Results for “markets in everything” 1895 found
Markets in everything
The tables have turned on zoo-goers in China — where people are paying to be locked in cages while hungry lions and tigers stalk their every move.
The Lehe Ledu Wildlife Zoo in Chongqing city is giving people the hair-raising chance to learn what it’s like to come face to face with an apex predator, Central European News reports.
Visitors are forking over their cash to be caged inside the back of a truck as it makes its way through the animal park. Just to make sure they get the attention of the beasts, huge chunks of raw meat are tied to the bars to lure them as close as possible.
“We wanted to give our visitors the thrill of being stalked and attacked by the big cats but with, of course, none of the risks,” said zoo spokeswoman Chan Liang. “The guests are warned to keep their fingers and hands inside the cage at all times because a hungry tiger wouldn’t know the difference between them and breakfast.”
The chilling, once-in-a-lifetime experience has been a hit with visitors — the trips have been sold out for the next three months, according to CEN.
The link is here, via NinjaEconomics. Elsewhere, in New York they are banning the tiger selfie, with or without huge chunks of raw meat. Yet also in New York, Tough Mudder has added tear gas to some of its obstacle routines, via Hugo Lindgren.
Modal markets in everything
Accrington Stanley, who would have faced Manchester United in the FA Cup third round had they beaten Yeovil in the previous round, are selling commemorative tickets for the game that will never happen for £20.
The article does not specify which means of payment they will accept.
The pointer is from Simon Koppel.
Markets in everything, spas for seven year olds
“I feel like the best princess in the world,” said Paige, who celebrated her seventh birthday at Sweet and Sassy, a national chain of spas that boasts that its cosmetologists are specially trained to work with children. After the beauty treatments, Paige and her guests walked down a red carpet and disappeared into a hot pink limousine, which took the squealing children on a spin around the parking lot. One 6-year-old guest documented the revelry in a series of selfies.
The rest of the article won’t make you feel better about…anything.
Iranian markets in everything
Iran has been hit so hard that its government, looking for ways to fill a widening hole in its budget, is offering young men the option of buying their way out of an obligatory two years of military service. “We are on the eve of a major crisis,” an Iranian economist, Hossein Raghfar, told the Etemaad newspaper on Sunday. “The government needs money badly.”
There is more here, mostly on how falling oil prices have affected other countries.
Darryl Strawberry auction markets in everything
The Internal Revenue Service is putting outfielder Darryl Strawberry’s retirement annuity on the auction block next month.
The annuity, seized by the IRS because Strawberry owed back taxes, was part of a contract he signed in 1985, back when he was slugging home runs for the New York Mets.
The annuity will be worth about $1.3 million, to be paid out over nearly 19 years, when it goes up for sale on January 20, according to court documents.
The starting bid is $550,000.
There is more here, and for the pointer I thank Zachary Klein.
Chocolate vacation markets in everything
Lucy Kellaway of the FT reports that “food, activities and even spa treatments are chocolate-themed,” here is one description from another source:
A dessert island fantasy, Boucan by Hotel Chocolat in St Lucia seems made for chocolate lovers. The jungle-surrounded hilltop lodges – with views of the Caribbean Sea and Petit Piton peak – perch beside a cacao plantation that hosts classes and tours, with plenty of samples. The ultra-local restaurant serves some of the island’s best food, including chocolate in both sweet and savoury preparations. Though the hotel natural setting is relaxing enough to help you forget it all, cocoa is rarely far from mind: the superlative spa even uses homegrown pods in its massage treatments.
That link is here, a full set of links is here. For breakfast they serve chocolate tea and chocolate muesli, and for dinner the tuna steak is cooked over bitter chocolate.
Markets in everything: discomfort furniture
Sitting for longer than four hours a day increases a person’s chance of suffering chronic disease.
Now, inspired to address the lack of physical activity in modern work life, one French designer believes he might have created the answer.
With just two legs, the ‘Inactivite’ chair relies on the user engaging the muscles in their core to keep it upright.
Benoit Malta, the man behind the creation, said he wanted to encourage movement for those office workers who spent around 70 per cent of the day sitting down.
There is video and further description at the link, and for the pointer I thank Mark Thorson.
Social network Swedish markets in everything
You need only 2,000 Facebook friends:
You’ve heard of internet celebrities getting paid to mention a product in a tweet or shoot out an Instagram with a brand in the shot. Now a hotel in Sweden is taking social media marketing to a new level by offering a free stay to anyone with a serious online following.
In the words of Stockholm’s Nordic Light Hotel, it “accepts personal social networks as currency.”
Anyone with more than 2,000 personal Facebook friends or 100,000 followers on Instagram gets a free seven-night stay at the luxury hotel, which usually costs $360/night. All you have to do is post when you make the reservations, when you check in, and when you check out, all with the requisite hotel tags. (“If the guest does not shares the posts that are necessary to take part of the discount/ free nights, the guest will be charged full price for the stay,” the hotel warns.)
The full article is here, and for the pointer I thank Bryan Lassiter, a loyal MR reader.
Young Matt Dillon markets in everything
In Matt Dillon’s case, he would often look in the wrong direction. I would tell him that on the screen he would be looking in the right direction, even though it felt wrong when he was shooting it. Trying to explain this to a 14-year-old kid who was already suspicious about the whole thing wasn’t easy. So I’d put a $20 bill on my forehead, and I’d say, “Matt, if you look at this $20 bill, it’s yours when the shot is finished.” Over the course of the movie he made about $200.
There is more (too much more) here, and for the pointer I thank Hugo Lindgren.
China political surgery markets in everything
This passage is from Gao Wenqian’s Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary:
Doctors in China could not conduct major medical procedures on top leaders without the approval of the Politburo Standing Committee. Such was the long-standing rule. Thus, in 1975, Deng Ziaoping and Marshal Ye Jianying, leaders among the old CCP cadres who had generally despised the Cultural Revolution and had shown little enthusiasm for the political style of the mercurial Jiang Qing, now had to negotiate emergency surgery for Zhou Enlai with her allies Wang Hongwen and Zhang Chunqiao. For once, these tough political adversaries managed to see eye-to-eye. They all gave their consent to surgery and sent their decision to Mao, who always had the final say.
Zhou Enlai had four operations before dying of cancer. For the last two operations, however, Mao instructed the doctors to tell Zhou that in fact he was being cured and the tumors were removed. He ceased to believe that when the unbearable pain arrived.
Solo dining markets in everything
A new pop-up restaurant in Amsterdam, which bills itself as the world’s first for solo eaters, aims to remove the social stigma of forking dinner without a companion. In fact, there isn’t a two-top in the joint.
…“The taste of persons eating alone seems different, and even more intense, according to our guests,” says Marina van Goor, owner of the temporary eatery, which is called Eenmaal. As such, the chef takes care to serve four-course meals (at a moderate €35, or roughly $48, including drink) prepared from quality local and organic ingredients. Even the interior is left intentionally raw and no-frills, to emphasize the simple pleasure of unapologetically eating alone.
Nor do they offer Wi-Fi, there is more here., via Sendhil Mullainathan.
Markets in everything: de-naming rights and re-naming rights (Coase vindicated)
Since its adolescence more than four decades ago, the New York Philharmonic’s home at Lincoln Center has been known as Avery Fisher Hall. Now, as the orchestra prepares for a major renovation expected to cost more than $500 million, the Fisher family has agreed to relinquish the name, so the Philharmonic and Lincoln Center can lure a large donor with the promise of rechristening the building.
…Lincoln Center is essentially paying the family $15 million for permission to drop the name and has included several other inducements, like a promise to feature prominent tributes to Avery Fisher in the lobby of the renovated concert hall.
While the ability to raise money through naming opportunities has become a staple tool for arts organizations, perhaps no event speaks louder to its utility as a fund-raising mechanism than Lincoln Center’s willingness to pay a veteran donor to step away so it can court a new benefactor in his stead.
The full story is here.
Kansas apocalypse markets in everything
The best defense is sometimes…a good defense:
When Tyler Allen agreed to fork over $3 million in cash for a luxury condominium near Concordia, Kan., he wasn’t attracted by the indoor swimming pool, 17-seat movie theater, or hydroponic vegetable garden.
The real selling point of the 1,820-square-foot apartment: It will be buried 174 feet underground in a decommissioned missile silo sturdy enough to withstand a nuclear attack.
…The so-called Survival Condo complex boasts full and half-floor units that cost $1.5 million to $3 million each. The building can accommodate up to 75 people, and buyers include doctors, scientists and entrepreneurs, says developer Larry Hall.
The development is sold out. I found this bit interesting:
…the complex has enough emergency food on hand to last for up to five years. There’s also a holding cell for unruly occupants.
The full story is here.
China ghost markets in everything
Two officials in China’s southern Guangdong province were arrested after it emerged that they had bought corpses from local grave-robbers and had them cremated in a bid to fulfill state-mandated quotas for such funeral practices. The incident is yet another reminder of the awkward tension between Beijing’s edicts and entrenched traditions in parts of rural China.
The arrested duo were officials responsible for local funerary practices, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. One allegedly paid a grave-robber $489 each for 10 exhumed corpses. The officials needed to meet expected quotas for cremations reported in their jurisdictions (towns that state media has not specified). Many locals entomb their kin in secret to skirt state laws regarding burial, which probably made the officials’ job rather difficult.
“Pushed to meet their quota, the two officials sought to purchase the corpses and send them to funeral parlour for cremation,” Xinhua reported.
And here is a rather vivid two paragraphs:
Body-snatching is, therefore, a lucrative, illicit business, involving bribe-taking local officials who look the other way, specialists capable of dressing up cadavers, and middlemen willing to connect desperate families to organized rings of grave-robbers and body-snatchers.
The practice of burying “ghost brides” also remains very much in the headlines. The old ritual involves burying a deceased young female alongside a dead bachelor, so the male will not be without a companion in the afterlife.
There is more here, and for the pointer I thank Michael Rosenwald.
Kyoto markets in everything the culture that is Japan
Kyoto-based company Cerca Travel has set up a service providing all the glamor of a wedding without any of the commitment in what they call a “Solo Wedding.” That’s right: women can now have the full wedding day experience without actually having to get hitched.
A Solo Wedding is a two-day excursion where clients spend the night in a hotel as they go in for dress fittings, bouquet design, hair and make-up, and even a full photo shoot. Each of these services is handled by a professional in the industry and done with the same level of quality and attention to detail as a real wedding ceremony.
When she’s all done up, the tour coordinator will take the solo bride to some beautiful Kyoto backdrops which complement her appearance for a commemorative photo shoot. If wedding dresses aren’t your cup of champagne, Cerca Travel can also set you up with one of the many other historical dress-up tours around Kyoto such as putting on Geisha make-up and clothes. There is also an option to have a decorative man between the ages of 20 and 70 to pose alongside you, but reportedly none of the 10 women who have enjoyed the Solo Wedding experience since Cerca began offering it in June this year have opted to do so, instead focusing on making the day all about them.
The article also offers some customer testimonials. That is via the excellent Adam Minter, here is Adam’s excellent recent piece on having children in China.