What causes riots? A study of unrest in 50 African and Asian cities found that “peak levels of unrest occur in the upper 20s [degrees centigrade]”. In short, heat makes it nicer to be outside at night. It’s not a coincidence that the 2011 London riots started in peak August.
All Threads
10 rivers are responsible for 90% of all river-borne plastic that ends up in the ocean. Eight of them are in Asia, most notably the Yangtze, and two are in Africa – the Nile and the Niger.
17 year olds and 85 year olds don’t have much in common, but dangerous driving is an exception.
During Covid-19, the public was inundated with dates for lifting specific restrictions. To make things easy to follow, a developer created a handy timeline based on beer consumption (the number one priority for most of the UK).
The tennis superstar won 80% of the singles matches he played, but only 54% of the individual points. Not all points are made equal.
Christmas might be the most magical time of year but it’s still motivated by profit: Rudolph the Reindeer was originally a promotional tool. Retailer Montgomery Ward had been buying and giving away booklets for Christmas every year and decided that creating their own book would save money. So in 1939 copywriter Robert L. May created Rudolph as part of the first published book, eventually selling 2 million copies.
Michael O’Leary removed the add-ons that make flying pleasurable. Ryanair routinely ranks bottom in airline surveys. Its social media is full of complaints about cancelled flights and extra baggage fees. But it’s a ruthless provider of low fares and high punctuality, and Europe’s most profitable airline.
There are 15% more same-sex couples in US places that had gold rushes (e.g. California) than counties that didn’t: rush counties were isolated, mostly uninhabited and lacked strong formal institutions, which helped shaping pro-LGBT attitudes.
Samsung’s new product enabled customers to display artwork or photos when it wasn’t in use, reframing it from an item that took up unnecessary space to a key part of the decor. Suddenly, the conversation was around what you want to display in your living room, rather than the maximum TV size you found acceptable.
To address the issue of children in India not washing their hands with soap, Savlon created Healthy Hands Chalk Sticks. So when children put their hands under the tap before lunch, the chalk powder on their hands turned into soap on its own – a great example of starting a new behaviour off the back of an existing habit.
When they were writing this legendary horror film, the creators asked themselves: “What’s the cheapest thing we can do?” Their answer: “Two guys in one room with no windows. We’ll chain them up so they can’t go anywhere. We’ll keep them in this room. That’s cheap. That’s all we’ve got the money for.” They hit the nail on the head: ” It’s weird, I think restrictions can give you freedom sometimes.”
It’s a common piece of advice to juniors entering the workplace – the best way of getting stuck in and learning from those around you. At the same time, people love to cite Steve Jobs’ teaching that “innovating is saying no to 1000 things.” The reality is that both have merit – it just depends on the context.
Ex-footballers have different views on the age-old England midfielder debate: they pick the one they played with. Gary Neville says Scholes, Jamie Carragher says Gerrard, and John Terry says Lampard.
The most successful sitcom of the 90’s was a product of pet peeves. As Jerry Seinfeld explains, “it’s very important to know what you don’t like. A big part of innovation is saying, “You know what I’m really sick of?”” As viewers of the show will know, what makes it special is the relatability of the characters’ problems.
The world’s greatest playwright was a serial borrower. All of Shakespeare’s plays were inspired by original source material; Hamlet comes from the Old Norse Saga of King Rolf Kraki, while A Midsummer Night’s Dream was based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.