Travel

  • Once In a Blue Moon … or every couple of years

    I was in New York for a quick visit last week.  

    Seems I get there often recently.

    A little more rare, I got a chance to see a concert (U2 at Madison Square Garden) and eat Junior's Cheesecake.

    Meanwhile, Friday marked the second full moon of July, a phenomenon referred to as a “Blue Moon.”

      

    150730 Blue Moon

      

    Though the phrase “once in a blue moon” is used to describe a rare event … a blue moon is not really that rare; nor does imply that the moon appears blue.

    Technically, the term “blue moon” describes the second full moon in a single calendar month.

    Most years only have 12 moons, but this year has 13 (which happens every two to three years).

  • Once In a Blue Moon … or every couple of years

    I was in New York for a quick visit last week.  

    Seems I get there often recently.

    A little more rare, I got a chance to see a concert (U2 at Madison Square Garden) and eat Junior's Cheesecake.

    Meanwhile, Friday marked the second full moon of July, a phenomenon referred to as a “Blue Moon.”

      

    150730 Blue Moon

      

    Though the phrase “once in a blue moon” is used to describe a rare event … a blue moon is not really that rare; nor does imply that the moon appears blue.

    Technically, the term “blue moon” describes the second full moon in a single calendar month.

    Most years only have 12 moons, but this year has 13 (which happens every two to three years).

  • Weekend Links

    Hillary Clinton may have to deal with more fall-out from her deleted e-mail fiasco.

     

    150726 Hillary Only Deleted Things You Didn't Want To See

     

    Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

     

    Lighter Links:

     

    Trading Links:

  • Weekend Links

    Hillary Clinton may have to deal with more fall-out from her deleted e-mail fiasco.

     

    150726 Hillary Only Deleted Things You Didn't Want To See

     

    Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

     

    Lighter Links:

     

    Trading Links:

  • China Tries to Prevent a Market Crash

    It has been a tough several weeks for Chinese markets.

    As such, the Chinese government has taken some extreme measures to intervene and minimize the selloff.

    Some of these measures include more than half the companies on the exchange "voluntarily" suspending trading.

    But, it has not worked yet.

        

    150711 Tough Week for Chinese Markets

    via WSJ.

     

    Stratfor posits:  Beijing has an underlying interest in ensuring that China's stock markets do not collapse, even though any intervention risks exacerbating whatever financial and political fallout may come from an eventual market decline or crash. Therefore, the government will likely continue to intervene to the best of its ability, propping up markets and market sentiment whenever the risk of a major sell-off becomes too great.

    This does not mean that stock prices won't slide further, or that the market will stabilize — indeed, it could well become even more volatile over the coming months. Until Beijing invents more avenues for investment, or unless it embraces interest rate hikes and any post-crisis restructuring, it will have to rely on the few tools available to ensure that citizens can generate the wealth and financial security they need to consume.  

     

  • China Tries to Prevent a Market Crash

    It has been a tough several weeks for Chinese markets.

    As such, the Chinese government has taken some extreme measures to intervene and minimize the selloff.

    Some of these measures include more than half the companies on the exchange "voluntarily" suspending trading.

    But, it has not worked yet.

        

    150711 Tough Week for Chinese Markets

    via WSJ.

     

    Stratfor posits:  Beijing has an underlying interest in ensuring that China's stock markets do not collapse, even though any intervention risks exacerbating whatever financial and political fallout may come from an eventual market decline or crash. Therefore, the government will likely continue to intervene to the best of its ability, propping up markets and market sentiment whenever the risk of a major sell-off becomes too great.

    This does not mean that stock prices won't slide further, or that the market will stabilize — indeed, it could well become even more volatile over the coming months. Until Beijing invents more avenues for investment, or unless it embraces interest rate hikes and any post-crisis restructuring, it will have to rely on the few tools available to ensure that citizens can generate the wealth and financial security they need to consume.  

     

  • What Languages are the Most Spoken – The Results Might Surprise You

    There are over 7,100 known languages actively spoken in the world today. Of those, just twenty-three of them act as a mother tongue for more than 50 million people.  Collectively, those 23 languages make up the native tongue of more than half the world (4.1 billion people).

    This infographic represent each language within black borders and then provide the numbers of native speakers (in millions) by country. The coloring shows how the languages have taken root in many different regions.

     

    150620 A World of Languages

     via Alberto Lucas López .

     

    As you can see, Chinese is by far the most dominant language on the planet right now, with almost 1.2 billion people speaking dialects. Comparatively, pretty much every other language on Earth is an also-ran: Spanish (399 million speakers), English (335 million), Hindi (260 million), and Arabic (242 million) take up the next four positions. Only when you add them up do they come close to the reach Chinese has.

    Although Chinese is the most popular language on Earth, it's worth noting that its influence wanes greatly outside of Asia.

    If you take the geographic diversity of where a language is spoken into account, English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese are the most influential languages on Earth, because of colonialism.

    For more, here is a link to the Washington Post's article: The world’s languages, in 7 maps and charts.

  • What Languages are the Most Spoken – The Results Might Surprise You

    There are over 7,100 known languages actively spoken in the world today. Of those, just twenty-three of them act as a mother tongue for more than 50 million people.  Collectively, those 23 languages make up the native tongue of more than half the world (4.1 billion people).

    This infographic represent each language within black borders and then provide the numbers of native speakers (in millions) by country. The coloring shows how the languages have taken root in many different regions.

     

    150620 A World of Languages

     via Alberto Lucas López .

     

    As you can see, Chinese is by far the most dominant language on the planet right now, with almost 1.2 billion people speaking dialects. Comparatively, pretty much every other language on Earth is an also-ran: Spanish (399 million speakers), English (335 million), Hindi (260 million), and Arabic (242 million) take up the next four positions. Only when you add them up do they come close to the reach Chinese has.

    Although Chinese is the most popular language on Earth, it's worth noting that its influence wanes greatly outside of Asia.

    If you take the geographic diversity of where a language is spoken into account, English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese are the most influential languages on Earth, because of colonialism.

    For more, here is a link to the Washington Post's article: The world’s languages, in 7 maps and charts.

  • How Big Is America? So Big!

    Sometimes it helps to employ unconventional perspectives when thinking about the size of things.

    Here's a map that shows how massive and productive America's $16.7 trillion economy is on a global scale.

    The map compares the gross domestic product of each US states with the national GDPs of other nations.

    America's largest state economy is California. For 2013, the Golden State's GDP was about $2.05 trillion, roughly the same as Brazil's GDP ($2.25 trillion). But Brazil's population is about 200.4 million, while California's is just 38.8 million — meaning California produces about the same as Brazil with about 80% fewer people.

    To put it in a global perspective, if California were its own country in 2013, it would have been the 10th-biggest economy in the world, close behind Russia, whose GDP was $2.096 trillion that year.

    Check out the rest of the states in the map below:

     

    150613 State GDPs vs Country GDPs

     via Business Insider.

    Based on population, the US is the third-largest country in the world.

    To put that in perspective, below is a a map that renames each state with the country that has the closest population to it.

     

    150613 Countries and States by Population

    via Business Insider.

     

    The map, below, is interesting in a different way.  I'm sure you've heard that "a picture is worth a thousand words."  Here, a couple dozen words capture the world.

     

    150613 The World In Words

    by Michael Tompsett via Fine Art America.

  • How Big Is America? So Big!

    Sometimes it helps to employ unconventional perspectives when thinking about the size of things.

    Here's a map that shows how massive and productive America's $16.7 trillion economy is on a global scale.

    The map compares the gross domestic product of each US states with the national GDPs of other nations.

    America's largest state economy is California. For 2013, the Golden State's GDP was about $2.05 trillion, roughly the same as Brazil's GDP ($2.25 trillion). But Brazil's population is about 200.4 million, while California's is just 38.8 million — meaning California produces about the same as Brazil with about 80% fewer people.

    To put it in a global perspective, if California were its own country in 2013, it would have been the 10th-biggest economy in the world, close behind Russia, whose GDP was $2.096 trillion that year.

    Check out the rest of the states in the map below:

     

    150613 State GDPs vs Country GDPs

     via Business Insider.

    Based on population, the US is the third-largest country in the world.

    To put that in perspective, below is a a map that renames each state with the country that has the closest population to it.

     

    150613 Countries and States by Population

    via Business Insider.

     

    The map, below, is interesting in a different way.  I'm sure you've heard that "a picture is worth a thousand words."  Here, a couple dozen words capture the world.

     

    150613 The World In Words

    by Michael Tompsett via Fine Art America.