In the crossroads where art and commerce intersect, few figures loom as large as Takashi Murakami, the mastermind behind a multimillion-dollar high art empire. Murakami’s indelible impact isn’t just confined to galleries and museums; it extends to mainstream recognition through iconic collaborations in pop culture.Continue Reading

The Stripper Index, named for how it relates the revenue generated by strippers’ cash tips to the financial strain of consumers and the current economic cycle, though it encompasses all forms of sexual labor, has been mostly a joke to economists as they continue to explore different methods of predicting the economy. However, when X user and stripper @botticellibimbo correctly predicted the economic decline in 2022 based on her recent profits at work, economists began to examine the Stripper Index more closely.Continue Reading

Previously, electric cars were viewed as a poor class of vehicles to be looked down upon; with the release of the Model S, Tesla became a “gold standard” of automotive production and served as a model for other automakers to base their cars on. Tesla had beaten every automaker to the jump on stylish, efficient, and powerful cars, and other leaders of the industry were scrambling to compete.Continue Reading

While the Nordic model may not be completely suitable for other countries, or even sustainable in the long-term, it can still inform our understanding of how other regions around the world can be improved. Key ingredients for its success thus far, such as social cohesion and low levels of inequality, are phenomena to study, and potentially emulate, that could benefit individuals worldwide.Continue Reading

Summer 2022 saw another new app come onto the mainstream social media scene: BeReal. Over this summer, the download count on the app store for BeReal jumped from 7.67 million in April of this year to over 53 million by the beginning of October. People were eager to share their exciting, depressing, and mundane summer moments in real-time, and this app offered just the method to do so.Continue Reading

Alongside decreased energy costs, the Ethereum network had several incentives to execute the Merge. One is the introduction of new validators. In the old proof of work system, miners were using natural resources to convert energy into crypto; in proof of stake, prospective validators can use financial resources to produce these securities. Continue Reading

A degree from a vocational school also translated to a high chance of getting a stable job in a factory that provided several benefits and services, such as cash transfers, free food, and free housing. However, unsustainably good working conditions in factories didn’t last long because of efficiency issues within state-owned enterprises; eventually, the wave of privatization in the 1990s ultimately led to the mass closure of state-owned factories and consequently closed many job opportunities for vocational school graduates.Continue Reading