How used luxury watches became a $20 billion industry.
Identifying a fake Rolex can be tricky.
identifying a fake Rolex can be tricky you know as a person who has been dealing with these things for years when it doesn't say Swiss you know something's wrong John Buckley is a veteran watch dealer who buys sells and repairs used Rolexes and they're sometimes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars it's just perfectly done these days use watches can sell for up to three times their retail price the market is estimated to be worth 20 billion dollars and it's growing fast everybody started buying watches because they're a good way to store money between 2011 and 2021 Rolex has outperformed the stock market real estate and gold but even experienced sellers like John have to be careful for one there are counterfeits U.S customs showed us how it seizes up to 150 000 fig watches per year Rolex watches inside in just plain old bubble wrap and Rolex would never put their watches in little Ziploc bags but spotting a fake isn't always as obvious if dealers like John get stuck with a counterfeit the effects can be disastrous not just financially but it can also destroy the reputation new Young Bucks that come into the business they get caught out there real fast and your reputation is burned burned when you can't make good on a sale Factory bezel Factory dial we follow John through Manhattan's famous Diamond District does he always strikes deals in such a competitive market it's 13-3 no it's not so bad of course it's not so bad why do you think I'm offering it toyeah this section of 47th Street is home to over 2 600 businesses selling gems jewelry and luxury watches John buys and sells roughly a dozen watches per week here from stores and other collectors today he's visiting two of his regular spots little lady's got a paddock that I need hopefully I could buy it from and I'm going to show them a couple of pieces that I've got I gotta find it first oh that's good what's good about this watch it's comes fully complete look at the condition you got everything yeah John already has a customer lined up for this rare Patek Philippe I really like this watch what's the date on the papers I'm curious not that it matters he's hoping to get it for under forty thousand dollars listen I knowit's a nice watch l'm not I'm not here to be chopped you know I need it 36 000. I thought I was pretty good at 35. 37 000 that's my final price I think it's fair you can think about it I don't have to think muscle no problem thank you this watch will be sold for 40 40 000 in change so l'll make three grand on the watch yyeah this section of 47th Street is home to over 2 600 businesses selling gems jewelry and luxury watches John buys and sells roughly a dozen watches per week here from stores and other collectors today he's visiting two of his regular spots little lady's got a paddock that I need hopefully I could buy it from and I'm going to show them a couple of pieces that I've got I gotta find it first oh that's good what's good about this watch it's comes fully complete look at the condition you got everything yeah John already has a customer lined up for this rare Patek Philippe I really like this watch what's the date on the papers I'm curious not that it matters he's hoping to get it for under forty thousand dollars listen I knowit's a nice watch l'm not I'm not here to be chopped you know I need it 36 000. I thought I was pretty good at 35. 37 000 that's my final price I think it's fair you can think about it I don't have to think muscle no problem thank you this watch will be sold for 40 40 000 in change so l'll make three grand on the watch down the street John has his eye on a gold Rolex day date with diamonds on the bezel or the ring surrounding its glass which is not bad how much is this twenty one thousand dollar watch twenty five thousand yes two three five you like that right let's do it it's Factor diamond dial Factory diamond bezel 235 the deal but I'm gonna do for you lI'm gonna obviously say yes
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The Simple Question That Stumped Everyone
It's quite fitting that Marilyn vos Savant's last name in French means "learned" Learning came easy to her considering she had an IQof 228! Vos Savant was born in St Louis, Missouri on August 11, 1946 to immigrants from Germany and Italy. Her parents never told her she was exceptional. She once said in an interview: "No one really paid much attention to me, actually. As I said, mostly because I was a girl and I accepted that." But the world would pay attention in 1985 when she topped the Guinness Book of World Records list as the smartest person in the world. She was nearly 40 when she shot into the spotlight. Parade Magazine wrote a profile on her, and readers had so many questions for her that the magazine offered her a Sunday column, "Ask Marilyn" - which exists to this day. In this column, she ignited one of the fiercest debates in probability of the 21st century! In 1990, a reader asked her the following question: Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the others, goats. You picka door, say #1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say # 3, which has a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door #2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors? This is known as the Monty Hall problem, named after the former host of the game show Let's Make a Deal. Is it behind door number 1, door number 2, or door number 3? So, would it be in your interest to switch from door number 1 to door number 2? 'll give you a few seconds to think about it. Most people assume that both doors are equally likely to have the prize. So they don't see the benefit of switching. However, Vos Savant replied: "Yes; you should switch. The first door has a 1/ 3 chance of winning, but the second door has a 2/ 3 chance." She got so much heat for this response and couldn't have imagined the backlash that would follow. She received thousands of angry letters and said 90% of them told her she was wrong. Scott Smith who has a PhD from the University of Florida wrote: There is enough mathematical illiteracy in this country, and we don't need the world's highest IQ propagating more. Shame! Here's a letter from Professor Robert Sachs of George Mason University: You blew it! As a professional mathematician, I'm very concerned with the general public's lack of mathematical skills. Please help by confessing your error and in the future being more careful." Don Edwards of Oregon put it this way: Maybe women look at math problems differently than men. But actually, these people who sent her some not-so- nice letters were utterly wrong. Switching your door DOES increase your probability of winning. When you first choose door #1, there's a 1/ 3 chance that the prize is behind that one. The two other doors together have a 2/ 3 chance of winning. Then the host helps you out by opening up the door they KNOW is a loser. This improves your odds that the prize is behind door 2. Because door 2 must have the rest of the chances. It went from having a 1 in 3 chance to a 2 in 3 shot at the prize since the host filtered out the bad door, door number 3 for you. Or put another way: Switching doubles your odds of winning. So yah I'Il choose door number 2 and thank you for the extra 33. 3%. The outcry against vos Savant was so extreme that she felt compelled to devote several other columns to explaining her logic. She noted that the benefits of switching can be proven if you were to play through the six games that exhaust all possibilities. This is contingent on the host always opening a door with a goat. Mapping out all the possibilities shows there's a higher chance of winning if you switch than if you stay. It's easier to understand the problem if there are many more doors. Say you chose 1 door out of 100. The host then eliminates 98 doors that they know don't have a prize behind them. That leaves two doors - the one you chose and the only other one remaining. Do you switch now? Absolutely. When you first picked, you only had a 1/ 100 chance of getting the right door. The odds of it being behind the other doors was 99/ 100. The host then filters out the options for you by eliminating 98 bad doors that they know don't have the prize. This is tO your advantage because it leaves the remaining door with the rest of the odds, a 99/ 100 chance of having the car. Some eventually admitted they were in the wrong. A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology worked on the problem, and afterward, Seth Kalson of MIT admitted: You are indeed correct. "My colleagues at work had a ball with this problem, and I dare say that most of them, including me at first, thought you were wrong!" To which she responded:"Thanks, M.I.T. needed that!" And that math professor I mentioned earlier who sent that not so friendly letter? Professor Sachs later conceded, writing: "After removing my foot from my mouth I'm now eating humble pie. I vowed as penance to answer all the people who wrote to castigate me. It's been an intense professional embarrassment." Our biggest misconception is assuming that two choices mean a 50-50 chance of something happening. This makes sense if we don't have any other information. If I picked two people and asked who would win a tennis match and you don't know anything about them, you have a 50-50 shot of getting it right. But if I said Player Ajust took up the sport yesterday while Player B has won Wimbledon, this would likely change your choice. Information matters. Just like when the game show host KNEW which door had a goat. They weren't opening up a door randomly. The general idea is the more you know, the more informed decisions you can make. Vos Savant once said: "People that we think are very smart are not necessarily very smart." She explained they're more likely to be educated or experienced rather than intelligent. What does she think is holding people back from their intellectual potential? She's been critical of compulsory schooling because she says students learn passively; they sit there and are told what to believe instead of learning to think independently. She went so far as to say: "I would rather not see compulsory schooling." As for herself, she never graduated from university, dropping out of Washington University in St. Louis after two years to start a career in investment before following her real passion, writing which led to her famous answer to the problem that stumped the world. There's another way to learn that doesn't involve sitting in a classroom. Brilliant is an online interactive learning platform that helps you brush up on your math, science, and computer science skills.
By Ferrack Walfert12 months ago in Humans
Red Shelves
Death is a black hole. Think about it. A black hole is the corpse of a star, something once warm and bright, now come to the end of its life cycle. But some will argue that the cycle of life does not end with death. That death is merely another path we must walk once our bodies expire and our souls ascend. In that moment, when the fuel in the star’s chemical tank hits empty and the shiny matte coat explodes into supernova, the mass left behind – the corpse – becomes a black hole. We understand that, around such a vast cadaver, dimensions work a little differently in death to the way we’re used to in life. For example, light cannot escape the pull of a black hole when it hits the point of no return. That’s where it gets its colour. Space itself is contorted by a black hole. That’s where it gets its funny shape. Even time. Time slows right down the closer you get to it. The closer you get to a black hole. The closer you get to death.
By Matthew Curtisabout 8 hours ago in Humans
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