Tag: quartz

Starting an obsession with the Rubik’s Cube, from Quartz

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Always nice to see someone go a little bit deeper into the world of Cube’ing. It;s more than Rubik, but Quartz’s Weekend Obsession post is a good starting piece: The breakout story of this year’s Super Bowl—for some—wasn’t which quarterback had the best hands, or which call was the most controversial, but who could solve a Rubik’s Cube the fastest. Was it back-up Eagles wide receiver and special team standout Mack Hollins? Or Patriots starting guard Joe Thuney? This charming diversion was proof of something we probably didn’t actually need to justify: Nearly 40 years after its invention, the world’s most confounding

Uber’s magic ingredient is inequality

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Leo Minari writing for Quartz: There are only two requirements for an on-demand service economy to work, and neither is an iPhone. First, the market being addressed needs to be big enough to scale—food, laundry, taxi rides. Without that, it’s just a concierge service for the rich rather than a disruptive paradigm shift, as a venture capitalist might say. Second, and perhaps more importantly, there needs to be a large enough labor class willing to work at wages that customers consider affordable and that the middlemen consider worthwhile for their profit margins. To compound this, it’s very (very) likely that once