Side hustles in Utah; 20% fake jobs; how not to improve your home — and more
It's Free for All Friday!
It’s Free for ALL Friday! Each week I keep track of some of the off-the-path things I've found, and work extra-hard to make sure you never hit a paywall, using my own subscriptions, gift links, and other (legal) hocus-pocus.
It pays to have long hair and a beard in Utah: Jesus models are in demand
Look-alikes are being hired for family portraits and wedding announcements but expectations can be high; ‘You know I’m not the real Jesus, right?’
Bob Sagers was walking around an indie music festival in Salt Lake City when a friendly stranger approached and asked for his number.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have a Jesus look to you?” the man asked, according to Sagers, a 25-year-old who works as a cheesemonger at a grocery store. It wasn’t a pickup line—the man’s wife was an artist looking for religious models.
“I didn’t really get that a lot,” says Sagers, who is 6-foot-5 with dirty-blonde, shoulder-length hair and a beard he says gives Irish and Scandinavian vibes. “I make for a pretty tall Jesus.”
And so it was that Sagers began a side hustle as a savior.
Models who look like Jesus are in high demand in Utah. That’s because for a growing number of people in the state, a picture isn’t complete without Him. They are hiring Jesus look-alikes for family portraits and wedding announcements. Models are showing up to walk with a newly engaged couple through a field, play with young children in the Bonneville Salt Flats, and cram in with the family for the annual Christmas card.
A photographer visited McDonald’s in more than 55 countries. Here’s what he found.
“Everyone has a relationship with McDonald’s,” says Gary He.
Including him.
He didn’t set out to write a book about McDonald’s. And, even now, the James Beard Award-winning photographer still says that “McAtlas” — his book about McDonald’s — is not a book about McDonald’s.
Rather, it’s “a visual social anthropology of the world's largest restaurant chain,” says He, a native New Yorker who spent years traveling to hundreds of outlets of the world’s biggest fast-food chain.
(CNN)
What happened to hanging out on the street?
Urban pedestrians are walking faster and doing less socializing, according to a new study of NYC, Boston and Philadelphia. Is technology to blame, or public space itself?
Are city streets places for pedestrians to hang out, or are they routes to be traversed as quickly as possible?
Americans are increasingly treating them as the latter rather than the former.
That is the striking implication of a recent interdisciplinary study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Applying modern artificial intelligence techniques to old video footage, the researchers compared pedestrian activity in 1980 and 2010 across prominent locations in Boston, New York City and Philadelphia.
Their unsettling conclusion: American ambulators walked faster and schmoozed less than they used to. They seemed to be having fewer of the informal encounters that undergird civil society and strengthen urban economies.
Mourning is human. New grief apps want to 'optimise' it for you
People are turning to 'grief apps' to cope with the loss of family and friends. But the new world of death data raises troubling questions.
When Nitika's father passed away unexpectedly in 2023, she was a continent away from her support system. She had moved from India to Canada only a year prior, and was the first in her friend group to grapple with the death of a parent.
"Living far away from my family and dealing with this massive loss was unbearable. I often felt lost and lonely," says Nitika, who asked to withhold her full name to protect her privacy.
Then she came across an Instagram post from the grief app Untangle, which offers "personalised bereavement support" through virtual support groups and moderated forums, boosted with built-in AI features. Nitika downloaded the app.
In soothingly serifed fonts and tasteful colour palettes that are muted but never sombre, Untangle and a number of other new "grief apps", including DayNew and Empathy, seek to remake mourning for the modern era.
They have the potential to democratise access to support that can otherwise be hard to find. But in doing so, privacy experts say these apps are introducing corporate technology – and all the problems of the digital age – into the vulnerability of grief.
(BBC)
15 science-based ways to reduce your risk of dementia
From diet and exercise to protecting against hearing loss and maintaining social connections, there are ways to ward off chances of the disease.
A disturbing new study has predicted that new cases of dementia will double by 2060, estimating that 1 million adults will develop the memory-destroying brain disease that ultimately renders people unable to handle the routine tasks of daily life, such as eating, bathing and dressing, driving and paying bills.
There is no cure, and it can’t be prevented. But you can reduce your risk.
Here are some of the measures that experts recommend.
Fake job postings are becoming a real problem
One in five jobs advertised is fake or not filled ... ‘more soul-crushing than ever’
It’s a common feeling when looking at a job listing online: the title is perfect, the pay is right, and the company seems like a solid place to work. But you also wonder if that job is real.
Lots of job seekers have a story about the postings that linger online but never seem to get filled. Those so-called ghost jobs—the roles that companies advertise but have no intention of filling—may account for as much as one in five jobs advertised online.
That’s according to an analysis of internal data by Greenhouse, a hiring platform that examined its clients’ job postings and hiring action over the past year. Greenhouse and LinkedIn recently have begun tagging job listings as verified to give workers better information amid the rash of ghost listings.
The listings are dispiriting for workers, leading many to distrust potential employers and make a difficult process feel rigged against them.
11 surprising features that will decrease the value of your home
Think twice before making these changes.
Customizing your home so it stands out may seem like the right idea, but there are drawbacks to these unique design elements. Unless you’re building your forever home, it's a good idea to stay away from any costly, overly personalized additions. They may have that wow factor on paper, but they can also turn off potential buyers—ultimately decreasing the value of your property.
To help you avoid investing in counterproductive renovations, we consulted with a variety of experts—from architects and realtors to HGTV stars—for an in-depth breakdown of exactly what not to do.
Among the cautions: adding any new groundbreaking technology, installing a pool, having elaborate landscaping, and more.
Regarding McDonald's -- after I retired from the military, I took a job with a large consulting firm. My co-worker/trainer/coach was a retired Marine Corps officer -- great guy. We traveled a lot together, and the only place he ever wanted to eat was McDonald's, no matter where in the world we happened to be. He was from a very small town in Kansas and did not see a McDonald's until he joined the Marines and ate at one on a Marine Corps base. He was hooked forever, apparently. We were in Bangkok in 2006 and he asked me if I could find a McDonald's there. I did, at the MBK Center (shopping mall), at the last stop on a SkyTrain line. Some unusual menu items (no surprise there), but one thing I found novel is that the fiberglass statue of Ronald McDonald outside the entry doors was posed in the traditional "wai" position -- hands together as if praying, at chest height. Also found McDonald's for him in the food court at an E-Mart in Pohang, Korea -- that one took some doing.
where to start? Didn't read the mcdonald's thing, can't remember the last time I had mcdonalds other than coffee. I still walk down the street and look at people, it's called situational awareness. I got attacked by a street person once because I wasn't paying attention to what was going on around me, so I won't make that mistake again. Besides, you never know when a smile will change someone's day. Can't say that I ever "hung out" on the streets
On the fence about grief apps. I assuage my grief by walking in nature. Not sure how an app could ever replace that. And someone somewhere is making money off that app. The tips on dementia all just seem like common sense. And Martha Stewart made some good points, I have often been put off by a dark red wall, that colour is terrible to try to cover up.