The winners of this year's eVolo Skyscraper Competition deal with some daunting themes, including overcrowding, global warming, and environmental disaster.

The contest, sponsored by eVolo Magazine and now in its 10th year, asks architects to envision the future of vertical living.

Nearly 500 contestants submitted their ideas for the skyscrapers of tomorrow, and three winners and 20 honorable mentions were selected by a jury of leaders in the fields of architecture and design.

These buildings may not be feasible today, but they attempt to answer some big questions about the future of urban spaces.

The first-place winner was "Essence," a proposal to put a non-urban environment in a dense city center. The building would have 11 landscapes with fish tanks, jungle areas, and other environments.

Ewa Odyjas, Agnieszka Morga, Konrad Basan, Jakub Pudo, Poland

In second place, "Shanty-Scraper" would be a mixed use residential and workspace for impoverished fishermen in the slums of Chennai, India. It would be built from recycled materials found within the city.

Suraksha Bhatla, Sharan Sundar, India

Third-place "Cybertopia" combines the digital and physical worlds in a building that can grow using 3D-printed technology and portable "ships."

Egor Orlov, Russia

McLaren just unveiled its brand new Sports Series.

But don't be fooled. This isn't a peppy English roadster from the the hypercar specialists who brought you the legendary F1 and the monstrous P1.

It's a full-on, 562-horsepower beast of a supercar, with the same racebred DNA found in the company's awesome P1 hypercar and 650s/675LT supercars. The 570S is the first car from the company's new Sports Series — and it's mission is to bring in a whole new group of customers.

The car is a big deal for McLaren. Company executives believe the 570S and the Sports Series can double the 1,600 cars McLaren sold in 2014.

You can see the McLaren 570S at the 2015 New York Auto Show, which opens to the public at the Javits Center on Friday, April 3.

McLaren's all-new 570S is the first in the company's new "Sports Series." It'll be the smallest and lowest-priced model in McLaren's lineup.

It will sit below McLaren's P1 hypercar and ...

... its 650S and 675LT "Super Series."

Last week, news broke that Slack was raising a new round of investment that would value the young company at a jaw-dropping $2.76 billion.

That would make Slack the second most valuable enterprise startup in the world, according to valuation expert PitchBook. (By "enterprise startup" we mean a company that primarily sells tech to businesses as opposed to consumers.)

We asked PitchBook to send us a full list of the most valuable enterprise startups in the world, along with details from public filings on the investments.

No. 16: Okta is worth $787 million

Company: Okta

Current valuation: $786.71 million

Location: San Francisco

What it does: Okta offers a cloud service that helps companies manage employee passwords/logins to other cloud services.

Total amount raised: $155 million

Last raise: The company raised $75 million, at $11.86/share, in a Series E funding led by Sequoia Capital on June 9, 2014.

Valuation before last round of funding:  $711.71 million. 

Other major investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, Khosla Ventures, Janus Capital Group and Altimeter Capital also participated.

No. 15: MixPanel is worth $853 million

Company: Mixpanel

Current valuation: $853.43 million

Location: San Francisco

What it does: Mixpanel offers an analytics service that helps companies measure and analyze the performance of mobile and other business apps.

Total amount raised: $77 Million

Last raise: The company raised $65 million of Series B venture funding at 37.54/share from Andreessen Horowitz on December 18, 2014.

Valuation before last round of funding: $788.43 million

Major investors: Altimeter Capital Management, Andreessen Horowitz (Marc Andreessen), Greylock Partners (Aneel Bhusri), Janus Capital Group, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital (Patrick Grady)

No. 14: Qualtrics is worth $1 billion

Company: Qualtrics

Current valuation: $1 billion (estimated)

Location:  Provo, Utah

What it does: A cloud service for performing sophisticated employee and customer feedback surveys.

Total amount raised: $220 million

Last raise: The company raised $150 million of Series B venture funding from lead investor Insight Venture Partners on September 24, 2014. Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital also participated.

Valuation before last round of funding:  $850 million

Other major investors: Accel Partners (Ryan Sweeney), Sequoia Capital (Bryan Schreier), Insight Venture Partners (Jeffrey Lieberman).

The Eiffel Tower was officially completed in Paris 126 years ago on Tuesday, after 2 years, 2 months, and 5 days of construction.

It stood as the gateway for the 1889 Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair), honoring the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, and continues to make an impact on the world’s consciousness today.

In honor of the famous world attraction’s birthday, here are 13 cool facts about the Eiffel Tower that everyone should know.

1. The Eiffel Tower wasn’t the brainchild of Gustav Eiffel. Instead, his senior engineers Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier designed the building. Gustav Eiffel wasn't overly interested in the project, but sent the engineers to the head of the company’s architectural department, Stephen Sauvestre. With Sauvestre's edits, Eiffel got behind the final plans and bought the rights to the patent.

2. The Eiffel Tower in numbers. 300 workers, 18,038 pieces of wrought iron, 2.5 million rivets, 10,000 tons, 984.25 feet high.

3. The tower was built as a symbol of modern science. Or as Eiffel himself said, “not only the art of the modern engineer, but also the century of Industry and Science in which we are living.” At the time that the tower was being built, another technology was also in its infancy — photography. As the tower was assembled, many photographers captured series of photographs to show the tower’s construction.

4. At the time of its construction, the Eiffel Tower was the tallest building in the world. It wasn't until 1930, when New York City’s Chrysler Building rose to 1,046 feet, that the tower lost that title.

5. The Eiffel Tower's elevators weren't operational at first. On May 6, fairgoers were allowed to enter the tower, but the 30,000 visitors had to climb 1,710 steps to reach the top. The lifts finally entered service on May 26.

6. Parisians originally hated the Eiffel Tower. Newspapers received angry letters that said the tower didn’t fit into the feel of the city and there was a team of artists that rejected the plan from the get-go. One apocryphal story says that novelist Guy de Maupassant said he hated the tower, but ate lunch at its restaurant every day. When he was asked why, Maupassant replied that it was the only place in Paris where he couldn’t see it.

7. It changes height by the season. Because it’s made with puddled (wrought) iron, the tower’s metal expands when exposed to the summer sun, causing the structure to rise by as much as 6.75 inches.

8. The Eiffel Tower was only meant to stand for 20 years. But the French military and government began using it for radio communication and later telecommunication. When the permit expired in 1909, the City of Paris decided to keep it.

9. The Eiffel Tower has stood up to quite a lot during its lifetime. It transmitted radio signals during WWI and during WWII the elevator wires were cut so that the Nazis could not use the tower (after Allied troops entered the city, the elevators were fixed). It has even survived a fire on its top floor and over 250 million visitors from around the world climbing on it.

10. The tower is not painted one uniform color. To counteract atmospheric perspective, the tower is painted darker at the top and becomes gradually lighter toward the bottom.

11.Every seven years, 50 to 60 tons of paint are applied. The new layers are needed to protect the tower from rust.

12. It’s not just a tourist attraction. The Eiffel Tower has housed a newspaper office, a post office, scientific laboratories, a theater, and the first level becomes an ice rink every year.

13.It is the most visited paid monument in the world. The tower attracts almost 7 million visitors every year, 75% of them from other countries. Here’s the full breakdown:

For more cool facts on the Eiffel Tower, visit the monument's website here.

SEE ALSO: Scientists Discovered What Makes Someone A Good Dancer

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This NYC bank-turned-mansion bought by a photographer for $102,000 just sold for $55 million

Since Apple Pay launched last fall, the service has signed on nearly 50 different retailers to offer its "tap-and-go" payments method. 

But many of those retailers are not actually ready to offer Apple Pay, according to a new study by market research firm Phoenix.  

Nearly half of the people Phoenix surveyed who tried to use Apple Pay in-store reported problems with the service.  

"The demand is there: 59% of Apple Pay users have gone into a store and asked to make a purchase with Apple Pay," researcher Greg Weed writes. "But so is the disappointment: 47% visited a store that was listed as an Apple Pay merchant only to find out that the specific store they visited did not accept (or were not ready to accept) Apple Pay.”

That's a pretty big turn-off, for a still-small group of people. A recent study conducted by anti-fraud startup Trustev found that 79% of people with the iPhone 6 ot 6 Plus still haven't even tried it.

For its study, Phoenix surveyed more than 3,000 households. Of those households, there were 523 iPhone 6 or 6 Plus owners, 350 Apple Pay adopters, and 302 Apple Pay users who have made at least one purchase in the past four months. So, overall, Phoenix's numbers were better for Apple than Trustev's, since it found that 57% of people with the right phone have at least tried Apple Pay. 

But the people who have been able to use Apple Pay in-store are having issues, too. 

"Two-out-of-three Apple Pay users have reported a problem at checkout," another Pheonix researcher, Leon Majors, writes, "Mostly related to terminals not working or taking too long to make the transaction, inaccurate posting of transactions and the inability of cashiers to help buyers who needed assistance in using Apple Pay.”

Despite Apple's sky-high ambitions for its fledgling payments service and usual control-freak mentality, the way that merchants educate and enable potential users is out of its hands. Even though Google launched its mobile wallet back in 2011, the app never went mainstream, in part because of a lack of enthusiasm from merchants. 

"It is simply important to recognize that anything payment related takes far longer than most think it will,"Mercator researcher Tim Sloane told Business Insider via email.  

Business Insider reached out to Apple for comment, and will update if we hear back. 

SEE ALSO: 5 simple internet safety tips from one of Google's information security engineers

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How to supercharge your iPhone in only 5 minutes

The New York Post is reporting that fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger has dropped the price of his Plaza Hotel penthouse to a still-staggering $75 million.

Hilfiger and his wife Dee Ocleppo listed the home last year for $80 million, which at the time made it one of the most expensive homes on the market in America.

The duplex condo is located on the 18th and 19th floors of the Plaza and has five bedrooms with views of Central Park and Fifth Avenue.

It was originally marketed as a "fixer-upper” for $50 million back in 2008, but it never sold. Now it’s back on the market after a $20 million renovation and massive price bump.

Alyson Penn originally contributed to this story.

Welcome to Tommy Hilfiger's duplex at the top of New York's Plaza Hotel.

As you can see, the decor is quite grand. It's unclear whether the Warhol paintings actually come with the apartment.

Here is his all-American foyer.

More than 40 US states run "super-maximum security" prisons for particularly violent or ill-behaved convicts. But the federal government runs only one "Supermax:" the notorious US Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado.

More widely known as the ADX or the "Alcatraz of the Rockies," it's the highest-security prison in the entire country. There, every inmate spends roughly 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, The New York Times reported in a lengthy article over the weekend.

The ADX was designed for “a very small subset of the inmate population who show absolutely no concern for human life,"Norman Carlson, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, has said, according to The Times. The ADX currently houses 422 inmates, including some of the world's most infamous names, like the Unabomber. 

The Times described their daily life like this:

Inmates spend their days in 12-by-7-foot cells with thick concrete walls and double sets of sliding metal doors (with solid exteriors, so prisoners can’t see one another). A single window, about three feet high but only four inches wide, offers a notched glimpse of sky and little else. Each cell has a sink-toilet combo and an automated shower, and prisoners sleep on concrete slabs topped with thin mattresses. Most cells also have televisions (with built-in radios), and inmates have access to books and periodicals, as well as certain arts-and-craft materials. Prisoners in the general population are allotted a maximum of 10 hours of exercise a week outside their cells, alternating between solo trips to an indoor “gym” (a windowless cell with a single chin-up bar) and group visits to the outdoor rec yard (where each prisoner nonetheless remains confined to an individual cage). All meals come through slots in the interior door, as does any face-to-face human interaction (with a guard or psychiatrist, chaplain or imam). The Amnesty report said that ADX prisoners “routinely go days with only a few words spoken to them.”

Click here for photos »

In 2012, Michael Bacote, an illiterate inmate with an IQ of 61, along with a handful of other inmates, sued the government, alleging the ADX violated their basic rights by placing them in such deplorable conditions. It's the largest lawsuit ever filed against the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

“This place is not designed for humanity,” Robert Hood, the warden from 2002 to 2005, told the Times. He also described the facility as a "cleaner version of hell" to "60 Minutes" back in 2007. 

Built for $60 million on 600 acres of land donated by Colorado residents, the ADX succeeded another Supermax facility in Marion, Illinois after a wave of guard killings shut it down. 

An Amnesty International representative toured the facility in 2001 and allowed Business Insider to reprint her photos.  Between then and now, the prison only granted access one other time.

A typical cell in a General Population Unit (gen pop).

Source: Amnesty International

Another angle of the cell.

Source: Amnesty International

Prisoners spend 22 to 24 hours a day confined to these rooms.

Source: Amnesty International

By mid-century, we'll likely have self-driving cars, more widespread internet access, and semi-smart robots.

But despite our technological advances, humanity has failed to solve many of its problems. The world hasn't weaned itself off fossil fuels or antibiotics, protected the rain forest, or reduced the stigma surrounding mental illness. We haven't flood-proofed our cities or protected our energy grids from natural disasters.

With 2050 just a few decades away, major issues await the world. Science and technology need to start focusing on solutions to make the future better than the terrifying reality approaching.

The number of people living in cities will likely triple.

In 1950, just under 750 million people lived in urban areas. Today, that figure has ballooned to more than 4 billion — more than half the world’s entire population — and the upward trend is set to continue. By mid-century, about 6.3 billion people will live in cities.

Aside from overcrowding, the skyrocketing population will likely spur the faster spread of infectious diseases and viruses, from tuberculosis to the flu. Dwindling water supplies and inadequate sanitation will only compound the negative health affects. 

Compared to rural areas, cities consume about three-quarters of the world’s energy and produce the same amount of global carbon emissions. Therefore, a rise in the urban population will also put pressure on energy demands and generate more pollution, potentially making the air toxic to breathe, similar to the situation in Beijing unfolding over the last decade.

According to the World Health Organization, outdoor air pollution is estimated to have caused 3.7 million premature deaths worldwide in 2012. This will only increase as urban populations rise and pollution worsens.

The air could be thick with pollution, worsening lung conditions and respiratory diseases.

By 2050, the number of deaths caused by air pollution — which includes tiny particles found in smoke and haze, ground-level ozone typically emitted by cars, and toxic components in household products and building materials — will soar, killing more than 6 million people every year, according to a recent report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Why? Because in addition to dirtier skies, warmer weather will speed up the chemical reactions that produce many pollutants.

One of those toxins is ground-level ozone, a chemical that irritates the delicate tissue lining the lungs and causes coughing, feelings of burning, wheezing, and shortness of breath when inhaled. Ozone often worsens respiratory conditions like asthma and emphysema.

In India, where the problem is especially bad, the OECD estimates that about 130 out of every 1 million people will die prematurely from exposure to ozone.

More than half of the world's population may not have adequate access to water.

Today, 1.1 billion people lack access to water. And 2.5 billion people (36% of the world's population) live in regions of the world experiencing water stress. Twenty percent of the world's GDP is produced in these areas as well.

Already, water scarcity hounds 2.7 billion people — nearly 40% of the world's population — for at least one month every year, either because they don't have access to clean water or because they can't afford it, Water Footprint Network says. And 1 billion people, about one-sixth of the world's population, face daily shortages, according to the foundation.

By 2050, however, this number will likely increase. Nearly 2 billion people will live in countries, mostly in the Middle East and North Africa, with absolute water scarcity, according to the International Water Management Institute. And by 2050, MIT researchers say that 5 billion of the world's projected 9.7 billion people could live in water-stressed areas. 

Aside from a lack of drinking water, populations in these areas might not have the means to irrigate their fields (threatening food supply) or for other domestic, industrial, and environmental purposes.

Currently, one-third of the world's rivers — groundwater for about 3 billion people — are going or gone, according to the World Preservation Foundation. With population growth and global warming, the situation will only worsen. The drying of lakes and rivers releases greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, into the air, potentially exacerbating climate change.

Because of the water cycle, the world will also face more droughts, potentially making wildfires at least twice as destructive by 2050.

Sony World Photography Awards announced the winners of its 2015 photo contest.

This year, photographers both young and old submitted 173,000 entries from 171 countries.

Winners in the awards' four competitions — Professional, Open, Youth, and Mobile — will receive $30,000 in cash prizes, the latest Sony digital imaging equipment, and plenty of exposure.

The rest of the winners will be announced today in London.

A 14-year-old girl snapped this candid of her little cousin playing in their grandmother's garden in Portugal.

Skiers descend the slopes of Borovets, one of Bulgaria's most popular resorts, as snow falls at night.

A man performs a "bomb dive" into the ocean on the Sussex coast.

As we approach the final season of"Mad Men" (the first episode of season seven airs April 5), the show will no doubt get people talking once again about advertising's sexist past—starring happy housewives who can't drive cars but can really push a vacuum cleaner.

The caveat tends to be: "But look how far we've come today! Times sure have changed!" But have they?

While demeaning ads were more omnipresent in the '50s and '60s, their modern counterparts can give vintage ads a run for their money.  We've compiled some notoriously sexist vintage ads and put them side-by-side with their modern doppelgangers. The similarities are shocking. And depressing.

Laura Stampler originally compiled this post.

This old ad took the whole "walking all over women" thing to the next level.

This is a modern ad for Valentino. (At least the woman-as-rug image was a joke.)

This vintage ad says that if your wife lacks domestic skills, at least she can give you beer.

More than 30,000 Arab people call Dearborn, Michigan, home.

The Detroit suburb is the kind of place where Arabic speakers can walk into their local grocery and be spoken to in a language they recognize. The markets, businesses, mosques, and Islamic schools surround residents with reminders of the countries they left behind.

Student-photographer Salwan Georges and his family fled Iraq 10 years ago and relocated to the US. In 2014, Georges began photographing the people of Dearborn to capture their traditions. We've republished some of his photos here with permission, and you can find more on his website.

Located just outside of Detroit, the city of Dearborn is home to the nation's most densely populated Arab community.

Source: US Census

When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, Middle Eastern families began to flee their war-torn countries in search of safety and prosperity. Many came to Dearborn, where a Lebanese enclave formed after the first Gulf War.

Today, over 30% of Dearborn's 98,000 residents are of Arab descent. While intolerance occasionally crops up among local protesters and bloggers, the community finds strength and solidarity in numbers.

Source: US Census, Detroit Free Press

Forget 15 minutes of fame. Ever since its launch two years ago, Vine stars have been using six-second bursts of video to make a name for themselves.

We collected and ranked the most popular Vine stars in the world based on their number of followers. Most are comedians, while others are musicians or actors.

These Vine users have risen from relative obscurity, and are now followed by millions of people. Some have even landed record deals or TV show and movie deals because of Vine.

30. Jessi Smiles

Followers: 3.6 million

Jessi Smiles, whose real name is Jessica Vasquez, is a singer and makeup artist. On any given day Jessi posts hilarious videos talking to the camera and hanging out with her friend Gabbie, another Vine star.

29. Amymarie Gaertner

Followers: 3.7 million

Amymarie is an amazing dancer, so you'll see six-second snippets of choreography, mixed in with cute videos of her pets.

28. Shawn Mendes

Followers: 3.8 million

Shawn is a sixteen-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter. He posts a lot of covers or songs, as well as original material. This summer he signed with Island Records and released an EP.

Your 20s are a time for figuring out who you are and what you want from life.

While the only way to learn is to survive the inevitable cycle of successes and failures, it is always useful to have some guidance along the way.

To help you out, we've selected some of our favorite books that likely never made your high school or college reading lists.

It's an eclectic selection that focuses on topics like identity, how you see the world, and laying the foundation for a fulfilling career.

Here's what we think you should read before you turn 30.

'Meditations' by Marcus Aurelius

As you become an adult, you realize that there will never be a time in your life where everything is just as you hoped it would be.

"Meditations" is a collection of personal writings on maintaining mental toughness from the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, who ruled from 161 to 180 AD and became remembered as one of the great "philosopher kings."

As Gregory Hays notes in the introduction to his excellent translation, Marcus wrote his musings on resilience and leadership in a "dark and stressful period" in the last decade of his life.

The emperor's version of Stoic philosophy has remained relevant for 1,800 years because it offers timeless advice for gaining control of one's emotions and progressing past all obstacles in one's path.

Buy it here >>

'The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays' by Albert Camus

We all have a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and we start to question that reason after entering the real world.

As "The Stranger" author Albert Camus sees it, all people find themselves in an irrational world struggling to find meaning for their lives where there is none.

His main message, however, is that just as the legend of Sisyphus tells of a god who was eternally punished by having to push a rock up a hill only to have it fall down each time he reached the peak, we should embrace the drive for meaning and lead happy, fulfilling lives with a clear-eyed view of the world.

Buy it here >>

'Crime and Punishment' by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Regardless of your personal philosophy, there will be times when the world pushes against you and you wonder why it's worth trying to better yourself and help others.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel is not only a gripping story, it's an argument against the nihilism that was popular among Russian intellectual circles in his time.

"Crime and Punishment" is the tale of a 23-year-old man named Raskolnikov who, acting on a nagging urge, murders two old women and then struggles with processing the act.

Dostoyevsky argues that rationalism taken to its extreme ignores the powerful bonds that connect humanity and give us responsibility over each other.

Buy it here >>

Pinterest wants you to know: It's not just for women.

The company just released a bunch of new growth stats in celebration of its fifth birthday. But it especially wanted to highlight how many men are using the site.

"We doubled our male user base in the U.S. this year," Pinterest says. "Last year our male user base in the U.S. grew 73% year over year, and has been picking up in the past 6 months (54%) vs. the prior 6 months (40%), which is outpacing overall Pinterest growth."

So, how are real dudes using Pinterest?

More and more people are turning to Pinterest to keep track of their reading list — people pin 14 million articles each day. It's also a good place to keep track of books, like Jeff Kauffman Jr. does with his "Manly, Man Book Collection" board.

Pinterest user Nick Cobler keeps track of his favorite angling spots (and, naturally, all his catches).

The Grill Masters board by Matt Adkins is jam-packed with quirky ideas and products.

We're nearly attached to our iPhones — we use them all day everyday, but you may be surprised to learn there are still a handful of things it can do that you probably didn't know about.

Some of these features are buried in the Settings menu while others are hidden in plain sight. 

(Note: Some of these features may only be available in iOS 8 and higher)

Respond to texts without unlocking your phone.

You can respond to texts directly from your lock screen by pulling down on the notification drawer and swiping over to the left on the text notification. You'll see a "Reply" option, and tapping it will let you type a response without having to unlock your iPhone. 

Respond to texts while you're in an app.

If you're in an app, you can swipe down from the top and access the notification drawer to answer a text the same way you would on the lock screen. 

See which apps drain the most battery.

Want to know why your iPhone battery is draining faster than usual? Head over to Settings >General >Usage>Battery Usage. This will tell you which apps are occupying the most battery power.  

Britain's election season is always marked by banner ads reminding us of the perils of voting for the other party. While this year is no exception, the quality of the claims seems even lower than usual.

From Labour threatening to break your legs unless you vote for them, to the Conservatives taking wild guesses at its opponent's policies, it's looking like it could be an eventful season for spin-busters out there.

We've collected the worst offenders we've seen so far.

Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments.

In this poster, Labour claims the Tories will raise VAT.

But here's what David Cameron actually said when asked by Labour leader Ed Miliband to rule out a VAT rise: "Straight answers deserves straight questions, and the answer's yes!"

It's a good thing the Conservatives are above such tactics. Clearly they did some serious research into their claim that Labour would raise taxes by £3,028, right?

Peggy Olson is depicted as the sole female copywriter to wander the halls of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in the "Mad Men" series' depiction of advertising in the 1960s, but women had actually been working in the industry for decades.

Click here to see the real 'Mad Women'>

JWT (then J. Walter Thompson) published a booklet in 1963 titled "Advertising: A Career For Women," to lure college women to Madison Avenue—and not just for its secretarial pool.

JWT kindly agreed to let us excerpt the booklet (as well as its male-oriented booklet, "Advertising: A Career For Exceptional Men," and gave us access to its photo archive. The images and the text form a stunning historic record of the real women of the "Mad Men" era. The final series of "Mad Men" premieres on AMC on April 5.

Laura Stampler originally compiled this post.

The booklets begin with an explanation of what advertising is, with one notable difference...

In the male-oriented booklet, "Advertising: An Exceptional Career for Men," the text reads: "There are probably as many forms of advertising—and as many facets to it—as there are leaves on a tree."

For women, there are as many different kinds of advertising "as there are soap flakes in a box."

Women often worked on soaps and other lady-friendly accounts.

The leaflets gave different reasons why advertising is an interesting career ...

For men, JWT explains that it works with "more than 100 corporations whose products range from toothbrushes to giant jet airplanes ... You might find yourself working on a problem related to the soap business at one time, cameras at another, and automobiles the week after that."

Women, however, were not promised that diversity in such detail but rather fed the blanket phrase that they would deal with  "all kinds of people and an infinite variety of businesses."

It was far less likely that a woman would go on to pitch to auto and other "male-oriented" companies. Jane Maas, who worked at Ogilvy & Mather in the 1960's, told Business Insider,"working on the American Express account took longer than my becoming a Vice President [at Ogilvy] in 1970."

The women's recruitment guide had a special section dedicated to opportunities specifically for women ...

It begins with the pitch: "Advertising is a particularly promising field for women because so much advertising is directed to women and so many products are purchased by women. At J. Walter Thompson, women work in all departments and in all phases of advertising. Included among the many women holding highly responsible managerial and executive positions are two Assistant Treasurers, ten Vice Presidents and a member of the Board of Directors."

Pretty impressive for 1963.

It's April Fools' Day, and you can be almost certain that some pranks and jokes will be pulled on Wall Street.

But the pranks are nothing like they used to be.

If you ever get the chance to speak to a veteran floor trader (you really should), you will probably hear about the camaraderie on the floor and the epic pranks traders used to pull on one another.    

"Every joke was invented down there," a retired New York Stock Exchange specialist said.  

"I always tell people that it was like being in a fraternity," a former NYMEX clerk told us. "The biggest jokes that were played on new workers and even better when companies had their clients come to visit were the spurs, an arrow on their backs. When the arrow (which was made of paper) was placed on their back everyone would do a tribal dance and chants. The customers had no idea what was going on; it was comical."

The humor has subsided in recent years, however, as some of the exchanges are publicly traded and have more eyes and television cameras on them. And the futures pits in Chicago are closing this summer. 

"Fortunately, or unfortunately, you don't see those pranks anymore," another veteran floor trader told Business Insider.

Veteran traders both in New York and Chicago from the NYSE, CBOT, NYMEX, and AMEX told us about some of the classic pranks and jokes they used to pull back in the day. 

* If you have another trading floor prank, joke or story you would like to share, please send Julia an email at jlaroche@businessinsider.com.  

If you were being annoying, they'd duct tape you to a chair and throw you in an elevator and push all of the buttons.

Location: NYSE

The Prank: One long-time NYSE floor broker told us that pranksters would duct tape an "irritating personality" to a chair, place him in an elevator and press all of the floor buttons.

Traders would ink or paint a newbie's phone receiver.

Location: NYSE

The Prank: Traders would ink or paint the phone receiver so that one's ear would turn black. 

Traders would also put shaving cream on the telephone receiver.

Location: CBOT

The Prank: Traders would carefully place shaving cream in a telephone receiver so that when someone picked up the phone they would get an earful of shaving cream. 

New York City has a brand new championship-caliber golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus.

And, anyone can play it. 

Donald Trump officially opened Trump Golf Links in Ferry Point, New York on April 1. Last fall, I got a chance to play a round with our sports editor Tony Manfred. 

It's a great course. It blows away all the other public courses in New York City, which isn't saying much because most of the city's courses are pretty beat up and uninspired. (There are a surprising number of courses in New York City. Of all the courses I've played in New York, here are my city rankings: 1. Pelham Bay; 2. La Tourette; 3. Split Rock; 4. Marine Park; 5. Dyker Beach; 6. South Shore; 7. Silver Lake; 8. Douglaston; 9. Moshulu; 10. Van Cortlandt.)

More impressively, Trump Golf Links, which was built for a reported $269 million, is in contention to be a top five public course in the New York metro area. My list of the best courses in the New York Metro area (which means ~1 hour drive out of the city) before Trump Links goes like this: 1. Bethpage Black; 2. Pound Ridge; 3. Neshanic Valley; 4. Ballyowen; 5. Bethpage Red.

The new Trump course could compete with those last three on the list, though as a friend of mine said of the course, it's best to wait until it is in full bloom. 

There are only two downsides to the course:

1. It's expensive. A round ranges from $141 to $215, depending on the day of the week and whether you're an NYC resident. An average round at a public city course is ~$40.

2. It's in the Bronx, but not near any train lines, so it's not the most convenient place to get to.

Still! It's a fun time, and it will be on every New York golfer's list in 2015.

When I played I took some photos of the course so you can get a sense of the course. This is not a perfect representation because the course will have tall fescue grown in when it's warmer, but this is an idea of what it will be like.

This is what the course will look like when it's in its glory in the summer of 2015. The fescue will be up; the city will be in the background.

And here's one more look at the 18th hole, with the Whitestone Bridge in the background.

Here's what it looked like when we arrived in the morning.

Harvard is one of the most prestigious universities in the world and also one of the most selective. The school acccepted just 5.33% of applicants this year, making it the most competitive Ivy League school in the US.

As Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust once said, "We could fill our class twice over with valedictorians."

The school seeks out students who not only have high grades, but also have outstanding achievements under their belts — from overcoming homelessness to starting their own nonprofits. The students who manage to catch the attention of admissions officers overcome exceptional odds, but they should maintain some perspective.

However, many things in life — like landing a job at some Wal-Mart locations — are harder to achieve than getting into this prestigious university.

Ben Winsor contributed to the original version of this report.

A job at some Wal-Mart locations

Met with both merriment and protest, Wal-Mart came to Washington, D.C., at the end of 2013. 

The store received more than 23,000 applications but hired just 600 associates, NBC Washington reported. That's a 2.6% acceptance rate — almost twice as selective as Harvard's.

While many Harvard graduates can expect a six-figure income, Wal-Mart cashiers pocket an average of $8.48 an hour, the Wall Street Journal has reported. 

The American dream

A recent report from researchers at Harvard and Berkeley Universities shows that in many major US cities, it's very hard to achieve a rags-to-riches success story. 

The report analyzes the number of people who were born into the lowest income quintile but ended up in the highest income quintile. The results don't bode well for upward socioeconomic mobility.

The chances were below 5% in Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; Columbus, Ohio; Dayton, Ohio; Milwaukee; and Indianapolis.

Even at the top of the list, people in San Jose, California, showed just a 12.9% chance of living the American dream.

A job at Goldman Sachs

In 2014, Goldman Sachs hired just 3% of more than 267,000 job applicants.

It's no surprise so many people want to work there, as Fortune magazine named Goldman one of the 100 best places to work in 2015. Since the ranking began in 1984, Goldman is one of just five companies that made the list every year.