Results for “markets in everything” 1895 found
Ski holiday markets in everything
The ski holiday company that is offering to pay parents’ fines for taking children out of school to go skiing has received tremendous support from parents since the promotion went viral.
Lee Quince, the owner of Bedford-based MountainBase, which sells holidays to Morzine in the French Alps, said: “90 per cent of the people who have got in touch have been supportive of what we’re doing.”
It was a fortnight ago an advert called ‘Are Schools in the UK taking the PISTE?’ ran, claiming that the company would pay any local authority fines parents received for taking their children out of school if they booked a holiday in March or April. But it wasn’t until last week the advert was picked up by the national press, reigniting a long running debate about the cost of holidays out of term time.
Mr Quince has admitted his company’s deal encourages parents to break the law, but said he has received a lot of support for the advert.
The company claims it has no choice but to put its prices up by almost 50 per cent during the peak season, which it claims is unfair on customers.
There is more here.
Only Singapore markets in everything
For the pointer I thank Michelle Dawson, citing David Dobbs.
Markets in everything
Horse head squirrel feeder. Who could possibly want such a thing? Is that the result of a fixed point theorem? Aren’t fixed costs God’s way of keeping such nasty stuff away from us?:
You have a Creepy Horse Mask, why not the squirrels in your yard? It turns out it’s even funnier on a squirrel. This hanging vinyl 6-1/2″ x 10″ squirrel feeder makes it appear as if any squirrel that eats from it is wearing a Horse Mask. You’ll laugh every morning as you drink your coffee while staring out the window into your backyard. Now, if only the squirrels would do their own version of the Harlem Shake video. Hole on top for hanging with string (not included).
For the pointer I thank John De Palma.
Markets in Everything: Prostitution for Beginners
The Guardian: An enterprising association of sex workers in Barcelona has angered some of Spain’s most prominent feminists by offering an “intro to prostitution” course in response to what its members say is a growing number of women turning to sex work in the wake of Spain’s financial crisis.
…Four hours was too little time, she said, to cover a list of topics such as dealing with the stigma of prostitution, sex tricks, filing tax returns and marketing. A second day will be held this month because of high demand. “Nobody else can teach these things,” said Borrell. “Not psychologists, anthropologists or political scientists – only prostitutes.”
In related stories, this piece on the legal, mega-brothels of Germany is well produced.
Markets in Everything: Protest Rights
At the Olympics if you want to protest a decision, you must have cash:
The reason that Mathieu — and many other coaches across most Olympic sports — make certain they always have a specific amount of cash on hand is that if they want to protest an official decision during competition, they need more than just a strong opinion and an angry yell.
They also need money.
…Depending on the sport, the fee varies: for luge, it is 50 euros (about $67). Cross-country skiing, like snowboard and Alpine skiing, demands 100 Swiss francs (about $112) but stipulates that all protests must be submitted in English. Bobsled and skeleton are among the most expensive: they require a deposit of 100 euros before any protest will even be considered. If multiple countries want to make a similar protest, sharing the tab is allowed.
Hat tip to the excellent PriorProbability who also points out that if your protest is successful you get your money back so these payments are also protest bets.
Manhattan markets in everything
How much would you pay to poop in private? A new company called Posh is betting the answer is six dollars, alongside a $15-a-year membership fee. Taking a Zipcar-style approach to bathrooms in Manhattan, the service will offer private powder rooms with baby-changing stations and luxury showers in a central Manhattan location. The service also offers lockers where visitors can store their bags, but the core appeal is the bathroom, a crucial respite for small-bladdered tourists without access to other facilities. According to the site, the rooms will be cleaned after each usage, and equipped with touchless faucets and flushers to minimize hygenic concerns. The first facilities are set to arrive in the summer of 2014.
Nonetheless I find this problem to be much less severe than in the New York City of old, perhaps because merchants are less worried about you shooting up drugs in their bathroom.
There is more here, with visuals, and for the pointers I thank Samir Varma and Bill Badrick.
Markets in everything
For only 23,500 euros (who says you can’t take it with you?):
Sweden’s Catacombo Sound System is a funeral casket that eternally plays the deceased’s choice of tracks while they’re six feet under.
Created by Pause Ljud & Bild, the system consists of three different parts. Firstly, users create an account through the online CataPlay platform, which connects to Spotify and enables customers to curate a playlist for their own coffin or get friends and family to choose the tracks when they’re gone. The CataTomb is a 4G-enabled gravestone that receives the music from CataPlay and display the current track — along with details and tributes to the deceased — through a 7-inch LCD Display. Finally, the CataCoffin is where the parted will themselves enjoy two-way front speakers, 4-inch midbass drivers and an 8-inch sub-bass element that deliver dimensional high-fidelity audio tailored to the acoustics of the casket. The video below explains more about the concept…
Of course I want Brahms’s German Requiem, the Rudolf Kempe recording. I am afraid, however, that I (in some form) will last longer than Spotify does.
For the pointer I thank Michael Rosenwald.
Markets in everything, 3-D printed babies
As far as I can tell, this is not from Japan:
The custom lifesize baby figurine is 8 inches (crown to rump). The lifesize baby is so called, because a 23-24 week old fetus is about 8 inches from crown to rump. It comes customized to resemble your baby. Provide between 1 and 5 images of your baby. For best results, include a portrait and a side view image.
Don’t forget the Grandparents. Order more than one 3D Baby and receive 10% off your order by using the Promotional Code LOVE.
Now if only they became taxpayers…
There are good pictures here. These pictures are even better. For the pointer I thank Samir Varma.
Markets in everything: cafes that charge by the minute
Ever felt you’ve overstayed your welcome in a cafe, by reading, working or surfing the web while hugging the latte you bought two hours ago? Pay-per-minute cafes could be the answer. Ziferblat, the first UK branch of a Russian chain, has just opened in London (388 Old Street), where “everything is free inside except the time you spend there”. The fee: 3p a minute.
Ziferblat means clock face in Russian and German (Zifferblatt). The idea is guests take an alarm clock from the cupboard on arrival and note the time, then keep it with them, before, quite literally, clocking out at the end.
The link is here, hat tip goes to Tim Harford and also Ian Leslie.
China/Hong Kong markets in everything
Rich mainland parents are paying thousands of Hong Kong dollars to private investigators to spy on their children studying in Hong Kong, including PhD students and kindergarteners.
Four detective agencies said they handled on average “a few” to “a dozen” week-long investigations for mainland parents every month.
“The number has more than doubled compared to a few years ago,” said Kar Liu, a private eye at Wan King On Investigations.
Philic Man Hin-nam, founder and director of Global Investigation and Security Consultancy, an all-woman detective agency, said that mainland student cases accounted for about 40 per cent of the more than 100 requests made by parents last summer for information on their children.
The majority of family cases were instigated by Hong Kong parents who had reason to fear their children were involved with drugs or being led astray.
“Many mainland students studying in Hong Kong are single children from rich families,” Liu of Wan King On Investigations said. “Those parents attach great importance to their children’s behaviour.”
…Typically, a team of three agents monitor a student, taking photos and reporting back to parents daily.
There is more here, via Mark Thorson.
The increasing velocity of goods is a deflationary pressure (rental markets in everything Average is Over)
Anouk Gillis often sports a pair of organic-cotton jeans she ordered online. But she doesn’t actually own them.
Rather than buying the pants, which retail for around €100 ($135), Ms. Gillis signed a 12-month lease with their designer, the small Dutch fashion label Mud Jeans. The terms: a €20 deposit and monthly installments of €5.
After a year, Ms. Gillis, who is also Dutch, can decide to buy the jeans, return them, or exchange them for a new pair.
“The idea was to make high-quality jeans available to everybody,” said Bert van Son, chief executive of Mud Jeans, which promises to recycle the used jeans into new pairs or sell them secondhand at the end of a lease.
The deal shows how companies are trying to reconnect with Europe’s cash-strapped consumers, who increasingly rely on renting, sharing or even bartering for products and services ranging from clothing to vacations to lawn mowing.
There is more here. For the pointer I thank the man who delivered my morning Wall Street Journal.
Markets in everything
Reverse shoplifting edition, the link is from Japan by the way. As it is explained to me in an email:
Value_Added #240950
(Del Monte whole kernel corn no salt added)2012-Canned corn and receipts
Dimensions variableThe artist takes one canned good to multiple supermarkets and re-buys it. This single can of corn has been re-bought from 105 supermarkets for a total of $113.07. ( as of June1, 2013 )This procedure is possible because the stores have no way to identify individual items: the barcode printed on my can’s label, #240950, refers to its contents, and not to that particular can.
Testicle car markets in everything
Many of us testicle owner/operators have often claimed that we’d happily donate our (usually left) testicle for something, usually some kind of car. So it shouldn’t be so shocking to hear that some loon is actually doing just that. One nut for $35,000. Which he’s using to buy a Nissan 370Z.
As much as I’d like to picture the scene where this ashen-faced man stumbles into a Nissan dealership, plonks a jar with a floating, solitary testicle on the counter, and points to a red 370Z before collapsing, the reality is much more orderly.
The man, Mark Parisi, is donating his nut to a medical research organization for a sum of $35,000.
There is more here, noting that the deal may not survive this publicity. Here is more on Mark:
There are other advantages to being a human Guinea pig: He gets free checkups, which can save him around $700.
Parisi estimates he’s saved more than $150,000 over the past two years by participating in other medical studies, including an Ebola virus study that paid $5,000 a week, the Province Journal reported.
For the pointer I thank Skeptical Scalpel and @hswapnil.
Markets in everything
The words on the website say it all:
Monetize without ads
Let your visitors help you mine Bitcoins
The pointer is from the excellent Ashok Rao.
Markets in everything: paid friends
This account may to some degree be speculative, but here goes:
According to one avid PF [paid friend] employer, ‘Once you’ve had paid friends who don’t argue with you, it’s actually quite hard to go back to real friends.’
The ex-wife of a PF hoarder said ‘many really successful men don’t actually have time for real friends,’ because normal friends ‘are either resentful or bitter or ask for money,’ and that some ‘are often competitive.’
She said that as a result, ‘very rich men have paid friends as an expensive filter, because they can control them.’
If her ex-husband were not wealthy, ‘he’d be sitting all alone in his apartment with a container of Haagan-Dazs and a bottle of vodka,’ she said.
I say why opt for “paid friends” when you can have a $6,000 Vertu smart phone?
The full story is here, hat tip goes to @ArikSharon.