Singapore sling

The Singapore Sling is a cocktail that was invented in the Raffles Hotel in Singapore in 1915. The drink made by Ngiam Tong Boon was intended to be a ladies drink and became extremely popular over time.

The original recipe includes gin, cherry brandy and Benedictine (equal parts). The drink will be served on a glass after being shaken. On the glass club soda will be added to finalize it.

The picture shows the one that I drunk today on the Raffles Hotel. I know it's a ladies drink, but I really like it.

Note: do not order a Singapore Sling other than here. Every time I tried one, it's been awful.

Taxi fact pack and other things

I call TFP (Taxi Fact Pack) to the set of data that the first taxi driver tells you when you get into a new country. On Singapore I've got:

• Cleanest city in the world
• 0.05% unemployment rate
• 2.5 Million citizens (~70% Chinese, ~20 Malaysian, ~10% Indies & other)
• The city has pieces of New York (the skyline), London (the Eye), Las Vegas (they are building two amazing casinos)
• The harbor can move thousands of cargoes per hour competing with Hong Kong to become the biggest harbor on this part of the world

Cab drivers and shoe shiners are probably the two professions with more access to what people thinks. They deal with dozens of clients every day, and given the loneliness of their profession they tend to spend a lot of time listening. Great sources of information!

First thoughts (Singapore, day 1)

After 20 hours on the plane, here I am finally. The flight was quite pleasant, surprisingly. Singapore airlines provides great seats also on coach: space, great screens, a lot of movies, ...

How do you get ready for a 20 hours flight? There are some things that you need to pack:

1. Noise canceling headphones, my choice is Sony MDR-NC60. They are cheaper than other options and provide the highest noise cancellation available (87%).
2. iPod Video full of movies/TV shows. I used this trip to catch up with Battlestar Gallactica. I'm almost done with the first season. Note: after July, it will be a iPod Touch or iPhone with a bigger screen. I can't wait!!!
   
3. Extra battery for the iPod so you can play movies for more than 2-3 hours.

Singapore is so far one of the nicest cities I've seen. It's so clean that you can't believe it. It makes Tokyo seem dirty. It makes NY look like a latrine :-( People is nice and everyone speaks perfect English, with an accent but great.

The picture was taken this morning on the hotel. I love how flowers on the water look on picture. My first stop will be Orchard Road for two reasons: 1) it's the main shopping area of Singapore and I need a couple of things; 2) the shuttle from the hotel takes you there, so it will be the easiest thing to do now that I'm completely groggy.

Second stop, find a great tailor. Remember my advise, never visit Asia without taking the chance to increase your wardrobe.

Black swan

In Nassim N. Taleb's definittion, a black swan is a hard to predict, large impact event beyond the realm of normal expectations. There are multiple examples of Black Swans just in the recent history (e.g., black Monday 1987 - largest one day stock decline in history).

The term Black Swam was selected by Taleb after the conception that all swans where white. Conception that was based on empirical evidence, before the discovery of Australia, there were no black swans in the known world.

The book is easy to read, so I strongly recommend everybody to give it a try. No so long ago, I heard a lot of people say "real estate prices will never go down". Black swans are all over the place.

Money makes you happier

Against popular culture or traditional sayings, money makes you happier. There is clear correlation and causality between income level and happiness. There is no other single factor that can increase levels of happiness as sharply as money can.

Freakonomics, one of my favorite blogs, has a interesting series on "The Economics of Happiness" where you can find data supporting this argument. The effect is observed in all the countries with a similar ratio.

I shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. Having a higher income carries as a consequence better health care, education, possibilities for enjoyment and relax, ...

Ready to flight

In 4 days, I will be traveling to Singapore. Close to Malaysia, Singapore is one of the few city-nation that still exists. During the late 80s and early 90s, Singapore became the prosperous city that linked business across cultures and continents. Fusion of old Asian tradition and old world style, Singapore has grown to be a amazing place where everything is possible.

I will be there two weeks on a training program. During this time, I will find the time to get to know the city, the culture and the food. The opportunity for this trip just came one week ago when an open spot appeared. As always, surprises come with trade-offs. In this case, I'm talking about the longest flight in the world. In just one shot, we will be covering all the ground between New York and Singapore- 19 hours in a plane. It may seem better than taking two planes, but I'm no so sure how things will work out on a plane for so long.

My only concern is the amount of fuel they are going to put on the plane!

The Onion: 'Iron Man' Trailer To Be Made Into Feature Film

El metro en Japón

Las estaciones de tren y metro en Japón tienen personal asignado que facilita la tarea de cerrar las puertas. Increible pero cierto.

Por qué hay tan pocos solteros interesantes?

No puedo contenerme a copiar este análisis de la típica queja femenina: "los buenos están casados o son gays" desde una perspective de "game theory" (artículo original en Marginal Revolution):

...game theory predicts, and empirical studies of auctions bear out, that auctions will often be won by "weak" bidders, who know that they can be outbid and so bid more aggressively, while the "strong" bidders will hold out for a really great deal. You can find a technical discussion of this here. (Be warned: "Bidding Behavior in Asymmetric Auctions" is not for everyone, and I certainly won't claim to have a handle on all the math.) But you can also see how this works intuitively if you just consider that with a lot at stake in getting it right in one shot, it's the women who are confident that they are holding a strong hand who are likely to hold out and wait for the perfect prospect.

This is how you come to the Eligible-Bachelor Paradox, which is no longer so paradoxical. The pool of appealing men shrinks as many are married off and taken out of the game, leaving a disproportionate number of men who are notably imperfect (perhaps they are short, socially awkward, underemployed). And at the same time, you get a pool of women weighted toward the attractive, desirable "strong bidders."

Where have all the most appealing men gone? Married young, most of them—and sometimes to women whose most salient characteristic was not their beauty, or passion, or intellect, but their decisiveness.