About Me

I ramble about a number of things - but travel experiences, movies and music feature prominently. See my label cloud for a better idea. All comnments and opinions on this blog are my own, and do not in any way reflect the opinions/position of my employer (past/current/future).

20 October 2012

Most Dangerous Cities in the World

A Mexican think tank, as released a study on the most dangerous cities in the world, and Johannesburg is on no 50 on the list. The data is compiled from crime statistics from 2011, although it seems that murder rate per capita is the key determinant. A short story on the list, in English is available on BusinessInsider.

It is interesting that so few countries make contributions to the list, and all but two of those countries are in the Americas. These lists are off course influenced by the availability of data, and I do think it will change if more crimes are taken into account.

I thought that the crime rate could potentially be linked to the Gini index - which looks at the degree of income equality in the world (full list here). While there is some link - it is certainly not a high degree of correlation. Southern African countries dominate in terms of income inequality, but only South Africa has a reputation for high crime rates.

CountryNo. of CitiesGini Index (Inequality)
Brazil1416
Colombia510
El Salvador134
Guatemala111
Honduras29
Iraq1n/a
Jamaica142
Mexico1218
Panama117
Puerto Rico1n/a
South Africa42
USA443
Venezuela371

17 October 2012

Google's Datacentres

Wired has some amazing articles on Google's datacentres and the computing power behind it all. 

Very interesting reading!

15 October 2012

Melting Pot

It had been a long time since my previous visit to London - about 6 years I think. The Olympics hasn't really changed the city - other than the remnants on the billboards. It remains old and grimy in some places; and new and shiny in others. It is a testament to the sheer longevity of the city.

One thing that has noticeably changed, is that it is an even bigger melting pot. The high volume of Indian immigrants is well known, but it is only in this trip that I noticed all the other shades of accents - the Polish (or some other Eastern European) receptionist, the Caribbean assistant at the Tube station, various main stream European languages, Chinese, Malay etc. And these aren't even the tourists. 

I still don't like the weather, but I do love the melting pot.