Going for the Gold?

So the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games have come to a close and so has the medal counting. I'm going back to this topic because I had an interesting conversation with a language exchange partner who's considerably older than I am. He mentioned that back in "his day" (so... like 30 years ago), the Olympic medal count used to be based on how many gold medals a country won, and not the total medal count. Although he learns English, he does seem to harbor some resentment towards Americans since he also added that this system was changed so that the United States would also "be first". Thinking about it, I couldn't help but notice he had a point. Even at Vancouver, while we did win the most total medals, both Germany and Canada had more gold medals than the United States. (Maps are from nytimes.com)

Top 9 Countries

Then I realized, it's not just the Winter Olympics either. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, while we won the most total medals, we were behind China when it comes to total gold medals. 

 So guys, what do you think? Is this an "evil American scheme"? I personally think it might be, but I don't agree with it being "evil". I mean, is gold really that much better than silver or bronze? Is it that much worse to be second or third? I don't think so. I mean, these athletes worked so hard and oftentimes the difference between gold, silver, and bronze is 1 second/point or less. Still, I was wondering if I was alone in thinking this way. It's all in healthy competitiveness, of course. I don't think the Olympics should be about how many medals a country wins or which country is "better" than another. Rather, it's about the best athletes from across the world engaging in a once-in-a-lifetime-experience in healthy competition and just sharing the wonderful world of sports.

Today's Random Quiz:

You Are Combat Boots

You are a complete and total rebel. You refuse to do what you're told, and you're quite stubborn. You really don't care what other people think of you. You are tough and often ruthless. You are independent, iconoclastic, and counter-cultural. You resent authority figures. You are very headstrong. No one is going to pressure you into being someone you're not!

What Kind of Boots Are You?

World of Film

World Map according to average budget per feature film... and the winner goes to...

*drum roll please*
... New Zealand?!?!?!?!?

Surpringly, despite American films dominating popular culture worldwide, New Zealand averages higher dollars/film than the United States! I guess it seems shocking, but in spite of all the Hollywood blockbusters, there are many, many independent and low-budget films being produced in the United States, which might account for the unexpected discrepancy.

The country dominating according to the cartogram of feature film production per capita is...
Iceland?!?!?!?!?

I definitely did NOT see that one coming. Then again, if you think about it, Iceland has, what 300,000 people give or take a few thousand? I imagine that it's not that hard to produce a good number of movies per year, giving it a good per capita ratio. Denmark and Slovenia are doing quite well in terms of per capita ratio in film as well. Hong Kong isn't doing too shabby either.

Finally, overall feature film production...
Japan and India are gigantic on this map. France and Spain look like they're competing for dominance in Europe and on the African continent, I'm safely assuming that the winner is Nigeria.

These maps are all credited to:

Population Cartogram

I remember when I was a 7-year-old in the 4th grade, we learned that there were 4 billion people on the earth. Today, amazingly enough, that number is almost 7 billion (an estimated 6.7 billion at present). Amazing how quickly we've reproduced... well, certain countries more than others. Below is a cartogram sizing individual countries based on population in relation to landmass. China and India dominates while the countries "up north" (i.e. Canada, the Scandinavian countries, Russia, etc.) are thin slithers... I guess no one wants to live in the cold.
Today's Random Quiz:

You Are Blooming Flowers

You are an optimistic person by nature. In even the darkest times, you are hopeful about the future. You feel truly blessed in life and can sometimes be overwhelmed with emotions. You have an artist's eye. You are always looking for beauty in the mundane. You have a good sense of aesthetics, especially when it comes to shapes and color.

What Part of Spring Are You?

Vladstudio's World in Reverse

We all know that the majority of the Earth is covered by salty waters... but what if all the oceans, seas, lakes, and other bodies of water were land and all the land, islands, and the like were bodies of water? Actually... how awesome would that be??? It would be SO easy to hitchhike across the world! Or even better, it would be so easy to walk across the world. I'd totally do a trip around the world without hesitating if it were so... One of the reasons why I'd hesitate to walk and hitchhike across the world is because of the oceans. I mean, yeah, I heard you can "boat-hike" but how easy/hard is that? I know it can be done, but how? Do I go up to a ship's captain and say, "Hello, my name is Kerstin. I would like to go to 'X' continent. I'm willing to work on the ship during the entirety of the journey, so will you take me? Can I 'boat-hike' with you?" I don't think they will go over so well. I'm afraid I might be told to just get lost and screw my head on right.

But Vladstudio has done exactly that, created a world in reverse:
Of course, countries' national borders would be completely altered and so many countries would be bordering each other. It would be awesome. According to this map, all I would have to do to get to Paris would be to cross over some mountains. I could totally do that. I'm more of a land-animal than a sea-animal, anyway. =)

Today's Random Video:

Språkliga Stormakter

I like to read. Unfortunately, it takes me more than a week to finish a single book these days with my jobs and all my other free time during the week being sacrificed to the languages I'm learning. So, I decided to borrow a book about languages in hopes of killing two birds with one stone. Swedish linguist and author of the book Limits of Language, Mikael Parkvall published an interesting cartogram along with his book. It's entitled "språkliga stormakter" (linguistic powers... or perhaps more appropriately, "linguistic superpowers), which draws into proportion, the countries of the world in relation to how many languages are used.
"Languages are very unevenly distributed among the countries of the world. The map tries to capture this fact by rendering each country in a size corresponding to the number of languages spoken in it. (Because of the inherent problems in accomplishing this, sizes are rather approximate)."

The Countries in Red are:
1. Papua-Nya Guinea (Papua New Guinea): 823 languages
2. Indonesien (Indonesia): 726 languages
3. Nigeria: 505 languages
4. Indien (India): 387 languages
5. Mexiko (Mexico): 288 languages
6. Kamerun (Cameroon): 279 languages
7. Australien (Australia): 235 languages
8. (Kongo-Kinshasa) Democratic Republic of Congo 218 languages
9. Kina (China): 201 languages
10. USA: 176 languages

I wonder why Papua New Guinea has so many languages. I can sort of understand why Indonesia has so many since it's one country but it's a series of large and small archipelagos; before the Dutch colonized it, they were independent islands with separate languages so it makes sense. It's puzzling why there are so many languages there... is it because of the high biodiversity in Papua New Guinea? Is it because it's an island?

Today's Random Quiz:

You Are an Optimist

You definitely see the sunny side of life, even when things aren't going so great. And while you may not be a realist, your optimism has really improved your quality of life. You have the energy to take charge, solve your problems, and enjoy life for what it is. Optimists are happier and healthier - so keep thinking positive!

Are You An Optimist or Pessimist?