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These Maps Show How The Sequester Is Going To Devastate America

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Jobs lost interactive screenshot

With just two days until the forced spending cuts known as the sequester begin to kick in, Congress appears no closer to an immediate solution to avert the cuts.

In total, the U.S. stands to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of income, but some states are going to be hit much harder than others.

Business Insider looked at data analyzed and compiled by George Mason University, combined it with data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and created these interactive maps and charts that show exactly where the sequester will potentially hit the hardest.

If the sequester kicks in, every single state will take a hit in state GDP.

But some states, like California, Texas, Virginia, and Maryland, have a lot more they could potentially lose.

Check out this interactive map of which states will lose the most GDP dollars in the year after the sequester kicks in:

A darker color indicates a larger dollar loss. GDP loss by state ranges from $222 million, which is what Delaware stands to lose, to $22.67 billion, for California.

California, Texas and Virginia will be the worst hit, with each state losing more than $15 billion in GDP as a result of the sequester.

But when the same amount is expressed as a percentage of that state's GDP in 2011, it's smaller states like The District of Columbia, New Mexico, Maryland and Virginia top the list.

Interestingly, both Maryland and Virgina are pretty high up on the list whether you look at loss of GDP as a simple dollar amount or as a percentage of 2011 GDP.

Sources: George Mason UniversityU.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis



Office and administrative support jobs will be lost more than any other occupation.

Check out this pie chart of jobs lost by occupation (hover over any part of the chart to see how many jobs will be lost):

The second and third types of occupations that will be most affected are protective services and business and finance, according to the report.

George Mason University provided methodology behind how the data was calculated:

"The impacts of the budget cutbacks reported by NAICS Industry sectors were converted to occupational categories by using the national industry-occupation matrix. These are presented...for the direct employment effects for budget cuts."



Virginia, Texas, and California are among the states that will take the biggest hits in job losses.

Check out this interactive map of which states will lose the largest number of jobs in the year after the sequester kicks in:

A darker color indicates a bigger loss in jobs. Jobs lost by state ranges from 225,464 in California to 65 in Delaware.

Once again, on the top of the list are California, Texas, Virginia and Maryland.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Are These The 10 Best Magazine Covers Of The Last 100 Years?

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vogue 1990 kate moss

Kate Moss wearing a crown and scepter. One of Dr. Who's Daleks. Darth Vader.

These are the subjects among the 10 contenders for best magazine cover of the last 100 years, as voted by readers of the Professional Publishers' Association — a British magazine industry group.

You can vote for your favorite to win here, but first take a look at the finalists as selected by the PPA.

This was the February 2012 cover of MacUser.



This was the first-ever cover of Cosmo, from 1972.



This Empire cover from 2005 made a breathing sound — like Vader's mask — when you opened it.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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A Day In The Life Of Star Bloomberg TV Anchor Stephanie Ruhle

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Stephanie Ruhle

Bloomberg TV's sassy, smart, and outspoken Stephanie Ruhle has been on air for a short time, but she already has a loyal following on Wall Street.

Every weekday, Ruhle acts as a foil to her straight-laced co-host, Erik Schatzker on Market Makers. A former banker herself, she's not only known for her easy manner with some of the biggest names in the business, but also for her scoops. It was Ruhle, after all, who harpooned the London Whale.

For all those reasons and more, Business Insider asked her to take us on a tour of her life. Ruhle was kind enough to oblige. The day starts at 5:35 a.m. and does not stop until around 11:00 p.m., or maybe later.

"If I'm lucky 11 p.m. ... I go out a lot at night and usually I return after my kids go to bed," Ruhle told Business Insider. "But if I'm home and try to be disciplined, it usually fails and I get sucked into watching the newest episode of Girls."

We've all been there.

That's my nemesis — 5:35 a.m. alarm clock blaring. With an early morning shoot uptown, there's no room for a loving snooze or two.



Show wardrobe in hand, I race downstairs. I'm already late for my ride up to Bloomberg world headquarters at 59th and Lexington.



Hair and makeup…where it truly "takes a village" and the team was working overtime to get me in gear for a shoot at New York's most luxuuuuuuurious store!



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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The 15 Most Conservative Members Of The Senate

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rand paul israel

Now that we're a few months out from the 112th Congress, it's time for the political ratings season. 

Several influential groups exert pressure on members of congress by telling them that they'll be graded at the end of their term based on how they vote.

The interest groups pick several votes they deem crucial and use them to figure out who is most in line with their vision. 

Some of the most crucial scores come from two major conservative groups — the Club for Growth and the American Conservative Union — and one major publication, The National Journal.

Members often use these scores as feathers in their cap, scoring bragging rights as the most conservative members of their caucus. 

We averaged these three metrics to figure out the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate last session.  

Before we start, here's the methodology each Senator rating used:

The Club for Growth identified 30 votes related to taxes, government spending, and free trade, each weighted for importance. The votes with the highest weights included a bill involving replacing the food stamp program, eliminating sugar import quotas, a farm bill, the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts extensions, and a Russian free trade bill.

The ACU identified 25 bills, all equally weighted, that they considered hallmarks of conservative voting. These included referendums on earmarks, religious freedom, energy subsidies, defense spending, the United Nations and tax cuts. 

The National Journal analyzed 251 "meaningful" votes that identified ideological distinctions. After splitting these into social, economic and foreign issues, they developed a score for each member's liberal and conservative cred. 

We averaged the final 2012 scores from each rating to get the aggregate score. 



15. Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.)

Club For Growth Rating: 71%

American Conservative Union Rating: 92

National Journal Composite Conservative Score: 87.8

Aggregate Score: 83.6



14. John McCain (R-Ariz.)

Club For Growth Rating: 91%

American Conservative Union Rating: 92

National Journal Composite Conservative Score: 73.2

Aggregate Score: 85.4



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Facebook Is Radically Changing How The Tech World Works Behind-The-Scenes (FB)

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mark zuckerberg, disrupt 2012,

It takes a lot of technical chops to run an operation the size of Facebook.

Some 618 million people use Facebook every day and they use it to play games, post news and photos. Consider this: Facebook currently stores more than 240 billion photos.

All told, Facebook will spend $1.8 billion in 2013 on its IT needs mostly on servers, data centers, and infrastructure, it said.

A lot of what Facebook needs to operate its massive web site has never been done before, so It has to invent its own technology. And then Facebook often simply gives away the tech it creates, as open source projects.

Facebook benefits by sharing its tech freely like that. Other companies use it, improve it and share back. Sometimes Facebook doesn't invent a technology, but adopts another open source project and then becomes a major force working on it.

Through all of this behind-the-scenes work, Facebook is slowly, and radically, changing the entire tech scene.

Facebook invented a new way to build computer servers called Open Compute

Facebook's Open Compute Project is revolutionizing the $55 billion server industry.

OCP has created a new type of server that costs less to build and operate and uses fewer materials. More importantly, it's a new way to design servers in a free and open source way.

OCP servers are really pushing the boundaries of server design and creating a new ecosystem of companies who build and sell these servers.

 



Facebook created new kind of database called Cassandra

Cassanda is a noSQL database that Facebook engineers Prashant Malik and Avinash Lakshman developed. Facebook gave it to the Apache Foundation where anyone can use it. 

A noSQL is a new type of database that uses low-cost servers and storage and can work with all kinds of documents.

There are a number of noSQL databases around, but Cassandra is a popular one, used by at Netflix, eBay, Twitter, Reddit, Cisco and many others.



Facebook adopted and pushed the hottest new big data technology: Hadoop

Hadoop is one of the hottest technologies at the core of the big data phenomenon. Facebook didn't create Hadoop (Yahoo did), but it did adopt it, becoming a big role model that convinced others to use it, too.

And then Facebook rolled up its sleeves and became one of Hadoop's biggest contributors.

That lead Facebook to invent other new technologies to improve it, giving those technologies away for free, too.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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I Spent 7 Months Driving The Most Vulnerable Vehicle In The US Military

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Humvee elmo

When it replaced the quarter-ton Jeeps, the Humvee was an amazing leap forward. But the Pentagon never expected the improvised explosive device (IED).

When I got out to Afghanistan in 2004, the Humvee was generally armorless — and guys were welding on any piece of steel they could find to the body to keep from getting blown up and killed.

When the official "Up Armor" program went into full swing in 2005, the final irony proved that the vehicle wasn't able to carry all that additional weight.

One Marine told us, "Our Humvees constantly blow out tires, shocks, tie rods, and ball joints. Last week, we even saw a Humvee whose upper and lower A-Arms were quite literally rolled upward due to the weight."

It's what we had. We made the best of it. And here's what it was like to live with it.

When compared to the Jeep that it replaced, the Humvee was a pretty solid truck, since it was a 'jack of all trades'.



It could be a mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) site against enemy aircraft.



Replace the tires with tank-like treads and you have a truck that's awesome in snow.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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The 10 Happiest States In America

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girls beach hawaii

For the fourth straight year, Hawaii has earned the title of happiest state in America, according to the annual Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index

The Index looks at six categories: life evaluation, emotional health, work environment, healthy behaviors, and physical health (we've highlighted a few in the following slides).

In general, state-level scores remained consistent with the past five years of data. Western and Midwestern states ranked high on the wellbeing index, and Southern states ranking near the bottom, with West Virginia coming in last.

#10 Massachusetts

2011 rank: #14

Life Evaluation: #7

Emotional Health: #43

Physical Health: #22

Source: Gallup Healthways Well-Being Index. Green represents states in the top quintile, blue is second, purple is third, orange is fourth, and red is fifth (bottom).

Gallup's rankings are based on daily interviews with more than 350,000 American adults from January to December 2012.



#9 Iowa

2011 rank: #16

Life Evaluation: #27

Emotional Health:#11

Physical Health: #4

Source: Gallup Healthways Well-Being Index. Green represents states in the top quintile, blue is second, purple is third, orange is fourth, and red is fifth (bottom).

Gallup's rankings are based on daily interviews with more than 350,000 American adults from January to December 2012.



#8 New Hampshire

2011 rank: #9

Life Evaluation: #13

Emotional Health: #24

Physical Health: #20

Source: Gallup Healthways Well-Being Index. Green represents states in the top quintile, blue is second, purple is third, orange is fourth, and red is fifth (bottom).

Gallup's rankings are based on daily interviews with more than 350,000 American adults from January to December 2012.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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13 Beautiful But Creepy Cinemagraph GIFs From The Nicole Kidman Movie 'Stoker'

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Nicole KidmanLast year, we told you how cinemagraphs — GIFs in which only a small part of a still photo is animated, creating an eerie effect — would become the hot new creative vehicle for advertisers.

In March, the new Nicole Kidman psychological thriller "Stoker" will launch, and a huge chunk of its marketing revolves around creepy shareable cinemagraphs and GIFs. Mashable notes that there's already a trailer out on YouTube that consists entirely of GIF imagery.

The Stoker web site itself, though, is more devoted to cinemagraphs.

Here's a selection of them: Give them a few seconds to load on each page.

The movie's marketing concept is "Letters to India," the name of the central character.

Stoker letterdrop_600



This is India.

Stoker closeuphair_600



At the beginning of the movie, India's father dies.

Stoker momfan_600



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Here's The Crazy Plan To Send A Married Couple To Mars

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Mars

Last week, multimillionaire Dennis Tito, 72, announced in a press release that he was planning "a historic journey to Mars and back" in January 2018. 

More details were revealed in a news conference in Washington D.C. on Wednesday, Feb. 27. 

Here's what you need to know.

First, let's meet the brains (and bucks) behind the mission, Dennis Tito. Tito made his fortune as the founder of California-based investment firm Wilshire Associates.



But he's always been interested in space. The tycoon became the first private citizen to visit the International Space Station in 2001.



Tito first flirted with the idea of a manned mission to Mars after coming across a paper, published in 1996, that presented data showing the fastest return trips to Mars, with flight times of a little under a year and a half. The lowest row of four black spots represent those opportunities.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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How Student Debt Tripled In 8 Years, And Why It's Becoming A Growing Economic Problem

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student debt

US student loan debt has soared to $966 billion, nearly tripling from 2004 to 2012, according to new data from the New York Federal Reserve.

The Fed offers five reasons to explain this trend:

  • More people attend college and graduate school
  • Parents take out student loans for their children
  • Students stay longer in college and more often attend graduate school
  • Lower repayment rates as borrowers delay payments through deferments and forbearances
  • Discharging student debt is very difficult and the balance stays with the borrower

Meanwhile, 17 percent of borrowers are now late on their debt payments.  This is up from 10 percent in 2004.

What follows is the Fed's presentation showing the incredible rise of student debt and how it is quickly becoming a big problem.

Student debt is on the rise in all age groups.



It's the only type of debt that didn't fall after the crisis.



Most borrowers carry less than $25k of student loan debt.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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It Makes Complete Sense That Hawaii Is The Happiest State In America

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Punalu'u Beach, black sand beach, Hawaii

For the third year in a row, Hawaii is the happiest state in America, according to the annual poll from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

Hawaii ranked the highest in the nationwide survey in emotional and physical health, and Hawaii residents were most likely to rate their lives highly enough to be "thriving."

Of course Hawaii has spectacular beaches, awe-inspiring waterfalls, and perfect waves just begging to be surfed, but there's more to it than that. Beyond the incredible surroundings, Hawaiians find true bliss in the calm of everyday life.

Aloha Hawaii!

60.7 percent of Hawaiians exercise frequently, the second highest rate in the nation.

Source: Gallup State of the States.



Stand Up Paddleboarding (SUP) was invented in Hawaii in the 1960s. Today it's one of the fastest-growing water sports in the world.




People love the active, outdoor lifestyle. And the weather's nice year-round: the average daytime temperature is 75˚-85˚F.




See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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New York's 10 Hottest Spring Charity Events

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American Museum of Natural History Museum Dance

Attention New Yorkers, it's time to whip out your spring social calendar as gala season is fast approaching. Soon, there will be more fêtes than you can shake a Chanel at.

So which galas should you attend? We've done the work for you, profiling the top ten stomping grounds of the city’s most well-heeled philanthropists.

Whether you’re fighting for the arts, a cure for cancer, a greener New York, or the life of a child, you can raise money for the causes you love and have a fabulous time doing so!

The New York Junior League 61st Annual Winter Ball

When: March 2nd 2013, 7pm

Where:The Pierre

What: First up on the calender is NYJL's 61st annual Winter Ball. As New York Junior League's largest annual fundraiser, this special event honors seven outstanding volunteers. With more than 550 guests attending the black tie gala, you can expect an evening of sartorial standouts. The theme this year is 'Monet at Midnight.'

Go HERE for tickets



School Of American Ballet Winter Ball

When: March 11, 2013 | 7pm

Where: David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center

What: Each year, the School of American Ballet throws their biggest bash in March. Don't be surprised if you find yourself surrounded by tiny, lithe, and extremely gifted dancers, for this glamorous black tie dinner dance is known for its talented guests.

Go HERE for tickets



MoMA 2013 Armory Party

When: March 6, 2013 | 9pm

Where: MoMa's Agnes Gund Garden Lobby

What: Dust off those dancing shoes and get ready to groove all night long when Solange Knowles hits the decks this year at MoMa's Armory Party. The benefit event showcases live music and DJs to celebrate the opening of the Armory show, the marquee international art fair held annually in New York City, devoted to showcasing the most important artworks of the 20th and 21st century. You better be quick though, tickets are selling like hotcakes—a sure sign that this is one party not to be missed.

Go HERE for tickets



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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WALTER ZIMMERMAN: Every Indicator I Follow Shows The Market Is Going To Tank, And There Will Be A New Financial Crisis

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scary cloudy red sky

The stock market is within points of hitting an all-time high.

However, there is no shortage experts who are waving red flags.  Earnings expectations have been falling, profit margins appear to be unsustainably high, and sentiment is so high that it seems investors are being complacent about the risks.

"Every reliable technical tool is warning of major peaking action," said Walter Zimmerman, the senior technical analyst at United-ICAP. "This includes sentiment, momentum, classical chart patterns, and Elliott wave analysis.

"Most of the rally in the stock market since 2009 can be chalked up to the Federal Reserve’s attempt to create a ‘wealth effect’ through higher stock market prices. This only exacerbates the downside risk. Why? The stock market no is longer a lead indicator for the economy. It is instead reflecting  Fed manipulation. Pushing the stock market higher while the real economy languishes has resulted in another bubble.

"The next leg down will not be a partial correction of the advance since the 2009 lows. It will be another major financial crisis. The worst is yet to come."

Zimmerman sent us a brief presentation laying out his thesis.

The rally is slowing in a very bearish way.



Sentiment is far too positive, which means it can quickly turn.





See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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The 12 Best Flea Markets In New York City

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Brooklyn Flea, NYC flea markets

Bargain hunters all over the New York City know where to go to find the best deals on unique vintage and antique items.

They make their rounds to their favorite vendors and see what's new each week, either leaving empty-handed, or grinning ear to ear with a long lost treasure.

We've scouted out the 12 best flea markets in New York that can make anyone an A-list bargain spotter.

Artists & Fleas

Where it is: 88 Tenth Avenue, Manhattan, and 70 Seventh Street, Brooklyn

When it is: Sat. and Sun., 10am-7pm

What you’ll find: Artists & Fleas was co-founded by Amy Abrams and Ronen Glimer. It’s a weekend market with locations in Williamsburg and Chelsea Market that brings together the vintage and the contemporary designed by a number of local artists and designers. You’ll find anything from jewelry to accessories to bicycle parts to home decor.



Brooklyn Flea

Where it is: One Hanson Place, Brooklyn

When it is: Sat. and Sun., 10am-5pm

What you’ll find: While the flea market is usually outside, they move their location to the former Williamsburg Savings Bank at One Hanson Place during the winter. Founded in April 2008, Brooklyn Flea features hundreds of vendors every weekend selling antique and repurposed furniture, vintage clothing, collectibles, and handmade jewelry, art, and crafts by local artisans and designers. They also sell freshly made food.



Chelsea Antiques Garage

Where it is: 112 West 25th Street, Manhattan

When it is: Sat. and Sun., 9am-5pm

What you’ll find: Part of the Annex/Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market (HKFM) triad of markets, the Chelsea Antiques Garage has been open every weekend since 1994. Hundreds of vendors sell their wares on two floors of an indoor parking garage. It may seem a bit sketchy at first when you enter the dimly lit covered garage, but you can find things here that aren’t available anywhere else, which definitely makes it worth a visit.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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The Weird Things Andrew Mason Did As CEO Of Groupon (GRPN)

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andrew mason groupon

Andrew Masonis out as CEO of Groupon.

With the company's stock price in long decline, it's hardly a surprise.

But we'd like to take a look at Mason's weirder, more lighthearted side.

Groupon established itself early on as a quirky, humorous company, and it seems to stem from Mason's own personality.

In this Wall Street Journal interview, he was asked if he's mature enough to run the company. We loved his response:

"I was weird before we were a public company and managed to get it worth whatever it's worth. I'm going to continue doing my thing and work my butt off to add value for shareholders and as long as they and the board see fit to keep me in this role, I feel enormously privileged to serve."

Doing yoga in his underwear.

With no explanation, this 9-minute YouTube video of Mason doing yoga in his underwear in front of a Christmas tree surfaced online.



He planned to present Mayor Bloomberg with a pony.

Vanity Fair reported on Mason's plans to give Mayor Bloomberg a pony as a gift when the mayor was visiting. Mason quickly changed plans when he learned that Bloomberg's daughter had been injured in a horse riding accident.



He wrote a poem on his blog.

You can read his blog here. But here's a little poem about supply and demand:

What does it mean

To a vending machine vendor

If you introduce a new product in a machine

And it is sold out the next day?

It should mean

that the product is very popular

and you should get more.

Not

never get that product again for over 3 weeks.

 



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14 Money Moves That Aren't As Risky As They Seem

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women shoes shoppingSometimes, things in life aren’t always as you might reasonably expect them to be – and many defy all sense of logic.

In the crazy world of personal finance, there are also a lot of moves that people tend to shy away from for any number of reasons, either because they assume them to be questionable or ill-advised, or they go against conventional wisdom. Sometimes, people simply refuse to do them for personal reasons.

Here now are a host of personal finance moves that people often avoid making even though they don’t have to – or really shouldn’t…

1. Renting a home.

Home ownership has its benefits. However, renting makes sense for folks who plan to be in their home for a short time, and/or fear equity loss in a declining market.

Besides, after taxes, the annual cost of owning a home is typically more than the cost of renting. You can calculate the price-to-rent ratio to help determine if renting may be the right decision for you.



2. Using credit cards.

Many people unjustly fear credit cards.

However, when used wisely and responsibly,credit cards provide valuable benefits that cash simply can’t, including consumer protections, cash dividends, and other rewards.

They also help establish and build one’s credit score, which is especially valuable when shopping for long-term credit to buy a home or car.




3. Not paying off the mortgage early.

When it comes to 15- vs. 30-year loans, the conventional wisdom is to strive to pay off the home mortgage as early as possible.

However, not doing so has its advantages too, especially if you’re in a high-inflation environment – or expect one to emerge in the future.




See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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HOUSE OF THE DAY: Top Designer Derek Lam Is Selling His SoHo Condo For $6 Million

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Derek Lam Condo

Derek Lam — the well-known NYC-based designer who has dressed celebrities from Leighton Meester to Diane Kruger — has just listed his SoHo condo for $6 million, according to The Real Deal.

The loft looks out onto Greene Street in the fashionable downtown neighborhood, and is over 2,000 square fee,t with tons of light as illustrated by the listing on the Corcoran Group Real Estate website. It also has three bedrooms, a washer and dryer, gas fireplace, and is even pet friendly.

The Real Deal says property records show Lam and partner Jan-Hendrik Schlottmann, the CEO of Derek Lam International, bought the property for $4.65 million back in 2011.

Derek Lam's condo is right in the middle of New York's SoHo neighborhood on Greene Street.

Source: Corcoran Group Real Estate



The apartment building is seven floors, and comes with a keyed elevator and doorman.

Source: Corcoran Real Estate Group



The interior gets tons of light, and comes with a gas fireplace.

Source: Corcoran Real Estate Group



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10 Reasons We Love Lists

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to-do list

People like lists of things. They're everywhere on the internet. You name any subject matter you can think of, odds are there's a list about it. Nowhere is safe.

Even here, on the Guardian Science section, one of the most popular articles in recent months is a list. But why are lists so popular?

Well, here are 10 astonishing facts about lists that may help explain it.

1. People will tend to remember the first thing on a list

Lists are commonly used as tools for assessing people's memory. Word lists are a typical tool for testing someone's ability to remember and recall items, and can be designed and adapted to analyse a wide variety of human memory abilities.

One of the things uncovered by this sort of research is the primacy effect, meaning people are more likely to remember the first thing they are presented with, due to the way attention works and the demands of memory formation.

So when you try to tell someone about this list, you may end up saying "The first thing on the list was that you're more likely to remember the first thing on the list".



2. The human brain may automatically structure information in list form (although it may not)

Much research has been conducted into how humans store and structure their knowledge and thoughts. Collins and Quillan in 1969 proposed their Hierarchical Network model, where concepts and categories are stored at a certain level in the brain/mind and the properties of these are listed "below" (metaphorically).

However, this view has met with some criticism, mainly based on how human memory or knowledge is rarely shown to be so rigidly organised. Still, it shows how fundamental lists may be.



3. Lists take advantage of a limited attention span

There is an increasingly common view that internet use shortens a person's attention span. While a lot of this is Greenfield-esque paranoia about new technology, evidence suggests our visual attention is attracted to novelty, and on the internet novelty is always only a click away.

There is data to suggest that this is how internet use works, and much of the web is dedicated to exploiting this. Rather than paragraphs of narrative, pushing the limits of a typical attention span, lists offer novelty every few lines, and thus are more likely to avoid the dreaded TL:DR response.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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How To Stay Professional When Things Get Personal At Work

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angry phone annoyed

No one wants to deal with conflict, but in a professional organization, you have to because conflict rarely resolves itself.

In fact, the situation normally escalates negatively if not dealt with proactively and properly, says Katherine Crowley, a Harvard-trained psychotherapist, and Kathi Elster, an executive coach.

In their book "Mean Girls At Work," Crowley and Elster discuss the best ways to deal with different conflict scenarios that happen in the workplace.

PROBLEM: You're given harsh and demeaning feedback

Don't do this:

  • Don't get defensive and fight back.

  • Don't run around saying, "Can you believe what she just said to me?"

  • Don't let them see you crying or getting upset.

Do this:

  • Disarm them by using humor or a neutral response. 

  • Ignore them. When the bully says something harsh, don't respond at all, and don't show (with your face or body posture) that they've hurt you. 

Source: "Mean Girls At Work"



PROBLEM: Rumors are spread about you

Don't do this:

  • Don't counterattack by making up lies about her.

  • Don't enroll your girlfriends to attack her as a group.

  • Don't go to your boss and accuse your colleague of defaming your character.

Do this:

  • It's best to go directly to your lying colleague and let them know that you're onto their game. 

Source: "Mean Girls At Work"




PROBLEM: You're ignored

Don't do this:

  • Don't stand up and walk out of the room.

  • Don't retaliate by cursing at her.

  • Don't say, "I'm obviously not welcome here."

  • Don't rush back to your desk and unfriend her on facebook.

Do this:

  • Calm yourself down and ask the colleague directly what you've done to offend them. It's best to do this in a private setting.

Source: "Mean Girls At Work"



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These Brawling Lawmakers Make The US Congress Look Like Saints

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Politician Fights Turkey

The Senate failed to pass a bill to avoid the sequester Thursday, virtually guaranteeing that massive across-the-board budget cuts will go into effect on March 1, and proving once again that Congress is utterly inept at solving any problems, including those of their making. 

But before bemoaning the Washington's pettiness and gridlock, Americans might want to take a look at the following photos from other capitals around the world.

The package, assembled by Reuters, reveals lawmaker brawls so violent and brutal that our partisan bickering looks positively cordial in comparison. 

A Hong Kong lawmaker hurled a pillow at the Financial Secretary this week to demand universal retirement benefits.

Pro-democracy lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung throws a cloud-shape cushion at Hong Kong's Financial Secretary John Tsang to demand for a universal retirement protection scheme during the annual budget report at the Legislative Council in Hong Kong February 27, 2013. The sign reads "No more nonsense. Setup universal retirement protection scheme now." REUTERS/Tyrone Siu.



In Macedonia, violent brawling broke out in parliament over the 2013 budget. Police in riot gear had to be called in to break up the fight.

Macedonian deputies and members of opposition Social-Democratic Alliance of Macedonia (SDSM) rescue fellow party member Vesna Bendevska (C) during a clash with Parliament security as they try to protect parliament speaker Trajko Veljanovski in Skopje December 24, 2012. REUTERS/Viktor Popovski



The Ukrainian parliament descended into chaos during a debate over voting rights last year.

Parliament members scuffle over voting rules during the first session of the newly-elected Ukrainian parliament in Kiev December 13, 2012. REUTERS/Anatolii Stepanov.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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