All posts tagged: stakes

Mastering the edge: How success raises the stakes for elite adventurers

Mastering the edge: How success raises the stakes for elite adventurers

In the early 20th century, Western explorers became obsessed with the peak of Mount Everest. The roughly 29,000-foot-tall mountain had never been summited before, and the first person to do so would earn a spot in the record books.  Among those who tried was George Mallory. In 1922, he was at the top of the mountaineering world, having just set a world altitude record on Everest; that expedition later earned his team Olympic medals for alpinism. But despite knowing the dangers of the mountain — several porters didn’t survive the 1922 expedition — he continued to pursue the summit, ultimately disappearing on Everest’s Northeast Ridge in 1924.  Prior to his fatal attempt, a reporter asked Mallory why he wanted to climb the mountain, to which he famously replied, “Because it’s there.” But plenty of other people knew Mount Everest existed and had no desire to summit it. So what sets people like Mallory — we’ll call them “elite risk-takers” — apart from the rest of us? Wired for adventure Biology seems to play a small …

In New York, the Stakes are High for a Young Gallery Dedicated to Play

In New York, the Stakes are High for a Young Gallery Dedicated to Play

A cold wind cuts through lower Manhattan, passing shuttered storefronts that once housed small galleries—some casualties of the rent crisis—before losing force at the corner of Broome and Chrystie Streets. There, a different kind of market experiment took shape. Last year, Spielzeug Gallery, a nomadic curatorial project had a turn as a brick-and-mortar commercial gallery, testing a model that reads almost anachronistic beside Tribeca: one in which chaos is not a pose, but the consequence of combining pleasure and survival within the same space. The purpose, after all, is embedded in the name itself. The gallery’s name is the German word for “toy.” Related Articles “Toys always come with an idea of control,” said Evan Karas, the director and founder of Spielzeug. “Toys are about working with your hands—pulling a Barbie apart. As children, we rely on objects to make sense of reality. That intensity never really goes away in adulthood; it just shifts into something psychosexual.”  The first exhibition Karas staged in the Chrystie Street space, aptly titled “TOYS! TOYS! TOYS!” was a veritable …

Prince Harry: It’s his biggest case against the press and the stakes are high for the duke and the publisher of the Daily Mail | UK News

Prince Harry: It’s his biggest case against the press and the stakes are high for the duke and the publisher of the Daily Mail | UK News

He’s spent years fighting the tabloids, but arriving at the High Court was a moment Prince Harry wanted the cameras to capture. This is his last legal challenge against the British press. It’s also his biggest, and with reputations on the line, the stakes for all sides are high. Day one, and the battlelines are being bullishly drawn. What happened on day one – recap Image: Liz Hurley arrives at the start of the case. Pic: Reuters Image: Sir Elton John and his partner David Furnish in 2024. Pic: PA Harry and the other high-profile co-claimants all allege that Associated Newspapers (ANL) published stories about them using information that was illegally obtained by private investigators hacking phones, deceptively “blagging” private information and planting bugs in homes and cars. Their barrister told the court there was a culture of unlawful information gathering at ANL. That its use was “clear, systemic and sustained”. He also claimed the newspaper group knew what had been going on and knew there were “skeletons in the closet”. ANL strongly denies any …

Exclusive-Shell, Mitsubishi exploring sale options for their stakes in LNG Canada, sources say

Exclusive-Shell, Mitsubishi exploring sale options for their stakes in LNG Canada, sources say

HOUSTON/NEW YORK/LONDON, Jan 16 : Oil major Shell and Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi Corp are exploring sale options for their respective stakes in the C$40 billion ($28.8 billion) LNG Canada project, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The moves come as owners of the massive liquefied natural gas facility weigh a potential expansion, and after another stakeholder, Petronas, successfully offloaded a piece of the project. Shell, the largest owner with a 40 per cent stake in LNG Canada, has been working with investment bankers at Rothschild & Co to sound out interested parties in recent weeks, said two of the sources. Two sources added that Shell could offload as much as three-quarters of its holding, or 30 per cent of the project. Shell has expressed willingness, however, to consider different options relating to its exposure to the project’s Phase 1, which is operational, and the proposed Phase 2, given their different risks. One of the sources estimated that any buyer for Shell’s stake could be committing roughly $15 billion, inclusive of the equity stake, …