Mashup « GeowebInfo

Mashup

World’s Happiest Places

Do you think you are happy? Rate your happiness level on a scale of 1 to 10.

That was the question on which 95 nations were ranked depending on the level of happiness their citizens reported, by the folks at the World Database of Happiness.

Denmark ranks topmost with its people basking in joy and glory at an average score of 8.2. They are closely followed by the Swiss at a happiness of 8.1 . Interestingly, five of the 13 happiest nations are Scandinavian.

I have used "My Maps" to create a listing of the 13 happiest nations with average happiness level and a happy fact for each country.

View Larger Map

Source: http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/23/happiness-world-index-oped-cx_hra_0423happy.html

The Spookiest Places

Christina Valhouli at Forbes.com writes on why people like to be scared, for which psychologists have plenty of explanations. Some believe it is cathartic, while some consider it to be a learning-experience – meaning getting scared from a horror movie or something spooky prepares themselves to face real-life frightening situations.

Fear not only involves emotional but also physical reactions. Fear is believed to produce endorphins, which produce a natural high. The next time you see someone addicted to performing dangerous activities such as bungee jumping, or diving off an airplane or riding roller coasters, you’ll know the reason behind such dangerous behavior.

Some people prefer to have a real experience of sweats and chills, besides watching horror films all alone in the dark. One of the best alternatives is to travel to spooky places like cemeteries or castles or even catacombs. Here’s a map of few spooky places that one could visit and get high, as listed at Forbes.

Mashup / Web Mapping — No Comments
28
Jun 08

World’s Most Endangered Destinations

Forbes.com lists out the ten most endangered destinations in the world, which are under threat from global warming, pollution, deforestation and urbanization.

With scientists predicting that the North Pole may be deprived of ice for a brief period sometime in the coming months, no wonder global warming has its effects on the ice fields of Mount Kilimanjaro and the glaciers at National Park in Montana.

Checkout this Google Map of the most endangered destinations and what the prevention institutes or agencies have to say.

Mashup / Web Mapping — No Comments
16
Jun 08

The World’s Fastest Elevators

According to Tom Van Riper and Robert Malone, authors of the article on The World’s Fastest Elevators at Forbes.com, to know where the world’s booming economies are, one need not spend time analyzing GDP reports, employment statistics and spending trends of consumers, but knowing the answer to where the world’s fastest elevators are is sufficient.

Tall buildings are significant at places where economy is on the rise and to keep these buildings on pace with the growth, they are outfitted with fast elevators that shuttle employees up and down at rocket speeds. Which company would want its employees on hour long breaks with elevators that carry people at snail’s pace?

An interesting fact here is, six of the world’s ten fastest elevators are in Asia and the Middle East, only three in North America and one in Australia. The fastest elevator in the world, at the Taipei 101 shuttles people at a speed of 1,010 meters per min, covering 100 floors in 39 seconds. With advances in elevator technology, it is made sure that people traveling in these high speed people movers have a comfortable ride, negating the effects of whistling noises and vibrations.

Here is a Google Maps of the 10 fastest elevators in the world.

Mashup / Web Mapping — No Comments
1
Jun 08

Best Cities for Singles

Here’s an interesting fact: 41% of American adults over 18 are unmarried (single). Being single doesn’t necessarily mean living alone as 9.8 million single Americans lived with an opposite sex partner in 2005. With more and more people in America spending almost half of their lives staying single, the “single” status has become more of a class in the economy, which cities can’t afford to lose.

Forbes.com has a special report by Elisabeth Eaves on the list of cities that attract this growing class of singles. The rankings were based on factors such as coolness, culture, nightlife, job growth, cost of living alone, online dating and finally the number of singles above the age of 15 and never married.

For a complete methodology that was adopted to judge these cities, click here.

San Francisco tops the list in the overall rankings, which is followed by New York and Los Angeles. San Francisco also ranks first in culture, while New York tops the list in night life. Austin, Texas is the best city for job growth, Dallas is the cheapest for living alone and Houston boasts off its huge online dating community.

A Google Maps view of the ranks is posted here.

Mashup / Programming — No Comments
27
May 08

World’s Hardest Working Countries

Who could ever guess South Korea to be first in the list of Hardest Working Countries in the World with the average employee working 2,357 hours a year which includes only 11 public holidays. South Korea is followed by Greece in the second place with its people working 2,052 hours a year. Last in the rankings is Iceland, where the average employee works 1,794 hours.

These 2008 rankings are from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for its members. There might be other countries who can top this list, if they were part of the OECD.

A google maps of the rankings for Hardest Working Countries via Forbes is available here.

GeowebInfothoughts on all things geo