Things I learned lately - 20 July

• In 100 years, we've gone from needing 90% of the workforce devoted to farming to 2%.
• Harley Davidson is making an electric motorcycle. It's called Project LiveWire and they're touring the prototype around the US.
• American organizations leading the fight against relaxing marijuana laws, like the Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America and the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, derive a significant portion of their budget from opioid manufacturers and other pharmaceutical companies. Legalizing marijuana could hurt the bottom line of drug companies that make money from drugs like Oxycontin and Vicodin. Police unions are also fighting legalization. Police departments have become dependent on federal funding from the 'war on drugs'.
• The first person to die in a Tesla car stole it and crashed it trying to evade police.
• Cameron Russell, a 27 year old model who has been in the business for 11 years, makes more money than her mother, the founder of Zipcar.
• In January, a council of elders in West Bengal state ordered the gang rape of a 20 year old woman as punishment for falling in love with a man from a different community.
• A 14 year old girl was dragged into a forest and raped on the orders of a village council in retaliation for a sex assault blamed on her brother in a small village in Jharkhand state's Bokaro district.
• Some folks are customizing diesel trucks to spew black smoke into the air. In many cases, these truck owners 'roll coal' as a form of protest against environmentalists. The target of their black fumes are "nature nuffies," or people who drive hybrids, and "rice burners," or Japanese-made cars.
• One out of every 4 construction cranes on earth are located in Dubai.
• You can see the Burj Khalifa from 95km away. If it were located in Freiburg, Germany, you would be able to see it in Strasbourg, France.
• Dubai is building a climate controlled city 4.45km square with air-conditioned boardwalks. That's 2.25 times as big as Monaco.
• In 2013, there were more tourists visiting Dubai than there are people living in Shenzhen (over 11 million).