Author: Edouard Chazal

‘A Diamond is Forever’ : The Relationship between Wedding Expenses and Marriage Duration

In short, relatively high spending on the engagement ring or on the wedding is inversely associated with marriage duration among male and female respondents, though a Skyscraper could help.

In this paper, we evaluate the association between wedding spending and marriage duration using data from a survey of over 3,000 ever-married persons in the United States. Controlling for a number of demographic and relationship characteristics, we find evidence that marriage duration is inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony.

→ SSRN

How One Boy With Autism Became B.F.F.’s With Apple’s Siri

I have to say the subject of autism affects me as one of my uncle is also living in his own thoughts. It’s delightful to hear about the positive impact of technology on people who would not have access to it, just a few years ago.

My kindest thoughts to you, Eric.

“It’s not that Gus doesn’t understand Siri’s not human. He does — intellectually. But like many autistic people I know, Gus feels that inanimate objects, while maybe not possessing souls, are worthy of our consideration. I realized this when he was 8, and I got him an iPod for his birthday. He listened to it only at home, with one exception. It always came with us on our visits to the Apple Store. Finally, I asked why. “So it can visit its friends,” he said.”

→ The New York Times

The Easiest Way to Get More Done? Work Fewer Hours.

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But why does working fewer hours mean you get more done? It doesn’t seem to make sense on the face of it. Maxwell says that people who work too many hours start making mistakes, which can actually take more effort to fix than to create. Overworked employees get more distracted and begin distracting others. Soon they’re making bad decisions.

→ Slate Magazine

The Most Important Watch Ever Made

This is quiet simply the most unique and complicated timepiece ever made.

The Henry Graves’ Patek Philippe Supercomplication represents the pinacle of watchmaking, featuring 24 complications, twenty-four. It took 7 years to develop, starting in 1925, no computer involved in the process. It weights around 500 grams and 70mm in diameter.

It’s been previously sold in 1999, for a staggering $11’000’000.

Today, on November 11th, 2014, Sotheby’s will be making history, again, by auctioning the most important watch ever made.

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→ Hodinkee

Farewell, The Magazine.

Glenn Fleishman :

“In the newspaper and periodical world, we spell some things differently for reasons of space and to make sure the meaning isn’t lost. The first, or lead, paragraph (graf) of an article is called the “lede”: it’s where we tell you what the story is going to be about before we tell you the story. “Burying the lede” is when you hide the most important fact farther down, as I’ve done here.”

The Magazine was much more than what it used to be called.

Originally initiated by Marco Arment, the former lead developer at Tumblr and the founder of Instapaper, its aim was to promote longforms and to be the simplest magazine platform for plain text on the iPhone and iPad. No PDFs, no cumbersome layout that’s trying to fit the large and small screens at once, just the interface filled with a beautiful typography.

Thanks to a little monthly-subscription, the editor and owner (in this case Glenn) commissioned writers on virtually any kind of stories.

Back in August, I sent an email to Glenn to thank him for his work and his commitment, also to let him know that I was keeping my subscription on, even though I wasn’t reading it much lately. Maybe I sensed what was going on ?

Today, this proved to be unsuccessful and I’m sad to hear that it is shutting down as I am a long time subscriber — since Marco released it —, an enthusiastic reader and a firm believer that this was the way to produce, or at least to build the modern platform that magazines deserve.

This was one of those service that you were willing to support for a few bucks, just to let it operates by itself. Like funding a nonprofit organization in the background.

Farewell, The Magazine.

→ Glenn Fleishman