The Fraught Business Of Removing And Selling Street Art Murals
Sales of street art murals in general are divisive. Artists often object to the transformation of a work they created for public enjoyment into an art object to be bought and sold. Banksy mural sales in particular attract protest.

Motorized Photographs Of Sunset Blvd. And Other L.A. Streets
Commissioned by The Getty Museum to the painter, draftsman, photographer, and bookmaker, Ed Ruscha. Utilizing The Getty Research Institute’s preservation and digitization of over a million images from Ed’s Streets of Los Angeles photo series, and excerpts from Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road.”

Credit Card Companies Are Tracking Shoppers Like Never Before
Transactions have given rise to a complex data-selling ecosystem. At the heart of it are credit card processing networks, including Visa, American Express, and Mastercard, the latter of which took in $4.1 billion in 2019 for services that include marketing analytics as well as fraud detection.

The Decoy Effect: How You Are Influenced To Choose Without Really Knowing It
The decoy effect is defined as the phenomenon whereby consumers change their preference between two options when presented with a third option – the “decoy” – that is “asymmetrically dominated”. It is also referred to as the “attraction effect” or “asymmetric dominance effect”.

The Most Common Type Of Incompetent Leader
Research shows that absentee leadership is the most common form of incompetent leadership. Absentee leaders were promoted into management, and enjoy the privileges and rewards of a leadership role, but avoid meaningful involvement with their teams.

Lifetime Free 1st Class Air Travel Pass: A Disaster
In 1982, American Airlines had an idea to offer a lifetime free first-class air travel pass to its wealthiest customers. The person holding this pass could fly on American Airlines at any time it wanted, to any destination it wanted, for as many times it wanted, for the rest of its life after paying a one-time fixed membership fee.

The 10/10/10 Rule For Tough Decisions
It’s good to sleep on it when there are tough choices to make, but you also need a strategy once you wake up–which is why you should employ the 10/10/10 rule. How will we feel about it 10 minutes from now? How about 10 months from now? How about 10 years from now?

Beyond The Growth Gospel
The Hotel Belvédère du Rayon Vert symbolizes the very empire these adherents of “degrowth,” as the movement is known, wish to overthrow: consumption, wealth, inequality, travel, and cement, the whole modern industrial condition.

These Pics Are Composed Of As Many Pixels As There Are Animals Still Alive In These Species
A brilliant 2008 campaign by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has been resurfacing. The campaign, called WWF Japan – Population by pixel, was created by the agency Hakuhodo C&D / Tokyo. Inspired by their work, Imgurian JJSmooth44 made a follow-up to their project and it’s just as powerful as the original.

How The “IKEA Effect” Explains Today’s Startups
Having customers do most of the work, feel great about it, and at the same time perceive they have attained value for their money is the Holy Grail in business. Ikea gets it–and so do many of today’s hottest startups.

The Dark Side Of Electronic Waste Recycling
Electronics can be hazardous when disposed of improperly, and the Basel Action Network, or BAN, investigates the underground world of the e-waste trade. The nonprofit group secretly embeds trackers in discarded devices, then hands them to recyclers to see where they end up, exposing bad practices in the process.

How Netflix Turned Bill Clinton’s Impeachment Into A Growth Hack
The reason we might all be using Netflix today could have a lot to do with a marketing stunt involving the grand jury testimony that got Bill Clinton impeached. Netflix’s wild bet on political scandal succeeded in almost every single way a story like this possibly could.

LEGO Launches Braille Bricks For Children To Learn Braille
At the Sustainable Brands conference in Paris, the LEGO Foundation and LEGO Group announced their new project to help blind and visually impaired children learn braille through custom LEGO Braille Bricks.

William Eggleston’s Colorful Photographs Of The Everyday Shocked the Art World
The self-taught, Memphis-born photographer William Eggleston was making vivid images of mundane scenes at a time when the only photographs considered to be art were in black and white — color photography was typically reserved for punchy advertising campaigns, not fine art.

Why The Future Of Ghost Kitchens Looks A Lot Like MrBeast Burger
Ghost kitchens have started to disappear. The delivery-only, virtual-restaurant model flourished at the height of the pandemic. While many ghost kitchens fade away, startups like actor Noah Schnapp’s new chain are following MrBeast’s recipe for success.

The Hate Store: Amazon’s Self-Publishing Arm Is A Haven For White Supremacists
Extremism flourishes on Amazon’s self-publishing arm. The company gives extremists and neo-Nazis banned from other platforms unprecedented access to a mainstream audience — and even promotes their books.

When Artists, Engineers, And Pepsico Collaborated, Then Clashed At The 1970 World’s Fair
A year and a half in the making, the Pepsi Pavilion drew eager crowds and elicited effusive reviews. Just a month after the opening, the partnership with Experiments in Art and Technology—E.A.T.—collapsed amidst a flurry of recriminating letters and legal threats.

The Invention Of Money
When the Venetian merchant Marco Polo got to China, he saw many wonders. One of the things that astonished him most, however, was a new invention, implemented by Kublai Khan, a grandson of the great conqueror Genghis. It was paper money, introduced by Kublai in 1260.

The Cab Ride That Nearly Killed Me Changed How I Think About Ride-Hailing Apps
Were ride-hailing companies doing enough to protect passengers from negligent drivers? Maybe Grab’s growth and its perceived triumph over Uber the day before my accident had come at a cost. Was it possible that, for all the convenience ride-hailing services offered, they were making cities less safe?

Cinematic Street Photography Of Japan By Jack Rangooni
Stunning street shots by Jack Rangooni, a talented self-taught photographer, and urban explorer from Auckland, New Zealand. He recently visited Japan and shared some amazing street scenes on his Instagram.

Nothing Does It Like 7up: The Rise Of The Lemon-lime Soda
The soft drink we now know as 7UP was invented and made its way onto the soft drink market in 1929. Created by Charles Leiper Grigg, the drink was called Bib-label Lithiated Lemon-lime Soda before Grigg eventually changed the name to 7UP. This was probably because the drink had seven ingredients.