Month: December 2016

Eerbeek, a city in the eastern Netherlands, is known primarily for paper—it’s the largest paper manufacturer in the country. But now, a new pedestrian crossing has put the city on the map for urban innovation, too. It recently installed a glowing crosswalk that keeps pedestrians visible at night, according to CityLab.

Donated by the manufacturer, a local company called Lighted Zebra Crossing, the crosswalk is designed to limit car-pedestrian accidents during bad weather or at night, and can also help cyclists spot pedestrians from even farther away than their bike light might reach (or when they don’t have a light at all). The company suggests that these crosswalks could be particularly useful around schools and shopping centers.

The crossing also includes sensors for tracking traffic, including counting the number of vehicles and pedestrians that pass over the stripes, and weighing the load and measuring the speed of cars.

It’s part of a growing movement of safer urban infrastructure that lights up at night, such as glowing bike lanes and murals. Though the Netherlands already has a reputation for safe, pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly streets, these kinds of innovations could be especially useful in the U.S., where pedestrians are killed in traffic accidents at an average rate of one every two hours.

[h/t CityLab]

All images courtesy Lighted Zebra Crossing.

Splurging feels synonymous with overspending and impulsiveness—but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re smart about your budget, you’ll have the means to spend a bit extra on high-ticket items or experiences. After all, the goal of budgeting isn’t to deprive yourself; it’s to prioritize your spending so that there is enough money to go around.

1. CREATE A SPLURGE FUND.

By definition, splurging just means spending on a luxury without worrying about the effect it has on your finances. It doesn’t have to be an impulsive, mindless purchase. You can plan for splurges—and you should. By living frugally you can get your spending and lifestyle inflation under control. However, being too restrictive with your spending can backfire. You get tired of pinching pennies, so the next time you feel the urge to splurge, you go overboard. Without any guidelines in place, this can put serious strain on your piggy bank.

The solution? Set aside some money for a splurge. Allow yourself the occasional frivolous indulgence, just make it mindful and create some guidelines around it. Figure out how much you want to put aside each month for your splurge, then keep it in a separate account or earmark it in some way. That way you have the money on hand to treat yourself the next time you’re tempted.

2. SPEND MONEY WHERE YOU SPEND TIME.

A splurge fund will help make your spending less impulsive, but ultimately, mindful splurging comes down to, well, mindfulness. Splurging strategically means optimizing that purchase: Go for something you’ll be able to enjoy often.

For example, a $300 pair of shoes you’ll rarely wear might not bring you as much joy as the $4 lattes you’d like to buy daily. On the other hand, if you wear the shoes often, they might be a better use of your fun money after all. Take stock of your own habits and preferences in order to make smart splurging decisions.

3. SPEND ON EXPERIENCES.

A study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that people “enjoy greater well-being from life experiences [rather than material items] and consider them to be a better use of money.” The idea is that you feel a deeper sense of fulfillment and create memories that will last.

4. PRIORITIZE YOUR LOVES, NOT LIKES.

However, a tech junkie might get more out of the new Apple Watch than a fancy dinner out. And while a playoff football game is an experience, it’s one only sports fans are likely to enjoy. You want to splurge on the areas that mean the most to you—so it helps to know what those areas are to begin with.

Make a list of the three areas in which spending brings you the most joy. It could be travel, electronics, spa visits, restaurants, or any other non-essential that makes you happy. Use this as your guide to understand and better divvy out your discretionary spending. If you notice you dole out a ton to restaurants, for example, and it’s not in your top three, you know you’re giving up something you love to pay for something you like.

5. CREATE RULES FOR SPLURGING.

Even with a splurge fund, excessive spending can be tempting. Rather than rely on your own willpower to resist that temptation, have some guidelines in place to rein yourself in. For example, make it a rule to consider the effect of your splurge. Over at Becoming Minimalist, author Joshua Becker explains:

Whenever you feel the pull of consumerism, simply ask yourself the shortened version of this thought, ‘What might I be able to do if I didn’t make this purchase?’

Every purchase contains an opportunity cost. The question, “But what if I don’t?”, forces us to recognize and articulate it.

Or, if you want to buy something outside of your budget, you could make it a rule to save more for another goal first. Let’s say you want to buy the latest $600 smartphone, for example. Allow yourself to splurge only after you pay off an extra $1000 of student loan debt. You may have to cut back on other areas to afford both, but this helps you keep sight of your long-term financial goals while you meet your immediate desires. Similarly, you could establish a rule that, for every splurge, you save the same amount. Spent $20 on fancy cocktails at dinner? Move $20 to your savings account. 

6. WAIT IT OUT.

If your goal is to get your impulsive spending under control, the best rule of thumb to follow is to wait. If you want to buy something you haven’t budgeted for, make it a rule that you can only buy it if you’ve waited a certain amount of time. Chances are, you’ll rethink your priorities. (And if that expensive dress or concert still seems like a great idea, it probably is.)

Amazon’s powerful Alexa-enabled Tap portable speaker is a pretty nifty gadget. The hand-sized speaker pumps out rich Dolby-powered sound, and whenever you want music all you have to do is tap its microphone and ask it to cue up Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, or other top streaming services. It’s a lot of power in a small package, and if you need a smart, portable speaker, you can’t go wrong with the Amazon Tap. 

The Amazon Tap usually retails for $129.99. Today, though, Amazon is running a pretty incredible deal on the Amazon Tap. For $119.98, you can get an Amazon Tap, and Amazon will kick in a the seven-inch, 16 GB version of its popular Fire Tablet for free. Yes, you read that correctly: Picking up an Amazon Tap bundled with a 7″ Fire Tablet is actually $10 cheaper than buying an Amazon Tap on its own. The 16 GB version of the Fire Tablet retails for $69.99, so the bundle knocks $80 off the two items’ normal price. If you’ve been on the fence about picking up an Amazon Tap or a Fire Tablet, jump on this one while it lasts.  

Buy at Amazon: Fire Tablet, 7″ Display, 16 GB – includes Special Offers + Amazon Tap – Alexa-Enabled Portable Bluetooth Speaker for $119.98 (list price $199.98)

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Certain Christmas traditions never seem to go out of style. Along with wreaths, gingerbread cookies, and reruns of A Christmas Story sits the poinsettia, a red-tinged leafy arrangement that’s become synonymous with the holiday. Upwards of 100 million of them are sold in the six weeks before December 25.

Why do people associate the potted plant with seasonal cheer? Chalk it up to some brilliant marketing.

In 1900, a German immigrant named Albert Ecke was planning to move his family to Fiji. Along the way, they became enamored of the beautiful sights found in Los Angeles—specifically, the wild-growing poinsettia, which was named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, the U.S.-Mexican ambassador who first brought it to the States in 1828. Ecke saw the appeal of the plant’s bright red leaves that blossomed in winter (it’s not actually a flower, despite the common assumption) and began marketing it from roadside stands to local growers as “the Christmas plant.”

The response was so strong that poinsettias became the Ecke family business, with their crop making up more than 90 percent of all poinsettias sold throughout most of the 20th century: Ecke, his son Paul, and Paul’s son, Paul Jr., offered a unique single-stem arrangement that stood up to shipping, which their competitors couldn’t duplicate. When Paul III took over the business in the 1960s, he began sending arrangements to television networks for use during their holiday specials. In a priceless bit of advertising, stars like Ronald Reagan, Dinah Shore, and Bob Hope were sharing screen time with the plant, leading millions of Americans to associate it with the holiday.

While the Ecke single-stem secret was eventually cracked by other florists—it involved grafting two stems to make one—and their market share dwindled, their innovative marketing ensured that the poinsettia would forever be linked to Christmas.

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Sometime in early 2017, residents of Seattle, Washington, will be able to experience what promises to be a revolution in shopping: Amazon’s first brick and mortar retail grocery store, Amazon Go, which promises to hold all the thrill of shoplifting without the legal consequences.

According to the company’s press release, Amazon Go will use a mobile app to completely transform how shoppers interact with a consumer environment. A visitor will be able to walk into the compact, 1800-square-foot space to grab food and beverage items, including ready-to-eat goods. Tracking sensors keep tabs on both the shoppers and the product items, knowing when they’ve been put in a cart or back on the shelf. When the trip is over, visitors simply walk through electronic turnstiles and out the door with their bags—the app performs a “checkout” that completely eliminates conveyor belts and lines.

Amazon calls it “Just Walk Out Technology”—a model it’s been working on for the past four years. The company plans to emulate it in a series of locations across the country. You can sign up for an email notification of when they’re open to the public here.

[h/t engadget]

From the Hufflepuff scarf in Newt Scamander’s suitcase to mentions of the Lestrange family, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them has tons of easter eggs to satisfy Harry Potter fans—including one you may have missed. According to INSIDER, the design studio MinaLima has been hiding a recurring character in the pages of The Daily Prophet since the third Potter movie—and she also popped up in Fantastic Beasts‘s New York Ghost.

Meet the Ginger Witch, a career criminal who has been in and out of Azkaban for more than 70 years. She made her first appearance on the back page of The Daily Prophet in Prisoner of Azkaban, where she was responsible for a product recall of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. In The Goblet of Fire, the Ginger Witch was described as a “Hooligan” who was arrested during a “Muggle Football Match”; she was later implicated for interfering with muggle air traffic with two flying pigs. In The Order of the Phoenix, she appeared in an article about surviving a henna explosion that was featured on the front page of The Daily Prophet. Finally, a series of stories in The Quibbler—a wizarding tabloid and “The Wizarding World’s Alternative Voice”—featured the Ginger Witch getting arrested with fake henna in Brazil. She was later sent to Azkaban for her role in a “fake henna scandal.”

Now we know that her criminal record stretches back until at least 1926, the year Fantastic Beasts takes place. A short article in The Daily Prophet notes that the “mysterious” Witch is under investigation. That investigation may have caused her to flee to the United States, where, according to The New York Ghost, she was prosecuted for stealing wigs in the Bronx.

MinaLima is responsible for all of the design work in the Potterverse, from Quidditch World Cup Posters to textbook covers and beyond. Though Rowling wanted certain headlines to appear in The Daily Prophet and The New York Ghost, MinaLima had the freedom to fill in the rest with their own headlines about characters like the Ginger Witch. (The character was inspired by a red-haired woman in the art department named Debbie.) “We know now that things do get seen,” MinaLima co-founder Miraphora Mina told INSIDER. “In the past, we didn’t realize how much these would be scrutinized by fans.”

The Ginger Witch was released from Azkaban at the end of the Potter films, but it’s likely she’ll strike again in future installments of Fantastic Beasts. While you’re waiting, you can pick up a limited edition print of an issue of The Daily Prophet that mentions the Witch here.

[h/t INSIDER]

Map lovers have a new treasure trove of international maps to look through, thanks to the CIA. The agency just released an archive of its formerly classified intelligence maps dating back to the 1940s, as National Geographic reports.

The maps—organized by decade on the CIA Cartography Center’s Flickr—chart international conflicts from a U.S. intelligence perspective, covering topics important to high-level government officials at the time, including maps of German dialects and the Russian front during World War II, missile activity in Cuba just a month before the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, and Baghdad in 2003.

“The mission of the Cartography Center is to provide a full range of maps, geographic analysis, and research in support of the Agency, the White House, senior policymakers, and the [Intelligence Community] at large,” the center explains on its Flickr page. “Since 1941, the Cartography Center maps have told the stories of post-WWII reconstruction, the Suez crisis, the Cuban Missile crisis, the Falklands War, and many other important events in history.”

The release is a celebration of the Cartography Center’s 75th birthday. The albums also feature a few photos of presidents being briefed by intelligence officials using the maps, like a map of Afghanistan used to brief President George W. Bush at Camp David in 2001 after the September 11 attacks.

See the whole collection here.

[h/t National Geographic]

All images courtesy the CIA Cartography Center via Flickr // Public Domain unless otherwise noted

Holiday shopping season is in full swing, and not surprisingly, Amazon.com is a popular destination. But if you’re one of the millions of people to recently order an item from the e-commerce giant (or you’re still browsing around for present ideas), be aware of a sneaky new phishing scam. As Inc. reports, both Amazon Prime members and regular customers have reported receiving fake (yet very official-looking) emails that appear to come from Amazon asking them to re-enter their credit card information.

The email’s subject line says, “Your Amazon.com order cannot be shipped.” According to AARP’s blog, the full message reads:

Hello,There was a problem processing your order. You will not be able to access your account or place orders with us until we confirm your information.click here to confirm your account. We ask that you not open new accounts as any order you place may be delayed.

For more details, read our Amazon Prime Terms & Conditions.

Recipients who follow the email’s instructions and click on the link are taken to a convincing “Amazon” page. There, they are invited to input their names, address, and credit card info (including the expiration and CVV security code). Once they hit Save & Continue, they’re automatically guided to the real Amazon website.

Hopefully you’re now on high-alert, and you won’t fall for this scheme. But, as AARP reminds us, you should never click on an embedded link in an email from Amazon (or, for that matter, any other company). Instead, check to see whether the items mentioned in the email are ones you’ve actually purchased (you can head to Amazon’s “Your Orders” section to jog your memory if need be), be suspicious of typos and spelling mistakes, and hover your cursor over any URLs provided and the sender’s email address to take a close look—phishing scams will notoriously use URLs similar to the real deal.

If you do recognize an Amazon email as fake, don’t just ignore it. The New York Times recommends reporting to them by forwarding the whole message as an attachment to stop-spoofing@amazon.com. And since phishing schemes are likely to continue (and even grow) in the weeks leading up to Christmas and Hanukkah, check out Amazon’s list of tips for avoiding payment fraud.

[h/t Inc.]