M@Blog

Could this be true?
Not to get all political on you, but really: The speed with which the US lost global goodwill and sympathy from 9/11 to the present day may be unparalleled in human history. Nobody has lost that much goodwill so quickly before.
From The Ludologist. Good comments follow too.

Why California should divorce the U.S.

Good advice from Bnoopy on taking some time off to think after completing or at least departing from a project/venture/job.

City
Tokyo
New York
London
Shanghai

Population
12,369,000
8,008,000
7,100,000
17,110,000

Foreigners
2.8%
36%
23.9%
0.6%

 
110,000 Chinese
370,000 Puerto Ricans
170,000 Indians
N/A

 
100,000 Koreans
260,000 Chinese
160,000 Irish
 

 
30,000 Filipino
180,000 Jamaicans
80,000 Bangladesh
 

 
18,000 Americans
160,000 Russians
80,000 Jamaicans
 

 
6000 Thai
130,000 Guyanians
70,000 Pakistani
 

People/m2 (2002)
13
15
7
8

Park space/person
4.45m2
29.3m2
26.9m2
5.6m2

Tourists/year
5,240,000
5,200,000
11,950,000
3,200,000

Murders (2003)
125
594
232
N/A

I had dinner at Spago’s this past Sunday. It was a pseudo-reunion dinner with long-time family friends who were making their annual visit to Japan. With Spago’s being the world-class restaurant it is, I pulled out most of the stops and went slick-black with my favorite cashmere jacket. All six of us [...]

Fascinating article by David Owen in the October 18th issue of The New Yorker, who argues that Manhattan is by far more environmentally friendly than the rest of America.
The true challenge is how to make other settled places more like Manhattan
A dense population - whose sprawl is contained by being on an island - is [...]

Nobel prize winning economist Stiglitz, declares Bush is “dead wrong”.

Some interesting stats by the BBC on Japan’s “diversity”, which is, frankly, laughable. But it will have to change, if Japan hopes to have any credibility on a globally influential scale.

From IEEE Spectrum:
Worldwide copies of [X] sold in 2003:
DVD-A: 400,000
SACD: 1,300,000
LPs: 1,500,000
Interesting how such old technology is still so popular. SACDs have been around for a few years now…

Nothing entirely new, but a few more stats. Japan’s women wary to wed. Where’re the ones with an English Mastiff?