TripAdvisor just announced its Travelers' Choice Awards for the best islands in the world.

To create this list, TripAdvisor looked at millions of traveler reviews from over the past year and created an algorithm that ranked the top islands.

From the rocky beaches of Brazil to the glimmering white-washed homes of Santorini, Greece, here are all 10 real-life paradises you must see.

10. Fernando de Noronha, Brazil

9. Bora Bora, French Polynesia

8. Mauritius, Africa

Steve Arhancet has his dream job. As the co-owner of Team Liquid, he runs one of the most popular professional gaming organizations in the world.  

His teams compete in professional leagues and tournaments in every major competitive video game, earning big cash prizes and netting lucrative sponsorships from companies like HTC, Nissan, and Red Bull. 

It didn’t start that way. In 2012, Arhancet left behind his six-figure salary as a Washington D.C.-based consultant to build a business from scratch based around a professional video gaming team. Along the way, Arhancet has had to use every skill he learned on the corporate ladder to grow his team in a cutthroat market.

Team Liquid is still a work in progress, but in a dynamic and growing space like professional video gaming, the team has the chance to become the next Yankees.

Arhancet wakes up at 6:30 a.m. Though the majority of the pro-gaming world doesn't start their day before 12 p.m., Arhancet has found it hard to let go of his East Coast-go-getter mentality.

While eating breakfast, Arhancet takes a look at his calendar for the day. It is absurdly packed. As Team Liquid's general manager Steve Perino told me, Arhancet is often so busy meeting with sponsors and e-sports organizations that if Perino asks to discuss an issue, Arhancet's answer is "Find an empty slot in my calendar." There aren't usually many.

At 7:00 a.m., Arhancet takes a call with his co-owner Victor Goossens, who is based in the Netherlands, to discuss what needs to get done that day. The two merged Arhancet's Team Curse — which focused on League of Legends, the most popular game right now — with Goosens' Team Liquid, which had teams in every other major e-sport, to create a professional gaming juggernaut. The deal is still fresh, so they are still working out the details.

The feud between a celebrity huntress and comedian Ricky Gervais is heating up online.

A week ago on Monday, Gervais posted a picture of 41-year-old hunter Rebecca Francis lying next to a giraffe she had killed.

"What must've happened to you in your life to make you want to kill a beautiful animal and then lie next to it smiling?" Gervais commented on the picture.

His followers both on Twitter and Facebook were outraged. Some began calling for Francis to be hunted or shoot herself:

Really hope someone shoots @RebeccaFrancis1 with a bow and arrow and takes a pic laying next to her dead body. #poeticjustice

— Alyssa S. (@a7bros) April 15, 2015

Hey look! A wild #RebeccaFrancis in her natural habitat. Let's shoot and slaughter her with a rifle, pose with her corpse and call it sport!

— Hey Friends (@bobbetry) April 21, 2015

Giving an exclusive statement to HuntingLife.com, Francis said she was asked to hunt the giraffe after he had been kicked out of his herd by a younger bull giraffe. 

"They asked me if I would preserve this giraffe by providing all the locals with food and other means of survival,” she said to HuntingLife.com. “He was inevitably going to die soon and he could either be wasted or utilized by the local people. I chose to honor his life by providing others with his uses and I do not regret it for one second.”

Gervais and his followers were not deterred by Francis's story of giving the meat to a local village.

This Tofu & Rice was old and sad and wanted me to kill it. Now I will eat it. pic.twitter.com/5vsstpUZaL

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 16, 2015

After killing that giraffe out of the kindness of her heart and feeding the poor locals she had these for pudding. pic.twitter.com/P3nP4ACDKI

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 16, 2015

Let's hope these Trophy Hunters never get old and sick and separated from the herd ;)

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 20, 2015

You don't use a bow & arrow and then take a smiling selfie in a mercy killing. She wanted to murder a giraffe & she did. Fuck the bullshit.

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 20, 2015

After receiving more criticism online, Francis once again gave an exclusive statement to HuntingLife.com where she made the argument that Gervais had specifically targeted her because she was a woman in the hunting industry.

Here’s the full statement [emphasis ours]:

I don’t claim to be a game biologist and do not intend to argue specifics about the undeniable necessity of game management to promote the conservation and preservation of animals. There is no question that hunters contribute the most to the welfare of wildlife. I believe in the right to hunt. I believe that hunters promote wildlife more than any other source. However, whether hunting is right or wrong is no longer the issue at hand. Ricky Gervais has used his power and influence to specifically target women in the hunting industry and has sparked thousands of people to call for my death, the death of my family and many other women who hunt.

This has evolved into an issue about the morality of threatening human lives over disagreeing with someone else’s beliefs. It shocks me that people who claim to be so loving and caring for animals can turn around and threaten to murder and rape my children. Where is the logic in that? In a country that was created on freedom of beliefs, it is hard to comprehend that people are so intolerant of each other that they promote vile, disgusting, and explicit ways to invoke death upon others. 

I am proud to call myself a hunter. I am proud to be a woman in the hunting industry. I am proud to be a mother. I will never apologize for these things. Hunting is a way of life I have known since birth, and I have experienced first hand all of the good that comes from it. Hunters will continue to unite to educate those who do not have a clear understanding of role of hunting in wildlife management. Hunting has been crucial to the balance of nature since the beginning of time, and it is even more crucial today.

Francis is not the first female hunter to be attacked on social media. After pictures of Kendall Jones posing happily with a lion she had hunted went viral in 2014, she received death threats and launched a Change.org petition that attracted more than 168,000 signatures that attempted to petition the American Embassy to bar Jones from hunting in Africa. 

The same backlash also occurred with Eva Shockey and now Anna Voisek.

Female hunters do seem to face more backlash than their male counterparts with their smiling photos going viral online — most likely because it challenges our expectations of both women and hunters. 

Speaking with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Kelly Oliver, a philosophy professor at Vanderbilt University who has studied the “hunting girls” phenomenon, agreed.

"We expect men to be hunters, but we’re surprised when girls are hunting," she told CBC. "Whatever we think about hunting the ‘Big Five’ in Africa, it’s clear that we still have issues with women and girls carrying guns and using them." 

As for Gervais, he insists his attention on Francis's hunting has nothing to do because of her gender:

"I kill lions, giraffes & bears with guns & bows and arrows then pose grinning. Why don't people like me? Must be because they're sexist"

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 17, 2015

We need to stamp out this terrible sexism in the noble sport of trophy hunting. The men & women that do it are EQUALLY vile & worthless.

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 18, 2015

SEE ALSO: People are outraged and sending death threats after this hunter posted a picture with a dead giraffe

Join the conversation about this story »

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Late last week, BBC reported that conservative Party of Free Citizens in the Czech Republic member Vit Jedlicka has declared a 2.7-square-mile "no man's land" between the borders of Serbia and Croatia to be a new sovereign nation.

Naming it "Liberland," Jedlicka appointed himself the president.

Liberland is just the newest in a long history of "micronations," pieces of land that claim to be independent or sovereign nations, but are not recognized by world governments. They are founded for many reasons, some as protests, some to boost tourism, and some just for fun.

Reports put the number of current micronations at over 400. Photographer Leó Delafontaine found himself fascinated by these places and began photographing them in 2012, visiting six countries and three continents to capture 12 unique micronations.

Delafontaine shared the following images with us. You can see more on his website or purchase the book of the series, out now on Diaphane Editions.

The first micronation that Delafontaine discovered and photographed was the Principality of Sealand. Located on an abandoned WWII military platform about 8 miles off the coast of Great Britain in international waters, the micronation was first established in 1967 by Paddy Roy Bates in order to emit pirate radio broadcasts.

Prince Michael, seen below, is Paddy Roy Bates's son and took over control of Sealand in 1999. Sealand has its own flag, its own currency, and even issues passports. After an electrical fire damaged the facility in 2006, Prince Michael attempted to sell the platform for $906 million, sources say.

Finding no buyer, Sealand's government and the Bates family have decided to renovate the base and keep it for themselves, making sure the Principality lives on. It currently has a population of four.

You've probably seen the Dos Equis commercials that feature The Most Interesting Man In The World, a dapper, salt-and-pepper-haired gentleman who "received a standing ovation from a juror's box" and "taught canaries in the art of falconry," among a Bible-thick list of other impossible accomplishments.

This Dos Equis-drinking gent is only a fantasy, but in real life, people like him exist — and we found 20 of them.

Anthony Bourdain travels the world in search of exotic food and drink.

The Emmy Award-winning, bestselling book-writing Bourdain will always be, first and foremost, a food lover, and he takes his boyhood-instilled love of exploring the world through food on the road with his Emmy-winning show "Parts Unknown."

Bourdain is the epitome of a bad boy with a softer side. The now-clean heroin addict still enjoys a good drink, but has stubbed out his last cigarette now that he has a daughter to think about. He's very vocal about the stresses of being a chef, which comes partly from his own experience at one of New York's premier restaurants.

His competitive jiu jitsu fighter wife got Bourdain into jiu jitsu himself, and he has already earned some stripes on his belt. He has also co-written a comic for Marvel, and started his own publishing company.

Brian May is a rock 'n' roll legend who's also an astrophysicist and animal rights activist.

Real men don't eat meat. When Queen's lead guitarist Brian May learned about the cruelties of factory farming, he gave up eating meat and became the voice of the voiceless.

He's still an active supporter of four-legged creatures (especially badgers), as well as a doctor of astrophysics.

May was pursuing a Ph.D at Imperial College in London, but when Queen took off he quit to write and play for one of the most influential rock bands of all time. He returned to Imperial College in '06 to complete his degree, and worked as visiting researcher in astronomy, and then chancellor emeritus, at the school. He has co-authored two books: "Bang! The Complete History of the Universe," and "A Village Lost and Found," the latter of which was inspired by his passion for 3D stereo photography.

Billionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk is the inspiration for "Iron Man."

Like the movie hero he inspired, Elon Musk thinks up seemingly impossible inventions and makes them possible.

Musk started an all-digital payment system, PayPal, and sold it for $1.5 billion. He started a space transportation company. He built luxury electric cars and solar panels. He conceptualized a high-speed travel system between LA and San Francisco, and aspires to colonize Mars.

But Musk is known for his lavish lifestyle almost as much as for his ideas. He owns a 20,000-square-foot home in Bel Air, California, and one of the cars from a James Bond film, which he bought to convert into a submarine. And when (or if) Musk has down time, he loves playing video games and reading.

Social media gives you the freedom to share your thoughts with thousands of people around the world.

But freedom comes with responsibility, and when you post the wrong stuff, it could end up offending a lot of people.

Especially when you’re a public figure, things could quickly go downhill with a single mistaken post.

Lily James: “‘Shinderera’ premiere in Tokyo.”

Lily James is the actress who plays the lead role in the Disney movie “Cinderella.”

Earlier this month, she wrote on Instagram: “‘Shinderera’ premiere in Tokyo. The final stop on tour and it was a beautiful cold night, thank you!”

The rather innocuous post sparked a lot of hate messages, with some wrongly accusing her of racism for mocking the Japanese pronunciation of Cinderella.

But it turns out James’ post had no ill intentions. “Shinderera” is indeed the correct Romanized spelling of “Cinderella” in Japan, much like it’s spelled “Ciencienta” in Spanish and “Cendrillon” in French.

Justin Bieber visits the wrong Shrine

In 2014, Justin Bieber wrote on his Instagram, “Thank you for your blessings,” with a photo of him at a Japanese shrine.

The photo was taken at Yasukuni Shrine, a controversial place that honors Japanese who were responsible for the death of thousands of Chinese during World War II. It’s at the center of international political debate among a lot of other Asian countries.

Soon Bieber realized his mistake and ended up removing the photo, with the following explanation:

“While in Japan I asked my driver to pull over for which I saw a beautiful shrine. I was mislead to think the Shrines were only a place of prayer. To anyone I have offended I am extremely sorry. I love you China and I love you Japan.”

Alec Baldwin: “[I’d] put my foot up your f—ing ass…”

Baldwin went on a Twitter rant against a gay reporter named George Stark in 2013, which ended up offending the entire gay community.

It all started after Stark wrongfully accused Baldwin’s wife of tweeting during James Gandolfini’s funeral. Shortly after the accusations were published in the Daily Mail, Baldwin tweeted, “[I’d] put my foot up your f---ing ass, George Stark, but I’m sure you’d dig it too much…I’m gonna find you George Stark, you toxic little queen, and I’m gonna f--k you … up.”

He also asked his followers to “straighten out this f---king little b--ch, George Stark.”

But his tweets didn't just offend Stark -- they ended up offending a lot of gay rights advocates who later demanded an apology and started boycotting products endorsed by Baldwin. The star actor eventually released a statement of apology for his comments to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

“My ill-advised attack on George Stark of the Daily Mail had absolutely nothing to do with issues of anyone’s sexual orientation…My anger was directed at Mr. Stark for blatantly lying and disseminating libelous information about my wife and her conduct at our friend’s funeral service,” he wrote.

Dogs have been man's best friend since the dawn of recorded history. It's hypothesized that early hunters used dogs for their keen sense of smell. Australian Aborigines huddled with them to gain warmth on cold nights. Dogs have been buried with humans as far back as 1,000 BC.

Every dog is different and every owner is different, and the bond between the two is unique to them.

Photographers Ollie Grove and Will Robson-Scott set out to document these distinctive bonds in their recent project, "In Dogs We Trust." They traveled the world photographing owners with their pooches, and they found a trove of characters.

Grove and Robson-Scott shared some images with us. You can see more and buy the book at their website.

Grove and Robson-Scott say their project grew out of "a mutual love of dogs, portraiture, and a new project that we felt had not been covered before."

"We have both always had family dogs. Both our dads are still dog owners," Grove tells Business Insider.

"There is not one type of dog owner or dog person and there is not one type of dog. Nothing is more inviting for a couple of photographers than a project that will constantly surprise and differ," he explains.

This spring, French crystal maker Baccarat launched a hotel chain with the opening of its Manhattan flagship, Baccarat Hotel & Residences New York.

The 114-suite property redefines opulence, with coyote-skin armchairs and silk-lined walls, 17 custom-made chandeliers, and 15,000 pieces of Baccarat crystal stemware scattered throughout. Rooms start at $899 per night.

Baccarat plans to expand its resort line to Rabat, Morocco, in 2016, followed by openings in Dubai and Doha in the next several years. Business Insider recently had the chance to tour the original. Check out what luxury looks like.

For 250 years, French maker of fine crystals, Baccarat, has served as the epitome of elegance and opulence. This March, the company forayed into hospitality with the launch of its flagship hotel, Baccarat Hotel & Residences New York.

Located at West 53rd Street, the 114-suite tower features design elements that combine its classic Parisian heritage with a sleek, modern New York City aesthetic.

Guests enter past a set of electric fireplaces, veiled by a 125-foot-wide wall of corrugated crystal.

Microsoft has been a dominant force in the tech industry for decades. Love it or hate it, nearly everyone everywhere is touched, influenced or somehow dependent upon this company and its products.

Microsoft is also famous for paying well. The company created about 10,000 millionaires out of its early employees, so the story goes.

Today, Microsoft employs about 123,000 people, and while not all of them are millionaires, they are paid well and often get generous raises, too.

Using data from Glassdoor, we compiled a list of some of the highest salaries you can earn while working at Microsoft, ranked from lowest to highest. We also tossed in some salaries of less senior, but still well paying jobs.

(Note: Some positions listed on Glassdoor were excluded because there weren't enough shared salaries. Each average salary included in this roundup has at least 6 reported salaries.)

Service engineer: $113,310

Salary:$105,908

Total compensation including bonuses, stock, etc: $113,310

A service engineer works with customers, either helping the customer solve problems or helping the customer figure out how to best install/use Microsoft technology, according to a Microsoft job posting.

Software development engineer 1: $114,585

Salary: $102,036

Total compensation including bonuses, stock, etc: $114,585

A software development engineer (level 1) is a less-experienced computer programmer.

Escalation Engineer: $148,099

Salary: $112,721

Total compensation including bonuses, stock, etc: $148,099

An Escalation Engineer is an experienced customer support person who helps Microsoft customers troubleshoot problems, according to Microsoft job listing.

There are too many apps in the App Store to notice when each one goes on sale.

Luckily we've collected the best iPhone apps on sale at this very moment so you don't have to. From gorgeous games like Pursuit of Light and the classic Bioshock to our new favorite weather app, you're bound to find a good deal on something new.

Just remember these deals could end at any time, so act quick!

Fresh Air is our new favorite weather app.

Fresh Air is a gorgeous new weather app that emphasizes visuals with its minimalist weather graph. You can scroll forward in time to see how the weather will be in the future, and it also connects to your calendar app to give you forecasts on upcoming appointments.

Price: Free (usually $2.99)

Explore a beautiful and mysterious dream world in Pursuit of Light.

Pursuit of Light is a gorgeous adventure game where you explore the dream world of a little girl as she jumps her way through 80 levels to escape the darkness and chase the light.

Price: Free (usually $0.99)

Turn your chores into quests from a video with Quest.

Quest is a task management app with a video game twist. Inspired by the satisfying feeling of completing a quest in video game RPGs, Quest makes it easy to add reminders and tasks to your to-list while making them fun to finish.

Price: Free (usually $1.99)

Tesco is a retail colossus.

Although the company just posted a £6.4 billion ($9.57 billion) loss for the 2014-15 year, it's still the country's biggest supermarket, Europe's largest private employer, and the world's second-largest retailer, second only to Walmart.

Despite a string of scandals and disastrous results, analysts say Tesco has been catching up with the industry in terms of sales growth — a testament to its enormous size, both in the United Kingdom and around the world.

But how big is it really? 

With sales of over £70 billion ($104 billion) in 2014, Tesco raked in nearly £200 million ($299 million) million every day, £8 million ($11.9 million) every hour, or about £2,250 ($3,363) every second.

Tesco's market capitalisation has dropped from £33 billion at its peak in 2007 to more like £19 billion now — that loss alone is triple Royal Mail's whole market capitalisation.

It's also one of the UK's biggest landowners, with an empire of more than 68 million square feet. Back in 2007, The Telegraph named the firm "Europe's biggest property company."

British grocery chain Tesco reported its full-year results Wednesday — and it's a total disaster zone.

The company announced losses of £6.4 billion for 2014-15, its worst set of results in 100 years of trading and the first posting since CEO Dave Lewis took the reigns last July.

Lewis has been struggling to reform the company after revealing last September that it overstated profits by £250 million ($327 million), which eventually culminated in the resignation of Tesco's chairman, Sir Richard Broadbent. 

Meanwhile, the company has been dealing with a separate but equally massive problem: disastrous global sales results. There are signs of improvement, but the share price is still less than half their value back in 2010.

So what went wrong?

Tesco started as a market stall in East London in 1919.

Jack Cohen was in his early 20s when he began selling military surplus goods from a market stall in Hackney, after leaving the Royal Flying Corps at the end of Word War I.

Soon, Cohen owned a cluster of stalls and established a wholesale business.

In 1934, Cohen opened a food warehouse in North London to serve his consumer stores.

A few years later he began expanding to the London suburbs. 

The Tesco brand name came from the first three letters of Cohen's tea supplier, T. E. Stockwell, combined with the first two letters of his own last name.

Tesco listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1947.

It took years for Cohen's warehouse chain to become an actual set of consumer groceries. Tesco was floated on the stock exchange with a share price of 25 pence. 

Earth is a beautiful, one-of-a-kind place, two facts we're reminded of every year on April 22, also known as Earth Day.

To celebrate the natural world, we've rounded up some of the most beautiful and mesmerizing pictures of our home planet from Reuters.

Hopefully these images make you appreciate earth and how important it is to continue to protect and preserve our environment. 

Swans swim past changing autumn leaves in Sheffield Park Gardens in southern England.

Cherry blossoms are seen in full bloom in Tokyo.

Smoke and lava spew from Chile's Villarrica Volcano at the end of March.

It's called "America the Beautiful" for a reason. In the US, geography and climate fluctuate drastically from state to state, resulting in a landscape that is as varied as it is stunning.

In celebration of Earth Day, we set out to find the most beautiful natural attraction in each state, using input from folks who have lived in these places.

Can you guess which state the picture to the right is from? Follow along to find out. (They're in alphabetical order if you want to find yours quickly.)

ALABAMA: The Heart of Dixie is home to a number of natural caves, like Russell Cave National Monument, a rocky cavern used as shelter during all prehistoric periods.

Source: National Park Service

ALASKA: Our northernmost state is the only place in the US where the Northern Lights are a common occurrence. Known as the aurora borealis, this natural light show is caused by the collision of solar wind with particles in our atmosphere.

Source: Alaska Tour Jobs

ARIZONA: The Grand Canyon is Arizona's best-known natural beauty, but it isn't the only one. The Wave is a sandstone rock with thousands of linear carvings caused by time and erosion.

Source: TheWave.info

Architecture and design website Architizer just announced their 3rd Annual A+ Awards.

The 2015 winners include 150 buildings across 90 catagories, including offices, religious buildings and sports arenas.

According to Architizer CEO Marc Kushner, these awards "represent the very best architecture in the world."

Both popular vote and a vote by carefully selected jury experts were tailed up, with both popular vote and jury vote awards given out.

PUBLIC PARK (jury): Tongva Park and Ken Genser Square by James Corner Field Operations

PARKING STRUCTURES (jury): VELENJE CAR PARK by ENOTA

PRIVATE GARDEN (jury): The Painterly Approach by Arterra Landscape Architects

YouTube star Cassey Ho reaches millions of people everyday with her short, fun fitness videos.

But the 28-year-old creator of the YouTube workout channel Blogilates keeps receiving vicious comments about her weight and appearance. Despite the fact that she knew they were coming from negative places, she says the mean comments affect her much more than the positive words from fans.

“It’s something that’s been eating away at me for a while now,” she said in a video about body shaming and eating disorders last week. “The hatred and the mean comments that have been swirling around lately, I can’t shake it off.”

Ho even admitted some of the hateful words had made her cry and feel like a piece of meat.

So she decided to fight back by making a poignant video about how it felt for her to see what she would look like with the "perfect" body.

In the video, Ho has just gotten back from a work out. Pleased with herself, she takes a selfie, but is immediately inundated with rude comments about her weight and appearance.

Surrounded by voices telling her to change, Ho digitally shaves inches from her thighs and abs, increases her bra size, and even changes her eye color to please commenters.

After Ho has virtually edited herself, she takes another snap in the mirror — but she remains upset with how she looks, insinuating that changing yourself for other people will not make you happy.

She created the video with help from a body double, fellow YouTube star Arika Sato. She believes that after all of the days of shooting, visual effects, weeks of editing, and everything else it took to create the short film, it was worth it.

“I grew up being a little bit overweight and I fought to have the body and the life that I have today,” Ho told her followers in an earlier video about the negativity. “All of us come with a backstory, and that’s why I feel like you shouldn’t judge people because you never know where they’re coming from, slash you shouldn’t judge people by how they look.”

So far, the video has been viewed by 1.2 million people, and many of her fans and commenters have praised Ho for sharing her body image struggle, calling her inspiring and telling her to ignore the haters.

But it hasn’t all been positive. To promote her video, Ho had shared an edited snapshot of a “perfect” body on her Instagram and was shocked to see many of the comments were either still extremely negative or else praising her for looking “amazing.”

A photo posted by Cassey Ho (@blogilates) on Apr 17, 2015 at 5:05pm PDT

“I wanted to post again because there was a weird phenomenon that happened when I posted this Photoshopped picture,” Ho said on her Instagram. “On the very same photo, I got some people praising me and others degrading me. What worries me is this: 1. That some people think this is real and that it should be ‘goals.’ 2. That some people still think it's not good enough.”

“It's tough knowing what's real and what's not when magazine covers and music videos are Photoshopped (yes, music videos), Instagram pics are Photoshopped, and so many women are getting surgery,” she continued. “How are we to know what kind of beauty can be naturally achieved when everything around us is so deceiving?”

But of the nearly 6,000 comments on the YouTube video, the vast majority are people thanking the Blogilates creator for her honesty.

“This is actually pretty amazing,” said one commenter. “There are lots of things I would change. But it took me years to know the changes I want to make are based on health, self respect, and self love. I don't want perfection. Nor do I want the societal standard of beauty. I just want to be healthy. I already love myself.”

SEE ALSO: This woman has worn the same outfit to work every single day for the past 3 years

Join the conversation about this story »

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Hillary Clinton reportedly commented during a meeting with economists that the US needed a "toppling" of the 1%. The comments were said to have come when the Democratic presidential candidate saw a chart of changes in real income.

Looking beyond just the real incomes of the 1%, several other measures show that inequality in the US has been rising for the past few decades.

We put together a dozen charts and maps that show some of the core issues of inequality.

Income inequality in the US has gone up over the past 40 years.

The Gini index is a standard measure of inequality, ranging from 0 to 1. The index measures how far away the income distribution in a population is from a completely egalitarian distribution. An index of 0 corresponds to a distribution in which everyone has the same income, and an index of 1 is a distribution in which one person gets all the income and everyone else gets nothing. The Gini index has steadily risen in the US since the late 1960s.

Inequality varies geographically across the country.

Gini indexes in metropolitan areas and areas around midsize towns range from a fairly egalitarian 0.36 in Juneau, Alaska, to a highly unequal 0.55 in Ruston, Louisiana. Business Insider compiled a list of the most unequal large metro areas based on US Census data.

America's high Gini index is rare among developed countries.

Among OECD countries, only Chile, Mexico, and Turkey have more inequality by this measure.

TripAdvisor just released its 2015 Travelers' Choice Awards for the top 10 US islands.

To create this list, TripAdvisor looked at millions of traveler reviews from over the past year and created an algorithm that ranked the top islands.

Maui, Hawaii, was ranked No. 1 thanks to attractions like its Haleakala Crater, where travelers can witness breathtaking views of the entire island. But several spots in Florida also made the list, including Key West and Key Largo.

10. Mackinac Island, Michigan

9. San Juan Island, Washington

8. Chincoteague Island, Virginia

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. Don't try this at home without expert supervision.

On Tuesday in the small storefront of the Best Made Company in Tribeca, a young ER doctor spent two hours leading a room full of professional New Yorkers in slicing open, and then suturing closed, a dozen pigs feet. Field Medicine: Suturing Workshop, it was called.

By nine o'clock, the room was relatively comfortable in the principles of stitching up flesh, in the event that any one of us find ourselves deep in the woods and in desperate need of medical attention. 

I was there because of my interest in the quaint economy, the marketing of an antiquated lifestyle as aspirational (and generally expensive), not because I had any intention of ever cutting myself while alone in the deep wilderness. But I strangely found myself with the most experience of anyone in the class. I guess I hurt myself a lot. 

Sutures? Had them plenty of times: in my face as a child, inside my mouth as a teenager, and most recently along the length of my left thumb after I broke it.

Staples? Yep, once in the back of my head after an unfortunate play-wrestling match.

Skin glue? Sure, that's how my last surgical scar was closed. 

About halfway through the class I realized knowing a bit about suturing is a lot more relevant to my life than I had ever realized. I embraced the quaint economy. I was even sort of excited about hiking through the wilderness? There's nothing like standing in a room full of shiny $300 axes to make you feel like maybe a rugged lifestyle is pretty chic.

I found myself aspiring to the outdoors. Or at least purchase a hunting jacket for a theoretical wilderness escape from the cacophony of the city sometime in the undefined future. 

Whoever figured out that this was the way to get young urban professionals to open their wallets is a genius.

SEE ALSO: Here's The Cheap Truth About The New Bone Broth Trend Everyone's Wasting Their Money On

First we opened our box of materials. The suturing kit included scissors, a needle holder, a clamp, forceps, a scalpel, a syringe, suture needles with thread, and gloves.

Then we got our pig's foot, which is a good approximation of human flesh.

Using the scalpel, I made a cut in the pig's foot that I'd later be able to stitch up.

On May 1, the 50th edition of the Berkshire Hathaway annual meet kicks off in Omaha. 

Ahead of this meeting, we here at Business Insider were sent a package from one of Warren Buffett's portfolio companies: See's Candies.

See's was acquired by Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway in 1972 for $25 million. To date, See's has earned $1.9 billion in pretax profit for Berkshire and required only $40 million in additional investments.

In his latest letter to shareholders, Buffett discussed the acquisition, writing that, "through watching See’s in action, I gained a business education about the value of powerful brands that opened my eyes to many other profitable investments."

SEE ALSO: How Warren Buffett defines success

Fragile!

A letter from See's Candies, one of the first companies Buffett bought under the Berkshire Hathaway umbrella.

It's a box of special edition candies that will be sold at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in two weeks.