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The Bottled Water Industry Explained
People often pay a lot for bottled water. In some cases, designer brands will cost you a 280,000% markup from what you’d pay for tap water. Even the cheaper stuff is expensive. And you’re often paying for a product that comes from … drumroll please … a tap just like the one in your kitchen. “Yes, there’s an estimated 25% of bottled water that actually comes from the municipal water supply.” Zero Hedge takes a look inside the bottled water industry.
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Guilty of Espionage, Not Aiding the Enemy
An Army judge has acquitted WikiLeaks-leaker Bradley Manning on the most serious charge he faced: aiding the enemy. “Had Manning been convicted of aiding the enemy, he would have faced a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole. Civil libertarians feared that a conviction on that charge, which has not been used since the Civil War, would have sent a chilling message to would-be government whistle-blowers.” Manning, who already pleaded guilty to several counts and was convicted of others today, still faces a maximum jail term of 130 years.
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Social Media’s Role in Adolescent Crimes
“There was no physical evidence of a crime, and the victim had no memory of one occurring. Fifteen years ago, Richmond and Mays would have escaped suspicion: before smartphones and Twitter, rumors floated around high schools and then dissipated, often before adults knew what was real and what was adolescent imagination. As it was, the evidence was limited to tweets, the photograph of Richmond and Mays carrying the girl, and a cell-phone video recorded late on the night of the parties and then uploaded to YouTube.” The New Yorker’s Ariel Levy has written a very interesting story of crime, adolescence, and online vigilantes in the digital age: Trial By Twitter.
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Why America’s Go-Getters Move South
That’s right you’re not from Texas
But Texas wants you anyway
The Daily Beast searched for America’s aspirational hotspots. The cities are light on traffic and heavy on job opportunities. And a whole lot of them are in the South. Here’s a look at the 15 hottest U.S. Cities.
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New Ways to Watch TV
If you want a front row seat to the tech revolution, then you should probably head for your couch. While there was a time when people thought that the Internet would kill TV, it’s now clear that the big technology players want to enhance the television experience. And of all the big corporate battles of the digital age, none is more heated than the one for your attention while you’re staring at your television screen.
+ You wake up in the morning and your phone warns you about the traffic you’ll encounter on the way to that day’s meeting. But “you never told your phone you had a meeting, or where it was.” Welcome to the new world of apps that know what you want, before you do. If these apps really know what I want, then they’ll be less creepy and bring me more coffee.
+ Here’s a cool infographic of the amount of online activity that goes on every 60 seconds (unless I’m away from my computer).
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Live-tweeting the End
Scott Simon, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition, sat by his mother’s bedside as she passed away. And as he sat there, he shared his experience on Twitter. Is that nuts, or is that our modern world? Maybe you have to read the tweets to answer that question. Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me host Peter Sagal read them and came to this conclusion: “It sounds awful, exploitative and weird — but when you look at the feed, it’s not.”
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The Downside of Superpowers
So you’re an actor and you land a high-paying role as a superhero. That can be good news for your career. But it’s going to be pretty hard on your body. Buzzfeed’s Adam B. Vary on the cost of becoming a superhero. Robert Downey Jr. handles this best. He let’s the suit do the work.
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How Not to Treat Back Pain
If you go to a doctor with low back pain (and one in ten of all primary care visits are for just that reason), there’s a good chance you won’t get a bucket of ibuprofen and the name of a good physical therapist — even though that’s the regimen most likely to solve the problem. From NPR: Doctors Increasingly Ignore Evidence In Treating Back Pain.
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Play That Funky Garbage
Yesterday, my wife came across this inspirational video of kids who transform garbage into instruments. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should definitely check out Landfill Harmonic.
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The Bottom of the News
The new study suggests there are many cognitive benefits associated with getting your young kids to bed at the same time each night. I’m not sure about the kids, but there are definitely cognitive benefits for the parents.
+ Ars Technica: The great fitness band shootout.
+ Zev is 14 and likes to manipulate photos. And trust me, you want to see his work right now.
+ Let’s get ready for the NFL season with the All-Bad Contracts Team.