• America Is Overrun With Bathrooms
  An ode to the North American bathroom. Interesting to think about the cultural impact of this because you don’t really realize it is an issue.

  You might think that we have already reached Peak Bathroom. But the super-rich have other ideas. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported on a Bel Air, California, home that listed for $49.9 million. It featured eight bedrooms—and 20 bathrooms. By any rational assessment, this is a ludicrous use of money, space, and plumbing. But the U.S. housing market is rarely restrained by rationality. Indeed, the share of houses with 10 or more bathrooms has doubled in the past decade. It would seem that the richest 0.01 percent of Americans are spending down their fortunes in an arms race for toilets.

• This Boy From Mumbai Became the World’s Unlikeliest Crossword King
  Crossword King is hyperbole, but it is true that crosswords are actually deeply rooted in culture and hard for non-Americans to break into (also I never realized Crosswords were so firmly rooted in the US).

  “I would say he is very rare,” Will Shortz, the legendary crossword editor at The New York Times and director of the annual crossword tournament, wrote in an email. Shortz confirmed that, with the exception of American-born expats, and puzzlers who were born elsewhere but raised in the U.S. or Canada, no other non-North American has ever had a puzzle published in the Times.

  “It is difficult for a non-American to make – or even solve – American crosswords, because they’re so full of American culture,” Shortz says. “You would have to understand American life and society and English as Americans speak it in order to master our puzzles.”

• How Fast Food Reveals Secrets of the Economy
  Economists use food as a measure of how the country is doing? Surprise, surprise.

  In 1980, a New Yorker called Eric Bram noticed that the price of a slice of pizza had matched the cost of a subway ride in the city for nearly 20 years. More recently, commentators have noticed that as the cost of pizza goes up, transit fares often follow. In 2014, data scientist Jared Lander investigated the principle and found that it remains in place. Why is this so? Nobody knows.

• Doing Western students’ homework is big business in Kenya
  It’s easy to read about the effective of buying essays for students, but have you ever wondered what the business is like for those writing the essays?

  Two years ago, Philemon bought an account for $800 — about 80,000 Kenyan shillings. The account was well-established with more than 200 completed homework assignments and a high rating. The account gives Philemon a better chance at bidding on more expensive, highly rated or more rigorous homework assignments, and allows him to subcontract out the work.

• How Under Armour Lost Its Edge
  I never connected with the Under Amour brand. Somehow it just didn’t seem cool to me. Now, even knowing that they were technical-focused, it hasn’t change my opinion on them.

  From its early days, Under Armour made its mark as a tech-focused sports apparel company. It didn’t just make clothes for athletes; it made clothes that aimed to improve their performance. Beginning with its first product, a T-shirt that wicked away sweat, Under Armour redefined the category, from its HeatGear and ColdGear fabrics in the late 1990s to, more recently, sleepwear intended to help athletes recover from a big game.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: economics, pocket