Articles 2015
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What Was the Venus de Milo Doing With Her Arms?
Slate, May 01, 2015
3-D printing allows us to test a provocative theory that she was busy spinning thread.
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Chipotle Removes GMOs to Show It Cares
Bloomberg View, April 30, 2015
You don't have to believe there's something wrong with GMOs to see a valid strategic reason for Chipotle's decision to get rid of them.
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Breaking Moore's Law? Does Not Compute
Bloomberg View, April 22, 2015
Can a relatively minor change in a single company’s pricing strategies distort our picture of what’s happening in the economy? Yes, if the company is Intel Corp.
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Target's Lilly Pulitzer Boom and Bust
Bloomberg View, April 20, 2015
Like a hot initial public offering, Target's designer collections are priced below market, fueling speculative fever.
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How the Easter Bunny Got So Soft
Bloomberg View, April 02, 2015
The plush toys that line store shelves this time of year are cheaper, often safer, and much, much softer than in bygone days. They represent a small, squishy example of a pervasive phenomenon: goods whose quality has improved gradually but significantly over time, without corresponding price increases and with little recognition in the public imagination.
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Michael Graves Brought Special to the Everyday
Bloomberg View, March 13, 2015
The architect and designer proved that status isn't the only reason people will pay more for designer products.
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Alexander McQueen, Empowered
An interview with author Dana Thomas
Bloomberg View, March 11, 2015
In her new book "Gods and Kings," veteran fashion journalist Dana Thomas recounts the rise and fall of the two British designers at the center of what she calls this "long, fabulous moment": John Galliano and Lee Alexander McQueen. McQueen committed suicide in 2010 and was the subject of a blockbuster exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art the following year. An expanded version of that massively popular and critically acclaimed show opens this weekend at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which had already sold 65,000 advance tickets as of March 10, according to the museum. In advance of the opening, I talked to Thomas
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How Spock Became a Sex Symbol
Bloomberg View, February 27, 2015
When "Star Trek" debuted in 1966, showing a beautiful black woman and a dashing Asian man as bridge officers was an idealistic political statement. Turning someone who looked like Leonard Nimoy into a sex symbol, however, was entirely unintentional.
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Will "Empire" Match Its Ratings?
Bloomberg View, February 24, 2015
The Fox broadcasting network’s drama “Empire” is already a phenomenal business success. What remains to be seen is whether it will prove an equally remarkable artistic success.
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Why the Crusades Still Matter
Bloomberg View, February 10, 2015
Interview with historian Jay Rubenstein, author of Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse, about what inspired the first Crusaders and what their story might tell us about today’s would-be Muslim holy warriors.