One of the biggest perks of living in a luxury home is the walk-in closet.

Today's walk-in closets, sometimes called "dressing suites," can even have their own fireplace, sofa, and TV.

These 10 really made us drool. And most of these closets are in homes that are currently on the market.

This closet is inside actress Kate Walsh's Los Angeles home. The home is on sale for $4 million.

Click here to see photos of the rest of the house >

'Real Housewives' star Adrienne Maloof's former home had a dressing room just for shoes, complete with a television set. The house just sold for $20 million.

Click here to see photos of the rest of the house >

This house in Aspen has a massive closet. There's a great spot for the lady of the house to apply makeup. It's on sale for $20 million.

Click here to see photos of the rest of the house >

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There's a new most expensive home for sale in Sydney, Australia. For $58.5 million, the estate known as "Mandalay" in Point Piper can be yours.

The house is currently owned by William Webb, a former tobacco company CEO, and his wife Marijke, according to The Herald Sun. The couple bought the home in 2004 for $20 million.

The house has five bedrooms, six bathrooms, and 21,520 square feet of living space. 

Real estate agent Kevin Whelan of Coldwell Banker Double Bay told The Herald Sun he expected a wealthy Chinese buyer looking for a holiday house to snatch up the property.

Welcome to Mandalay, on the tip of Point Piper peninsula.

It's designed like a grand European mansion.

The walls are all white, but the home is hardly plain.

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Ray Allen left Boston for Miami this year but he hasn't picked up and moved his whole family there yet.

Right now, he's renting a place, an amazing place, for $50,000 a month, according to Gossip Extra.

The house has private beachfront property, 9 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, and a beautiful backyard area complete with a pool.

Not bad for a rental.

Here's the front of the house

And the entrance way

The master bathroom is all marble

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Instead of letting snow and ice pile up outside, intrepid hoteliers in Norway, Sweden, Canada and Finland have all sought to make the best of the colder temps with a tourist attraction like no other — the ice hotel.

But these vacation destinations are more than just big igloos. They have world-class restaurants, activities ranging from Northern Lights night-watching to husky snow sled rides, and toasty accommodations despite the 17-23 degree rooms.

Plus, they're well-crafted. All the hotels feature intricate ice and snow sculptures and are built to last, with many standing well into the summer despite the warmer climate.

This is the entrance to the ICEHOTEL in Sweden. It originally started as a design project in Jukkasjärv, Sweden, 22 years ago, but is now one of the most famous hotels in the world.

Source: Business Insider

All the suites are different, like this "Dimensional Journey Suite." Guests also receive warm winter clothes, gloves, and shoes to help them sleep, plus a breakfast buffet and morning sauna.

Source: Business Insider

There's even an Ice Chapel!

Source: Business Insider

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Music has been uniting people and bridging cultures ever since we started banging on rocks, dancing around fire, and blowing through the bones of cave bears 40,000 years ago.

Thousands of years later, you can go anywhere in the world and catch a show by artists in any genre, from soaking in the best symphonic orchestras to shuffling to the hardest electro DJs.

Watch a living legend make history at a sprawling arena concert or discover a local band before they explode out of the underground. From experimental emerging artists to the biggest pop stars in the world, fans have turned the best venues and amphitheaters into international music icons.

So if you’re looking to see a great live show in a completely unique environment, catch a concert at one of Party Earth’s favorite music venues from around the world.

This story was originally published by Party Earth.

Paradiso: Amsterdam

One of the best places to catch Amsterdam events and concerts is at a beautiful 19th-century church that’s been converted into a massive venue and nightclub.

Paradiso attracts some of the biggest pop, rock, and electronic artists in the world and the acts that have graced the stage here read like a history of the Grammy Hall of Fame. Past performances have included rock legends like The Rolling Stones, U2, Pink Floyd, and Metallica, as well as international pop stars like Adele and Lady Gaga.

Weteringschans 6-8
1017, Amsterdam

Columbia Halle: Berlin

While Berlin is crowded with nightclubs and music venues, Columbia Halle stands out from the rest.

With ultra-modern designs and second story balconies to hide away in, this venue brings out thousands of fans for Berlin events and concerts ranging from Gotye to M83 to Snoop Dogg (or Lion, or whatever it is he goes by today).

Columbia Halle boasts some of the best acoustics in Europe and its dazzling lightshows make for a multisensory musical experience.

Columbia Halle—Berlin
Columbiadamm 13-21
10965 Berlin, Germany

Le Grand Rex: Paris

Doubling as an Art Deco style cinema from 1932, Le Grand Rex is also one of the best music venues in the city, as well as its largest.

Crowds pack out the floor for the best concerts in Paris, under a ceiling made to look like a starry night sky. Past performers at Le Grand Rex include musical giants like Wilco, Tori Amos, Smashing Pumpkins, Tom Waits, and Radiohead.

Le Grand Rex—Paris
1 Boulevard Poissonnière
 75002, Paris

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Over 25,000 marchers and 600,000 spectators gathered in Manhattan along 5th Avenue between 25th and 56th St. for this year's Veteran's Day Parade. The New York City event, is the biggest Veteran's Day parade in the nation and is televised nationally. 

This year's theme "United We Stand" held special significance for New York as it continues its recovery from Hurricane Sandy. The National Guard and many veterans have been involved in relief efforts.

The parade this year marks the 200th Anniversary of the War of 1812, and the 150th of the Medal of Honor, and it is also part of the ongoing Department of Defense Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War.

It was a moving day and impressive spectacle.

The parade marches up Fifth Avenue from 23rd St.

City officials and New York politicians lead the march, here is Mayor Bloomberg with Senator Schumer.

Young ROTC members wait near Madison Park to get started.

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Smashburger is growing fast. The "better burger" chain has more than 100 locations nationwide, and plans to double that number soon.

Click here to skip to the photos >

The man behind the concept is Tom Ryan. He's a long-time food exec who's known for his prowess developing new products and marketing programs.

In his past, he worked on big-time items like McDonald's McGriddles and Dollar Menu, Pizza Hut's Stuffed Crust Pizza and Quiznos' Sammies.

Ryan's latest focus is getting beer more integrated into his better burger concept. He's trying to pair craft beer with Smashburger's fare.

"I truly think beer is the new wine," Ryan tells us. He says he's doing it to help distinguish the brand, and that he wants Smashburger to stay at the "cutting edge" of innovation. 

Ryan wants his brand to be seen as consistently ahead of the game — a revolutionary concept that keeps evolving. Smashburger wants to "carry the torch for the modern burger lover." Nothing should be standard.

He's touring Smashburger's various regions to find local breweries to be partners. So far, he has Chicago, Minneapolis, San Diego, New York and Phoenix set, and he's working on Las Vegas, Dallas and Miami.

We stopped by New York City's only Smashburger location in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, for a beer-and-burger pairing event hosted by Ryan.

Smashburger's only location in New York City is in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, on DeKalb Ave. across the street from Long Island University.

You get an upscale feel inside the restaurant — something integral to the "better burger' concept that helps set it apart from traditional fast food.

This is what we're here for — a pairing party.

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Patton Boggs, one of the top lobbying firms in D.C., has released its forecast for what it expects will happen in the nation's Capitol this year now that President Barack Obama has been re-elected.

The forecast tackles the big questions, including who gets the jobs opening up in Obama's Cabinet and what will happen with the fiscal cliff for instance.

Here's what they predict will happen as Obama enters his second term. 

Don't expect a fiscal cliff resolution until after Christmas

The firm says that nothing is probably going to happen on the fiscal cliff until November 26.

Until then, expect posturing and public interactions so the parties can determine the lay of the land. 

The firm writes: 

Attention now will turn to the lame duck session that will formally get underway the week of November 12 but won’t likely get down to business until the week of November 26.

The firm also expects that a solution — which could either be a plan to buy time, or some sort of fiscal deal up front — probably won't happen until after Christmas, cutting this very close to the wire. 

Source: Patton Boggs 2012 Post-Election Analysis

Expect the "Gang Of Eight" to come up with a fiscal cliff proposal loosely based on the Bowles-Simpson Plan

Patton Boggs points out that the Senate's bipartisan "Gang of Eight" has been furiously planning for the fiscal cliff, and has even convened with former deficit commission heads Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to talk about a deal based off their recommendations. 

According to Patton Boggs, the group of four Republican and four Democratic Senators is working on "a framework for a deficit reduction plan comprised of spending cuts, tax reform, and changes to entitlement programs that is reportedly modeled after the $4 trillion proposal the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform." 

Source: Patton Boggs 2012 Post-Election Analysis

... but don't expect it to succeed

The report goes on to observe that "prior 'Gang' proposals have not had a history of success," and that there's no guarantee that the bipartisan group can find some middle ground. 

Via the report:

"In order to reach agreement on such a plan, however, Republicans and Democrats must be willing
to work together and compromise. Leading up to the election, President Obama reiterated his threat
to veto any proposal that does not increase tax rates on the wealthy. [...] Despite his re-election,
the election was too close to be considered a mandate."

Source: Patton Boggs 2012 Post-Election Analysis

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"Skyfall" just saw the highest opening weekend of any James Bond film earning a huge $87.8 million at the U.S. box office. 

However, how much do you know about the secret agent of MI6?

Sure, you may know this isn't REALLY the 23rd film in the franchise, and that Bond's been around for more than 50 years–59 to be exact, but we bet you didn't know Bond was almost a woman on screen.

We read through LIFE's "50 Years of James Bond" to uncover some of the spy's dirty laundry.

The 176-page book details many great tidbits from 007's cars to gadgets, and shares behind-the-scenes photos of creator Ian Fleming and the many Bond men and women.

Here are a few items you may not know about 007.

"Skyfall" isn't technically the 23rd Bond film.

There are 25 James Bond movies in all.

There were two non-Eon production films–the 1967 parody film "Casino Royale" and Sean Connery's "Never Say Never Again" in 1983.

(50 Years of James Bond)

Bond's first appearance was not in the 1962 film, "Dr. No."

Before his theatrical debut, 007 made his entrance in a television episode of Climax Mystery Theater on October 21, 1954.

CBS paid Fleming $1,000 to show the hour-long adaptation of his novel Casino Royale. 

(50 Years of James Bond)

James Bond was nearly Jane Bond.

Producer-director Gregory Ratoff and screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr. found the male James Bond to be unbelievable for the film adaptation of Fleming's "Casino Royale."

Ratoff nearly wanted Susan Hayward to play the role of Jane Bond.

(50 Years of James Bond)

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Last Saturday, we went out the Rockaways in Queens, NY to see how they are faring in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. The area was one of the hardest in the storm and the situation remains bleak. 

Residents we spoke to said power, gas, and heat remained out for many. Though LIPA estimates it may return power to the remaining 80,000 residents without power on Tuesday.

Go straight to the photos >

Nights are cold and dangerous. One man, a veteran who was formerly homeless, told us that some people in his apartment complex were setting off fire alarms to get residents to allow them inside so they could rob them. 

While FEMA and Red Cross as well as a handful of corporations including, LIPA, Chase, and Allstate Insurance are on hand, Occupy Wall Street has also set up a strong operation under the guise Occupy Sandy.

As we followed one person through the day, they sought out the essentials. Basic food items for the next meal, water, a mask to help avoid breathing in the noxious air in many areas, and medicine he needed. 

We stopped at a FEMA center and went past the devastated boardwalk and a ruined main street. 

Buildings have been totally destroyed. One drug rehabilitation home had to be evacuated to a nearby area after the first two floors were flooded during the storm. 

Wreckage blocks many roads and construction workers are still having a difficult time getting around. Streets are still being cleared of sand and rubble.

Many community members have come together to provide food. Kenny Peña, the owner of Suncycle Studios was cooking hot dogs. He turned his store into a donation center. After draining the water and sand.

Some business owners we spoke with said they wouldn't be reopening, the damage was too severe.

Residents were also mixed about whether they would stay. 

And everyone told us we better leave before it got dark.

The situation is grim and until basic necessities like power and gas are restored it is looking to get worse.

If you live or own a business in any affected area in New York or New Jersey and would like to share your story about the storm, relief, and the recovery process including the insurance and aid process please contat the reporter at: dgoodman@businessinsider.com

Traffic getting into the area is intense. The road is filled with volunteers and large trucks. Many from out of state, we saw Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Virginia plates among others.

Rockaway Beach and B 114th St. has been completely decimated.

Whole buildings have been destroyed.

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Even a rudimentary look at probability can give new insights about how to interpret data.

Simple thought experiments an can give new insight into the different ways misunderstanding of statistics can distort the way we perceive the world.

We've selected five classic problems solved in unconventional ways that can help one get a new way to understand the way that data can be misleading and the story on the surface can take people in the wrong direction.

The Monty Hall Problem

Say you're on a game show where there are three doors. Behind two of the doors, there are goats. Behind one of the doors, there is a brand new car.

The host says that once you pick a door, he'll open one of the doors you didn't pick to reveal a goat. Then, you have the option of either staying with your door or switching to the last unopened door. 

Do you switch or stay?

Answer: Switch

This is actually based on a real game show, and the result has been the source of controversy for years. 

Essentially, when you first made the selection, you had a one in three chance of correctly selecting the door that had a car behind it. Switching raised that probability to two in three that you'll select a car. 

Said another way: A player whose strategy is to always switch will only lose when the door they initially selected has a car behind it. A contestant who selects either of the two doors with a goat behind it and then switches will always get the car.

Here's a final way to look at it, provided the contestant selected Door #1

Door 1       Door 2       Door 3      Result if Stay #1     Result if Switch

Car            Goat          Goat         Car                         Goat

Goat           Car           Goat         Goat                       Car

Goat          Goat           Car           Goat                     Car

Source: The Straight Dope

The Birthday Paradox

You run an office that employs 23 people. What is the probability that two of your employees have the same birthday? For the purposes of the problem, ignore February 29. 

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With the elections out of the way, attention has again turned to the fiscal cliff – the over $600 billion in tax and spending provisions set to change on January 1, 2013.

The fiscal cliff has in recent months risen to the top of investor concerns ahead of Europe's debt crisis, the slow economic recovery and China's slowdown.

President Obama has refused to back down from raising taxes on the rich. Republicans on the other hand want broader tax reform and spending cuts, and refuse to raise taxes. Both sides have said they're open to some sort of compromise but a year-end grand bargain is unlikely.

We put together an explainer on the fiscal cliff, its economic impact, the most likely scenarios, the biggest political obstacles, and the companies most impacted

Note: The most likely scenarios are from a Goldman Sachs report that was published this summer.

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Microsoft's Windows boss Steven Sinofsky is out.

It's pretty surprising news because Sinofsky was leading the most important product at Microsoft, and he was thought to be the CEO-in-waiting.

The good news for shareholders is that Microsoft sheds executives like a snake sheds its skin.

We have a list of the top executives who have jump from Microsoft since the start of the Ballmer era and where they've landed.

Paul Maritz: Chief Strategist at EMC, Formerly CEO of VMWare

A lot of Microsoft insiders look back at the departure of Paul Maritz in 2000 as the beginning of Microsoft's brain drain. Maritz was influential in Microsoft's early days, and at one point had control over nearly all Microsoft products, but his duties were gradually reduced after Steve Ballmer became President and later CEO.

In 2008, Maritz became CEO of VMWare, one of Microsoft's most important enterprise software competitors -- VMWare's virtualization software can reduce the amount of hardware and Microsoft software that companies need to run their data centers. He recently became the chief strategist at EMC, VMWare's parent company.

Greg Maffei: Liberty Media CEO

Maffei worked in finance at Microsoft in the 1990s, and was the company's CFO from 1997 through 2000. He left to become CEO of John Malone's cable and media company Liberty Media, where he was reportedly the highest-paid executive in the US in 2009, earning $87.5 million.

Nathan Myhrvold: Intellectual Ventures founder

Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold started at Microsoft in 1986, was one of the closest advisors to Bill Gates, and was instrumental in starting Microsoft Research. He left in 2000 to form IP holding company Intellectual Ventures, which collects patents and then tries to capitalize on them by funding inventions or seeking licensing deals -- for instance, Samsung and HTC recently licensed the entire Intellectual Ventures portfolio to help protect themselves from Android-related IP litigation. He is reportedly still close with Gates.

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Investment strategists at Waverly Advisors are out with the firm's latest client presentation giving a complete update on trading in global markets.

As correlations remain elevated and markets trade in sync, Waverly says, portfolio diversification has become increasingly difficult and it's more important now than ever for market participants to keep a "tactical perspective."

The Waverly presentation looks at recent developments in several global markets and offers some thoughts on where they are likely to go from here.

For more on Waverly Advisors, see here >

Forces are starting to align against the long-term bullish outlook on stocks

But European stocks could be setting up for a strong bounce

In the United States, consumer goods stocks are holding up as good defensive plays

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Many of us struggle to check everything off our to-do lists.

Harvard lecturer Robert Pozen, in his latest book, "Extreme Productivity," outlines the keys to getting things done. "The key to productivity is to achieve results, get more results, and better quality results," he tells us in an interview.

We're sharing 14 of Pozen's best tips from his book so you can learn how to do exactly that.

Thanks to Dr. Pozen for permission to feature his work. 

Rank your priorities by importance, and allocate time accordingly.

Pozen notes a careful difference between which tasks are high priority, which ones are low priority, and how much time you should allocate between them.

Write down all the things you plan to do and organize by weekly targets, yearly objectives, and long-term career goals. Then rank each task by relative importance. In the most productive scenario, you should be spending more time on the higher-ranked ones, and less time on the lower-ranked ones.

Source: "Extreme Productivity"

Know what results you're looking for, and make a beeline for them.

The number of hours of work you put in doesn’t matter nearly as much as achieving the best possible results. If you determine what your final outcome needs to be, it can help you lay out a more efficient plan on how to get there, which actually frees up time.

Always pause halfway to the end to make sure that you’re on track and, if working with others, that you coordinate approaches. If the end goal seems far away or too daunting, set mini deadlines for yourself to make the work more manageable.

Source: "Extreme Productivity"

Ignore 80 percent of emails and requests you receive during the day.

The amount of time you devote to project has to vary based on the importance of your project. Pozen says that doing B+ work on your low-priority tasks is usually good enough.

There’s no need to put in the extra time and effort and focus on all the minute details on these tasks. Pozen even suggests discarding or ignoring 80 percent of the emails and requests you receive, as 80 percent is typically low priority.

Source: "Extreme Productivity"

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Torrential rains and unusually high tide has caused widespread flooding in Venice, Italy, leaving 75 percent of the city under water this week. 

Although high tide, known as Acqua Alta, is common during this time of year, Sunday's water levels reached 5 feet, the sixth highest since records began in 1872. 

See how Venice's old sewer system works > 

Many Venetians and tourists took the opportunity to throw on bathing suits and enjoy a swim in the city's flooded streets and squares — though we're not sure how good of an idea this is. 

The city does not have a complete modern sewage system, meaning its canals are also its sewer system. This poses some obvious health and sanitation concerns.  

An Italian hotelier, whose hotel entrance was flooded, described the health risks to the Sydney Morning Herald. He said: "this is not clean water — you need to mop with disinfectant twice after it goes down."

A video called Venice Backstage describes how the floating city works, including its old sewer system. We've highlighted the main points, but recommend checking out the full documentary to learn more about the city's canals, buildings and history.  

High water, called acqua alta, spills water from Venice's canals onto the streets.

See the full video > 

Although some residents and tourists are making the best of the rising waters, it should pose basic health concerns.

See the full video > 

That's because some parts of Venice still rely on the historical sewer system.

See the full video > 

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Google used to have really embarrassing hiring practices.

It would hardly look at applicants who hadn't gone to an Ivy League school, MIT, Cal Tech, or Stanford.

It also actually used to ask executives and engineers in their mid-30s about their college GPAs.

The worst thing Google HR would do was ask applicants insanely difficult "brain teaser" interview questions.

Gayle Laakmann McDowell, a former Google software engineer and author of The Google Resume, says the company has finally "banned" most of these awful hiring practices.

Of the brain teasers, she says: "If an interviewer were to ask a candidate a brain teaser, despite the policy, the hiring committee would likely disregard this interviewer’s feedback and send a note back telling the interviewer not to ask such silly questions."

How bad were these "silly questions" that Google had to outright ban them? 

Pretty bad.

Seattle job coach Lewis Lin put together a list of 140 questions his clients were asked by Google.  Here are…

How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?

Job: Product Manager

How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?

Job: Product Manager

In a country in which people only want boys…

…every family continues to have children until they have a boy. If they have a girl, they have another child. If they have a boy, they stop. What is the proportion of boys to girls in the country?

Job: Product Manager

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Hindus in India and around the world are celebrating Diwali also known as the festival of lights. 

This is one of the most important festivals for Hindus and is marked by the Hindu calendar. The lights represent the triumph of good over evil and through this festival Hindus worship Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth.

The festival is marked by various rituals, and includes lighting firecrackers and an exchange of gifts. It is also common for public sector employees to go door-to-door asking for a Diwali bonus.

On Dhanteras Indians go shopping for gold jewelry, a tradition that has become hugely important to gold trading.

A potter makes diyas (earthen lamps) for the Hindu festival of Diwali.

Diyas (lamps) light up a field ahead of Diwali. The diyas are lit to signify the triumph of good over evil.

A girl lights divas around a rangoli (a decorative design made on floors) to welcome the Hindu goddess Lakshmi into her home.

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UMKC economist Stephanie Kelton thinks all of the conversation surrounding the fiscal cliff is focusing on the wrong things.

Congressional leaders and the White House are trying to forge a deal between Republicans and Democrats on an agreeable mix of spending cuts and tax hikes that won't have such significant economic effects that it would send the country into recession.

Politicians have dubbed this scenario the "Grand Bargain," and Kelton says it's what everyone wants to see.

However, Kelton says a "Grand Bargain" really just means "austerity," and she says there is an alternative to the "Grand Bargain" that would put people back to work, upgrade U.S. infrastructure, and put the American economy on a better trajectory in the long term.

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Some people say America's "small towns" are a dead concept, that mom-and-pop stores are a thing of the past, and that quintessential neighborhood relationships aren't built for the 21st century.

Map publisher Rand McNally and USA TODAY are rebutting that notion. They partnered up to compile a list of the best small towns in America, asking people to vote on factors including friendliness, food, and beauty.

So if you're in a mood for a trip, and New York, LA, and Chicago aren't quite your style ...

#10 Tybee Island, Georgia

Population: 2,990

Closest major highway: U.S. 80

Tybee Island, located on Georgia's coast right near the South Carolina border, is known for its relaxing, laid back atmosphere, great seafood, and breathtaking views — 272 of its 499 votes were awarded in the "Most Beautiful" category. 

The island has centuries-old historical monuments, notably the Battery Garland of Fort Screven — which was used in the Seminole War (which is also known as the Florida War).

Source: Rand McNally and USA Today, 2012 Best Small Towns in America and U.S. 2010 Census

#9 Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

Population: 4,781

Closest major highway: Interstate 476

Just a couple hours away from New York City and Philadelphia lies Jim Thorpe, ranked number nine. A stunning 442 of its 510 votes came in the "Most Beautiful" category. Many come to take in the sights provided by Flagstaff Mountain and the Lehigh Valley, and use the beautiful setting to enjoy outdoor activities and sports.

Source: Rand McNally and USA Today, 2012 Best Small Towns in America and U.S. 2010 Census

#8 Cloudcroft, New Mexico

Population: 674

Closest major highway: U.S. 82

Aptly named, Cloudcroft sits 9,000 feet above sea level, and boasts great winter sports for visitors. It's charming, fun, and quaint. The Lodge Resort, a local treasure, offers plenty of activities, and the town even has its own Opera company. Like Jim Thorpe and Tybee Island, Cloudcroft's ranking is due to its beauty — it received 405 "Most Beautiful" votes.

Source: Rand McNally and USA Today, 2012 Best Small Towns in America and U.S. 2010 Census

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