This post from LinkedIn Influencer Travis Bradberry appeared originally on LinkedIn.

Too many people succumb to the mistaken belief that the ability to connect with others is a natural, unteachable trait that belongs to only a lucky few.

It’s easy to fall prey to this misconception. In reality, this ability is under your control, and it’s a matter of emotional intelligence (EQ).

Research conducted by Matthew Lieberman at UCLA shows that being social and connecting with others is as fundamental a human need as food, shelter, and water. For example, Lieberman discovered that we feel social pain, such as the loss of a relationship, in the same part of the brain that we feel physical pain.

The primary function of this brain area is to alert us to threats to our survival. It makes you realize how powerful and important social connection is. We’re hard wired to be social creatures.

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood.” – Ralph Nichols

MRIs of the brain show that social thinking and analytical thinking involve entirely different neural networks and that they operate something like a seesaw. When you engage in analytical thinking, the social part of your brain quiets down, but as soon as you’re finished, the social network springs back to life.

The social brain is the end of the seesaw where the fat kid sits; it’s our brain’s default setting.

Given that social connection is such a fundamental human need, you’d think that it would be easy to connect with everyone we meet. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Against our own self-interest, we get bogged down by shyness, self-consciousness, cynicism, pride, competitiveness, jealousy, and arrogance.

If you can get that baggage out of the way, you can connect with anyone — even those who are still holding on to their own. Here are some tips that will help you to connect instantly with everyone you meet.

SEE ALSO: 10 habits of chronically unhappy people

Leave a strong first impression.

Research shows that most people decide whether or not they like you within the first seven seconds of meeting you. They then spend the rest of the conversation internally justifying their initial reaction. This may sound terrifying, but by knowing this, you can take advantage of it to connect with anyone.

First impressions are tied intimately to positive body language. Becoming cognizant of your gestures, expressions, and tone of voice (and making certain they’re positive) will draw people to you like ants to a picnic.

Using an enthusiastic tone, uncrossing your arms, maintaining eye contact, and leaning towards the person who’s speaking are all forms of positive body language that high-EQ people use to draw others in. Positive body language can make all the difference in a conversation. It’s true that how you say something can be more important than what you say.

Be the first to venture beyond the superficial.

Our first conversation or two with a new acquaintance tends to be pretty superficial. We portray a careful picture of ourselves, and we stick to nice, safe topics. We talk about the weather and people we know in common and share the most basic details about ourselves. But if you really want to connect with somebody, try upping the ante and revealing the real you.

You don’t need to get too personal, but it’s important to let the other person know what you’re passionate about. Most of the time, if you open up, the other person will follow your lead and do the same.

Ask good questions.

If the other person seems hesitant to open up, encourage them to do so by asking substantial questions. “What do you do?” doesn’t further the relationship nearly as much as, “Why did you choose your profession?”

Search for questions that will help you to understand what makes the other person tick, without getting too personal.

Keeping up with all of the great new apps out there can feel like a chore. Luckily, we've done the work for you.

February was a huge month for new apps and big updates, especially for email apps seeking to replace the hole in the App Store left by Mailbox's demise. Here are the best apps you may have missed this month:

The best journaling app got a huge update.

Day One is widely considered to be the best journaling app in existence, and early this month a brand new 2.0 version was released for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. 

A lot has been added in the new app, most notably a new user interface, the ability to have multiple journals, faster sync, a map view, photo timeline, custom reminders, timezone support, and more.

If you like journaling — or just logging what's going on in your life — this is the app for you.

Price: $4.99 for iPhone/iPad, $29.99 for Mac

Available on: iOS App Store, Mac App Store

Quartz's app explains the news to you through a chat interface.

The business news site Quartz released an interesting news app that explains the day's headlines in a chat interface and sends breaking news notifications. As you interact with its prompts, GIFs, charts, and helpful infographics are used to break down the news into quickly digestible chunks.

It's an interesting idea for showing the news.

Price: Free

Available on: App Store

Vevo released a slick Apple TV app for watching music videos.

Vevo, the company that distributes most of the music videos you see on YouTube, released a pretty slick Apple TV app (and mobile app update to match) that learns about the music you like and shows you videos it thinks you'll like based on your tastes. It's a well designed entertainment app for the big screen that any music video lover will enjoy.

Price: Free

Available on: Apple TV

In the UN of supercar makers, Lamborghini isn't just a member. It's got a permanent seat on the Security Council. Over the past 50 years, Lamborghini has firmly established itself as one of the most desirable and respected brands in the automotive industry. Like its archrival, Ferrari, the supercar specialists from Sant'Agata emerged from unlikely beginnings and have survived through great financial upheaval. 

In the process, Lamborghini has given the world some of most insane and iconic cars in recent memory. 

Here's how Lamborghini became Lamborghini!

SEE ALSO: Check out James Bond's greatest cars

For most people, this the vision that comes to mind when you mention the name "Lamborghini." But that wasn't always the case.

After World War II, Ferruccio Lamborghini found great success making farm equipment for rebuilding Europe. As a result, the wealthy entrepreneur acquired a fleet of the finest sports cars the continent had to offer.

So how did Lamborghini go from tractor-maker to supercar legend? It depends on who you ask.

Long before Airbnb persuaded strangers to sleep in one another's homes and became a $25 billion company, it was just an idea to make extra bucks and make rent.

After their first guests, Airbnb's founders realized they were on to something bigger than a stopgap for rent. They faced rejection plenty of times — and created their own version of Obama O's cereal — but the three founders of Airbnb have built a big business in the past nine years.

Here's how they turned their idea to rent out an air mattress into a business that has the hotel industry running scared.

SEE ALSO: The 25 hottest San Francisco startups to watch in 2016

It started with an email. Joe Gebbia sent his roommate, Brian Chesky, an idea: What if they made a designer's bed and breakfast, complete with a sleeping mat and breakfast? It was a way to "make a few bucks." Almost nine years later that idea is worth $25 billion.

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In 2007, the two roommates living in San Francisco couldn't afford to pay rent. The pair decided to turn their loft into an area that could fit three air mattresses. Along with the mattress and a night's sleep came the promise of a breakfast too.

The pair knew a big design conference was coming to San Francisco, and it was making hotels hard to come by. They created a simple site, airbedandbreakfast.com, and bought three air mattresses. The duo had met at college at the Rhode Island School of Design, so they thought acting as tour guides to designers would be a fun way to make money.

Cube farms with fluorescent lights may describe the majority of today's American offices, but increasingly savvy companies — especially in tech — are creating newer, cooler, and more innovative spaces for their workers.

"They understand it can help recruit talent and foster creativity among employees," says Scott Dobroski, Glassdoor's career-trends analyst. "Employees often feel more creative and innovative when they're in a physical workplace that supports this same sentiment."

With the help of Glassdoor, a jobs website, we found some of the coolest and most unique and functional spaces for employees to work and play.

SEE ALSO: Here are the mouth-watering free lunches served at companies like LinkedIn and TripAdvisor

DON'T MISS: A new study shows the majority of Americans are woefully misinformed about how much they're paid

Zappos introduced a UFO-shaped conference room in the center of its courtyard that could be booked for meetings.

See more Zappos photos.

Remote employees can wheel around Square's San Francisco office and attend meetings with the help of robots.

See more Square photos.

Starbucks brings Seattle-based employees together with a homey, full-service cafeteria.

See more Starbucks photos.

What if you tried to fly an airplane on Mercury, Venus, and every other planet in our solar system?

Well, you couldn't do it with just one person — or even with just one plane. Along the way, the harsh environments would destroy both you and your aircraft in a number of horrible ways.

But how exactly would it happen?

Randall Munroe, founder of the popular webcomic xkcd, explores the different ways you would crash and die in his entertaining book "What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions."

Here they are:

LEARN MORE: We're on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy — here's what will happen to Earth

CHECK OUT: NASA just released footage of the most mysterious pyramid in the solar system

Planes use the air on Earth to generate a difference in pressure below and above the wings, which produces lift. But there's no atmosphere on Mercury, which means you couldn't even glide on it. If you drove the plane off of a cliff, you'd fall and crash like this:

via GIPHY

Venus's atmosphere is 60 times more dense than Earth's at the surface, which would be plenty to generate lift. But you'd be flying through air that's over 400 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to melt lead and, incidentally, set your plane on fire:

via GIPHY

Earth is a perfect place to fly an airplane, and it comes with an amazing view. Try it some time:

via GIPHY

Today, actors have become very proud of going back and forth between roles in movies and television. But that hasn't always been the case.

For most of Hollywood's history, there has been a pretty deep divide between television actors and movie stars. There was no shame in getting one's start in TV. But once one made the leap to movies, most never looked back.

As Oscar-winner and current star of FX's"The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story"Cuba Gooding, Jr. recently told Business Insider, "When I started in the business, you did television and then when you got lucky you got a prestige project of a film."

Many of today's biggest movie stars followed that same career path, so we decided to take a look at the early careers of several of this year's Oscar nominees – from Christian Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio to Jennifer Lawrence and Alicia Vikander – for their first TV gigs.

Here's a look at the small-screen roles that some of them may want to forget:

SEE ALSO: The best shows to binge-watch right now according to TV stars

SEE ALSO: See how the amazing cast of 'American Crime Story' transformed to bring the O.J. Simpson trial back to life

Matt Damon was in a 1990 TV movie, "Rising Son"

Before "The Martian," the "Bourne" franchise, and even "Good Will Hunting," Matt Damon's first lead role was in the 1990 TV movie, "Rising Son." Damon played the son to Brian Dennehy's character, an automobile factory foreman whose company is closing down due to Japanese competition.

Watch the "Rising Son" trailer below:

Cate Blanchett was on an Australian cop drama in the early 90's

Before she was Queen Elizabeth or starring in "Carol," Cate Blanchett was Mrs. Haines in the Australian cop drama, "Police Rescue." But this bit part in that TV series could've helped get her a role in the 1994 "Police Rescue" movie based on the series.

See her below on "Police Rescue" at around 27:06 in:

Leonardo DiCaprio was on "Growing Pains"

Even we thought that "The Revenant" star Leonardo DiCaprio's earliest TV role was on ABC's "Growing Pains," but we were wrong. He actually starred on a 1990 series called "Parenthood,"with David Arquette and Ed Begley, Jr. before that. This was NBC's first stab at a sequel to the 1989 Ron Howard movie. It only lasted a season. NBC tried "Parenthood" again with a totally different cast in 2010 and got six seasons out of it.

You could argue that no athlete has it better than Stephen Curry right now.

Curry won MVP last year, led the Golden State Warriors to a title, and is now the clear favorite to repeat as MVP this year while his Warriors are the best team in the NBA once again.

And perhaps no athlete has a better off-court life. From becoming the face of Under Armour and numerous other endorsements to his friendship with Cam Newton and his increasing profile as a celebrity, Curry has it made.

Here's a look at his marvelous life:

Stephen Curry is, surprisingly, underpaid. He signed a four-year, $44 million contract extension in 2012 and now makes $12 million per year. He could triple that when he becomes a free agent in 2017.

Curry's deal with Under Armour is also a bit of a steal for the company. It lured him from Nike with a deal reportedly worth about $4.5 million per year. In 2015, it extended his deal to 2024, and he now has an ownership stake in the business.

Source: Money Nation

Curry's shoe, The Curry One, reportedly helped drive Under Armour past Adidas in sales.

Read more: "Under Armour hit the jackpot with its Stephen Curry bet"

Saving for retirement or financial goals may be the last thing on your mind as a 20-something — but when it comes to managing money, your 20s are a critical decade.

Time is on your side when you're young, and a head start in saving and investing could set you up for a wealthy future.

To get on the right track, start by breaking these terrible, yet common, money habits:

SEE ALSO: The 11 smartest things to do with your money in your 20s

1. Not saving enough — or at all

There's a difference between knowing you should save and actually doing it. According to a USA/Bank of America Better Money Habits poll, about 20% of millennials haven't started saving. While 69% have a savings account, most have less than $5,000 in it.

How to improve: When it comes to saving, retirement contributions can be a great place to start. You can contribute to your employer's 401(k) plan if it offers one (and take full advantage of the company match if offered), or you can look into other account options, such as a Roth IRA.

Next, automate your contributions. This way, you'll never even see the money before it's stashed away, and you'll learn to live without it.

2. Not being educated about student loans

The class of 2015 is the most indebted class thus far. The average class of 2015 graduate will be stuck paying off $35,000 in student loan debt. With numbers that high, you would think students and graduates would be well aware of their debt. It turns out many of them are clueless about their loans, which only makes it more difficult to pay them down. 

How to improve: If you have debt, it's usually in your best interest to pay more than your minimum payment, thereby reducing the length of your loan and the amount you pay in interest. If you aren't sure where to start, consider the advice 13 real people who paid off thousands.

You also want to be clear about the interest rate on your debt, as that could affect how quickly you're aiming to pay it off. If your interest rate is close to zero, you may not feel the same urgency to pay it faster than the normal repayment schedule, as it's costing you less than the higher-interest debt.

3. Spending unnecessary money on the short term

Earning a first paycheck is liberating and thrilling, but it can be dangerous. As earnings go up, purchases tend to creep up as well — and the ease of swiping a credit card for a taxi, morning latte, or restaurant bill doesn't help.

If you're an overspender lucky enough to avoid taking on debt, you're most likely living paycheck to paycheck. That makes it hard to plan and set aside money for the future, when you want to make a major purchase like a house, take a trip, or retire.

How to improve: Moderation is key, here. There's no problem with the occasional drinks out, Uber ride home, or latte when you can afford it, but if you find yourself doing them all the time and feeling a little tight in the wallet, it might be time to find some alternatives— even those as simple taking the subway (if you live in a city with adequate public transit), walking, and packing a lunch.

If you're trying to break the habit of overspending, read up on the most common psychological overspending triggers, how stores trick you into parting from your cash, and what you can do to keep from spending.

Now that music comes out on the weekend, and not always on every streaming service, it can be hard to know where to find the next great song. So Business Insider is helping you with this rundown of the best of what's new in the music world that you can listen to right now.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - "Kevin" (feat. Leon Bridges)

Macklemore dropped his first album since 2012 on Friday, titled "This Unruly Mess I've Made.""Kevin," featuring Leon Bridges, sticks out as a track that both appeals to one's emotions and tells a vivid story. The song is Macklemore's tribute to his friend who overdosed on prescription medication in 2010.

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Miguel - "Waves (Tame Impala Remix)"

Who says rock is dead? This remix of R&B star Miguel by the band Tame Impala, with its stadium-ready drum fills and guitar crunch combined with the otherworldly, swirling echoes of Miguel's voice, will make you think otherwise: Rock is just getting started.

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Zayn Malik - "It's You"

Despite the incredibly moody and sappy music video, "It's You" is actually a pretty decent song. Malik shows off his incredible vocal range, and it seems as if he's beginning to find his niche as an R&B artist.

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Sometimes a movie comes along that critics can universally get behind, and often it's an awful one.

The latest example is Lionsgate's "Gods of Egypt," now in theaters, in which Gerard Butler, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau ("Game of Thrones"), and Geoffrey Rush star in a fantasy tale set in ancient Egypt, where 10-foot-tall gods and regular-size — yet beefy — mortals duke it out for supremacy.

The epic cost $140 million to make, but is projected to take in only around $15 million in its debut weekend.

But enough about the movie — let's get to the venom the critics have relentlessly spewed about it. Below is a glimpse at why this movie currently has a 10% rating on review site Rotten Tomatoes.

SEE ALSO: The 10 best Leonardo DiCaprio movies, ranked

The casting is not true to history.

It's never a good thing when a studio has to apologize before anyone has seen its movie, and that's exactly what Lionsgate did in November when the studio issued a statement offering a mea culpa for its largely white, European casting.

But all that did was tee up the first knock from critics.

"Not only does the film indulge in a right royal round of whitewashing, it also gives star Gerard Butler a brownface," Australia's the Daily Review wrote. "I don't want to make too much of this, given it's possible Butler simply nodded off in a solarium day after day. A perfectly normal person with skin and sleep issues."

The movie is a CGI fail, ...

One draw for a swords-and-sandals movie is the dazzling computer graphics it can have to show off an ancient world. But it sounds like "Gods of Egypt" doesn't even have that going for it.

"[T]he worst CG effects this side of an Atari 2600," The Wrap wrote.

"It's just there, pounding you in the face with a cudgel of disposable mediocrity and schlocky video game-grade CGI," Entertainment Weekly opined.

... and Gerard Butler isn't any better.

Butler gained his stardom after playing a ripped Spartan in Zack Snyder's much-heralded ancient actioner "300." Sadly, a return to the genre without someone of Snyder's caliber was a mistake for the actor.

"The campy part begins when Gerard Butler enters as Set, an Egyptian god with a noticeable Scottish burr," Newsday wrote.

"He'd be chewing the scenery if you could chew green screen," Variety said.

C-Suite executives are known for pulling in a pretty penny. But as it turns out, doctors make even more.

That's right: On average, those sporting scrubs and stethoscopes bring home fatter paychecks than those donning suits and ties, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates survey.

The survey, which reflects May 2014 salary and employment data gathered from more than 1 million businesses, found that 16 of the nation's top 30 highest-paying occupations are in the medical field.

The best-paying job of all: anesthesiologist.

On average, anesthesiologists in the US earn an average annual salary of $246,320.

According to the American Society of Anesthesiologists, these medical doctors are responsible for the safety and well being of patients before, during, and after surgery. In the US, they're required to complete a four-year undergraduate college degree, four years of medical school, and a four-year anesthesiology residency program. Most anesthesiologists become board certified, and many complete an additional fellowship year of specialty training.

A 2014 physician compensation report by Medscape found that nearly 80% of anesthesiologists spend 40 hours or more per week with patients.

Here are the 30 highest-paying jobs in the US:

SEE ALSO: 27 jobs to avoid if you hate stress

30. Physicists

Mean annual pay: $117,300

Number of people who hold this job in the US: 16,790

Projected growth (2012 - 2022): 10%

29. Pharmacists

Mean annual pay: $118,470

Number of people who hold this job in the US: 290,780

Projected growth (2012 - 2022): 14%

28. Compensation and Benefits Managers

Mean annual pay: $118,670

Number of people who hold this job in the US: 16,380

Projected growth (2012 - 2022): 3%

For all its colorful frenzied glory, the Tokyo Metro map isn’t the most complex subway guide in the world.

New York and Paris both have it topped—at least in the eyes of one group of theoretical physicists and mathematicians.

Researchers Riccardo Gallotti and Marc Barthelemy of the CEA-Saclay in France and Mason Porter of the University of Oxford in the U.K. recently set out to calculate the maximium transit map information someone can “reasonably process.”

The goal, they write in Science Advances, was to see whether the growth of urban transportation systems has led to visual guides that “exceed our cognitive limits.” If that’s the case, then city residents and visitors might soon have to rely on digital navigation apps less as a crutch than as a necessity.

For its study, the group analyzed maps of the world’s 15 largest metro transit networks, as determined by total stations.

They considered all the trips a traveler could make from Point A to Point B with two connections, then determined the fastest possible path for a given trip.

That framework aligned with behavioral research showing that people can store up to four pieces of information in their working memory at one time—in this case, a trip’s origin, its destination, and two transfer stations.

The result was a “cumulative” complexity rating that saw the New York subway at the head of the pack—earning it the title of the “most complex metropolitan system in the world”—and Hong Kong’s metro rail network at the back.

When it comes to information processing, an average person’s “cognitive threshold” is about 250 connections, or the equivalent of roughly eight bits of data, according to the researchers.

New York’s system neared that limit, with 161 total connections, and the most complicated two-transfer trip a person could make on the subway exceeded it—clocking in at 8.1 bits.

Maps for the Paris Metro (with 78 total connections), Tokyo Metro (56), and London Tube (48) clustered around six bits of information.

So for the most part, even in major cities, travelers can plan out fairly complex transit trips using a good old-fashioned metro map without getting too overwhelmed. But things get a lot harder for our brains to handle when a second mode is involved.

The researchers found that out quickly when they layered bus data on top of metro rail routes for the three most complex networks.

The number of total connections a person had to fathom for a particular subway-bus trip far exceeded standard cognitive capacity—reaching 8,461 for New York, 4,292 for Paris, and 1,831 for Tokyo. More than 80 percent of the potential multimodal trips required travelers to process more than eight bits of information.

“This indeed poses the problem of a useful representation for such multimodal systems,” the co-author Barthelemy tells CityLab via email.

Multimodal maps are rare, and the problem is really one of bus maps in particular.

They’re just much more complex than subway maps, reflecting the greater scale of city bus networks themselves.

The researchers call for a more “user-friendly way” to present bus routes, and indeed some designers have advanced the art of the bus map—using line thickness to denote frequency, for instance, as the new Muni map does in San Francisco.

The researchers conclude that city travelers face an app-heavy future (citations removed): 

Our analysis highlights the fact that humans need to integrate an excessive amount of information for urban navigation, and we therefore need to seek new solutions that will help them navigate in megacities. Redesigning maps and representations of transportation networks, as well as improving information-technology tools that help to decrease the amount of information to a level below the human processing threshold, thus appears to be crucial for an efficient use of services provided by transportation agencies.

In some ways the work misses the forest for the trees: 5.6 million people navigate the New York subway system every weekday, and 2.1 million ride the bus, without their heads exploding. But it’s hard to argue with the pursuit of better maps or smarter navigation technology to assist city mobility. The less you need to rely on a specific route you already know from A to B, the more freedom you feel to take transit anywhere in the city.

1. New York City — the most complicated subway map.

2. Paris

3. Tokyo

Everyone needs a pick-me-up sometimes.

And as it turns out, there are a bunch of healthy things you can do to lift your spirits.

We've scoured the research to find some of the best ways to improve your mood — no pill or special elixir required.

Here are a few:

NEXT UP: A Harvard psychiatrist says 3 things are the secret to real happiness

SEE ALSO: 19 tiny life changes you can make right now for a healthier year

Get out in nature.

If you're feeling down, it might be because you're not spending enough time in nature. Living in cities has been linked to stress and mental illness, but a dose of greenery could go a long way.

In one 2012 study published in the Journal Psychological Science, researchers gave more than 10,000 people questionnaires about their mental health over nearly two decades, and found that people who lived in urban areas with the most green space (such as parks) reported feeling the least mental distress and the highest well-being.

But you don't need to live near a park to get all its benefits —preliminary research suggests that even a 90-minute walk in nature can chase away negative thoughts.

Listen to happy music.

Often all it takes is some upbeat tunes to shrug away those sad feelings.

A 2013 study in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that people who listened to positive music while attempting to improve their mood reported feeling happier than people who listened to music that wasn't positive, or didn't actively try to boost their mood. So crank up the Pharrell Williams!

Do something awe-inspiring!

If you want to stop feeling awful and start feeling awesome, consider this: Several recent studies have found that experiencing a sense of awe— the feeling you get looking up into the night sky, for example — can leave you feeling less stressed and more satisfied.

As part of a two-part study published in 2015, students filled out a questionnaire and submitted samples of their spit for analysis. The students who said they had recently had awe-inspiring experiences had lower levels of a stress-related substance called interleukin-6 in their spit, compared with those who didn't feel awe.

So next time you're feeling blue, why not take a scenic hike or watch the sunrise?

When you hear the word "Oscars," big stars, stunning gowns, emotional acceptance speeches, and the red carpet probably come to mind.

But much of what happens behind the curtain — the elements we don't see, like the writing — makes the award show the prestigious and memorable event it is each year.

Comedy writer and six-time Emmy award-winner Bruce Vilanch, 67, has written jokes for the Oscars since 1989 and served as head writer for the show from 2000 to 2014.

In the book, "Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations with Today's Top Comedy Writers," he talks about this huge responsibility.

"Out of the hundreds [of jokes] that we write — really, hundreds — if one or two are used, it's a big deal," he told the books author Mike Sacks. 

To learn more about the writing process for the Academy Awards, keep scrolling. 

SEE ALSO: The fast-rising career of 26-year-old Oscar nominee Brie Larson

SEE ALSO: The 27 jobs that are most damaging to your health

There's a 300-page guidebook for the hosts to study during commercial breaks.

Vilanch told Sacks that some of the writing team's best jokes are ones made up on the spot in the wings during the live show. But, he explains, the writers actually start coming up with jokes for the Oscars about two months in advance and keep them in a 300-page "playbook."

This huge outline is kept just off stage so the host can flip through it during commercial breaks to refresh their memory.

The idea to make this mega-outline each year came from Billy Crystal, who has hosted the show nine times and wanted to help out future hosts with the burden that comes from having to recall so many lines and so much information.

The playbook contains a complete rundown of the show, which typically lasts between three and four hours, as well as numerous jokes. Out of the hundreds of jokes the writers come up with ahead of time, Vilanch says it's a big deal if one or two are actually used in the show.

They have to write jokes that aren't boring but that also don't cross the 'weird line.'

Vilanch says the writers are aware that certain celebrities are off limits to joke about, either because the situation is too embarrassing for them, the joke would be too cruel, they will be in the audience.

"You have to be careful to not cross the weird line," he told Sacks.

Vilanch remembers a joke from the 2003 Oscars in which host Steve Martin would have said, "I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that my fly was open throughout the monologue. The good news is that the camera puts on ten pounds." 

Vilanch, his team, and even the network censor thought the joke was hilarious, but Martin didn't feel comfortable delivering it at such a classy event.

Vilanch understood Martin's dilemma though, because a joke at the Oscars will stick with you throughout your career.

"The choice you have to make is, do I, as a comedian, want to be remembered for this joke or not?" he told Sacks.

Backstage is chaos — even for the writing team.

Vilanch says backstage is frantic and chaotic because the writers are coming up with jokes on the spot in response to unpredictable events.

"It makes the fall of Saigon look tame," he explained in the book. "It's all happening so, so quickly." 

For example, at the 2003 Oscars, Michael Moore won Best Documentary Feature and spoke against the second Gulf War during his acceptance speech. When he finished, the show cut to a commercial and the writing team started brainstorming how they could reference his speech in host Steve Martin's next line. 

By the time the commercial break ended and Martin walked back onstage, they had rewritten his opening line: "It's so sweet backstage, you should have seen it. The Teamsters are helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo." 

Last week, Amazon hiked the amount of money customers need to spend in order to qualify for free shipping.

Previously, $35 worth of products would qualify an order for free shipping, but now customers will need to spend at least $50.

That means that there's another reason to sign up for Prime, the $99 loyalty program that includes free two-day shipping on millions of items.

Although most people probably sign up for Prime because of the shipping, there are a lot of other perks. 

Here's an overview of everything you now get as a member of Amazon Prime.

You'll get access to Prime Video, a growing catalog of streaming movies and TV shows.

Prime subscribers can stream content from Prime Video, Amazon's Netflix-like streaming service. It's mostly older shows and movies, but it has a mix of newer programming, original content, and even a back catalogue of HBO shows. 

Noteworthy original shows that you can't stream anywhere else include "Transparent,""The Man in the High Castle," and "Mozart in the Jungle." You also have access to movies and TV shows.

You can also add subscriptions to Showtime, Starz, and more.

Prime subscribers can add additional video services to their Prime accounts. They're not free, but some are discounted. A subscription to Showtime's standalone service, for example, is regularly $10.99 per month but Amazon discounts it to $8.99.

You'll also get access to Amazon's massive streaming-music catalog.

Amazon Prime also gives you access to the company's streaming-music catalog. It doesn't have the selection that Spotify or Apple Music has, but it's a great perk that's included with Prime, especially if you haven't bought into any of those premium music services that cost $10 a month.

The biggest stars at the Oscars also get the biggest freebies.

At the 2016 Academy Awards on Sunday night, the acting and directing nominees alone will each receive a gift bag worth over $200,000.

If you think that's stunning, check what's in it: a procedure known as the "vampire breast lift," a vaporizer (which should delight Leonardo DiCaprio), and very expensive toilet paper.

It should also be said that because of the size of the items, the recipients would have to pay thousands in taxes if they enjoy them. (They could also donate them to charity.)

Distinctive Assets, the company that puts together the gift bags, known as "Everyone Wins" prizes, sent Business Insider a sampling of what the nominees will find in their bags.

Here's a close-up look at what we saw:

SEE ALSO: Old Oscar photos that show you how glamorous Hollywood used to be

The most curious item is the gift certificate for a "vampire breast lift" worth $1,900. Dr. Charles Runels will use your own blood to, supposedly, rejuvenate your breasts and stimulate cleavage by placing the plasma from the blood directly on the skin.

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Male nominees will be left out of this one, though they can give the breast lift to a "loved one."

These could prove useful for the nominees right away, especially if they make it up to the podium: Dandi patches ($21) that absorb your underarm sweat to keep you looking dry.

Don't worry, these aren't just any M&M's. These $300 Personalized My M&M's come with messages on the chocolates reminding you that you are an Oscar nominee with every bite.

Brie Larson has been working in the industry since she was in diapers, but the star of "Room," just nominated for best actress at this year's Oscars, is just now starting to become a known name among moviegoers.

With her incredible acting talent and cheerful personality, she is on the fast track to the kind of stardom that graced Jennifer Lawrence and friend Shailene Woodley before her.

Get to know more about this rising actress here.

SEE ALSO: 8 TV shows you're not watching that you should be

Brianne Sidonie Desaulniers was born in Sacramento, California, in 1989 and has a younger sister.

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She moved with her mother to Los Angeles during her childhood after her parents separated.

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Brie began acting and changed her last name to "Larson" as her surname was too difficult to pronounce.

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"Are you a coffee lover?" the barista asked as I ordered a $4, 12-ounce coffee from Starbucks Reserve, the company's new upscale store that serves premium coffee — made in the Seattle roastery — at a high price.

The Manhattan location is one of 500 set to open soon. The store features an advanced brewing system, chic furniture and artwork, and exclusive, limited-time coffee for sale.

"This is Starbucks on crack," a recent Yelp reviewer said. I went to the Starbucks Reserve in Manhattan to see what this fancy version of Starbucks is like.

It was a journey to get to Starbucks Reserve in Chelsea. It's located on 26th Street, between 10th and 11th avenues. As I approached the shop, I wondered why it would be situated here of all places in Manhattan. It's not close to any subway or bus stops.

When I entered the store, it all started to make sense — it matched the neighborhood it's in. Chelsea is known for its art galleries, and as I surveyed the scene, it felt more like I was in an art studio that a coffee shop just happened to be in. The walk-down entrance made me feel as if I was entering somewhere exclusive or elite place.

The Starbucks Reserve menu features premium, limited-time blends — which makes it expensive. I was lost on where to start for my order. Thankfully, the barista was very helpful in explaining to me the differences among the blends.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a single mission: to connect people around the world.

It's one reason why he decided to launch a Facebook-based book club last year, with a reading list that focused on "different cultures, beliefs, histories, and technologies."

Although the birth of his daughter, Max, kept him from hitting his goal of a book every two weeks, he ended the year with 23 selections in his A Year of Books reading group.

We've put together a list of his picks and why he thinks everyone should read them:

SEE ALSO: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh shares 4 business books he thinks everyone should read

'The Muqaddimah' by Ibn Khaldun

"The Muqaddimah," which translates to "The Introduction," was written in 1377 by the Islamic historian Khaldun. It's an attempt to strip away biases of historical records and find universal elements in the progression of humanity.

Khaldun's revolutionary scientific approach to history established him as one of the fathers of modern sociology and historiography.

"While much of what was believed then is now disproven after 700 more years of progress, it's still very interesting to see what was understood at this time and the overall worldview when it's all considered together," Zuckerberg writes.

Find it here »

'The New Jim Crow' by Michelle Alexander

Alexander is a law professor at Ohio State University and a civil-rights advocate who argues in her book that the "war on drugs" has fostered a culture in which nonviolent black males are overrepresented in prison, and then are treated as second-class citizens once they are freed.

"I've been interested in learning about criminal justice reform for a while, and this book was highly recommended by several people I trust,"Zuckerberg writes.

Find it here »

'Why Nations Fail' by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

"Why Nations Fail" is an overview of 15 years of research by MIT economist Daren Acemoglu and Harvard political scientist James Robinson, and was first published in 2012.

The authors argue that "extractive governments" use controls to enforce the power of a select few, while "inclusive governments" create open markets that allow citizens to spend and invest money freely, and that economic growth does not always indicate the long-term health of a country.

Zuckerberg's interest in philanthropy has grown alongside his wealth in recent years, and he writes that he chose this book to better understand the origins of global poverty.

Find it here »