Capitalogix

Mana Lisa's Smile (Nope, It's not a typo)

Mana Lisa had a strange smile ... and eyes that seemed to follow you around the room.

The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. Sometimes you don't recognize when the journey starts ... other times you do.

 

 — with Ming Alihan at MAD Museum of Art & Design, Singapore.

 

And sometimes you have to go half way around the world, just to get to the starting line.

Best wishes on all your journeys.

MAP: Living Costs Around the World

This map shows the difference in living costs around the world using figures from the world's largest database of user contributed data about cities and countries worldwide.

The Consumer Price Index, used to determine the difference in the living costs between countries, takes into account the prices of groceries, transportation, restaurants and utilities.

 

 

There are many more charts with specific data by region.  The chart below shows the places with the highest and lowest costs of living.

 

via MoveHub.

 

The CPI in the infographic is a relative indicator of a country's living costs compared to New York. So, for instance, if a country has a CPI of 70, on average it enjoys 30% cheaper living costs compared to New York.

What’s Going On - Playing For Change [Music Video]

Here is a different take on Marvin Gaye’s classic “What’s Going On”.

It is a "Song Around The World" recording by Playing For Change.

It starts with an acoustic guitar in Africa, adds a drummer in Los Angeles. Next comes the electric guitar and bass on the streets of Chicago and strings in Serbia.  You get the picture ...

Now listen to the music.

 

 

 

Years in the making, minutes to watch. Very cool.

This Song Around The World is featured on PFC3. The album features 185 musicians from 31 countries.

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Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

Déjà vu?

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• 5 Tips for Finding Flow: A High Performance User's Guide for the New Year. (Forbes)
• Science Says This Personality Trait Predicts Job Performance. What's your guess? (BI)
• Why Airlines Want to Make You Suffer. (NewYorker)
• CIA Predictions for 2015 from the Year 2000. (Business Insider)
• Coming Data Deluge Means You’ll Know Anything You Want, Anytime, Anywhere. (SingularityHub)

 

Trading Links:

• 10 Legendary Investment Rules from Legendary Investors. (Zero Hedge)
• Big Banks Manipulate Physical Market Prices | The Big Picture. (Ritholtz)
• Information in Financial Markets: Who Gets It First? (Papers)
• High-Frequency Trading Payoff Tied to News. (MarketWatch)
• Oil Companies’ Predicament: Who Should Cut Production? (Wall Street Journal)

The World as 100 People [New Infographic]

The world has over 7 billion people.

How can we get a sense of what it means ... and who we are?

One way is by statistically representing the world population as 100 people.  That way, complex issues become more comprehensible and help us get a clearer look at the big picture.

So, what would the world look like if it were represented by just 100 people?

The infographic below covers a broad range of statistics, including: gender, age, race and religion. 

 

 via Washington Post.

To see a video about this, click here.

A different look at the data is here.

You can find the original source of the data here.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

Have you seen how they teach math recently?

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• The Complexity of Complexity. (Strategy-Business)
• Computers Projected To Overtake Human Brain By 2020. (ValueWalk)
• This Is How Putin Rolls. (Zero Hedge)
• 17 Essential Mobile Apps for Small Business Travel. (BigIdeasBlog)
• What Democrats can learn from Republicans. (Vox)

 

Trading Links:

• Has Capitalism Reached A Turning Point? (Forbes)
• There’s Rich, Then There's the 0.01%. (Bloomberg View)
• A Peek Inside One of the World’s Most Secretive Hedge Funds. (eFinancial)
• The New Strategic Intent of Corporate Venture Capital. (CB Insights)
• Jesse Livermore's 21 Trading Rules. (Business Insider)

Time-Lapse Maps That Show How Fast and Much the World Has Changed

Human have a huge impact on the landscape. 

For example, take a look at Dubai in Google's Earth Engine.  It is easy to see the incredible coastal expansion.

 

 

 

We are literally terra-forming the planet.

The Earth Engine brings together trillions of scientific measurements dating back over 40 years (based on Landsat satellite imagery).

You can explore some of these time-lapse maps here.

What Is $100 Actually Worth In Your State?

Money goes further in some states than others.  Here is one way demonstration.

The Tax Foundation released a map showing the relative value of $100 in every state (compared with the national average using the data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis).

 

The same amount of dollars are worth almost 40 percent more in Mississippi than in D.C., and the differences become even larger if metro area prices are considered instead of statewide averages," writes the Tax Foundation. "A person who makes $40,000 a year after tax in Kentucky would need to have after-tax earnings of $53,000 in Washington, D.C., just in order to have an equal standard of living, let alone feel richer.

 

Here's the map:

 

Tax Foundation

The states with the smallest relative value of $100 were:

• Washington, D.C. ($84.60)
• Hawaii ($85.32)
• New York ($86.66)
• New Jersey ($87.64)
• California ($88.57)

While the states with the largest relative value of $100 were:

• Mississippi ($115.74)
• Arkansas ($114.16)
• Missouri ($113.51)
• Alabama ($113.51)
• South Dakota ($113.38)

Related articles

What's The Biggest Business In Your State?

How Long Does it Take to Earn $1M in Different Countries?

Almost All of the World’s Biggest Cities Will Be In Asia and Africa by 2030

Tokyo is the undisputed champion of mega-cities. With a population of 37.8 million, it dwarfs second-place Delhi. The Japanese capital has such a big lead in population that even though it’s expected to lose about half a million people over the next 16 years, it will still be the world’s biggest metropolis in 2030, according to a new report by the United Nations:

Here is a list of the Top 10 "mega-cities" by population in 2014 and projected in 2030.

 

 

 

Some of the mega-cities on the 2014 list aren't projected to rank as high in 2030 ... For example, New York, Osaka, and Sao Paulo will no longer make the top 10, and Mexico City will barely hang on as the sole representative outside of Asia and Africa.

This projection reflects the major shift driven by the urbanization in Asia and Africa, particularly in India (404 million projected new city dwellers by 2030), China (292 million), and Nigeria (212 million).

Why is the balance shifting so radically? Mostly because the rest of the world is already highly urbanized, while Africa and Asia are home to nearly 90% of the world’s remaining rural population.

Related articles

Urban future - World 54% urban today, 66% urban in 2050 and 85% urban in 2100

China - Twenty Years Ago and Now

Had a quick stop-over in Beijing and got to visit to the Great Wall of China.

 

 

Interesting to see how modern China is becoming.

 

My first visit to China was in the 1990s. A lot has changed (mostly for the better).

 

Here is a picture that compares today's Shanghai with what it looked like twenty years ago.

 

 

Progress.