at the 2008 US Open and won.

Source: ESPN



He felt guilty about using an air tank while spearfishing, so he learned to free dive without one.

Source: OC Register



He changed his swing in 2002 after winning eight majors because it wasn't perfect enough.

Source: Time



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

19 Haunting Photos From The Golden Days Of The Texas Oil Boom

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texas oilfieldBy the 1940s and 50s, a group of large corporations seized hold of the "Texas Oil Boom" — the state's huge petroleum binge that began in the early 20th century with a few lucky roughnecks.

Oil had long been the lifeblood of the Texas economy by 1950, when the state housed 26,409 miles of crude oil trunk lines.

Like the generations before them, youngsters like George H.W. Bush journeyed to Texas to launch their auspicious oil careers — and soon became millionaires.

Thanks to the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University, we have some breathtaking classic photos of the golden era.

General American Tank Storage in Houston, 1938.



A General American Tank Storage worker



Three more



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The Best Airports For A Long Layover

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Changi International Airport

Hours of boredom, cramped seating and stale sandwiches—layovers are well known to be anything but fun.

In addition, according to Rick Perdue, head of the department of hospitality and tourism management at Virginia Tech, layovers have gotten significantly longer because airlines fly bigger planes and have reduced the number of flights.

Here's the good news: In response to this woeful trend, a handful of well-managed airports around the world are taking their services and amenities up a serious notch.

Go straight to the airports »

Perdue points to advances in security processing such as the Global Entry program, which makes it much easier to navigate security without the need to take off your coat, remove your computer from its sleeve or slip off your shoes. Other improvements include shopping areas packed with haute boutiques (C'est la vie, standard duty free), hotels located within the security zone and varied, high-quality restaurant options, especially abroad.

But for Perdue, the one amenity that really matters is far less tangible: silence. Or at least something in the ballpark of peace and quiet. Many European and Asian hubs—such as Singapore's Changi International Airport and Incheon International Airport in Seoul, South Korea—do an especially good job of reducing ambient noise, which contributes to stress and can permeate even the most exclusive clubs.

Changi, for example, has movie theaters, a butterfly garden, a 40-foot slide, a rooftop pool and other fun distractions, but also provides designated quiet zones where public announcements aren't piped in. To make sure you don't miss your flight, you can sign up for cell phone calls with airline updates.

Closer to home, San Francisco International Airport receives accolades for well-rounded offerings such as a SFMOMA Museum Store, a distinguished airport museum, a branch of the city's Steinhart Aquarium and seasonally sourced local grub (be sure to order a glass of California Cabernet at Vino Volo in Terminal 2).

Dubai International Airport ups the ante with the kind of unapologetic extravagance the city is known for, this time in the form of the world's largest duty-free shop at 58,000 square feet, open-air gardens and shopping stands where you can purchase actual gold bars. (No, there's no chocolate inside.)

Outrageous design elements like these certainly grab headlines, but at the end of the day—or the wee hours of the morning, depending on your layover—the formula that matters is simple, explains road warrior and India-born travel agent Pallavi Shah of Our Personal Guest: “Easy connections, Wi-Fi that works, great meal options, clean carpets that don't make a mockery of your wheeled luggage, comfortable seating and hotel rooms deliver the best layover experience. A lounge attendant who will actually make sure you don't sleep through your flight call? That's a rare but special touch.”

London Heathrow

Created with business travelers in mind, Terminal 5's Heathrow Boutique offers complimentary personal shoppers to help plan your travel wardrobe or select a gift. Thomas Pink, for example, will iron your new suit and put it in a flight-ready package.

The terminal also houses an 11,000-square-foot Harrods and, for the culture-minded, a gallery showcasing sculptures by emerging British artists.

Of the 105 restaurants, we recommend making advance reservations at Gordon Ramsay's sleek Plane Food to relax with a pint while watching busy chefs whip up roasted cod with herb gnocchi and wild mushrooms in the glass-enclosed kitchen. Year 2014 will bring in even more ways to kill time:

The Queen's Terminal (2) debuts next June with 52 shops and 17 restaurants. 

Tip: If you've got to spend the night, check into the Sofitel London Heathrow (from $147). It's connected to T5 via a walkway and has a spa, 24/7 fitness center and 45 meeting rooms. heathrowairport.com



Amsterdam Schiphol Airport

With nearly 100 years in the same location—it's the only airport able to make that claim—this one-terminal hub has a long record of pleasing passengers.

It's got the world's only museum to be annexed in an airport, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (free), which showcases paintings by Dutch masters such as Jan Steen and Ferdinand Bol. You can also settle into an armchair at the world's first airport library, stocked with print and e-tomes available in 29 languages.

Business travelers appreciate the free Wi-Fi, multiple spas (where you can opt to have Garra rufa fish nibble on your feet) and showers at Departure Lounge 3's Mercure hotel. Unwind with a glass of champagne at Bubbles Seafood & Wine Bar (Departure Lounge 1), or get some peace and quiet at the totally device-free Silence Centre. 

Tip: A five-star Hilton Hotel will open here in 2015; in the meantime, stay at the Sheraton, which can be accessed via the airport's arrival and departure halls. schiphol.nl



Munich International Airport

Whether you're spending time in Germany or simply passing through its Bavarian capital, you can sample some of the country's best brews at Airbräu.

The airport's traditional tavern houses a beer garden shaded by chestnut trees (open October–May) and an onsite brewery and has live music.

Other options: Stretch your legs in the über-modern Terminal 2, take a nap in the hub's individual sleeping pods equipped with iPhone and USB ports (T2 levels 4 and 5; about $20 per hour), or, if your itinerary includes an overnight, check into the Kempinski Hotel Airport, which is one minute from Terminal 2 and a five-minute walk from Terminal 1. Here, execs en route can take advantage of offices and meeting rooms at the Municon Conference Center and a comfortable VIP wing. To make things smoother for the up to 11 million more passengers a year, the airport will open an $862 million satellite location, Terminal 2, in 2015. 

Tip: If you've got a three-hour-plus layover, consider taking a 20-minute taxi ride to the renowned Bavarian State Brewery Weihenstephan for a pint, bratwurst and views over the quaint town of Freising. munich-airport.de



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Remembering Princess Diana: 30 Iconic Photos Of The Princess Of Wales

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princess diana

August 31 marks the 16th anniversary of the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales and the "Queen of People's Hearts."

The year of her death, 1997, was highlighted by trips to Angola and Bosnia in her high-profile campaign against land mines, and Mediterranean holidays with her sons and companion, Emad Mohamed al-Fayed.

Nicknamed "Dodi," Fayed also died in the limo that fateful evening in Paris. The pair had just left the Ritz Hotel and were being pursued by paparazzi on motorcycles.

A 2008 inquest ruled that they were unlawfully killed, the result of "gross negligence" by their drunk driver and photographers. Conspiracy theories swirled for years, keeping the wounds fresh on British hearts.

Last week, BBC reported that the Scotland Yard was investigating new information, provided to the Metropolitan police by an Army source, suggesting that the military was involved in the crash.

Sixteen years after her death, Princess Diana is remembered for her compassion and commitment to her causes. These photos display her endless supply of charm and generosity.

Lady Diana Spencer as a toddler on the Norfolk, England property where she grew up.



Here she is in a stroller at Park House in 1962.



She kept a Shetland pony, named Souffle, at her mother's Scotland home in the summer of 1974.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

The Mobile Industry In the UK And Europe Is Highly Developed, But Badly Lags The U.S. In Making Money

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device shares across countries

What's holding back the mobile market in Europe?

At BI Intelligence, Business Insider's tech research service, we've often noticed the paradoxical nature of the UK and European smartphone markets. These markets boast high rates of smartphone ownership and usage, but have fallen behind in other ways. 

Smartphone bills are much lower than in the U.S. or Korea, for example. So who picks up the money left on the table? Mobile advertisers? App developers? Judging by the data, it doesn't seem so. The European smartphone user is simply under-monetized compared to the U.S. user. 

It's true that Europe's economies and their consumers have been through a rough patch. But given the wealth and highly developed infrastructure in the U.K. and continental Europe, one would expect their mobile economies to drive better monetization metrics. 

We've prepared some charts to shine a light on this monetization gap, part of our coverage of global mobile trends.

For more charts and downloadable datasets, click here for a free two week trial to BI Intelligence. Subscribers also gain access to our library of over 100 in-depth reports and hundreds of datasets on the global mobile industry. 

First, let's set the scene. Smartphone penetration is comparable to the U.S. across the major European markets. So we're not talking about immature, soft, or early mobile economies. 



The smartphone hardware landscape is diverse. There are a handful of manufacturers vying for market share, and Nokia still managing to remain a significant part of the mix. 



In usage, or the proportion of Web page views accessed from a tablet or smartphone, continental European countries like France begin to lag the U.S. just a bit (though the UK actually far surpasses the U.S. in this area). 



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

5 Foods That Will Make You Look Younger

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caprese

This post originally appeared on Details.com.

Kicking nicotine and avoiding excessive sunlight will help, but the secret to healthy-looking skin is the food you eat.

"The wrong choices cause inflammation down to the cellular level," says dermatologist Nicholas Perricone, the author of Forever Young, a book about how eating right can keep you looking younger than your years.

"And while you can't see it, that inflammation leads directly to wrinkling, sagging, and premature aging."

Here is what to eat to prevent that from happening.

See what to eat to look younger »

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Sweet Potatoes

Beta-carotene, which makes these tubers orange, balances your skin's pH, helps combat dryness, and promotes cell turnover, all resulting in smoother skin.



Wild Salmon

The pigment that makes the fish pink, astaxanthin, is a powerful foe of free radicals, rogue molecules that damage cell membranes and DNA and cause skin to age. A study found that eating one serving every five days can prevent actinic keratoses—ugly rough patches that are precancerous.



Tomatoes

The fruit's red pigment, lycopene, is a potent antioxidant that shields skin from sun damage—like sunscreen, but from the inside out. To best absorb lycopene, eat tomatoes with olive oil.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Here Are All The Crazy New College Football Uniforms For This Season

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Baylor gold football helmet

The Oregon football team has become well-known for its crazy uniforms in recent years. Other schools are now following in the Ducks' footsteps and have introduced their own wild uniforms and helmets.

Not only do the uniforms give fans more options when they are purchasing their own gear, but the flashy uniforms are also being used to lure the nation's top high school football players.

On the next few pages we will take a closer look at the craziest new uniforms that will be seen on football fields this fall.

Tennessee has introduced a "Smokey Grey" alternate uniform.



Texas will have numbers above the Longhorns logo for the season opener. The players will then vote on whether to keep the numbers all season.

via ESPN Horns Nation



Notre Dame will wear these uniforms for their Shamrock Series game against Arizona State.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

11 Famous People Who Became Homeless

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Natasha Lyonne pensiveNot all success stories have happy endings.

Sometimes the rich and famous have inspiring rags-to-riches stories. Other times, these fallen stars lose their way and end up lost, desperate, or homeless.

Blame it on drug abuse, chronic illness, poor financial planning, or just bad luck.

Here are the heartbreaking stories of stars who had nowhere else to turn but shelters and the streets.

Former intern Danielle Schlanger contributed to a previous version of this story.

Once Lois Lane in the Superman movies, Margot Kidder was found wandering the streets after a long battle with mental illness.

Kidder, the actress who played Superman's love interest Lois Lane in the Christopher Reeve-era films, was once a Hollywood star who dated "bigs like Richard Pryor and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau."

According to Daily Finance, Kidder battled schizophrenia and manic depression and even refused treatment at one time. "[P]lagued by paranoia, [Kidder] slept in cardboard boxes and backyards around Los Angeles in 1996. With her front teeth missing and her hair hacked off, a disheveled Kidder announced to the Glendale, Calif., woman whose yard she occupied, 'I may not look like it, but I'm Margot Kidder.'"

Today, the actress lives in Montana and is a grandmother.



"Sugar Ray" Williams, once an NBA superstar, was found sleeping out of his Buick in 2010.

In the late-1970s through the mid-1980s, Williams was captain of the New York Knicks and played for the Boston Celtics' 1985 NBA Finals team.

But in 2010, The Boston Globe reported that he was sleeping in the backseat of his 1992 Buick in Pompano Beach, Florida.In an interview with Bob Hohler at the Globe, Williams said that the NBA should take better care of their retired players, as he is only one of many former stars in need of assistance. 

“When I played the game, they always talked about loyalty to the team,’’ Williams said. “Well, where’s the loyalty and compassion for ex-players who are hurting? We opened the door for these guys whose salaries are through the roof.’’



Academy Award winner Bobby Driscoll was famous as a child, but died penniless at 31 in an abandoned building.

Robert Cletus "Bobby" Driscoll became famous as a child through movies such as "So Dear To My Heart,""The Window" and "Treasure Island." 

In 1950, he won an Academy Award for his role in "The Window," but by 1956, he was arrested for marijuana and was reportedly using harder drugs. In 1968, his body was found by two children in an abandoned building in downtown New York.

He "died penniless from drug-hardened arteries at age 31."



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

The Sudden Downfall Of Tim Tebow: How His Career Fell Apart In The Last 20 Months

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scary tim tebow on the jets

Tim Tebow was the biggest athlete in the country 20 months ago.

He carried the Denver Broncos to the playoffs, and threw a miracle 80-yard touchdown pass to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in round one.

Today, he was cut for the second time in six months.

It's a sudden and shocking fall for one of the most polarizing players in years.

Tebow's story took so many turns so quickly, and it's interesting to go back and look at a timeline of how his unfortunate downfall played out.

Tebow's downfall began with a 45-10 blowout loss to the New England Patriots in the second round of the 2012 playoffs.



Immediately after that, we got the first sign that Tebowmania wasn't a big love-fest in Denver. Back-up QB Brady Quinn said Tebow was lucky and prayed for the cameras.

Source: GQ



In March 2012, the Broncos pulled an absolute shocker — signing Peyton Manning and setting off a frenzy of Tebow trade rumors.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Novak Djokovic's Girlfriend Is The Most Intense Fan In Tennis

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jelena ristic novak djokovic girlfriend novak djokovic girlfriendNovak's Djokovic's girlfriend Jelena Ristic is everything you want in a significant other.

She's smart (she's the director of the Novak Djokovic Foundation).

She's beautiful (obviously).

And she LOVES tennis. At any Djokovic match, you'll find Jelena in the crowd mirroring the rollercoaster of emotions that her boyfriend is going through on the court.

She cheers, cries, shouts, and gets stone silent with nervousness.

She's in New York this week for the U.S. Open. Expect some great reaction shots.

She goes nuts during big matches.



But she's more relaxed earlier in the tournaments.



She's just waiting until someone challenges Novak.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Here's The Hard Work That Goes Into Catching Your Lobster [PHOTOS]

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IMG_3138

Lobster boat captain Craig Stewart and sternman Tim Lovett start work before sunrise and haul traps for hours on end.

Making a living is harder now than ever before, as overhead costs for fuel, equipment, and bait steadily climb, while unprecedented lobster landings over the last several years have sent prices tumbling.

"We're struggling," said Stewart, a third-generation lobsterman who fishes off the coast of Portland."If I come in with 600 pounds, people will see that I made a $1000 for that day. They don't see that I just replaced the engine for $30,000 or that I paid over $300 for bait."

Stewart is one of Maine's 5,900 licensed lobster harvesters, who together haul in roughly 80% of U.S. landings of American lobster, worth more than $300 million.

To experience the life of a Maine lobsterman, we headed to Portland, Me., and spent a day aboard Stewart's 36-foot working lobster boat.

Around 4:30 a.m., sternman Tim Lovett leaves Holyoke Wharf in South Portland to pick up captain Craig Stewart from Long Island in Casco Bay, near Portland.



By 6 a.m., Craig is at the helm. He begins zigzagging in and out of buoys to locate his traps.



Each lobster boat is limited to 800 traps as part of Maine law. A portion of the traps are hauled and set each day.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

The Life And Awesomeness Of Bill Gates (MSFT)

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Bill Gates

Bill Gates is back in the news after his long-time friend Steve Ballmer announced his retirement.

The reasons for Ballmer's retirement remain fuzzy, but there are indications that Ballmer and Gates thought it was time for Ballmer to move on

A lot of people are calling for Gates to replace Ballmer as CEO. He founded Microsoft, and led it in the 1980s and '90s, creating a personal computing monopoly with Windows.

He's unlikely to return as CEO. While he remains chairman at Microsoft, he left the company in 2008 to focus on his foundation, which is doing good around the world.

In appreciation of Gates, here's a look back at his life. 

Gates grew up in Seattle, son of a lawyer. He was a super smart, difficult kid.

Gates read every word of the encyclopedia growing up. His parents would pay for any book he would read. At age 11, he really "blossomed intellectually" and developed into a bit of a pain for his parents, according to a WSJ profile of the family



At 13, he went to Lakeside School in Seattle, a private school where he discovered computers.

"Lakeside was one of the best things that ever happened to me,"says Bill Gates. Lakeside had computers, and Gates and his friend Paul Allen played with the computers. "The experience and insight Paul Allen and I gained [at Lakeside] gave us the confidence to start a company based on this wild idea that nobody else agreed with—that computer chips were going to become so powerful that computers and software would become a tool that would be on every desk and in every home."



After Lakeside, Gates went to Harvard.

At Harvard, Gates met Steve Ballmer. Gates was only in Harvard for two years before dropping out to start Microsoft with Paul Allen. 



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

14 Gorgeous New York City Subway Stations That Belong In Another Era

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Bowling Green Subway

While the majority of New York City’s subway entrances have the same mundane look, there are others that still have details from an earlier era.

Some entrances contain flourishes from the buildings in which they are situated, others stand alone.

Today, we’ve rounded up some unique subway entrances in New York City.

The Fulton Street Station at Broadway and Fulton

This entrance part of 195 Broadway, the prior headquarters of American Telephone and Telegraph and Western Union. The building has the claim to fame of being on the receiving end of the first transatlantic phone call. It’s now home to Thompson Reuters and other tenants. Architect William W. Bosworth, who also designed Kykuit, the Gilded Age Rockefeller estate, designed this portion of the building on the Fulton Street side. The station itself, which includes this entrance, is a registered New York City landmark.



Trinity Building

The richly Gothic-decorated interior of the Trinity Building at 111 Broadway is also present on the exterior, including this fancy original subway entrance. Appropriately (or inappropriately) enough, it also now houses a Subway fast food joint.



Astor Place

This entrance is actually a reproduction of an IRT subway entrance that was installed in the 1986 renovation. Inside there is also a public bathroom converted into a newsstand.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

The 19 Biggest Thefts Of The Year

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Police at Cannes Hotel after diamond heist

When a single thief made off with $136 million in jewelry last month in Cannes, France, it may have been the biggest jewelry heist ever.

Meanwhile art thieves are making more money than ever.

All in all, it's been a good year for stealing stuff.

We've rounded up the biggest and boldest thefts of the past 12 months. Thankfully, many of these crimes have been solved or brought to trial.

A $2.6 million diamond necklace vanished from a star-studded party during the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

Despite 80 bodyguards, the diamond necklace went missing at the end of the night, The Daily Telegraph reported. At least 20 different models wore the $2.6 million piece, which belonged to a collection from Swiss jeweler De Grisogono.

The theft follows the disappearance of another million-dollar diamond necklace by designer Chopard during the same festival. French police are still investigating both occurrences, although they admit the festival is a favorite for jewel heists.




Postal workers and some of their family members were arrested for allegedly stealing $2.7 million from the Macedonian postal service.

The money had been taken in a series of six thefts at a Macedonian postal service branch in a suburb of Skopje.

The most recent one earlier this month led to the arrest of eight people including the head of postal security, two mailmen, and directors of the Postal Officethe Macedonia International News Agency (MINA) reported. The thieves made out with a combined almost 2 million, which they reportedly used to pay terrorists' "pensions" for fighting against Macedonian police.



An employee at a wine storage company allegedly swiped $2.7 million in vintage blends from his clients' lockers.

The employee in question was George Osumi, from Newport Beach, Calif. He had been working at Irvine's Legend Cellars when he was accused of replacing more than 1,000 bottles of first-growth Bordeaux from clients' private lockers with Trader Joe's Two Buck Chuck, The Huffington Post reported.

Osumi allegedly swapped out the fine wine for a $2 Trader Joe's blend some time between January 2008 and June 2012, prosecutors alleged, and had a friend auction off the expensive ones. Osumi would then split the proceeds with his friend who, had no idea the wine was stolen, the Orange County District Attorney said. Osumi could face 16 years in prison.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Inside The US Intelligence Community Edward Snowden Has Exposed

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Zero Dark ThirtyThe U.S. intelligence community is vast, composed of 17 distinct organizations each operating under its own shroud of secrecy.

Oversight of these agencies generally falls to the Department of Defense or Congress, leaving the average citizen with precious little knowledge of how they operate.

Before ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden's leaks, we knew very little about their budget, mission, or capabilities. 

Now, months after he first went public in June, and after a number of top-secret disclosures, we know much more.

This is what we know so far about the secretive U.S. intelligence community.

The Central Intelligence Agency spies on foreign governments and organizes covert ops.

The CIA is the most well-known U.S. spying agency, formed by the passage of the National Security Act of 1947. The agency has its roots with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) that operated during World War II.

Headquarters: Langley, Va.

Mission: CIA collects, analyzes, and disseminates intelligence gathered on foreign nations. This comes through signals and human intelligence sources.

Budget: $14.7 billion. They are the biggest spenders in the spy community, accounting for 28% of the total intelligence community budget.

Employees: 21,459 full-time equivalent civilian employees.



The National Security Agency was once so secretive it was jokingly called 'No Such Agency.'

The NSA was established in 1952 with a mission primarily dedicated to code breaking, after the Allies' success in cracking German and Japanese codes during World War II. For a long time, the NSA, which operates under the Dept. of Defense, was not even recognized by the government, commonly referred to as "No Such Agency."

Headquarters: Fort Meade, Md.

Mission: The main functions of the NSA are signals intelligence (SIGINT) — intercepting and processing foreign communications, cryptology — cracking codes, and information assurance. IA is, put simply: preventing foreign hackers from getting secret information.

Budget: $10.8 billion.

Employees: Nearly 35,000 (includes code-breaking components of the military services as well).



The Defense Intelligence Agency works to understand what foreign militaries will do before they do it.

The DIA was established in 1961 with the goal of sharing information collected by the major military intelligence outfits (such as Army or Marine Corps Intelligence). More recently, the DIA has been expanding its overseas spy network to collect first-hand intelligence.

Headquarters: Washington, D.C.

Mission: The DIA serves as the lead intelligence agency for the Dept. of Defense, coordinating analysis and collection of intelligence on foreign militaries, in addition to surveillance and reconnaissance operations. The DIA is the common link between military and national intelligence agencies.

Budget: $4.4 billion.

Employees: 16,500.



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What 25 Celebrities Were Like In High School

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breaking bad meth

Of course Bryan Cranston participated in his high school's chemistry club.

The actor stars as Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher-turned-meth-industry-kingpin, in AMC's critical darling "Breaking Bad."

We found other celebrities' pasts less predictable.

Basketball star George Clooney tried out for the Cincinnati Reds, Tom Cruise studied at a Catholic seminary, and James Franco interned at Lockheed Martin.

Aaron Paul was an avid snowboarder. Just before high school, he took a career aptitude test and matched “the arts.” “There wasn’t a room to go to ask questions for that,” Paul said.

Sources: ESPN, Vulture



Jennifer Aniston’s name topped many playbills during her four years at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, the school that inspired “Fame.”

Sources: Biography.com, Wikipedia



Ben Affleck said he and buddy Matt Damon would engage in such extracurricular activities as “underage drinking, pot smoking, and all the attendant shenanigans,” and sometimes plot their paths to Hollywood.

Sources: People.com



See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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