Results for “markets+in+everything”
1801 found

Markets in everything, Korean opening bid edition

“We will continue to do what we can as a company to solve the low birth issue,” Lee Joong-keun, the chairman of Booyoung Group, a Seoul-based construction company, said last week after awarding a total $5.25 million to his employees for 70 babies born since 2021.

Both male and female employees at Booyoung are eligible for a $75,000 payout each time they have a baby — no strings attached.

Here is the full story.

Wisconsin DEI markets in everything

In a deal months in the making, the University of Wisconsin System has agreed to “reimagine” its diversity efforts, restructuring dozens of staff into positions serving all students and freezing the total number of diversity positions for the next three years.

In exchange, universities would receive $800 million for employee pay raises and some building projects, including a new engineering building for UW-Madison.

“This is an evolution, and this is a change moving forward,” UW System President Jay Rothman told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “But it does not in any way deviate from our core values of diversity (and) inclusion.”

Here is the full story, via HB, it is rare that the real world is actually so Coasean.

Markets in everything those new service sector jobs

The video, posted by the 39-year-old Tampa resident under her stage name Roxie Rae, is one of dozens on Clips4Sale, an adult-video-sharing website where content creators cater to all types of sexual fetishes, including one that is rarely discussed outside of niche kink circles: political humiliation. There are people who get turned on by the idea of having their political views mocked, usually (but not always) by members of the opposing political group. Liberals desire being dominated by conservatives and called pejoratives that imply they are weak and unintelligent, while conservatives want to be mocked for supporting former president Donald Trump, among other perceived transgressions, according to those who participate in this subculture.

Here is the full Washington Post article by Hallie Lieberman.

Expensive markets in everything

…testimony in the trial revealed that Google spent a total of $26.3 billion in 2021 to be the default search engine in multiple browsers, phones, and platforms.

That number, the sum total of all of Google’s search distribution deals, came out during the Justice Department’s cross-examination of Google’s search head, Prabhakar Raghavan.

$18 billion of that goes to Apple.  Here is the full story.

Rome markets in everything

Just down the Via di Ripetta, in the heart of Rome, the freshly unveiled Bulgari Hotel Roma, with hallways showcasing jewels, has a premier one-bedroom suite overlooking the Mausoleum of Augustus. It costs 38,000 euros, or about $41,000, a night.

At least at the upper end, is Rome making a comeback?:

Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, says the hoteliers are perfectly sane, and know a future good thing when they see it. He points to better restaurants, restored museums, new ones in the works. Post-pandemic tourists have made Rome a prime destination, though he allows that the spritz-thirsty hordes settling in Airbnbs are a threat to the city’s soul.

Here is more from the NYT.

Markets in everything, hockey romance edition

Before last week, many people may not have known about the existence — or exceptional popularity — of hockey romance novels. But the subgenre captured mainstream attention when an NHL player and his wife called on readers to stop sexually harassing him.

Allow me to explain: A sizable portion of BookTok, a book lovers’ community on TikTok, is devoted to romance. Creators share spicy reading recommendations throughout the genre, including hockey romances. When it comes to posts about this particular category of romance novel, quotes from books will appear on top of video edits of real NHL players, sometimes doing suggestive groin exercises on the ice.

Posters gravitate to players who remind them of their favorite book boyfriends, and one popular choice is Seattle Kraken center Alex Wennberg. His team initially courted BookTok with posts and hashtags in the same style, and flew out a popular creator for a playoff game…

Within the subcategory of sports romance, hockey dominates. Right now, all 10 of the top sports romances on Amazon involve hockey.

Here is the full story.

Sort of Middlebury markets in everything

Middlebury lacks sufficient housing for all the students planning to attend this fall. After exhausting other options, the college plans to pay 30 students $10,000 each to stay away.

Clever idea, but I’m sure you all noticed the “After exhausting other options” clause in there.  Here is from the rest of the story:

But the nonresidential buildings could not be renovated in time to add necessary safety features, and the college decided not to house students at Bread Loaf due to the logistics of running a satellite operation, as well as negative feedback from students who had lived there earlier in the pandemic and said they’d felt isolated from the main campus.

I say Granny Flats and beans!  It is not for long, so let the learning continue.  The article does not discuss the stance of the town of Middlebury, but as it is an exclusive village of about 9,000 I can take a wild guess…

Markets in everything those new service sector jobs body doubling edition

Consultant Micha Goebig scrolled through her phone to find receipts and bill clients while on her home computer on Friday afternoon. Nine strangers quietly watched her on a video link while also doing their own solo work.

The small group was gathered online by Flow Club, a subscription service that says it can help home-based workers stay on task and be productive by quietly working in tandem. The online session was built around body doubling, a productivity strategy gaining traction among remote and hybrid employees who say they get more done if others are looking on.

Body doubling, initially adopted by and coined by ADHD therapists, is one of several ways that workers are trying to regain focus and accountability when they aren’t working under the watchful eyes of bosses and colleagues in the office. A number of companies have sprung up to offer what they say is positive peer pressure that can boost productivity.

Here is the full WSJ piece, interesting throughout.  Via the excellent Samir Varma.

Markets in everything those new (Japanese) service sector jobs

Certain tech bosses are notoriously temperamental – so much so that conflict-averse folks have been known to put in their notice while the execs are on leave. But some Japanese employees have taken this a step further – actually employing an agent to quit their job for them.

The idea is to extricate themselves from delicate scenarios where they feel bullied to stay on board or are otherwise unwilling to leave for fear of being accused of “betraying” the corporation.

In a country renowned for its ultra conservative culture and hierarchical structure, those in the workforce who jump between jobs can be perceived as quitters, with all the shameful connotations attached to that branding.

Step forward the taishoku daiko – or “job-leaving agents” – that emerged in recent times to aid those who simply cannot tell their boss they’re off to pastures new.

Here is the full article, via the excellent Samir Varma.

Markets in everything Alaska regulatory arbitrage edition, tribal qualifier added

The shrinking village of Karluk, on the western shore of Kodiak Island, is trying to keep its school viable. So it’s willing to pay a couple of families with three or four children apiece to move there of a year, so that it can draw down state education funds.

Public schools in Alaska need to maintain an enrollment of 10 students to get state funding. Karluk, which had a population of 37 during the 2010 U.S. Census, is now down to about 21 people. The demographics are Native American: 82.14%; two or more races: 17.86%; White: 0%; Black or African American: 0%.

Karluk Tribal Council’s ad says that it will pay a couple of families with enough kids — three or four — to move to the village, all expenses paid, for a year, and will even provide jobs. That money, without question, is passed through from the U.S. and State taxpayer, to pay families so that the village can draw down more government money and open its school.

If this were any other kind of enterprise other than a tribe, these definitions for acceptable applicants would be considered a federal equal opportunity violation. But this is a tribe.

Here is the full story, including means for contacting the village.  Via Martin Kennedy.

Tiny markets in everything

A minuscule handbag measuring just 657 by 222 by 700 microns (or less than 0.03 inches wide) sold for over $63,000 at an online auction Wednesday.

Barely visible to the human eye, the fluorescent yellowish-green bag is based on a popular Louis Vuitton design — though it is the work of a New York art collective, not the luxury label itself.

Dubbing its diminutive creation “Microscopic Handbag,” the Brooklyn-based group MSCHF claims the bag is narrow enough to pass through the eye of a needle and is smaller than a grain of sea salt (though that may depend on how coarse you like your salt).

The object was made using two-photon polymerization, a manufacturing technology used to 3D-print micro-scale plastic parts. It was sold alongside a microscope equipped with a digital display through which the bag can be viewed.

There is a (blown-up) photo at the link.  Via Anecdotal.

Korean markets in everything

One restaurant in Seoul rose to notoriety after “politely declining” people over 49 (on the basis men of that age might harass female staff), while in 2021, a camping ground in Jeju sparked heated debate with a notice saying it did not accept reservations from people aged 40 or above. Citing a desire to keep noise and alcohol use to a minimum, it stated a preference for women in their 20s and 30s.

Other zones are even more niche.

Among those to have caused a stir on social media are a cafe in Seoul that in 2018 declared itself a “no-rapper zone,” a “no-YouTuber zone” and even a “no-professor zone”.

Here is the full story, via Arpit Gupta.

Neanderthal bone markets in everything?

Did Neanderthal produce a bone industry? The recent discovery of a large bone tool assemblage at the Neanderthal site of Chagyrskaya (Altai, Siberia, Russia) and the increasing discoveries of isolated finds of bone tools in various Mousterian sites across Eurasia stimulate the debate. Assuming that the isolate finds may be the tip of the iceberg and that the Siberian occurrence did not result from a local adaptation of easternmost Neanderthals, we looked for evidence of a similar industry in the Western side of their spread area. We assessed the bone tool potential of the Quina bone-bed level currently under excavation at chez Pinaud site (Jonzac, Charente-Maritime, France) and found as many bone tools as flint ones: not only the well-known retouchers but also beveled tools, retouched artifacts and a smooth-ended rib. Their diversity opens a window on a range of activities not expected in a butchering site and not documented by the flint tools, all involved in the carcass processing. The re-use of 20% of the bone blanks, which are mainly from large ungulates among faunal remains largely dominated by reindeer, raises the question of blank procurement and management. From the Altai to the Atlantic shore, through a multitude of sites where only a few objects have been reported so far, evidence of a Neanderthal bone industry is emerging which provides new insights on Middle Paleolithic subsistence strategies.

That is from a new paper by Malvina Baumann, et.al.  Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.