Post 590 - I never knew this......until today
It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannon on old war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the problem. The storage method devised was to stack them as a square based pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine, which rested on sixteen.
Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem - how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others.
The solution was a metal plate with 16 round indentations, called, for reasons unknown, a Monkey. But if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make them of brass - hence, Brass Monkeys.
Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey.
Thus, it was quite literally, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.
And all this time, I thought that this was just a vulgar expression.....
Showing posts with label Miscellaneous.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miscellaneous.. Show all posts
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Stuff you may not know...
Post 588 - Chief Executive magazine's CEO Confidence Index, the nation's leading monthly CEO Confidence Index, increased 14.7 points (14.4 percent), rising to 102.1 following the results of the November elections. All five components of the index showed double-digit gains in November.
Check my math - A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year. A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year. So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year. The government claims 700,000 vehicles were taken off the road, so that's 224 million gallons saved per year. That equates to a bit over five million barrels of oil. Five million barrels is about five hours worth of US consumption. More importantly, five million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars. So, we paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million. Bottom line, we spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved. I’m hoping the government will do a better job with our health care, though.
In 2007, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley tried to estimate just how much information had been produced in the previous year. Their answer was five exabytes, equivalent to almost 40 times the contents of the Library of Congress.
An associate and friend of Thomas Edison, Edward Johnson, is recognized as the first person to put electrified lights on a real Christmas tree. It happened in 1882, just three years after the incandescent light bulb was invented. Johnson was an executive of the Edison Illumination Company of New York City. Christmas trees before 1882 were displayed in homes with lighted candles - many tragic fires resulted from this custom. Edward Johnson hand-wired 80 red, white and blue hand-blown bulbs and strung them around a rotating evergreen tree. To quote Johnson from a letter sent to New York newspapers, "Electric trees will prove to be far less dangerous than the wax candle parlor trees." In fact, those first bulbs became very hot and were nearly as dangerous as the candles they were replacing. Still out of range for most American families to purchase, Edison's Christmas tree lights did not immediately catch on. It would take decades for affordable lighting to become available to most Americans.
In 1917, a 15-year-old boy named Albert Sadacca had a "light bulb" experience. Sadacca's family owned a novelty store selling electrified wicker bird cages with lighted imitation birds. Sadacca suggested to his parents that they begin making electric lights for Christmas trees. After a slow first year, the New York City novelty store grew into NOMA Electric Company and quickly became the largest Christmas lighting company in the world.
According to the National Electrical Contractors Association, the bladed wall plug that we use today was actually a development of a device that was originally used to facilitate the interconnection of strings of Christmas lights.
Check my math - A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year. A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year. So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year. The government claims 700,000 vehicles were taken off the road, so that's 224 million gallons saved per year. That equates to a bit over five million barrels of oil. Five million barrels is about five hours worth of US consumption. More importantly, five million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars. So, we paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million. Bottom line, we spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved. I’m hoping the government will do a better job with our health care, though.
In 2007, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley tried to estimate just how much information had been produced in the previous year. Their answer was five exabytes, equivalent to almost 40 times the contents of the Library of Congress.
An associate and friend of Thomas Edison, Edward Johnson, is recognized as the first person to put electrified lights on a real Christmas tree. It happened in 1882, just three years after the incandescent light bulb was invented. Johnson was an executive of the Edison Illumination Company of New York City. Christmas trees before 1882 were displayed in homes with lighted candles - many tragic fires resulted from this custom. Edward Johnson hand-wired 80 red, white and blue hand-blown bulbs and strung them around a rotating evergreen tree. To quote Johnson from a letter sent to New York newspapers, "Electric trees will prove to be far less dangerous than the wax candle parlor trees." In fact, those first bulbs became very hot and were nearly as dangerous as the candles they were replacing. Still out of range for most American families to purchase, Edison's Christmas tree lights did not immediately catch on. It would take decades for affordable lighting to become available to most Americans.
In 1917, a 15-year-old boy named Albert Sadacca had a "light bulb" experience. Sadacca's family owned a novelty store selling electrified wicker bird cages with lighted imitation birds. Sadacca suggested to his parents that they begin making electric lights for Christmas trees. After a slow first year, the New York City novelty store grew into NOMA Electric Company and quickly became the largest Christmas lighting company in the world.
According to the National Electrical Contractors Association, the bladed wall plug that we use today was actually a development of a device that was originally used to facilitate the interconnection of strings of Christmas lights.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Strange, but true!
Post 584 - I've been saving these up ..........
The safety of most chemicals used in mattresses - or any other consumer product - is simply unknown, because the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 considers all new chemicals safe until proven otherwise, and does not require companies to do any testing of their products. This means that companies such as Naturepedic, which markets non-toxic mattresses, are forced to pay to individually test nearly any component they want to include in a product. This drives up the prices of their products, making a healthy mattress a luxury only the wealthy can afford.
Anne McCartt, co-author of a recent report on older American drivers by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, pointed out that while highway deaths have dropped across the board, the decline in fatal crash involvement from 1997 to 2006 for drivers over 70 was much greater - 37 percent - than it was among drivers ages 35 to 54. Police data from 13 states also suggests that older drivers are involved less often in nonfatal injury crashes and in those causing only property damage. This confounds experts’ expectations that more old drivers on the road would lead to greater mayhem. It’s not clear why this hasn’t happened. “It probably has something to do with the cohort,” Ms. Hersman said. “Folks are more healthy, more active and more active drivers” - less likely to crash and more likely to survive if they do.
The Hindustan Times reported recently that a Nepali telecommunications firm had just started providing third-generation mobile network service, or 3G, at the summit of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain, to “allow thousands of climbers and trekkers who throng the region every year access to high-speed Internet and video calls using their mobile phones.”
In India alone, some 15 million new cellphone users are being added each month.
The U.S. government is currently borrowing $5 Billion dollars every single business day!
More than four Americans out of ten still think that Prohibition was the right way to go. What have they been drinking?
The UK's lowest ever recorded temperature in November was minus 23.3C recorded in Braemar, in the Scottish Highlands, on November 14, 1919.
The safety of most chemicals used in mattresses - or any other consumer product - is simply unknown, because the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 considers all new chemicals safe until proven otherwise, and does not require companies to do any testing of their products. This means that companies such as Naturepedic, which markets non-toxic mattresses, are forced to pay to individually test nearly any component they want to include in a product. This drives up the prices of their products, making a healthy mattress a luxury only the wealthy can afford.
Anne McCartt, co-author of a recent report on older American drivers by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, pointed out that while highway deaths have dropped across the board, the decline in fatal crash involvement from 1997 to 2006 for drivers over 70 was much greater - 37 percent - than it was among drivers ages 35 to 54. Police data from 13 states also suggests that older drivers are involved less often in nonfatal injury crashes and in those causing only property damage. This confounds experts’ expectations that more old drivers on the road would lead to greater mayhem. It’s not clear why this hasn’t happened. “It probably has something to do with the cohort,” Ms. Hersman said. “Folks are more healthy, more active and more active drivers” - less likely to crash and more likely to survive if they do.
The Hindustan Times reported recently that a Nepali telecommunications firm had just started providing third-generation mobile network service, or 3G, at the summit of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain, to “allow thousands of climbers and trekkers who throng the region every year access to high-speed Internet and video calls using their mobile phones.”
In India alone, some 15 million new cellphone users are being added each month.
The U.S. government is currently borrowing $5 Billion dollars every single business day!
More than four Americans out of ten still think that Prohibition was the right way to go. What have they been drinking?
The UK's lowest ever recorded temperature in November was minus 23.3C recorded in Braemar, in the Scottish Highlands, on November 14, 1919.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Facts that interest me.
Post 580 - Here are some facts that interested me lately:
Nielsen reports teens sent or received 3,339 texts per month on average for the second quarter of 2010. Put another way, that's six texts on average for every waking hour. Teenage girls are even more active, sending 4,050 texts per month. The number of texts sent by teens in 2010 was up 8% from the year prior.
Hal Varian at Google reports that the average person online spends seventy seconds a day reading online news.
I read about someone who recently went to the Post Office to get a passport. After filling in an application, he wanted to pay for it by credit card but was told that the USPS doesn’t accept credit cards for payment of passport fees. He didn’t have any checks or enough cash with him, so he left that section of the Post Office, stood in line and bought a Postal Service money order, which he paid for with a credit card. He then took the money order back to the clerk and paid his passport fees. Is it any wonder that the Postal Service is losing money and wants to raise its prices as a result? Just another crippled giant that expects its customers to foot the bill for its inefficiencies.
CEOs in October were wary about the economy, but hopes for a better start to 2011 are rising. Chief Executive magazine's CEO Confidence Index, the nation's leading monthly CEO Confidence Index, remained flat in October, rising only 1.3 percent to 87.4. The Business Condition Index showed the largest percentage gain, rising 9.2 percent to 91.5. Gains in this component of the index are the result of a larger number of CEOs expecting to see the business environment and economy to show gradual improvement over the next quarter. While 50 percent of responding CEOs predict no change in the economy over the next quarter, 34.4 percent forecast gradual growth – an increase of more than 7 percent. The Current Confidence Index, a sub index that calculates CEO confidence in current employment, capital spending and economic conditions, fell to 56.2, a loss of 10.9 percent. In the survey, 76.8 percent of CEOs rate business conditions as "bad", 19.0 percent rated business conditions "normal" and only 4.3 percent rated current business conditions as "good."
The total net worth of the Walton family is $89.6 billion. All this wealth was created by a farm boy from Boone County, Missouri. Some people think this a very good thing, others view it as a very bad thing. I'm in the former group, as someone who emigrated here fifty years ago to benefit from this "land of opportunity." I'm curious to know where my readers stand and why. Any comments?
Nielsen reports teens sent or received 3,339 texts per month on average for the second quarter of 2010. Put another way, that's six texts on average for every waking hour. Teenage girls are even more active, sending 4,050 texts per month. The number of texts sent by teens in 2010 was up 8% from the year prior.
Hal Varian at Google reports that the average person online spends seventy seconds a day reading online news.
I read about someone who recently went to the Post Office to get a passport. After filling in an application, he wanted to pay for it by credit card but was told that the USPS doesn’t accept credit cards for payment of passport fees. He didn’t have any checks or enough cash with him, so he left that section of the Post Office, stood in line and bought a Postal Service money order, which he paid for with a credit card. He then took the money order back to the clerk and paid his passport fees. Is it any wonder that the Postal Service is losing money and wants to raise its prices as a result? Just another crippled giant that expects its customers to foot the bill for its inefficiencies.
CEOs in October were wary about the economy, but hopes for a better start to 2011 are rising. Chief Executive magazine's CEO Confidence Index, the nation's leading monthly CEO Confidence Index, remained flat in October, rising only 1.3 percent to 87.4. The Business Condition Index showed the largest percentage gain, rising 9.2 percent to 91.5. Gains in this component of the index are the result of a larger number of CEOs expecting to see the business environment and economy to show gradual improvement over the next quarter. While 50 percent of responding CEOs predict no change in the economy over the next quarter, 34.4 percent forecast gradual growth – an increase of more than 7 percent. The Current Confidence Index, a sub index that calculates CEO confidence in current employment, capital spending and economic conditions, fell to 56.2, a loss of 10.9 percent. In the survey, 76.8 percent of CEOs rate business conditions as "bad", 19.0 percent rated business conditions "normal" and only 4.3 percent rated current business conditions as "good."
The total net worth of the Walton family is $89.6 billion. All this wealth was created by a farm boy from Boone County, Missouri. Some people think this a very good thing, others view it as a very bad thing. I'm in the former group, as someone who emigrated here fifty years ago to benefit from this "land of opportunity." I'm curious to know where my readers stand and why. Any comments?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Some ideas about creating the future.
Post 574 - Reflections on how to think about the future:
We need to step back and learn from history, then learn to manage complexity with simplicity using more general ideas.
Learning from the past gives people security to be able to change. The challenge of learning to be able to go fast slowly.
We need to develop a new kind of complexity rather than just simplifying organizations by downsizing. Organizations must develop a capability to manage complex on-going change at all levels - pretty sophisticated stuff relative to traditional reactive change. This will require a whole new way of teaching employees so it becomes a never-ending ongoing exercise. Strategies now have to be developed on many levels and short term initiatives is as important as long range ones. There's a need to reinterpret the past to make it a part of the future - that is, to integrate the past and the future so people can resolve the split in their head which polarizes their choices between one or the other. A new world view should integrate both. This means reordering of how we in the west view the concept of time, differentiating between where M-time and P-time are appropriate to use, rather than using M-time all the time.
Our most cherished myths are often freely sculpted truths. For confirmation and comfort, we often turn not to a verifiable recording of the past but to a loose rendering of it. That fuzziness is our heritage, the other merely a record of what happened.
We need to learn about the future from the past and the present by looking for the patterns (principles) behind the patterns - these are the principles that endure. There can be no viable future that doesn’t have its roots somewhere in the past. New futures won’t spring into being without honoring the continuities that people value in their lives and their previous work habits. Examining the past is a way to appreciate these continuities in the present and provide a platform to evaluate the current system. The history of a system is as much part of its future as its environment. Strategy development can’t be detached from the system’s culture and history. Examining the past is a way to start dreaming about the future.
We need to step back and learn from history, then learn to manage complexity with simplicity using more general ideas.
Learning from the past gives people security to be able to change. The challenge of learning to be able to go fast slowly.
We need to develop a new kind of complexity rather than just simplifying organizations by downsizing. Organizations must develop a capability to manage complex on-going change at all levels - pretty sophisticated stuff relative to traditional reactive change. This will require a whole new way of teaching employees so it becomes a never-ending ongoing exercise. Strategies now have to be developed on many levels and short term initiatives is as important as long range ones. There's a need to reinterpret the past to make it a part of the future - that is, to integrate the past and the future so people can resolve the split in their head which polarizes their choices between one or the other. A new world view should integrate both. This means reordering of how we in the west view the concept of time, differentiating between where M-time and P-time are appropriate to use, rather than using M-time all the time.
Our most cherished myths are often freely sculpted truths. For confirmation and comfort, we often turn not to a verifiable recording of the past but to a loose rendering of it. That fuzziness is our heritage, the other merely a record of what happened.
We need to learn about the future from the past and the present by looking for the patterns (principles) behind the patterns - these are the principles that endure. There can be no viable future that doesn’t have its roots somewhere in the past. New futures won’t spring into being without honoring the continuities that people value in their lives and their previous work habits. Examining the past is a way to appreciate these continuities in the present and provide a platform to evaluate the current system. The history of a system is as much part of its future as its environment. Strategy development can’t be detached from the system’s culture and history. Examining the past is a way to start dreaming about the future.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Some more strange facts and figures.
Post 566 - Some more strange facts and figures…….
Shawn Tully has been trying to popularize his acronym: HENRYs, for “high earners, not rich yet.” Only about 2% of American households take in more than $250,000 a year in taxable income, so while there are many words that can be used to describe this income group, "middle" clearly isn’t one of them. Somewhere in the top 1% (those making more than $410,000 in adjusted gross income as of 2007) things start to turn regressive because the top federal income tax bracket of 35% kicks in at an adjusted gross income of $373,650. So if you make $20 million a year, you probably pay out a smaller percentage of your income in taxes than if you make $500,000. This is because investment income - capital gains and dividends - is taxed at lower rates than earned income. If you want an up-to-date rundown of effective federal tax rates at the top end of the income distribution scale, check out:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html
Several private universities have endowments that would be the envy of many national treasuries. Harvard, has the largest with $27.4 billion. Last year, it lost more than the entire endowment of Cambridge University, Britain’s largest at $1.5 billion. The current return for Harvard is 11 percent, while Cambridge reports it made 19 percent on it’s investments.
Dr. Tom Hill reports that based on the percentage of citizens who are overweight, the U.S. ranks number one out of the 33 most advanced countries in the world. The next four are Mexico, Chile, New Zealand and the U.K. Who are the healthiest based on the same criteria? The least overweight of course - Japan followed by Korea, Switzerland, and Norway.
Marriage rates among young adults have been dropping for decades. But data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau show that for the first time the proportion of people between the ages of 25 and 34 who’ve never been married exceeded those who were married in 2009 - 46.3 percent versus 44.9 percent, according to Mark Mather, at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington DC. The long-term slide in marriage rates has pushed the proportion of married adults of all ages to 52 percent in 2009, according to the Census, the lowest share in history. In 1963, when I came to America, 72.2 percent of adults over 18 were married. I remember being very surprised at how difficult it was to meet single women in Los Angeles. However, as marriage rates have fallen, the number of adults living together has skyrocketed, according to Mr. Mather's analysis. Men and women are living together as an alternative or a first step towards marriage. The probability of getting married at some point in life still remains at about 90 percent.
The worsening economy in Ireland has again raised the specter of emigration with workers fleeing to the UK, Australia, USA and Canada in search of a new life. Excluding non-nationals who moved into Ireland during the boom years and who are now returning home, the number of Irish citizens leaving has risen dramatically to over 27,000 annually, up by 42% since 2008.
Five things alone are necessary for the sustenance and comfort of the children of the earth according to Zuni belief:
The Sun, who is the Father of all
The Earth, who is the Mother of men
The Water, who is the Grandfather
The Fire, who is the Grandmother
Our Brothers and Sisters, the Corn and Seeds of growing things.
Shawn Tully has been trying to popularize his acronym: HENRYs, for “high earners, not rich yet.” Only about 2% of American households take in more than $250,000 a year in taxable income, so while there are many words that can be used to describe this income group, "middle" clearly isn’t one of them. Somewhere in the top 1% (those making more than $410,000 in adjusted gross income as of 2007) things start to turn regressive because the top federal income tax bracket of 35% kicks in at an adjusted gross income of $373,650. So if you make $20 million a year, you probably pay out a smaller percentage of your income in taxes than if you make $500,000. This is because investment income - capital gains and dividends - is taxed at lower rates than earned income. If you want an up-to-date rundown of effective federal tax rates at the top end of the income distribution scale, check out:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html
Several private universities have endowments that would be the envy of many national treasuries. Harvard, has the largest with $27.4 billion. Last year, it lost more than the entire endowment of Cambridge University, Britain’s largest at $1.5 billion. The current return for Harvard is 11 percent, while Cambridge reports it made 19 percent on it’s investments.
Dr. Tom Hill reports that based on the percentage of citizens who are overweight, the U.S. ranks number one out of the 33 most advanced countries in the world. The next four are Mexico, Chile, New Zealand and the U.K. Who are the healthiest based on the same criteria? The least overweight of course - Japan followed by Korea, Switzerland, and Norway.
Marriage rates among young adults have been dropping for decades. But data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau show that for the first time the proportion of people between the ages of 25 and 34 who’ve never been married exceeded those who were married in 2009 - 46.3 percent versus 44.9 percent, according to Mark Mather, at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington DC. The long-term slide in marriage rates has pushed the proportion of married adults of all ages to 52 percent in 2009, according to the Census, the lowest share in history. In 1963, when I came to America, 72.2 percent of adults over 18 were married. I remember being very surprised at how difficult it was to meet single women in Los Angeles. However, as marriage rates have fallen, the number of adults living together has skyrocketed, according to Mr. Mather's analysis. Men and women are living together as an alternative or a first step towards marriage. The probability of getting married at some point in life still remains at about 90 percent.
The worsening economy in Ireland has again raised the specter of emigration with workers fleeing to the UK, Australia, USA and Canada in search of a new life. Excluding non-nationals who moved into Ireland during the boom years and who are now returning home, the number of Irish citizens leaving has risen dramatically to over 27,000 annually, up by 42% since 2008.
Five things alone are necessary for the sustenance and comfort of the children of the earth according to Zuni belief:
The Sun, who is the Father of all
The Earth, who is the Mother of men
The Water, who is the Grandfather
The Fire, who is the Grandmother
Our Brothers and Sisters, the Corn and Seeds of growing things.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
A chronicle of continuing uncertainty.
Post 558 - Instead of letting these observations plant visions in your sleepless future, remember that correlations deduced from observational studies do not - in fact, cannot - prove causation. All you can really do with data from an observational study is to form a hypothesis, which must then be tested in randomized, controlled trials, to ferret out the truth about whether or not x actually causes y.
These weekly collections aren't always cheerful. However, as Berthold Brecht wrote,
And in the dark times
Will there be singing?
There will be singing.
About the dark times.
U.S. Hotels have been hit hard by the recession. Hotel occupancy fell 8.2 percentage points between 2007 and 2009, and revenue per room fell 18.3 percent, according to Smith Travel Research.
Despite small gains from the previous month, Chief Executive Magazine's CEO confidence in the economy continued to be weak. The monthly CEO Confidence Index rose slightly in August, gaining 9.4 points to 89.2. Apparently, the government stimulus package failed to stimulate CEO confidence.
Almost no one (<1%) trusts company advertisements or statements made on packaging when trying to understand if a product or company is or does what it says. Consumers are much more likely (57%-100%) to trust third parties or themselves 'a lot/the most' than company ads. And 73% consider both product and company claims when making a purchase.
Time spent on Facebook was greater than time spent on Google sites in the U.S. in August 2010 for the first time in history, according to fresh data from comScore. Meanwhile, Yahoo continues its slide from the top of the heap to the bottom.
Make sure your home is properly covered for a disaster For many people, their home is their greatest asset. Yet studies show that 59 percent of today's homes are underinsured by an average of 22 percent.
The number one source of calories in the U.S. comes from high fructose corn syrup primarily in the form of soda. Americans drink an average of one gallon of soda each week, and this excessive fructose consumption is a driving force behind obesity and chronic degenerative disease in this country.
OnePoll.com surveyed 5,000 women worldwide on the sexiest accents around the world. Here are the results....
1. Irish
2. Italian
3. Scottish
4. French
5. Australian
6. British
7. Swedish
8. Spanish
9. Welsh
10. American
38 percent of America’s carbon dioxide emissions come from commercial buildings and homes. The market for green construction should reach $140 billion by 2013, up from 49 billion in 2008.
A popular estimate of the number of human beings who have ever lived on the planet earth is around 106 billion.
Apple is selling just as many computers to college students as Dell, according to a survey from Daniel Ernst at Hudson Square Research, via Fortune. Ernst says 38 percent of students that bought a computer in the last three months bought a Mac, up from 14 percent in 2007. Ernst surveyed 212 students at seven different universities. It would be easy to dismiss these numbers based on small sample size, but Ernst's research matches a report from Student Monitor which surveyed 1,200 students at 100 schools.
These weekly collections aren't always cheerful. However, as Berthold Brecht wrote,
And in the dark times
Will there be singing?
There will be singing.
About the dark times.
U.S. Hotels have been hit hard by the recession. Hotel occupancy fell 8.2 percentage points between 2007 and 2009, and revenue per room fell 18.3 percent, according to Smith Travel Research.
Despite small gains from the previous month, Chief Executive Magazine's CEO confidence in the economy continued to be weak. The monthly CEO Confidence Index rose slightly in August, gaining 9.4 points to 89.2. Apparently, the government stimulus package failed to stimulate CEO confidence.
Almost no one (<1%) trusts company advertisements or statements made on packaging when trying to understand if a product or company is or does what it says. Consumers are much more likely (57%-100%) to trust third parties or themselves 'a lot/the most' than company ads. And 73% consider both product and company claims when making a purchase.
Time spent on Facebook was greater than time spent on Google sites in the U.S. in August 2010 for the first time in history, according to fresh data from comScore. Meanwhile, Yahoo continues its slide from the top of the heap to the bottom.
Make sure your home is properly covered for a disaster For many people, their home is their greatest asset. Yet studies show that 59 percent of today's homes are underinsured by an average of 22 percent.
The number one source of calories in the U.S. comes from high fructose corn syrup primarily in the form of soda. Americans drink an average of one gallon of soda each week, and this excessive fructose consumption is a driving force behind obesity and chronic degenerative disease in this country.
OnePoll.com surveyed 5,000 women worldwide on the sexiest accents around the world. Here are the results....
1. Irish
2. Italian
3. Scottish
4. French
5. Australian
6. British
7. Swedish
8. Spanish
9. Welsh
10. American
38 percent of America’s carbon dioxide emissions come from commercial buildings and homes. The market for green construction should reach $140 billion by 2013, up from 49 billion in 2008.
A popular estimate of the number of human beings who have ever lived on the planet earth is around 106 billion.
Apple is selling just as many computers to college students as Dell, according to a survey from Daniel Ernst at Hudson Square Research, via Fortune. Ernst says 38 percent of students that bought a computer in the last three months bought a Mac, up from 14 percent in 2007. Ernst surveyed 212 students at seven different universities. It would be easy to dismiss these numbers based on small sample size, but Ernst's research matches a report from Student Monitor which surveyed 1,200 students at 100 schools.
Monday, September 6, 2010
World view September 2010.
Post 554 - Here are some more interesting facts, figures, observations and predictions:
In February of 2010, British scientists reported that a protein found only in a chicken’s ovaries is necessary for the formation of the egg. According to the scientists, the egg can only exist if it has been created inside a chicken. This protein is fundamental in the development of the shell. Of course, you may now be wondering, if the chicken came first, then where it come from? Let’s leave that mind-bender for another day….
“In Texas, we don’t carry guns because we have to,” a friend of mine told me recently. “We carry them because we're allowed to.” There’s no telling how many Texans actually walk around armed, but by Department of Public Safety figures, 247,345 men and women, more than one percent of the population, may legally carry a handgun provided it's truly concealed and not out in mischievous view. A majority of states - 36, including Texas - require the authorities to issue a concealed-handgun license to anyone who meets certification and is not ineligible, like felons. Two others, Vermont and Alaska, don’t require a license to carry a concealed weapon. Ten states, including New York, are “may issue” states, where applicants must demonstrate a special need. Two - Wisconsin and Illinois - prohibit concealed weapons altogether. Local laws also vary. Nationwide, for better or worse, Americans own some 220 million guns, and half the households in the country are believed to be armed.
Los Angeles pensions are likely to consume a third of that city's general fund by 2015.
As a percentage of the population, Spain, Ireland, Australia, Canada and the U.K. all have a greater level of home ownership than the U.S.
If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of 100 people, with the relative size of human groups remaining the same, there would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 people from the Americas (North and South), and eight Africans. Seventy would be non-white, 30 white. Seventy would be non-Christian, 30 Christian. Fifty percent of the world's wealth would be in the hands of six people. All six would be citizens of the United States. Seventy people would be unable to read. Fifty would suffer from malnutrition. Eighty would live in sub-standard housing. Only one would have a college education.
Here are some tantalizing predictions from Laurence C. Smith in The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future (Dutton Books), scheduled for publication Sept. 23.
* New shipping lanes will open during the summer in the Arctic, allowing Europe to realize its 500-year-old dream of direct trade between the Atlantic and the Far East, and resulting in new access to and economic development in the north.
* Oil resources in Canada will be second only to those in Saudi Arabia, and the country's population will swell by more than 30 percent, a growth rate rivaling India's and six times faster than China's.
* Northern rim countries - or NORCs as Smith calls them, such as Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States - will be among the few place on Earth where crop production will likely increase due to climate change.
* NORCs collectively will constitute the fourth largest economy in the world, behind the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the European Union and the United States.
* NORCs will become the envy of the world for their reserves of fresh water, which may be sold and transported to other regions.
For more information, see http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/global-warming-s-silver-lining-169919.aspx
In February of 2010, British scientists reported that a protein found only in a chicken’s ovaries is necessary for the formation of the egg. According to the scientists, the egg can only exist if it has been created inside a chicken. This protein is fundamental in the development of the shell. Of course, you may now be wondering, if the chicken came first, then where it come from? Let’s leave that mind-bender for another day….
“In Texas, we don’t carry guns because we have to,” a friend of mine told me recently. “We carry them because we're allowed to.” There’s no telling how many Texans actually walk around armed, but by Department of Public Safety figures, 247,345 men and women, more than one percent of the population, may legally carry a handgun provided it's truly concealed and not out in mischievous view. A majority of states - 36, including Texas - require the authorities to issue a concealed-handgun license to anyone who meets certification and is not ineligible, like felons. Two others, Vermont and Alaska, don’t require a license to carry a concealed weapon. Ten states, including New York, are “may issue” states, where applicants must demonstrate a special need. Two - Wisconsin and Illinois - prohibit concealed weapons altogether. Local laws also vary. Nationwide, for better or worse, Americans own some 220 million guns, and half the households in the country are believed to be armed.
Los Angeles pensions are likely to consume a third of that city's general fund by 2015.
As a percentage of the population, Spain, Ireland, Australia, Canada and the U.K. all have a greater level of home ownership than the U.S.
If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of 100 people, with the relative size of human groups remaining the same, there would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 people from the Americas (North and South), and eight Africans. Seventy would be non-white, 30 white. Seventy would be non-Christian, 30 Christian. Fifty percent of the world's wealth would be in the hands of six people. All six would be citizens of the United States. Seventy people would be unable to read. Fifty would suffer from malnutrition. Eighty would live in sub-standard housing. Only one would have a college education.
Here are some tantalizing predictions from Laurence C. Smith in The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future (Dutton Books), scheduled for publication Sept. 23.
* New shipping lanes will open during the summer in the Arctic, allowing Europe to realize its 500-year-old dream of direct trade between the Atlantic and the Far East, and resulting in new access to and economic development in the north.
* Oil resources in Canada will be second only to those in Saudi Arabia, and the country's population will swell by more than 30 percent, a growth rate rivaling India's and six times faster than China's.
* Northern rim countries - or NORCs as Smith calls them, such as Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States - will be among the few place on Earth where crop production will likely increase due to climate change.
* NORCs collectively will constitute the fourth largest economy in the world, behind the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the European Union and the United States.
* NORCs will become the envy of the world for their reserves of fresh water, which may be sold and transported to other regions.
For more information, see http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/global-warming-s-silver-lining-169919.aspx
Monday, August 30, 2010
Where are we headed?
Post 550 - Another week, another set of data reflecting where we are now and where we may be headed in the future.
32 percent of U.S. births in 2007 were C-sections, versus 26 percent in 2002, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
When you consider layoffs, downsizing, delayed raises, and reduced hours, more than half of all American workers have suffered losses. Young and Rubicam’s current consumer survey data shows large numbers are now saying money is no longer as important to them. Seventy-six percent say the number of possessions they own doesn't affect how happy they are. And seventy-one percent said, "I make it a point to buy brands from companies whose values are similar to my own." Nearly the same number rejected companies whose values don't match. Kindness and generosity are among the qualities customers increasingly demand most from business. As trust in companies and brands has declined, traditional persuasion tactics no longer work.
It's a mistake to assume that America is composed of big blocs of people who hold wildly differing values. In fact, there’s quite a long list of values held in common across all social and economic groups. Transparency, honesty, kindness, good stewardship, even humor, work in businesses at all times.
A recent San Diego University study anticipates that in only 12 years, Muslims will comprise 25 percent of the European population.
American kids under 18 send and receive roughly 2,800 texts per month, according to Nielsen, or about 93 per day. Assuming 7 hours of sleep per night, on average, that's about 5.5 per hour spent awake, or one every 10 minutes or so. In the next two age brackets, text-message usage falls by more than half each. But it's people ages 18-24 who talk the most on their cellphones, according to Nielsen, averaging 981 minutes per month. These are probably the people most likely to not have landline phones, so this also makes sense. African-Americans use the most voice minutes - more than 1,300 per month, on average, versus 826 for Hispanics, 692 for Asians/Pacific Islanders, and 647 for whites; and they also text the most - 780 per month, versus 767 for Hispanics, 566 for whites, and 384 for Asians/Pacific Islanders.
A recent NAR survey indicates that 35% of realtor business now originates online.
In a Chinese study, the cells of enthusiastic tea drinkers showed about 5 fewer years' worth of wear and tear compared with the cells of people who drank little tea. The enthusiastic tea drinkers averaged three or more cups of green or oolong tea daily, while the group that showed more signs of cell aging averaged less than a cup.
And finally, did you know that one two-stroke gasoline powered leaf blower produces as much pollution as 34 automobiles? That's why the city of Del Mar made it illegal for gardeners to use them. So no more 'blow and go' guys working in Del Mar.
32 percent of U.S. births in 2007 were C-sections, versus 26 percent in 2002, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
When you consider layoffs, downsizing, delayed raises, and reduced hours, more than half of all American workers have suffered losses. Young and Rubicam’s current consumer survey data shows large numbers are now saying money is no longer as important to them. Seventy-six percent say the number of possessions they own doesn't affect how happy they are. And seventy-one percent said, "I make it a point to buy brands from companies whose values are similar to my own." Nearly the same number rejected companies whose values don't match. Kindness and generosity are among the qualities customers increasingly demand most from business. As trust in companies and brands has declined, traditional persuasion tactics no longer work.
It's a mistake to assume that America is composed of big blocs of people who hold wildly differing values. In fact, there’s quite a long list of values held in common across all social and economic groups. Transparency, honesty, kindness, good stewardship, even humor, work in businesses at all times.
A recent San Diego University study anticipates that in only 12 years, Muslims will comprise 25 percent of the European population.
American kids under 18 send and receive roughly 2,800 texts per month, according to Nielsen, or about 93 per day. Assuming 7 hours of sleep per night, on average, that's about 5.5 per hour spent awake, or one every 10 minutes or so. In the next two age brackets, text-message usage falls by more than half each. But it's people ages 18-24 who talk the most on their cellphones, according to Nielsen, averaging 981 minutes per month. These are probably the people most likely to not have landline phones, so this also makes sense. African-Americans use the most voice minutes - more than 1,300 per month, on average, versus 826 for Hispanics, 692 for Asians/Pacific Islanders, and 647 for whites; and they also text the most - 780 per month, versus 767 for Hispanics, 566 for whites, and 384 for Asians/Pacific Islanders.
A recent NAR survey indicates that 35% of realtor business now originates online.
In a Chinese study, the cells of enthusiastic tea drinkers showed about 5 fewer years' worth of wear and tear compared with the cells of people who drank little tea. The enthusiastic tea drinkers averaged three or more cups of green or oolong tea daily, while the group that showed more signs of cell aging averaged less than a cup.
And finally, did you know that one two-stroke gasoline powered leaf blower produces as much pollution as 34 automobiles? That's why the city of Del Mar made it illegal for gardeners to use them. So no more 'blow and go' guys working in Del Mar.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Something things to think about.
Post 546 - Here are some things I found out last week, both good and bad, to think about:
Teenagers aren't necessarily tuning out adults these days; they simply might not be able to hear them. The proportion of teens in the United States with slight hearing loss has increased 30% in the last 15 years, and the number with mild or worse hearing loss has increased 77%, researchers said last Tuesday. One in every five teens now has at least a slight hearing loss, which can affect learning, speech perception, social skills development and self-image; one in every 20 has a more severe loss.
One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch. Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married. And marriage occurs later than ever. The median age at first marriage in the early 1970s, when the baby boomers were young, was 21 for women and 23 for men; by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men, five years in a little more than a generation.
Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.
People can vote at 18, but in some states they don’t age out of foster care until 21. They can join the military at 18, but they can’t drink until 21. They can drive at 16, but they can’t rent a car until 25 without some hefty surcharges. If they are full-time students, the IRS considers them dependents until 24; those without health insurance will soon be able to stay on their parents’ plans even if they’re not in school until age 26 (or up to 30 in some states). Parents have no access to their child’s college records if the child is over 18, but parents’ income is taken into account when the child applies for financial aid up to age 24. We seem unable to agree when someone is old enough to take on adult responsibilities. But we’re pretty sure it’s not simply a matter of age.
A longitudinal study of brain development sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, started following nearly 5,000 children at ages 3 to 16 (the average age at enrollment was about 10). The scientists found the children’s brains were not fully mature until at least 25. “In retrospect,” according to Jay Giedd, the director of the study, “the only people who got it right were the car-rental companies.”
It took radio 38 years and television 13 years to reach audiences of 50 million people, while it took the Internet only four years, the iPod three years and Facebook two years to do the same. It's no surprise that fewer than 100 of the companies in the S&P 500 stock index were around when that index started in 1957.
Back in the Ordovician period, the earth spun so fast that days were only 21-hours long. With three fewer hours each day, people arrived at old age sooner. But age is better than extinction. The history of human life on this planet has been punctuated by many extinctions. The great Permian Extinction of 250 million years ago was so catastrophic that life was almost brought to a close. Today, many people feel that a comparable man-made extinction is in reckless progress.
Teenagers aren't necessarily tuning out adults these days; they simply might not be able to hear them. The proportion of teens in the United States with slight hearing loss has increased 30% in the last 15 years, and the number with mild or worse hearing loss has increased 77%, researchers said last Tuesday. One in every five teens now has at least a slight hearing loss, which can affect learning, speech perception, social skills development and self-image; one in every 20 has a more severe loss.
One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch. Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married. And marriage occurs later than ever. The median age at first marriage in the early 1970s, when the baby boomers were young, was 21 for women and 23 for men; by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men, five years in a little more than a generation.
Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.
People can vote at 18, but in some states they don’t age out of foster care until 21. They can join the military at 18, but they can’t drink until 21. They can drive at 16, but they can’t rent a car until 25 without some hefty surcharges. If they are full-time students, the IRS considers them dependents until 24; those without health insurance will soon be able to stay on their parents’ plans even if they’re not in school until age 26 (or up to 30 in some states). Parents have no access to their child’s college records if the child is over 18, but parents’ income is taken into account when the child applies for financial aid up to age 24. We seem unable to agree when someone is old enough to take on adult responsibilities. But we’re pretty sure it’s not simply a matter of age.
A longitudinal study of brain development sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, started following nearly 5,000 children at ages 3 to 16 (the average age at enrollment was about 10). The scientists found the children’s brains were not fully mature until at least 25. “In retrospect,” according to Jay Giedd, the director of the study, “the only people who got it right were the car-rental companies.”
It took radio 38 years and television 13 years to reach audiences of 50 million people, while it took the Internet only four years, the iPod three years and Facebook two years to do the same. It's no surprise that fewer than 100 of the companies in the S&P 500 stock index were around when that index started in 1957.
Back in the Ordovician period, the earth spun so fast that days were only 21-hours long. With three fewer hours each day, people arrived at old age sooner. But age is better than extinction. The history of human life on this planet has been punctuated by many extinctions. The great Permian Extinction of 250 million years ago was so catastrophic that life was almost brought to a close. Today, many people feel that a comparable man-made extinction is in reckless progress.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
The world just keeps on changing.
Post 542 - Here's this week's discoveries. The world just keeps on changing doesn't it? I guess that's both the good news and the bad news.....
Amid weak job and housing markets, consumers are saving more and spending less than they have in decades, and industry professionals expect that trend to continue. Consumers saved 6.4 percent of their after-tax income in June, according to a new government report. Before the recession, the rate was 1 to 2 percent for many years. In June, consumer spending and personal incomes were essentially flat compared with May, suggesting that the American economy, as dependent as it is on shoppers opening their wallets and purses, isn’t likely to rebound anytime soon.
The International Labor Organization said about 81 million people ages 15 to 24 were unemployed worldwide at the end of 2009 and the number would probably climb further.
Research shows that spending money for an experience - concert tickets, French lessons, sushi-rolling classes, a hotel room in San Diego - produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on just plain old stuff.
Turnover costs are usually underestimated. For instance, ROI expert Jack Phillips says that the cost of losing entry-level employees ranges between 30 and 50 percent of the employees’ annual salaries. For higher-level employees, the estimates are far greater – between 125 and 200 percent for midlevel managers and between 200 and 400 percent for software engineers. (see Phillips, J. (2005). Investing in your Company’s Human Capital. New York, NY: Amacom.)
Chief Executive magazine’s CEO Confidence Index, the nation’s only monthly CEO Confidence Index, fell one-third (33.2 percent) in July, to 79.8. All five components of the index fell significantly, with the Current Confidence Index showing the largest percentage decrease of 60.4 percent - dropping to 52.0. The Investment Confidence Index fell by 40.8% to 79.0. Fully 24% more CEOs rated investment opportunities as “bad” in July than in June. One CEO lamented, “New ventures and new venture funding are basically non-existent.”
Pew's latest research about American broadband shows that 21% of U.S. adults don't use the Internet. Why not? Almost a third say they're "just not interested." Others find it too expensive, too difficult, or think they're too old. Pew also says 22% of the people who don't use the Internet used it in the past but don't anymore. Only 10% of non-internet users say they'd like to start using in the future, a number that hasn't changed since Pew started asking it in 2002. (Especially older folks.) If only they knew about the joys of FarmVille...
Nearly all age groups are spending less time talking on the phone; boomers in their mid 50s and early 60s are the only ones still yakking. The fall in calls is driven by 18- to 34-year-olds whose average monthly voice minutes have plunged from about 1,200 to 900 in the past two years, according to research by Nielsen. Texting among 18- to 24-year-olds has more than doubled in the same period, from an average of 600 messages a month two years ago to more than 1,400 texts a month today. Not only are people making fewer calls, they’re also having shorter conversations when they call. And land lines are disappearing. Verizon says its hard-wired phone connections have dropped from 50 million in 2005 to 30 million this year.
And finally, research shows that men in areas with too few women have a shorter life expectancy. This seems to back up my late father’s observation that, “You can’t live with ‘em and you can’t live without ‘em.”
Amid weak job and housing markets, consumers are saving more and spending less than they have in decades, and industry professionals expect that trend to continue. Consumers saved 6.4 percent of their after-tax income in June, according to a new government report. Before the recession, the rate was 1 to 2 percent for many years. In June, consumer spending and personal incomes were essentially flat compared with May, suggesting that the American economy, as dependent as it is on shoppers opening their wallets and purses, isn’t likely to rebound anytime soon.
The International Labor Organization said about 81 million people ages 15 to 24 were unemployed worldwide at the end of 2009 and the number would probably climb further.
Research shows that spending money for an experience - concert tickets, French lessons, sushi-rolling classes, a hotel room in San Diego - produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on just plain old stuff.
Turnover costs are usually underestimated. For instance, ROI expert Jack Phillips says that the cost of losing entry-level employees ranges between 30 and 50 percent of the employees’ annual salaries. For higher-level employees, the estimates are far greater – between 125 and 200 percent for midlevel managers and between 200 and 400 percent for software engineers. (see Phillips, J. (2005). Investing in your Company’s Human Capital. New York, NY: Amacom.)
Chief Executive magazine’s CEO Confidence Index, the nation’s only monthly CEO Confidence Index, fell one-third (33.2 percent) in July, to 79.8. All five components of the index fell significantly, with the Current Confidence Index showing the largest percentage decrease of 60.4 percent - dropping to 52.0. The Investment Confidence Index fell by 40.8% to 79.0. Fully 24% more CEOs rated investment opportunities as “bad” in July than in June. One CEO lamented, “New ventures and new venture funding are basically non-existent.”
Pew's latest research about American broadband shows that 21% of U.S. adults don't use the Internet. Why not? Almost a third say they're "just not interested." Others find it too expensive, too difficult, or think they're too old. Pew also says 22% of the people who don't use the Internet used it in the past but don't anymore. Only 10% of non-internet users say they'd like to start using in the future, a number that hasn't changed since Pew started asking it in 2002. (Especially older folks.) If only they knew about the joys of FarmVille...
Nearly all age groups are spending less time talking on the phone; boomers in their mid 50s and early 60s are the only ones still yakking. The fall in calls is driven by 18- to 34-year-olds whose average monthly voice minutes have plunged from about 1,200 to 900 in the past two years, according to research by Nielsen. Texting among 18- to 24-year-olds has more than doubled in the same period, from an average of 600 messages a month two years ago to more than 1,400 texts a month today. Not only are people making fewer calls, they’re also having shorter conversations when they call. And land lines are disappearing. Verizon says its hard-wired phone connections have dropped from 50 million in 2005 to 30 million this year.
And finally, research shows that men in areas with too few women have a shorter life expectancy. This seems to back up my late father’s observation that, “You can’t live with ‘em and you can’t live without ‘em.”
Monday, August 9, 2010
The current state of things.
Post 538 - Here's another set of data reported in the past week. Seems like the rich continue to get richer and the poor continue to get poorer. So, what else is new?
Some 16.5 percent of America’s workers are now either unemployed and trying to find a job, involuntarily working part time, or have stopped looking for work altogether. That figure doesn’t include the many Americans who’ve had to settle for jobs for which they are overqualified.
Larry Ellison, founder and CEO of software maker Oracle Corp., topped the list of best-paid executives of public companies during the past decade, receiving $1.84 billion in compensation, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of CEO pay.
One of the most famous sub-categories of specialty lines insurance is body part insurance. Plenty of people have heard the stories of singers like Bruce Springsteen or Celine Dion ensuring their voices (or vocal chords) or actresses like Heidi Klum, Tina Turner and Betty Grable insuring their legs. Sometimes the performer takes the initiative, while in other cases it may be a company doing so - as in the case of Heidi Klum. Braun, now part of Procter & Gamble, took out the policy when Ms. Klum signed on as a celebrity promoter.
Jeanne Louise Calment (21 February 1875 Р4 August 1997) had the longest confirmed human life span in recent history, living 122 years and 164 days (44,724 days total). In 1965, aged 90 years and with no heirs, Calment signed a deal to sell her former apartment to lawyer Andr̩-Fran̤ois Raffray, on a contingency contract. Raffray, then aged 47 years, agreed to pay her a monthly sum of 2,500 francs until she died. Raffray ended up paying Calment the equivalent of more than $180,000, which was more than double the apartment's value. After Raffray's death from cancer at the age of 77, in 1995, his widow continued the payments until Calment's death.
Today, adults consume more than 3,400 mgs of sodium on average a day, not including salt used in cooking or sprinkled on food from a shaker. This is more than twice the amount recommended for most people, according to a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Middle-aged men are eating on average about 54% more salt today than in the early 1970s; for women, consumption has jumped 67% in that time.
Sen. John Kerry bought and housed his $7 million yacht in Rhode Island instead of Massachusetts, where he’s the senior senator and champion of higher taxes on the rich, thereby avoiding some $437,500 in state sales tax and an annual excise tax of about $70,000. Howard Metzenbaum, the former Ohio senator and liberal supporter of the death tax, chose to change his official residence to Florida just before he died because Florida doesn’t have an estate tax while Ohio does.
Rich married men who are approaching retirement have the highest self-esteem, according to scientists. Confidence is lowest among young adults but increases with age until it peaks around 60. Then retirement and failing health cause a decline in self-regard, researchers have found. A study published by the American Psychological Association looked at 3617 people aged 25 to 104 between 1986 and 2002 and rated how their self-esteem changed. Women were less confident than men, only catching up in their 80s or 90s. Those with better education, income, health and employment status were also likely to report higher levels of self-esteem, especially as they aged, the study found. "It’s possible that wealth and health are related to feeling more independent and better able to contribute to one's family and society, which in turn bolsters self-esteem," said study leader Ulrich Orth. Participants were asked to rate their agreement with statements such as "I take a positive attitude towards myself." They were asked about their ethnic background, education, income, work status, relationship satisfaction, and whether they had experienced stressful events. People in happy relationships had higher levels of self-esteem, but experienced the same drop in confidence when they passed 60 as those in unhappy relationships.
Some 16.5 percent of America’s workers are now either unemployed and trying to find a job, involuntarily working part time, or have stopped looking for work altogether. That figure doesn’t include the many Americans who’ve had to settle for jobs for which they are overqualified.
Larry Ellison, founder and CEO of software maker Oracle Corp., topped the list of best-paid executives of public companies during the past decade, receiving $1.84 billion in compensation, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of CEO pay.
One of the most famous sub-categories of specialty lines insurance is body part insurance. Plenty of people have heard the stories of singers like Bruce Springsteen or Celine Dion ensuring their voices (or vocal chords) or actresses like Heidi Klum, Tina Turner and Betty Grable insuring their legs. Sometimes the performer takes the initiative, while in other cases it may be a company doing so - as in the case of Heidi Klum. Braun, now part of Procter & Gamble, took out the policy when Ms. Klum signed on as a celebrity promoter.
Jeanne Louise Calment (21 February 1875 Р4 August 1997) had the longest confirmed human life span in recent history, living 122 years and 164 days (44,724 days total). In 1965, aged 90 years and with no heirs, Calment signed a deal to sell her former apartment to lawyer Andr̩-Fran̤ois Raffray, on a contingency contract. Raffray, then aged 47 years, agreed to pay her a monthly sum of 2,500 francs until she died. Raffray ended up paying Calment the equivalent of more than $180,000, which was more than double the apartment's value. After Raffray's death from cancer at the age of 77, in 1995, his widow continued the payments until Calment's death.
Today, adults consume more than 3,400 mgs of sodium on average a day, not including salt used in cooking or sprinkled on food from a shaker. This is more than twice the amount recommended for most people, according to a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Middle-aged men are eating on average about 54% more salt today than in the early 1970s; for women, consumption has jumped 67% in that time.
Sen. John Kerry bought and housed his $7 million yacht in Rhode Island instead of Massachusetts, where he’s the senior senator and champion of higher taxes on the rich, thereby avoiding some $437,500 in state sales tax and an annual excise tax of about $70,000. Howard Metzenbaum, the former Ohio senator and liberal supporter of the death tax, chose to change his official residence to Florida just before he died because Florida doesn’t have an estate tax while Ohio does.
Rich married men who are approaching retirement have the highest self-esteem, according to scientists. Confidence is lowest among young adults but increases with age until it peaks around 60. Then retirement and failing health cause a decline in self-regard, researchers have found. A study published by the American Psychological Association looked at 3617 people aged 25 to 104 between 1986 and 2002 and rated how their self-esteem changed. Women were less confident than men, only catching up in their 80s or 90s. Those with better education, income, health and employment status were also likely to report higher levels of self-esteem, especially as they aged, the study found. "It’s possible that wealth and health are related to feeling more independent and better able to contribute to one's family and society, which in turn bolsters self-esteem," said study leader Ulrich Orth. Participants were asked to rate their agreement with statements such as "I take a positive attitude towards myself." They were asked about their ethnic background, education, income, work status, relationship satisfaction, and whether they had experienced stressful events. People in happy relationships had higher levels of self-esteem, but experienced the same drop in confidence when they passed 60 as those in unhappy relationships.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Why the world is the way it is today.
Post 534 - Here's another set of strange and wonderful facts and findings that help to explain why the world we live in today is the way it is:
Here are the percentages of each president's cabinet who'd worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet:
T. Roosevelt........ 38%
Taft.................40%
Wilson .............52%
Harding..............49%
Coolidge.............48%
Hoover ..............42%
F. Roosevelt........50%
Truman...............50%
Eisenhower...........57%
Kennedy..............30%
Johnson..............47%
Nixon................53%
Ford.................42%
Carter...............32%
Reagan...............56%
GH Bush.............51%
Clinton ..........39%
GW Bush..............55%
Obama.................8%
More than 57,000 high school students applied for about 4,700 places in the fall 2010 entering class at UCLA. The weighted average high school GPA of those admitted was approximately 4.25. I'm glad I enrolled there thirty-five years ago.
In 2008, there were 53,500 working barbers in the U.S. according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau predicts that by 2018, the number will jump 12 percent to 59,700, primarily because of increased population. To be a licensed barber in California, you must complete a 1,500-hour course (involving at least 750 haircuts) at an approved institution, as well as passing the written and practical portions of the state licensing examination.
Global temperatures in the first half of the year were the hottest since records began more than a century ago, according to two of the world's leading climate research centers. Scientists have also released what they described as the "best evidence yet" of rising long-term temperatures. The report is the first to collate 11 different indicators – from air and sea temperatures to melting ice – each one based on between three and seven data sets, dating back to between 1850 and the 1970s.
Researchers from Brigham Young University reviewed 148 studies that tracked the social habits of more than 300,000 people. They found that people who have strong ties to family, friends or co-workers have a 50 percent lower risk of dying over a given period than those with fewer social connections. The researchers concluded that having few friends or weak social ties to the community is just as harmful to health as being an alcoholic or smoking nearly a pack of cigarettes a day. Weak social ties are more harmful than not exercising and twice as risky as being obese, the researchers say.
Japanese women have enjoyed the longest life expectancy in the world for the past quarter of a century, according to government figures. In 2009, they could expect to live, on average, a record 86.4 years – up almost five months from the previous year – followed by women in Hong Kong and France. Experts attribute Japan's extraordinary longevity statistics to a traditional diet of fish, rice and simmered vegetables, easy access to healthcare and a comparatively high standard of living in old age.
There are 309,860,745 people in the U.S. If everyone were lined up in single file, the line would stretch around the Earth almost seven times. That's a lot of people!
In addition, the U.S. Census Bureau statistics tell us that there are at least 151,671 different last names and 5,163 different first names in common use. Some names are more common than others. There are 44,803 people named John Smith, 974 people named James Bond, 102 people named Harry Potter, 436 people named George Bush, and 31 people named Emily Dickinson. However, Johnny Cash (32 people) songs aside there are, statistically speaking, very few boys named Sue.
Wondering about your own name? Check it out at http://howmanyofme.com/
And finally, in all the EU member states, except Ireland, more than eight in ten interviewees felt that people driving under the influence of alcohol constituted a major road safety problem in their country. However, in Ireland, just 62 percent of respondents regarded drink-driving as a major threat to road safety and 31 percent simply regarded it as a minor problem. Go figure - maybe they were a bit under the influence when they were interviewed.
Here are the percentages of each president's cabinet who'd worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet:
T. Roosevelt........ 38%
Taft.................40%
Wilson .............52%
Harding..............49%
Coolidge.............48%
Hoover ..............42%
F. Roosevelt........50%
Truman...............50%
Eisenhower...........57%
Kennedy..............30%
Johnson..............47%
Nixon................53%
Ford.................42%
Carter...............32%
Reagan...............56%
GH Bush.............51%
Clinton ..........39%
GW Bush..............55%
Obama.................8%
More than 57,000 high school students applied for about 4,700 places in the fall 2010 entering class at UCLA. The weighted average high school GPA of those admitted was approximately 4.25. I'm glad I enrolled there thirty-five years ago.
In 2008, there were 53,500 working barbers in the U.S. according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau predicts that by 2018, the number will jump 12 percent to 59,700, primarily because of increased population. To be a licensed barber in California, you must complete a 1,500-hour course (involving at least 750 haircuts) at an approved institution, as well as passing the written and practical portions of the state licensing examination.
Global temperatures in the first half of the year were the hottest since records began more than a century ago, according to two of the world's leading climate research centers. Scientists have also released what they described as the "best evidence yet" of rising long-term temperatures. The report is the first to collate 11 different indicators – from air and sea temperatures to melting ice – each one based on between three and seven data sets, dating back to between 1850 and the 1970s.
Researchers from Brigham Young University reviewed 148 studies that tracked the social habits of more than 300,000 people. They found that people who have strong ties to family, friends or co-workers have a 50 percent lower risk of dying over a given period than those with fewer social connections. The researchers concluded that having few friends or weak social ties to the community is just as harmful to health as being an alcoholic or smoking nearly a pack of cigarettes a day. Weak social ties are more harmful than not exercising and twice as risky as being obese, the researchers say.
Japanese women have enjoyed the longest life expectancy in the world for the past quarter of a century, according to government figures. In 2009, they could expect to live, on average, a record 86.4 years – up almost five months from the previous year – followed by women in Hong Kong and France. Experts attribute Japan's extraordinary longevity statistics to a traditional diet of fish, rice and simmered vegetables, easy access to healthcare and a comparatively high standard of living in old age.
There are 309,860,745 people in the U.S. If everyone were lined up in single file, the line would stretch around the Earth almost seven times. That's a lot of people!
In addition, the U.S. Census Bureau statistics tell us that there are at least 151,671 different last names and 5,163 different first names in common use. Some names are more common than others. There are 44,803 people named John Smith, 974 people named James Bond, 102 people named Harry Potter, 436 people named George Bush, and 31 people named Emily Dickinson. However, Johnny Cash (32 people) songs aside there are, statistically speaking, very few boys named Sue.
Wondering about your own name? Check it out at http://howmanyofme.com/
And finally, in all the EU member states, except Ireland, more than eight in ten interviewees felt that people driving under the influence of alcohol constituted a major road safety problem in their country. However, in Ireland, just 62 percent of respondents regarded drink-driving as a major threat to road safety and 31 percent simply regarded it as a minor problem. Go figure - maybe they were a bit under the influence when they were interviewed.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Amazing marriage facts.
Post 532 - Just in case you have to make idle conversation to the other guests at Chelsea Clinton's wedding reception this weekend, this should help you prepare ...
Californian Glynn "Scotty" Wolfe is the world's most married man. He wed 29 times and had 41 children.
Linda Essex, from Indiana, holds the record for the most monogamous marriages by a woman – 23.
Two couples share the record for the world's longest marriage – 86 years. They are Sir Temulji Bhicaji Nariman and Lady Nariman from India and Lazarus Rowe and Molly Webber from the U.S.
The oldest couple to wed were Francois Frenandez, 96, and Madeleine Francineau, 94, in 2002.
In the largest underwater wedding 105 guests wore scuba gear to see Toni Wilson and John Santino marry in 2003 in the Virgin Islands.
The world's largest wedding cake was made in Connecticut and weighed 15,032lb.
Queen Victoria's wedding cake was more than nine feet in circumference. A second tier rose from this "plateau," supported by two pedestals. On the second tier was a sculpture of the mythical heroine Britannia gazing upon the royal pair frozen at the moment of their exchanging vows. At their feet were two turtle doves (symbolizing purity and innocence) and a dog (representing faithful attachment). Completing the scene were various sculpted Cupids, one of them writing the date of the wedding with a stylus on a tablet.
The tradition of wearing the wedding ring on the fourth finger of the left hand dates back to ancient Egypt, where it was believed that the vein of love ran from this finger directly to the heart.
The practice of giving or exchanging engagement rings began in 1477 when Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, gave Mary of Burgandy a diamond ring as an engagement present.
Eighty-five percent of Canadian brides receive a diamond engagement ring today, giving Canada the highest diamond engagement ring acquisition rate in the world.
Seventy-four percent of American brides receive a diamond engagement ring. Of those, sixty percent are involved in picking out their ring, while three percent actually pick it themselves.
Alabama marriage statistics quote the oldest groom in the state as 94 and the oldest bride as 88. The youngest age for bride and groom is recorded as 13.
Thrice a bridesmaid, never a bride, is an old charm that can be broken by being a bridesmaid seven times.
According to English folklore, Saturday, the most popular American choice, is the unluckiest day to marry!
In Pennsylvania, Ministers are forbidden from performing marriages when either the bride or groom is drunk.
The kiss that is given by the bride to the groom at the end of the wedding ceremony originates from the earliest times when the couple would actually make love for the first time under the eyes of half the village!
I'm told the average wedding costs $18,874 with 186 guests. However, weddings in America comprise a $25.3 Billion dollar industry.
Californian Glynn "Scotty" Wolfe is the world's most married man. He wed 29 times and had 41 children.
Linda Essex, from Indiana, holds the record for the most monogamous marriages by a woman – 23.
Two couples share the record for the world's longest marriage – 86 years. They are Sir Temulji Bhicaji Nariman and Lady Nariman from India and Lazarus Rowe and Molly Webber from the U.S.
The oldest couple to wed were Francois Frenandez, 96, and Madeleine Francineau, 94, in 2002.
In the largest underwater wedding 105 guests wore scuba gear to see Toni Wilson and John Santino marry in 2003 in the Virgin Islands.
The world's largest wedding cake was made in Connecticut and weighed 15,032lb.
Queen Victoria's wedding cake was more than nine feet in circumference. A second tier rose from this "plateau," supported by two pedestals. On the second tier was a sculpture of the mythical heroine Britannia gazing upon the royal pair frozen at the moment of their exchanging vows. At their feet were two turtle doves (symbolizing purity and innocence) and a dog (representing faithful attachment). Completing the scene were various sculpted Cupids, one of them writing the date of the wedding with a stylus on a tablet.
The tradition of wearing the wedding ring on the fourth finger of the left hand dates back to ancient Egypt, where it was believed that the vein of love ran from this finger directly to the heart.
The practice of giving or exchanging engagement rings began in 1477 when Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, gave Mary of Burgandy a diamond ring as an engagement present.
Eighty-five percent of Canadian brides receive a diamond engagement ring today, giving Canada the highest diamond engagement ring acquisition rate in the world.
Seventy-four percent of American brides receive a diamond engagement ring. Of those, sixty percent are involved in picking out their ring, while three percent actually pick it themselves.
Alabama marriage statistics quote the oldest groom in the state as 94 and the oldest bride as 88. The youngest age for bride and groom is recorded as 13.
Thrice a bridesmaid, never a bride, is an old charm that can be broken by being a bridesmaid seven times.
According to English folklore, Saturday, the most popular American choice, is the unluckiest day to marry!
In Pennsylvania, Ministers are forbidden from performing marriages when either the bride or groom is drunk.
The kiss that is given by the bride to the groom at the end of the wedding ceremony originates from the earliest times when the couple would actually make love for the first time under the eyes of half the village!
I'm told the average wedding costs $18,874 with 186 guests. However, weddings in America comprise a $25.3 Billion dollar industry.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Some additional facts and figures.
Post 530 - Here's this week's selection of facts and figures. If I don't know about it, I can't do anything about it. And there seems to be a lot that needs doing these days:
In 1950, roughly one in 20 men of prime working age wasn’t working; today that ratio is about one in five, the highest ever recorded.
In World War Two, the ratio of U.S. dead to wounded was 1 to 4. In Vietnam it was 1 to 15. In Afghanistan, it’s been running about 1 to 40. The next time you read about the number who've been killed, remember it's only the tip of the iceberg.
Remember also that the number of homeless veterans from the Vietnam war today is greater than the number who died in it.
The average worth of Pakistani members of Parliament is $900,000, with its richest member topping $37 million, according to a December study by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency in Islamabad. The rules say that anyone who earns more than $3,488 a year must pay income tax, but few do. Akbar Zaidi, a Karachi-based political economist with the Carnegie Endowment, estimates that as many as 10 million Pakistanis should be paying income tax, far more than the 2.5 million who are registered. Out of more than 170 million Pakistanis, fewer than 2 percent pay income tax, making Pakistan’s revenue from taxes among the lowest in the world. This is a sorry performance for a country that’s among the largest recipients of American aid, payments of billions of dollars that prop up the country’s finances and are intended to help its leaders fight the insurgency. Just thought you'd like to know where your tax money ends up .....
More than 1,200 government agencies and 1,900 private companies in the U.S. work on counter-terrorism, homeland security and intelligence programs at around 10,000 sites across the country. An estimated 854,000 people have top-secret security clearance. These analysts produce more than 50,000 reports a year - a flow of paper so great that many are completely ignored.
Amazon.com, one of the nation’s largest booksellers, recently announced that for the last three months, sales of books for its e-reader, the Kindle, outnumbered sales of hardcover books. In that time, Amazon said, it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there is no Kindle edition.
Ireland has the highest percentage of heavy underage drinking in Europe. It’s estimated that one in four 15- to 16-year-olds gets drunk at least three times a month, and 50,000 children get drunk every weekend.
Thousands of offenders across the U.S. are placed on a rehabilitation program called Changing Lives Through Literature as an alternative to prison. Repeat offenders of serious crimes such as armed robbery, assault or drug dealing are made to attend a reading group where they discuss literary classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Bell Jar and Of Mice and Men. Of the 597 who have completed the course in Brazoria County, Texas, between 1997 and 2008, only 6% had their probations revoked and were sent to jail. A year-long study of the first cohort that went through the program, which was founded in Massachusetts in 1991, found that only 19% had re-offended compared with 42% in a control group.
The U.S. used to lead the world in educational attainment with 55.8 percent of young adults holding an associates degree or better. We now rank 12th among 36 developed nations. Canada leads the world with 55.8 percent compared to 40.4 percent here in America. The problem is even worse for low-income students and minorities: only 30 percent of African-Americans ages 25-34, and less than 20 percent of Latinos in that age group, have an associate’s degree or higher. And students from the highest income families are almost eight times as likely as those from the lowest income families to earn a bachelor’s degree by age 24. However, you can’t do anything college completion if you don’t also do something about K-12 education.
Over a 40-year career, a man earns, on average, $431,000 more than a woman, according to the Center for American Progress.
"While we consider when to begin, it becomes too late." - Japanese Proverb
In 1950, roughly one in 20 men of prime working age wasn’t working; today that ratio is about one in five, the highest ever recorded.
In World War Two, the ratio of U.S. dead to wounded was 1 to 4. In Vietnam it was 1 to 15. In Afghanistan, it’s been running about 1 to 40. The next time you read about the number who've been killed, remember it's only the tip of the iceberg.
Remember also that the number of homeless veterans from the Vietnam war today is greater than the number who died in it.
The average worth of Pakistani members of Parliament is $900,000, with its richest member topping $37 million, according to a December study by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency in Islamabad. The rules say that anyone who earns more than $3,488 a year must pay income tax, but few do. Akbar Zaidi, a Karachi-based political economist with the Carnegie Endowment, estimates that as many as 10 million Pakistanis should be paying income tax, far more than the 2.5 million who are registered. Out of more than 170 million Pakistanis, fewer than 2 percent pay income tax, making Pakistan’s revenue from taxes among the lowest in the world. This is a sorry performance for a country that’s among the largest recipients of American aid, payments of billions of dollars that prop up the country’s finances and are intended to help its leaders fight the insurgency. Just thought you'd like to know where your tax money ends up .....
More than 1,200 government agencies and 1,900 private companies in the U.S. work on counter-terrorism, homeland security and intelligence programs at around 10,000 sites across the country. An estimated 854,000 people have top-secret security clearance. These analysts produce more than 50,000 reports a year - a flow of paper so great that many are completely ignored.
Amazon.com, one of the nation’s largest booksellers, recently announced that for the last three months, sales of books for its e-reader, the Kindle, outnumbered sales of hardcover books. In that time, Amazon said, it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there is no Kindle edition.
Ireland has the highest percentage of heavy underage drinking in Europe. It’s estimated that one in four 15- to 16-year-olds gets drunk at least three times a month, and 50,000 children get drunk every weekend.
Thousands of offenders across the U.S. are placed on a rehabilitation program called Changing Lives Through Literature as an alternative to prison. Repeat offenders of serious crimes such as armed robbery, assault or drug dealing are made to attend a reading group where they discuss literary classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Bell Jar and Of Mice and Men. Of the 597 who have completed the course in Brazoria County, Texas, between 1997 and 2008, only 6% had their probations revoked and were sent to jail. A year-long study of the first cohort that went through the program, which was founded in Massachusetts in 1991, found that only 19% had re-offended compared with 42% in a control group.
The U.S. used to lead the world in educational attainment with 55.8 percent of young adults holding an associates degree or better. We now rank 12th among 36 developed nations. Canada leads the world with 55.8 percent compared to 40.4 percent here in America. The problem is even worse for low-income students and minorities: only 30 percent of African-Americans ages 25-34, and less than 20 percent of Latinos in that age group, have an associate’s degree or higher. And students from the highest income families are almost eight times as likely as those from the lowest income families to earn a bachelor’s degree by age 24. However, you can’t do anything college completion if you don’t also do something about K-12 education.
Over a 40-year career, a man earns, on average, $431,000 more than a woman, according to the Center for American Progress.
"While we consider when to begin, it becomes too late." - Japanese Proverb
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Time to create a ‘Department of Louise.’
Post 514 - Here are this week's impressions and statistics:
I'm told that
- 50% of our health is related to our behavior
- 20% is related to our environment
- 20% is related to our genetics
- 10% is related to our access to health-care.
More than 400 million people worldwide are obese, including 72 million here in the U.S. Currently, 112,000 obese Americans die every year. Over the past decade, medical costs related to obesity have more than tripled to the point where they now account for almost 10 percent of U.S. annual health care spending. San Diego County lost $3 billion last year in obesity costs, including lost work productivity. The California Center for Public Health Advocacy reported that statewide, the California total came to $43 billion!
In America, we have a sick-care system, not a health-care system.
According to a study by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, married couples have intercourse about 66 times a year. But that number is skewed by young marrieds, as young as 18, who have sex, on average, 84 times a year.
There were 4.25 million births in the U.S. in 2008 – a two percent decline from 2007. A U.S. woman could expect to have 3.7 children in the late 1950s. A typical American woman expects to have 2.09 children today. A typical woman in Western Europe is expected to have 1.59 children today. Worldwide, a typical woman is expected to have 2.56 children.
The Department of Homeland Security estimates that at least 10.8 million illegal immigrants are currently living in the United States.
Between 2008 and 2010 the share of voters who considered the Democrats too liberal surged from 39 percent to 49 percent, according to Gallup surveys.
Asked why she frequently doesn’t wear pants, Lady Gaga said, “My grandmother is basically blind, but she can make out the lighter parts, like my skin and hair. She says, ‘I can see you, because you have no pants on.’ So I’ll continue to wear no pants so that my grandma can see me.” Who knew?
Maybe checking out Lady Gaga is why men watch 32 minutes of television more than women do. In 2009, men spent three hours, six minutes a day watching TV, compared to two hours, 34 minutes for women.
On a really serious note, in international standing, America’s K-12 students are now 32nd in math, 10th in science and 12th in reading scores. Our weakness in K-12 catches up as applications to graduate school in the technical sciences are largely foreign born. Nearly 70 percent of engineering PhDs awarded in 2006 were to foreign born students, as were more than half the PhDs awarded in the physical sciences.
Many K-12 students don’t have role models with whom they identify because only 24 percent of teachers are men and only 17 percent are from a minority background.
Politicians in California are now trying to craft a balanced budget by cutting funds for education. For example, they're calling for a 20 percent cut in support for the University of California system on top of significant earlier cuts made in the past few years.
Some time ago, Dave Barry suggested that we create a ‘Department of Louise.’ Louise would be a sensible woman of a certain age and experience. Once legislators had passed a bill, she would have final say before implementation. Don’t you think it’s time the voters of California adopted Dave’s excellent recommendation?
I'm told that
- 50% of our health is related to our behavior
- 20% is related to our environment
- 20% is related to our genetics
- 10% is related to our access to health-care.
More than 400 million people worldwide are obese, including 72 million here in the U.S. Currently, 112,000 obese Americans die every year. Over the past decade, medical costs related to obesity have more than tripled to the point where they now account for almost 10 percent of U.S. annual health care spending. San Diego County lost $3 billion last year in obesity costs, including lost work productivity. The California Center for Public Health Advocacy reported that statewide, the California total came to $43 billion!
In America, we have a sick-care system, not a health-care system.
According to a study by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, married couples have intercourse about 66 times a year. But that number is skewed by young marrieds, as young as 18, who have sex, on average, 84 times a year.
There were 4.25 million births in the U.S. in 2008 – a two percent decline from 2007. A U.S. woman could expect to have 3.7 children in the late 1950s. A typical American woman expects to have 2.09 children today. A typical woman in Western Europe is expected to have 1.59 children today. Worldwide, a typical woman is expected to have 2.56 children.
The Department of Homeland Security estimates that at least 10.8 million illegal immigrants are currently living in the United States.
Between 2008 and 2010 the share of voters who considered the Democrats too liberal surged from 39 percent to 49 percent, according to Gallup surveys.
Asked why she frequently doesn’t wear pants, Lady Gaga said, “My grandmother is basically blind, but she can make out the lighter parts, like my skin and hair. She says, ‘I can see you, because you have no pants on.’ So I’ll continue to wear no pants so that my grandma can see me.” Who knew?
Maybe checking out Lady Gaga is why men watch 32 minutes of television more than women do. In 2009, men spent three hours, six minutes a day watching TV, compared to two hours, 34 minutes for women.
On a really serious note, in international standing, America’s K-12 students are now 32nd in math, 10th in science and 12th in reading scores. Our weakness in K-12 catches up as applications to graduate school in the technical sciences are largely foreign born. Nearly 70 percent of engineering PhDs awarded in 2006 were to foreign born students, as were more than half the PhDs awarded in the physical sciences.
Many K-12 students don’t have role models with whom they identify because only 24 percent of teachers are men and only 17 percent are from a minority background.
Politicians in California are now trying to craft a balanced budget by cutting funds for education. For example, they're calling for a 20 percent cut in support for the University of California system on top of significant earlier cuts made in the past few years.
Some time ago, Dave Barry suggested that we create a ‘Department of Louise.’ Louise would be a sensible woman of a certain age and experience. Once legislators had passed a bill, she would have final say before implementation. Don’t you think it’s time the voters of California adopted Dave’s excellent recommendation?
Monday, June 21, 2010
A post about statistical indicators.
Post 509 - Some interesting statistics I noted during this the past week. I believe most of these indicators speak for themselves.
- In 1994, nearly two-thirds of American-born teens ages 16 through 19 were working or looking for work. Last summer, the number had dropped to less than half. Over that same period, the number of teens not in the labor force rose from 4.7 million to 8.1 million.
- Enrollment in U.S. colleges rose from 5.9 million in 1965 to 17.5 million in 2005. In the fall of 2009, 70 percent of high school graduates were headed to a university campus, an all-time high. In 1970, one million Americans continued their education beyond college compared to 2.3 million in 2007.
- Most people think a full-time college student is someone who enrolled in a four-year full-time program, straight from high school. In reality, this description only fits 27 percent of college students in America today. Instead, more than 73 percent study part-time, have families to support, and work in challenging full-time jobs for at least 35 hours a week.
- In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had acquired all the traditional trappings of maturity by age 30: that is they’d left home, completed school, had full-time employment, and were married with a family. In 2005, that figure was 27 percent for women and 30 percent for men, respectively.
- The first 10 years of employment is when workers see 70 percent of their overall wage growth, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
- More than 82 million people in the U.S. created content online during 2008. This number is expected to grow to nearly 115 million by 2013.
Only 11% of teens email each day, according to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. People are increasingly spending more time on social networks rather than on email.
Barely a third of the soccer players who started games in the English Premier League in 2009 were actually English. Maybe that's why the English team has done so badly in the World Cup.
In the U.K., productivity losses tied to the World Cup could total $1.5 billion. Just over half or working men and a fifth of working women intend to watch the matches scheduled to take place during office hours as they happen.
More than 2,800 mail carriers were bitten by dogs in 2009 and most of these were attacked in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas.
The number of people giving up on cable hasn’t grown in the last two years, despite the growth of online web video over the same period. Since 2008, according to data from Nielsen, the percentage of the U.S. population that only has broadband Internet access and no cable television has hovered around 4%. Meanwhile, the percentage of people who subscribe to both cable and broadband has grown to 66% of the population from 55%.
Last time I checked, Southern California Edison had 18,000 employees. Of these, 30 % were older than 50. 41% of the top executives are currently retirement eligible. It’s estimated that 75% of the management team will turn over in the next seven years. Leadership development at Edison consists of 70% on-the-job experience, 20% coaching and 10% training. Do you know the numbers for your company? How do you compare to So. Cal. Edison?
- In 1994, nearly two-thirds of American-born teens ages 16 through 19 were working or looking for work. Last summer, the number had dropped to less than half. Over that same period, the number of teens not in the labor force rose from 4.7 million to 8.1 million.
- Enrollment in U.S. colleges rose from 5.9 million in 1965 to 17.5 million in 2005. In the fall of 2009, 70 percent of high school graduates were headed to a university campus, an all-time high. In 1970, one million Americans continued their education beyond college compared to 2.3 million in 2007.
- Most people think a full-time college student is someone who enrolled in a four-year full-time program, straight from high school. In reality, this description only fits 27 percent of college students in America today. Instead, more than 73 percent study part-time, have families to support, and work in challenging full-time jobs for at least 35 hours a week.
- In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had acquired all the traditional trappings of maturity by age 30: that is they’d left home, completed school, had full-time employment, and were married with a family. In 2005, that figure was 27 percent for women and 30 percent for men, respectively.
- The first 10 years of employment is when workers see 70 percent of their overall wage growth, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
- More than 82 million people in the U.S. created content online during 2008. This number is expected to grow to nearly 115 million by 2013.
Only 11% of teens email each day, according to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. People are increasingly spending more time on social networks rather than on email.
Barely a third of the soccer players who started games in the English Premier League in 2009 were actually English. Maybe that's why the English team has done so badly in the World Cup.
In the U.K., productivity losses tied to the World Cup could total $1.5 billion. Just over half or working men and a fifth of working women intend to watch the matches scheduled to take place during office hours as they happen.
More than 2,800 mail carriers were bitten by dogs in 2009 and most of these were attacked in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas.
The number of people giving up on cable hasn’t grown in the last two years, despite the growth of online web video over the same period. Since 2008, according to data from Nielsen, the percentage of the U.S. population that only has broadband Internet access and no cable television has hovered around 4%. Meanwhile, the percentage of people who subscribe to both cable and broadband has grown to 66% of the population from 55%.
Last time I checked, Southern California Edison had 18,000 employees. Of these, 30 % were older than 50. 41% of the top executives are currently retirement eligible. It’s estimated that 75% of the management team will turn over in the next seven years. Leadership development at Edison consists of 70% on-the-job experience, 20% coaching and 10% training. Do you know the numbers for your company? How do you compare to So. Cal. Edison?
Monday, June 14, 2010
And a note about the importance of kissing.
Post 505 - Here are some miscellaneous facts and figures that crossed my mind in the past week.
In a recent survey, 73 per cent of air travelers said that a little small talk is fine, but they prefer to keep to themselves for most of the flight.
When the cost of a suitable house exceeds 20 times the rent of comparable quarters, the experts say it makes more sense to rent.
Natural gas, which is currently priced at just over $4 per thousand cubic feet, can power a truck as far as seven gallons of diesel.
New census estimates show minorities added more than two percent in 2009 to 107.2 million people. During that time, the white population remained flat at roughly 200 million people. Four states – Hawaii, New Mexico, California and Texas – as well as the District of Columbia, have minority populations that exceed 50 percent. Fifteen states, led by California, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania, have lost more than 10 percent of their younger white population since 2000.
The California State University system lost 10% of its teaching force in 2009 which is the equivalent of 1,230 full-time positions. The University of California's share of state general fund revenue of $2.6 billion in the 2009-10 fiscal year was 20% less than it was two years earlier. The number of full-time faculty members at American universities was around 51% in 2007, down from 78% in 1970.
The annual per–inmate cost of California’s corrections system is $47,000, which is 50% higher than the national average. About 20% of the 167,000 prisoners are “three strikes” offenders convicted of nonviolent drug offenses and property crimes.
The U.S. debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015, according to a Treasury Department report to Congress. The total U.S. debt includes obligations to the Social Security retirement program and other government trust funds. The amount of debt held by investors, which include China and other countries as well as individuals and pension funds, will rise to an estimated $9.1 trillion in 2010 from $7.5 trillion in 2009.
Plastic bags are often made from polyethylene, which is derived from natural gas and petroleum. Californians use 19 billion plastic bags each year (that’s approximately 552 for each individual in the state). Less than 6% are recycled, leaving 147,000 tons of waste created by these bags. It’s estimated that it takes 500 to 1,000 years ffor plastic bags to degrade, although the exact figure hasn’t been determined. California spends $25 million annually to clean up plastic–bag waste and that’s on top of the $300 million that municipalities also spend.
According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses:
• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms
• Employ more than half the private-sector employees
• Pay 44 percent of the total U.S. private payroll
• Have generated more than 64 percent of all new jobs during the past 15 years
• And create more than half the private gross domestic product
Chief Executive magazine’s CEO Confidence Index rose 15.6 points to 109.9 in May – a gain of 14.2%. The Current Confidence Index had the largest percentage gain, rising 24.4% to 86.9. Nearly 60% of CEOs forecast slow, continual growth in the economy.
And finally, a chewing gum commercial I saw on TV claims that the average American spends 20,000 minutes kissing in a lifetime. Compare this with the nine years glued to the tube that the average American watches in a lifetime, and you have some idea why our world is as screwed up as some of the statistics above indicate. So pucker up and do your part to move that kissing number forward and improve the quality of life in America. If you're unsure about your technique, go to http://www.kissingbooth.com/how_to_kiss.htm for some tips on how to get better. It's worth a try!
As e. e. cummings wrote in since feeling is first, "and kisses are a better fate / than wisdom / lady i swear by all flowers..."
In a recent survey, 73 per cent of air travelers said that a little small talk is fine, but they prefer to keep to themselves for most of the flight.
When the cost of a suitable house exceeds 20 times the rent of comparable quarters, the experts say it makes more sense to rent.
Natural gas, which is currently priced at just over $4 per thousand cubic feet, can power a truck as far as seven gallons of diesel.
New census estimates show minorities added more than two percent in 2009 to 107.2 million people. During that time, the white population remained flat at roughly 200 million people. Four states – Hawaii, New Mexico, California and Texas – as well as the District of Columbia, have minority populations that exceed 50 percent. Fifteen states, led by California, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania, have lost more than 10 percent of their younger white population since 2000.
The California State University system lost 10% of its teaching force in 2009 which is the equivalent of 1,230 full-time positions. The University of California's share of state general fund revenue of $2.6 billion in the 2009-10 fiscal year was 20% less than it was two years earlier. The number of full-time faculty members at American universities was around 51% in 2007, down from 78% in 1970.
The annual per–inmate cost of California’s corrections system is $47,000, which is 50% higher than the national average. About 20% of the 167,000 prisoners are “three strikes” offenders convicted of nonviolent drug offenses and property crimes.
The U.S. debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015, according to a Treasury Department report to Congress. The total U.S. debt includes obligations to the Social Security retirement program and other government trust funds. The amount of debt held by investors, which include China and other countries as well as individuals and pension funds, will rise to an estimated $9.1 trillion in 2010 from $7.5 trillion in 2009.
Plastic bags are often made from polyethylene, which is derived from natural gas and petroleum. Californians use 19 billion plastic bags each year (that’s approximately 552 for each individual in the state). Less than 6% are recycled, leaving 147,000 tons of waste created by these bags. It’s estimated that it takes 500 to 1,000 years ffor plastic bags to degrade, although the exact figure hasn’t been determined. California spends $25 million annually to clean up plastic–bag waste and that’s on top of the $300 million that municipalities also spend.
According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses:
• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms
• Employ more than half the private-sector employees
• Pay 44 percent of the total U.S. private payroll
• Have generated more than 64 percent of all new jobs during the past 15 years
• And create more than half the private gross domestic product
Chief Executive magazine’s CEO Confidence Index rose 15.6 points to 109.9 in May – a gain of 14.2%. The Current Confidence Index had the largest percentage gain, rising 24.4% to 86.9. Nearly 60% of CEOs forecast slow, continual growth in the economy.
And finally, a chewing gum commercial I saw on TV claims that the average American spends 20,000 minutes kissing in a lifetime. Compare this with the nine years glued to the tube that the average American watches in a lifetime, and you have some idea why our world is as screwed up as some of the statistics above indicate. So pucker up and do your part to move that kissing number forward and improve the quality of life in America. If you're unsure about your technique, go to http://www.kissingbooth.com/how_to_kiss.htm for some tips on how to get better. It's worth a try!
As e. e. cummings wrote in since feeling is first, "and kisses are a better fate / than wisdom / lady i swear by all flowers..."
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Post 501 - Here are some more recent facts and figures that caught my interest:
In California, motorists younger than 18 can’t by law transport other youths unless a licensed adult driver, 25 years or older, is in the car. State law also bans teens from driving between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. unless accompanied by a licensed adult driver.
The world’s urban population, currently about 3.3 billion, is projected to nearly double by 2015, adding the equivalent of a city the size of a Philadelphia each week.
China’s middle classes are concentrated along its coast, where an estimated 140 million internal illegal immigrants have moved to find work in its factories. Last year, China’s central government budgeted $88 billion to build more intercity high-speed rail. It has laid as many miles of track in four years as Europe did in twenty. That’s as well as paving 30,000 miles of highway and building runways for 40 new airports in major cities.
India expects to spend $500 billion on roads, rail and runways by 2015 to sustain its current growth rate.
More than 8.2 million animals, nearly a fifth of all the livestock in Mongolia, have died in a winter of snow, cold and gales so severe that Mongolians have a special word for it. It’s “dzud.”
2009 was the third year in succession that the Irish counties on the Atlantic seaboard experienced record rains and flooding. Some counties had 32 consecutive days of rain. As a result, waters rose in rivers and lakes and gushed out of drains and manholes because the tropical downpours fell on land already saturated by earlier rains. The famous Lakes of Killarney spilled over and inundated the ground floor of the four-star Lake Hotel for the first time in its 190-year history.
In most states, it’s one-third property tax, one-third sales tax and one-third income tax. But in California it’s 55 percent income tax. And 45 percent of that comes from the top brackets.
Overall, American states other than California gave away $1.8 billion in incentives to Hollywood between 2006 and 2008. In 2002, five states offered such discounts to movie companies. Today, 44 do. As tax credits lured production to states like Michigan, Georgia and Louisiana, feature-film location shooting days in Los Angeles fell to 929 in the first quarter of 2010, down 61 percent from 2,386 in the first quarter of 2008, this according to FilmL.A., which monitors filming in the area.
The Conference Board reported last week that its index of consumer confidence in the U.S. grew in May for the third month in a row.
The monthly jobs report just issued by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) showed 540,000 jobs added in May - by far the largest jump in more than 10 years. The overwhelming majority of these job gains are temporary hires from the Census Bureau, and almost all of them will reverse within the next three months. Only 41,000 of the 431,000 non-farm jobs created in May were in the private sector, and perhaps 20% of those were to help clean up the oil spill.
A new study of 500 couples by the British dating site ForgetDinner found that people married one year spend 40 minutes of an hour-long dinner engaged in conversation. By 20 years of marriage, they’re down to 21 minutes. By 30 years, it’s 16 minutes. Those married 50 years are talking for just three minutes.
In California, motorists younger than 18 can’t by law transport other youths unless a licensed adult driver, 25 years or older, is in the car. State law also bans teens from driving between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. unless accompanied by a licensed adult driver.
The world’s urban population, currently about 3.3 billion, is projected to nearly double by 2015, adding the equivalent of a city the size of a Philadelphia each week.
China’s middle classes are concentrated along its coast, where an estimated 140 million internal illegal immigrants have moved to find work in its factories. Last year, China’s central government budgeted $88 billion to build more intercity high-speed rail. It has laid as many miles of track in four years as Europe did in twenty. That’s as well as paving 30,000 miles of highway and building runways for 40 new airports in major cities.
India expects to spend $500 billion on roads, rail and runways by 2015 to sustain its current growth rate.
More than 8.2 million animals, nearly a fifth of all the livestock in Mongolia, have died in a winter of snow, cold and gales so severe that Mongolians have a special word for it. It’s “dzud.”
2009 was the third year in succession that the Irish counties on the Atlantic seaboard experienced record rains and flooding. Some counties had 32 consecutive days of rain. As a result, waters rose in rivers and lakes and gushed out of drains and manholes because the tropical downpours fell on land already saturated by earlier rains. The famous Lakes of Killarney spilled over and inundated the ground floor of the four-star Lake Hotel for the first time in its 190-year history.
In most states, it’s one-third property tax, one-third sales tax and one-third income tax. But in California it’s 55 percent income tax. And 45 percent of that comes from the top brackets.
Overall, American states other than California gave away $1.8 billion in incentives to Hollywood between 2006 and 2008. In 2002, five states offered such discounts to movie companies. Today, 44 do. As tax credits lured production to states like Michigan, Georgia and Louisiana, feature-film location shooting days in Los Angeles fell to 929 in the first quarter of 2010, down 61 percent from 2,386 in the first quarter of 2008, this according to FilmL.A., which monitors filming in the area.
The Conference Board reported last week that its index of consumer confidence in the U.S. grew in May for the third month in a row.
The monthly jobs report just issued by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) showed 540,000 jobs added in May - by far the largest jump in more than 10 years. The overwhelming majority of these job gains are temporary hires from the Census Bureau, and almost all of them will reverse within the next three months. Only 41,000 of the 431,000 non-farm jobs created in May were in the private sector, and perhaps 20% of those were to help clean up the oil spill.
A new study of 500 couples by the British dating site ForgetDinner found that people married one year spend 40 minutes of an hour-long dinner engaged in conversation. By 20 years of marriage, they’re down to 21 minutes. By 30 years, it’s 16 minutes. Those married 50 years are talking for just three minutes.
Monday, May 31, 2010
More facts and findings.
Post 499 - Here are some more facts and findings about the way we live:
Almost all the economic news in America is good at the moment: the economy is growing again; company profits are up and mortgage rates down; retailers’ first-quarter profits are 26% above last year’s level, and banks have the best quarterly profits in two years; home building is up and property developers are snapping up land that already has infrastructure in place; inflation is at a 44-year low; and the Chinese are buying US government IOUs again.
Thirty-seven percent of eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-olds are currently unemployed, the highest figure among this age group in more than thirty years.
In February, the number of employees voluntarily quitting surpassed the number being fired or discharged for the first time since October 2008.
In a poll conducted by Right Management at the end of 2009, 60% of the employees polled said they intended to leave their jobs when the market got better.
25% of Americans have no bank account and 70 percent of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck.
The financial sector’s influence in Washington reflects its enormous donations and lobbying. Over the past two decades, it’s given $2.3 billion to federal candidates. It’s outdone every other industry in lobbying since 1998, having spent $3.8 billion.
The average annual cost of keeping a convict in the California prison system has risen from under $1,000 in 1970 to more than $52,000 today.
Los Angeles County jails are the largest mental health provider in the country.
Babies can receive up to 26 vaccines in their first year of life, a number which has doubled since the mid-1980s.
50% of your health is related to your behavior, 20% is related to your environment, 20% is related to your genetics and 10% is related to your access to healthcare.
The U.S. currently has a sick-care system, not a healthcare system.
Guinness World Records says a Minnesota man is the tallest in U.S., measuring 7 feet, 8.33 inches.
Today, a cheap cellphone has more computing power than NASA's mainframes had in 1969.
Five years ago, 19-year-old Stefani Germanotta was working as a waitress during the day and singing in dingy New York clubs at night. Today, as Lady Gaga, she has 3.8 million followers on Twitter and 6.4 million Facebook friends. Her music video, Bad Romance, has been viewed over 200 million times on YouTube, and is the site’s number one clip of all time. And she’s sold over 15 million albums and over 40 million singles worldwide.
A video on YouTube gets 50% of its views in the first six days it’s on the site, according to data from analytics firm TubeMogul. After 20 days, a YouTube video has had 75% of its total views.
Right now as you read this, you're moving at 660,000 mph. That's the speed of the ground you’re standing on as it moves through space.
A recent survey found that more than 520,000 people in England go to work hung-over every day. The average Briton turns up with a hang-over three times a month. As a result, they report making more mistakes and struggling to keep up with their workload.
Almost all the economic news in America is good at the moment: the economy is growing again; company profits are up and mortgage rates down; retailers’ first-quarter profits are 26% above last year’s level, and banks have the best quarterly profits in two years; home building is up and property developers are snapping up land that already has infrastructure in place; inflation is at a 44-year low; and the Chinese are buying US government IOUs again.
Thirty-seven percent of eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-olds are currently unemployed, the highest figure among this age group in more than thirty years.
In February, the number of employees voluntarily quitting surpassed the number being fired or discharged for the first time since October 2008.
In a poll conducted by Right Management at the end of 2009, 60% of the employees polled said they intended to leave their jobs when the market got better.
25% of Americans have no bank account and 70 percent of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck.
The financial sector’s influence in Washington reflects its enormous donations and lobbying. Over the past two decades, it’s given $2.3 billion to federal candidates. It’s outdone every other industry in lobbying since 1998, having spent $3.8 billion.
The average annual cost of keeping a convict in the California prison system has risen from under $1,000 in 1970 to more than $52,000 today.
Los Angeles County jails are the largest mental health provider in the country.
Babies can receive up to 26 vaccines in their first year of life, a number which has doubled since the mid-1980s.
50% of your health is related to your behavior, 20% is related to your environment, 20% is related to your genetics and 10% is related to your access to healthcare.
The U.S. currently has a sick-care system, not a healthcare system.
Guinness World Records says a Minnesota man is the tallest in U.S., measuring 7 feet, 8.33 inches.
Today, a cheap cellphone has more computing power than NASA's mainframes had in 1969.
Five years ago, 19-year-old Stefani Germanotta was working as a waitress during the day and singing in dingy New York clubs at night. Today, as Lady Gaga, she has 3.8 million followers on Twitter and 6.4 million Facebook friends. Her music video, Bad Romance, has been viewed over 200 million times on YouTube, and is the site’s number one clip of all time. And she’s sold over 15 million albums and over 40 million singles worldwide.
A video on YouTube gets 50% of its views in the first six days it’s on the site, according to data from analytics firm TubeMogul. After 20 days, a YouTube video has had 75% of its total views.
Right now as you read this, you're moving at 660,000 mph. That's the speed of the ground you’re standing on as it moves through space.
A recent survey found that more than 520,000 people in England go to work hung-over every day. The average Briton turns up with a hang-over three times a month. As a result, they report making more mistakes and struggling to keep up with their workload.
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