It's almost hard to conceive how much New York City has changed over the past 25 years. Derelict industrial zones and abandoned buildings have been transformed into a hub of industry; what was once a wasteland now is a clean, safe, and very expensive city.

Photographer Grégoire Alessandrini remembers the old days, though, before all that gentrification. He recently began posting images he shot of Manhattan during the early and mid-nineties on his blog, and they create a fantastic window into another time. Alessandrini captured all sides of the city, and all the characters who inhabited its scenes. 

We put together a slideshow of old photos of Chelsea and the Meatpacking District, two neighborhoods that have seen extensive growth and change over the years. You can see many more images of New York on Alessandrini's blog, where you can also buy prints of his work.

Since the 1900s, the Meatpacking District was used for just that...

...packing meat and shipping it off to retailers.

However, by the time Alessandrini got there, times had gotten rough.

Moon Rocks, otherwise known as Spice, K2, or Skunk is a lab-produced, mind-altering drug that's been soaring in popularity in recent years. 

Giant underground laboratories, many of which are in China, are churning out thousands of pounds of the stuff. This week, the DEA arrested a man whose lab likely produced the chemicals in some 70% of the spice sold in the US, the New York Times reports.

Although it's often marketed as a "safer alternative to traditional marijuana," spice is dangerous and can be deadly.

This is spice. It looks fairly harmless — like herbs in a shiny package — but it isn't.

Reports suggest that since 2009, drugs like spice, or synthetic marijuana, have killed roughly 1,000 Americans — many of them young people in high school.

The drugmakers change up the specific ingredients in the drugs so fast — and produce them in such massive quantities — that drug enforcement can't keep up.

Chinese artist Lui Bolin has an amazing talent. He can blend into any surroundings he chooses, making himself practically undetectable to the human eye. No, he doesn't have magic powers or an invisibility cloak. What he does have is great artistic ability and extreme patience.

Bolin, known to many as the "Human Chameleon," decorates his body and clothes with color, painting himself into his surroundings, making him almost imperceptible at first glance. The process can take 10 hours at a time.

His work has been exhibited all over the world and can be seen in his book "Liu Bolin: The Invisible Man." Bolin has shared these new works with us, courtesy of Liu Bolin Art Studio and Eli Klein Fine Art.

We'll start with a relatively easy one. Here's Bolin blending in at the 7 July Memorial in London's Hyde Park.

But they get harder. Here he is in front of the Hollywood sign in California.

In Colombia, Bolin poses in front of some graffiti.

Gaming and fandom streaming service Machinima is one of the biggest video producers on the internet. With over 32,000 creators in its network, Machinima is the fifth-largest channel network on YouTube, according to ComScore data for April.

It's no surprise Machinima is on the rise. It hosts popular shows like talk show ETC, cartoon Battlefield Friends, and top gamers such as Minecrafter JermoneASF and Zack Scott.

With famous YouTubers always dropping in and all the latest video-game consoles available to play, Machinima looks like a fun place to work. We recently stopped by the company's Los Angeles headquarters to check it out for ourselves.

Machinima's offices are located in an oddly shaped building in West Hollywood. You might miss it if you were driving by. Because of building regulations, Machinima can't have signs announcing its location.

Look for their iconic "M" logo on the door.

Enter the lobby and you'll be greeted by a TV playing some of its latest and greatest YouTube videos. When we got there, Machninima's popular show ETC with cohosts Ricky Hayberg and Eliot Dewberry was playing.

Machines are only getting smarter and more efficient.

So much so that they're starting to take over both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. 

NPR recently posted a guide created by researchers that predicts the chance of our jobs being automated within the next 20 years.

To make their projections, the experts scored jobs across 21 fields on nine possible traits, the four most important being: cleverness, negotiation, helping others, and squeezing into small spaces. 

Mental health and substance abuse social workers appear to be in the clear, with a 0.3% chance of being automated.

Telemarketers, umpires, cashiers, and several other jobs that are already being replaced by robots, have reason to worry, however. You can interact with the full guide here. 

While the researchers admitted that these percentages are rough, the data offers insights into what the future may look like. 

20. Electrical and electronic equipment assemblers

Electrical and electronic equipment assemblers have a 95.1% chance of being automated. 

Robots are becoming critical to the production process of electronics because of their precision and accuracy. They are being used to do things such as: load solar wafers into solar cells, place LED light bulbs, and inspect circuit boards, as reported by the Robotics Industries Association. 

Source: NPR

19. Postal service workers

Postal service workers have a 95.4% chance of being automated. 

Postal sorters, clerks, and mail carriers are being hit hard by automation. Not only are robots able to do tasks such as sort mail, but snail mail is becoming more and more obsolete with the increasing digitization of mail.

Source: NPR 

18. Jewelers and precious stone and metal workers

Jewelers and precious stone and metal workers have a 95.5% chance of being automated.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts their employment to decline 10% between now and 2022 as robots begin assisting in the manufacturing and repairing of jewelry. 

Source: NPR 

It's easy to get caught up in tourist traps and miss out on local favorites when visiting a new city, especially in a big city like Chicago, where visitor options are seemingly endless.

So we asked some Chicagoans for their suggestions on the best the city has to offer.

From boats to beer tours to baseball games, here are the real best things to do in Chicago.

Listen to some jazz and swing music at the Green Mill cocktail lounge, a true piece of history that opened in 1907. Along with its connections to the Chicago mob scene, the lounge is known for the poetry slams it hosts every Sunday night.

For more information about Green Mill, click here >

Watch from North Avenue Beach (or an apartment that overlooks the beach) as historic fighter planes perform daredevil maneuvers in the sky for Chicago's annual Air and Water Show. The show takes places August 15-16 from 10 a.m. till 3 p.m.

Click here to find out more about the air and water show >

Catch a show at the comedy club Second City, whose notable alumni include Steve Carell and Tina Fey.

Thunder Ranch at Bottle Bay is a nature lover's dream home. 

Sitting on over 48 acres of land, 7095 Bottle Bay Road in Sagle, Idaho promises scenic views and an escape from reality.

And for $36 million, the most expensive home on the Idaho real estate market can be all yours. 

Thunder Ranch is a hidden estate submerged in nature.

A gate surrounds acres of land adorned with artifacts and sculptures, not to mention a helipad, barn, and stable.

Constructed in 2008 of natural stone and wood, the main residence is full of character and charm — and seven fireplaces!

After the global box-office success of "Furious 7," Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson returns to theaters this weekend in "San Andreas," another high-octane adrenaline rush which sees Johnson saving lives as a first responder at the expense of the largest earthquake of all time.

Though the film has been getting mixed reviews, estimates are predicting the film will have an opening north of $40 million.

Since 2002's "The Scorpion King," The Rock has become a box-office king proving he could win over audiences as a single dad in "Tooth Fairy" or as a heavy-hitting action star in "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island," and the "Fast and Furious" saga. His movies combined have made over $5.2 billion worldwide. 

But before he was rocking the box office, he was just a wrestler, best known for his signature move "The People's Elbow."

Frank Pallotta and Mallory Schlossberg contributed to an earlier version of this story.

Before he was "The Rock," Dwayne Johnson was born May 2, 1972, in Hayward, California.

Source: Biography

Wrestling is in Johnson's blood. His father, Rocky "Soul Man" Johnson, was a member of the first African-American tag-team champions and his grandfather, Peter Maivia, was one of the first Samoan wrestlers.

Source: YouTube

Johnson didn't go straight to wrestling. His first sport was football. After starring in high school he played in college for the Miami Hurricanes. Over his tenure at the school, Johnson started just once but appeared in 39 games and had 77 tackles, and he was a part of the 1991 national championship team.

Source: ESPN

Ever wanted to live like royalty? 

Well, you absolutely can — for a price. 

Our friends at property search site Estately.com, rounded up some of the best castle-like homes in the US. 

Complete with secret wine cellars, custom indoor lap pools, rose gardens, multi-floor libraries, and stone walls, these 18 castle homes are available for purchase right now. 

This 240-room castle in Connecticut comes with 75 acres of land and a moat.

Built by Christopher Mark, the great-grandson of Chicago steel tycoon Clayton Mark Senior, this impressive gothic structure took seven years to complete.

Known as Chrismark Castle, the home has eight bedrooms, a moat, and once housed exotic animals including a zebra, emus, and camels. 

Address: 450 Brickyard RD, Woodstock, CT

Price: $45,000,000

A 28,000-square-foot castle in Virginia has an indoor lap pool.

This castle in McLean, VA looks more like a university library than it does a private home. 

The 28,000-square-foot estate has eight bedrooms and 12 baths. The home also has an indoor lap pool, a sophisticated library complete with spiral staircase, and is filled with exquisite chandeliers. 

Address:7201 Dulany Drive, McLean, VA 

Price: $28,800,000

This stunning French Chateau in Napa Valley has its own conservatory.

This elegant French Chateau sits on over 46 acres of picturesque land in the Napa Valley. 

The Chateau has an incredible mosaic tile floored foyer, an elevator which takes you up to the conservatory, a state-of-the-art entrainment pavilion, and an outdoor kitchen with a pizza oven.

Address: 256 N Fork Crystal Springs Rd, St. Helena, CA

Price: $16,996,000

If you live in America, you've probably never heard of Missguided.

I had never heard of it either until I was laying on my couch watching an episode of “Bob’s Burgers” last week and this commercial kept playing:

“What is this Nasty Gal knock off?” I wondered. Because I was on Hulu, the targeted ad kept looping over and over again every single commercial break until I finally broke down and had to look up what Missguided even was.

Turns out, it's an e-commerce store in the vein of ASOS and the brainchild of 32-year-old Nitin Passi. It’s huge in the United Kingdom when it comes to brand recognition, mainly thanks to its partnership with pop star Nicole Scherzinger, formerly of the Pussycat Dolls, who has designed a few collections with the brand since 2013.

And in the UK, it’s performing incredibly well. Missguided sales are now over £86 million pounds, or $130 million, according to The Telegraph. Missguided’s founder Passi told This Is Money that he has plans to increase sales to over £150 million pounds by next March.

A lot of the success has come from social media, Passi told Internet Retailing. The brand’s Instagram has 984,000 followers, its UK Twitter account has 331,000, and its Facebook has 827,000 followers.

The e-commerce site is now expanding into the US and making a big push to appeal to American consumers — sort of like an online version of Topshop, which was huge in the U.K. before jumping stateside. In addition to their Hulu ad, Missguided has launched at Nordstrom stores and has also expanded into athletic wear.

🇺🇸👋 OH HEY #USA 👋🇺🇸 Shop #Missguided instore and online at @Nordstrom now!

A photo posted by MISSGUIDED (@missguided) on Apr 16, 2015 at 5:01pm PDT

The brand got its start back in 2008 after founder Passi had been living and working in the New York fashion industry with his father.

“I lived there for two years, and got kind of a grounding in the fashion business — everything from design, traveling the world with designers, to production, spending a lot of time out in China and selling as well,” he told Fashionista in a 2014 interview.

After returning to London, Passi decided it was time to start his own fashion-based company. Basing his model loosely on other online retailers, he got a loan from his father for £50,000 or just under $80,000 to start his own e-commerce site and launched Missguided in 2009 in a 100-square-foot room in Manchester. 

Six years later, the brand now has 210 employees and compares itself to Zara or ASOS when it comes to bringing consumers fast fashion. With daily new collections and as many as 200 new products every week, Passi said that the quick turnaround keeps 30% of consumers coming back daily to see the new designs. 

“We are not fast fashion, we are rapid fashion,” Passi told the Financial Times. “We are bringing in collections every day. […] We are already asking how can we do it several times a day?”

And while the brand has expanded rapidly, it hasn't done so without a few growing pains. Customers began complaining that their orders were wrong and that returns were too difficult in 2014.

We're so sorry that some of you are experiencing issues with your orders. We just wanted to let you know that we're working around the clock to make sure your order is on its way to you as soon as possible. We had a huge volume of orders over cyber weekend so your order may take a little longer to arrive. We wanna help you guys as much as we can and are currently very busy doing so. We’ll shoot you an email as soon as your order has been dispatched and is on it’s way to you. Big thanks for all your patience

A photo posted by MISSGUIDED (@missguided) on Dec 5, 2014 at 9:49am PST

The brand has since stepped up its social media game, and attempts to reply to every single customer complaint online. 

But growth concerns aside, it appears Missguided is looking forward. The latest project is for a new office in Manchester with a helicopter pad on the rooftop and a dance floor with DJ booth. Passi also said he wants to take the brand global. 

“Right now, 80% of our business is in the UK, and we're seeing really strong growth figures internationally and demand for our brand internationally,” Passi told Fashionista. “I want to make Missguided a global, household name — whether that's online or whether that's in stores, I'm not set on that. What I've got is a brand and I want to get that around the world, that's the number one goal now.”

SEE ALSO: 3 Rules Of Success That Made Nasty Gal A $100 Million Business

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We got our hands on 'Kinder Surprise Eggs' — the global candy favorite that's still illegal in the US

Tired of Manhattan? Head to Red Hook, a laid-back neighborhood in western Brooklyn that's just far enough from the madding crowds.

Here, a cool vibe seeps into some fun restaurants and bars and a handful of charming shops.

No trains go to Red Hook, so it can be a hassle to get there, which is how many locals like it. But take the trip by cab, water taxi, bike, or the B61 bus, and you won't be disappointed.

We've rounded up our favorite spots to eat and drink and take in the views in the waterfront neighborhood.

The Brooklyn Icehouse

318 Van Brunt St., Brooklyn, NY 11231 (map)

A perfect dive and entry point to Red Hook, the Icehouse has a fun staff, a variety of beers, and good grub, including delicious pulled-pork sliders and just about perfect onion rings (the sweet-potato fries with chipotle mayo are good too).

While the bartenders play good tunes, you can play board games and watch pretty much any sporting event that's on TV. This place ain't fancy, which is how the locals like it. Bring cash, and try to snag a table in the beer garden out back.

Baked

359 Van Brunt St., Brooklyn, NY 11231 (map)

Baked is a sweet spot not just for coffee and tea but for some of the best muffins, cupcakes, and cookies in all of Brooklyn. If you can score a seat, it's a good place to take a load off and stare out the window at the passersby.

(Don't be surprised if you find yourself standing in line with Michelle Williams or Michael Shannon, both of whom live down the block.)

Red Hook Lobster Pound

284 Van Brunt St., Brooklyn, NY 11231 (map)

This place recently reopened after a major renovation, and it's better than ever. The live lobsters come straight from Maine, and they're delicious whole or in a roll.

There's a lot of good stuff on the menu, such as the Berkshire pork-and-bacon hot dog, hearty New England clam chowder, and lobster cheese fries. Definitely order the potato salad. Good beer selection, fun atmosphere. Come very hungry.

The Silicon Valley dream often follows a standard storyline: Start a company, take it public, get rich.

So we were curious what kind of financial success newly public companies offer their CEOs and founders. We expected all of them to collect hefty salaries, big bonuses and millions in stock.

But it wasn't that simple. While some companies do pay their CEOs millions after the IPO, other CEOs are paid a relatively modest compensation.

A10 Networks' Lee Chen: $285,785

Lee Chen, founder and CEO of A10 Networks

Post IPO (2014)

Salary: $0
Stock awards: $205,600
Other compensation*: $80,185

Total compensation: $285,785

Before the IPO (2013)

Salary: $0
Other compensation: $6

Total compensation: $6 (yes, just six dollars)

Note: Chen holds 10.6 million shares of the company, a 17% stake. The stock trades for about $6 a share, crashing badly since its $16 closing price on IPO day.

* In 2014 the company paid a regulatory fee for Chen of $45,000 and reimbursed him for $35,185 in taxes.)

Box's Aaron Levie: $194,022

Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box

Post IPO (2015)

Salary: $155,000
Cash bonus: $38,750

Total compensation: $194,022

Before the IPO (2014)

Salary: $ 150,833
Cash bonus: $38,750

Total compensation: $189,670

Note: Levie owns roughly 4.2 million shares, or 4% of the company.

HubSpot's Brian Halligan: $802,928

Brian Halligan, co-founder and CEO of HubSpot

Post IPO (2014)

Salary: $259,560
Stock awards: $215,195 
Option awards: $121,109*
Cash bonus: $207,064

Total compensation: $802,928

Before the IPO (2013)

Salary: $238,183 
Cash bonus: $132,376

Total compensation: $371,771

Note: Halligan owns 1.1 million shares or about 3% of the company.

Deepak Chopra, an award-winning author and physician, is one of the world’s leading researchers in meditation and spirituality.

He’s also known for being a good friend and personal meditation coach of the late pop icon Michael Jackson.

Last year, Chopra shared a slide deck based on his book, “Super Brain,” that shows 11 ways to better-inspire your brain.

These are simple yet powerful tips that can help any type of business leader.

Deepak Chopra is a best-selling author with over 65 books written in the field of spirituality and meditation.

Chopra says you can inspire and take charge of your brain by following these simple steps.

It's always good to engage in activities that give positive input to your brain.

A tiny startup called Facebook was founded 11 years ago.

But where are its first 20 employees today?

Many of Facebook's first employees are no longer at the company. Some left to join other successful tech companies like Playdom and Twitter. Others started their own companies.

Out of Facebook's first 20 employees, only two were women.

Gilles Mischler built and designed Facebook's IT infrastructure from the ground up.

Employed by Facebook from: June 2005 - May 2010

Position at Facebook: SiteOps Engineer

Where he is now: After Facebook, Mischler went to Playdom. He was only there for a few weeks when the company was acquired by Disney for more than $700 million. Mischler then went to Nokia as a network engineer, and had a stint as a consultant for fast-growing companies. For the past year, he's been a network engineer at Dropbox.

You can thank engineer Scott Marlette for being able to visually stalk all of your friends. He created Facebook's photo application.

Employed by Facebook from: June 2005 - January 2010

Position at Facebook: Engineer, Product Manager

Where he is now: Marlette went on to cofound GoodRx and advise a startup, ProperFlow.

Dan Neff had a short five-month stint as one of Facebook's first employees and was responsible for rolling out new site features.

Employed by Facebook from: May 2005 - October 2005

Position at Facebook: Build/Release Engineer

Where he is now: Operations Architect at Adobe Systems, per his LinkedIn page.

Not too long ago, it was commonplace for people across the globe to die horrific, painful, disfiguring deaths from illnesses they couldn't control.

Today, many of those diseases have begun to disappear.

In many parts of the developed world, some of the worst of these diseases are gone completely. Their disappearance is a testament to the power of vaccines.

Yet these diseases still exist in many other countries, and public health workers are working hard to contain their spread and increase peoples' access to the shots and pills we often take for granted.

Measles

Like smallpox, measles is highly contagious. Its most serious complications include blindness, severe diarrhea, serious respiratory infections, and encephalitis, a severe infection that causes brain swelling.

New research also finds that measles can have a crippling, sometimes long term effect on children's immune systems for years after an initial infection, leaving them susceptible to other infectious diseases. The vaccine, the research suggests, protects against this.

The good news is that aside from a scary outbreak in California last December — which research suggests was caused by a growing number of parents refusing vaccinations for their children — measles has been largely eliminated in most affluent countries, and deaths from measles across the globe have dropped by 75% since 2000. 

Still, the virus is still common in many developing countries, particularly in parts of Africa and Asia, but the WHO has plans to eliminate the disease globally by 2020.

Rubella

Rubella is a highly contagious disease whose worst effects are seen in fetuses within their mother's first trimester. In young people and adults, rubella most often causes an all-over body rash and cold-like symptoms that typically clear in a few days. 

In fetuses, though, rubella can cause deafness, blindness, and severe brain damage. A 1964-1965 rubella outbreak in the US caused roughly 11,250 abortions, 2,100 stillborns, and 20,000 babies born with defects. 

Last month, though, rubella was officially declared eliminated from the Americas, a region defined by the World Health Organization to include the US, Canada, Cuba, and Central and South America. 

Still, roughly 120,000 children a year are born across the globe with severe rubella-related birth defects, so there's still work to do.

Polio

Polio is a crippling and sometimes deadly infectious disease. There is no cure.

Most cases of the disease — somewhere between 90% and 95% — cause no symptoms, making it easy for an infected person to get another person sick. In those cases, people can recover within a few weeks.

In about 1% of cases, however, or around 1 in 200 cases, polio can leave its sufferers with permanent physical disabilities. In these cases, the virus spreads along the pathways inside the nerve fibers in the spinal cord, brain stem, or motor cortex, the movement-controlling part of the brain. Once inside, polio eats away at the nerves inside these parts of the body that allow us to move. Among people with polio who become paralyzed, about 5% to 10% die when the muscles that control their breathing are rendered immobile by the virus.

In the last 3 decades, cases of polio across the globe have plummeted, dropping nearly 99% since 1988. That year, the World Health Assembly resolved to globally eradicate polio, and several international health organizations joined in the effort to disseminate the vaccine worldwide. 

As of last year, just 3 countries still see regular cases of polio: Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and efforts are underway to eradicate the disease completely.

Whoever said fish can't fly haven't seen mobula rays in action.

These marine animals, which are often referred to as devil rays because their heads have two horn-like points, can soar through the air for up to a few seconds at a time before belly-flopping back to their watery home.

Why they do it, however, is a complete mystery. Scientists propose that it could be a mating ritual, a way to feed, or just a fun activity, but no one is certain, yet. 

Octavio Aburto, an assistant professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, came upon a giant swarm of thousands of these flying devil fish near the Gulf of California in 2011. Most of the mind-blowing photos you'll see here were taken during that encounter by Aburto with the International League of Conservation Photographers. 

Mobula rays are closely related to their larger cousins, the manta ray. Some species of mobula can measure as much as 17 feet long and weigh over a ton.

Octavio told Business Insider that the massive swarm of devil rays he saw in 2011 arrived in a region near the Gulf of California in January and stayed through May.

Tens to hundreds of rays will leap out of the water at a time. Researchers have noticed that usually the jumpers are located along the outskirts of the swarm, which could be the key to understanding why they jump.

Texting is already one of the quickest ways to communicate, but there are a few tips and tricks that can make the process even faster and more convenient.

From creating your own shortcuts to quickly inserting letters with symbols, here are 11 tips for texting on your iPhone.

Use QuickType suggestions to choose words before you're finished typing them.

Input numbers and symbols with a single tap.

Double tap the spacebar to add a period.

Richard Prince, the artist behind the controversial Instagram print collection that reportedly sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, is showing another exhibit in New York City right now.

Prince did not create any new materials for this collection, but acted more like a curator — not that he distinguishes between art and curation. Printed at the top of the exhibit's program is the Prince quote, "I don't see any difference between what I collect and what I make."

Currently on display at the Gagosian Gallery in on Madison Avenue, the cheekily named "Untitled (original)" features book covers from retro adult novels framed beside the original paintings that inspired them. The books are taken from Prince's massive collection, according to Gagosian.

Prince is known for appropriating the work of others.

"Mining images from mass media, advertising and entertainment, Prince has continuously redefined authorship and ownership as they relate to contemporary art,"explains the Gagosian Gallery website. 

SEE ALSO: Two of the women whose Instagram pics were hijacked by Richard Prince admit they didn't even shoot their photos

The Gagosian Gallery & Bookshop is located on the Upper East Side at 976 Madison Avenue.

Prince's collection can be found just behind the Gagosian bookstore.

The collection features 28 of Prince's works.

.

Teenagers and pre-teens who win the intensely competitive Scripps National Spelling Bee have brains, passion, and dedication.

For the most part, this work ethic leads to success in college and beyond. Among the decades of past winners, there are lots of graduates of top schools and many brainy professionals — such as doctors and lawyers.

There are some pretty unusual career choices too, from a professional poker player to a voiceover actor.

Many former winners have also stayed involved with the bee itself, making up the administration of the organization.

Max Nisen created an earlier version of this feature.

1992 winner Amanda Goad went to Harvard Law School and became a staff lawyer on the ACLU's LGBT and HIV rights project.

Sources: Time, LinkedIn

1981 winner Paige Pipkin Kimble, right, was runner-up in 1980 to Jacques Bailly, left. She couldn't shake the spelling bee; she serves as its executive director.

Source: Slate

Bailly, the 1980 winner, is an associate professor of classics at the University of Vermont and the bee's official pronouncer.

Source: Time