While I was upset that I was unable to lockdown travel plans for the weeklong National Holiday...staying in Guilin has given me the opportunity to learn a little bit more about the city and the culture and a few other things as well.1. They save th

A day of travel is never uneventful and this was true for me as well My flight from Denver to London was great I got a middle row seat in the front of the economy section so I had extra leg room The steward was really friendly and thanks to the eventfu

After hearing horror stories about driving down the coast in a big rig we decided to head through central Oregon south to California. We camped at Cascade Meadows RPI because Bend Thousand Trails has no sewers and our new motorcoach is a primadona with a

Greetings from Carlsbad NM We made it here yesterday from El Paso Texas. It was an easy 160 mile day. We are staying at the Carlsbad RV Park just outside of Carlsbad. It is an OK park. There are lot's of oil worker staying here. Many are from Texas. It

My travels to the largest city of Ecuador where pretty uneventful Nothing went wrong and everything ran pretty smoothly which was nice. I flew from Boston to Miami and from Miami to Guayaquil. At MIA Miami International Airport I met up with Gabriel whi

SPdia 1He aprovechado la maana para hacer colada y secadora echar el correo y demas. El imprmeable sigue bastante cochino incluso despues de haber pasado por la lavadora asi que le he aplicado una sesion de cepillo y jabon quitamanchas en los

Hi GuysI have just set up my own Travel Bog and will update this whilst we are away and hopefully attach photo's.I have added you guys so every time I make an entry you will get an email.Just adding this now to test I have set it up correctly

The first rule of panic mode is you don’t talk about panic mode. And this is purely for personal reasons, but I don’t want Scotland to reject us

It used to be unthinkable. Now it’s thinkable. In fact, in some minds, it’s already been thought. Scotland might be voting yes to independence and splitting from the rest of the union. I’m not Scottish, and I’m therefore powerless to intervene, although I would personally prefer Scotland to stay – but only for entirely selfish and superficial reasons. Reason one: I’d rather not be lumbered with a Tory government from now until the day the moon crashes into the Thames. Two: I quite like Scotland and the Scottish, so it’s hard not to feel somehow personally affronted by their rejection. Why did you just unfriend and unfollow me, Scotland? What did I ever do to you? What’s that? Sorry, you’ll have to slow down a bit. Can’t understand a word you’re saying. Don’t you come with subtitles?! Ha ha ha! No, seriously, come back. Scotland? Scotland?

Apparently the consequences of a split in the union could be calamitous. The skies will fall and the seas will boil and the dead shall rise and the milk will spoil. There will be a great disturbance in the force. Duncan’s horses will turn and eat each other. Starving ravens will peck out your eyes halfway through the Great British Bake Off. Your dad will give birth to a jackal full of hornets. And in London’s last remaining DVD shop, Gregory’s Girl will quietly be re-categorised as “world cinema”.

The Black Mirror creator invents exciting products to transform your life – from the workout that makes you feel like a saint to the world’s cleverest toilet

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but happiness is in sharp decline. Many people blame technology for our woes, and it’s not hard to see why. The internet is nothing but deranged screeching and fascist memes sitting atop a plateau of moldering desperation masquerading as ironic meaninglessness. No one has smiled in real life since 2011. But wait! Silicon Valley is waking up to the negative effect its products can have on us, and like the good Samaritans they are, they’re unveiling a whole new range of products aimed at making us feel good about ourselves. Here is an exclusive look at just a few of the cool gizmos and rad gadgets due to be unveiled at next year’s CES Consumer Electronics Show and featured in news reports, and then in shops, and then in your house before you even know it.

Nach der Zwangspause wollen nun viele möglichst schnell wieder fit werden. Doch Mediziner warnen davor, es beim Einstieg zu übertreiben - vor allem nach überstandener Krankheit.

Astronomer Avi Loeb believes that the interstellar object dubbed 'Oumuamua could actually be a probe sent by alien beings. Given the evidence that has so far been gathered, he says, it is a possible conclusion to draw.

The German health-care system is considered one of the best in the world. But the coronavirus is mercilessly exposing its weaknesses, with some hospitals already facing difficulties. Can Germany prevent the kind of collapse seen in Italy?

Germany's federal and state governments have agreed to further tighten restrictions on public life. Here's an overview of what's now allowed and what's not.

The fight against the coronavirus has paralyzed society and the economy. Lockdown measures are fine for the short term, but they threaten to rapidly destroy the economy and erode our existing social order. What should the next steps be?

Some in Germany have the impression that the country can survive a long-term lockdown without suffering any grave consequences. That thinking is dangerous.

German politicians have begun calling for industry to be shielded from too much environmental protection during the coronavirus crisis. But corporations aren't joining the appeal. They managed to turn CO2 reduction into a competitive advantage long ago.

All of Germany is looking forward to Easter this year, with hopes that the government will soon be able to loosen coronavirus restrictions. But will it? And if so, which ones? By DER SPIEGEL Staff

We conducted a large-scale survey covering 58 countries and over 100,000 respondents between late March and early April 2020 to study beliefs and attitudes towards citizens’ and governments’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most respondents reacted strongly to the crisis: they report engaging in social distancing and hygiene behaviors, and believe that strong policy measures, such as shop closures and curfews, are necessary. They also believe that their government and their country’s citizens are not doing enough and underestimate the degree to which others in their country support strong behavioral and policy responses to the pandemic. The perception of a weak government and public response is associated with higher levels of worries and depression. Using both cross-country panel data and an event-study, we additionally show that strong government reactions correct misperceptions, and reduce worries and depression. Our findings highlight that policy-makers not only need to consider how their decisions affect the spread of COVID-19, but also how such choices influence the mental health of their population.

Many countries in Eastern Europe are taking drastic measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 -- in part because their health-care systems may not be up to the task.

With the wave of coronavirus infections washing over Europe, countries have turned inward to protect themselves. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has struggled to define the EU's role in the crisis as border checks have been reintroduced across the Continent.

Family members aren't allowed into hospitals nor can they take part in funerals. Crematoriums are overloaded. The horrors of coronavirus still have a firm hold on northern Italy.

European researchers have developed a new technology aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus. Called PEPP-PT, it has been designed to conform with EU data privacy rules. Its developers spoke with DER SPIEGEL about the app.

L'Europa è più di una mera alleanza di egocentrici. Non esistono alternative agli Eurobond in una crisi come questa.

Europa es más que una coalición de ególatras. En una crisis como esta no existe alternativa para los eurobonos.

Well-off Brazilians have brought the coronavirus back home with them from their travels. Many of them also employ domestic workers from the country's favelas - who they're apparently unwilling to protect by telling them to stay home. Brazil's poorest class could make easy quarry for the disease.

In the fight against COVID-19, doctors and health workers are testing drugs and treatments whose efficacy has been proven against other illnesses. We take a look at the most prominent ones and the early findings.

The Chinese metropolis of Wuhan spent weeks in complete lockdown to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. Now, it is reopening its shops and restaurants. But the people remain fearful and cautious.

We study the trade-offs faced by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that serve as platforms through which consumers access both television and internet services. As online streaming video improves, these providers may respond by attempting to steer consumers away from streaming video toward their own TV services, or by attempting to capture surplus from this improved internet content. We augment the standard mixed bundling model to demonstrate the trade-offs the ISP faces when dealing with streaming video, and we show how these trade-offs change with the pricing options available to the ISP. Next, we use unique household-level panel data and the introduction of usage-based pricing (UBP) in a subset of markets to measure consumers' responses and to evaluate quantitatively the ISP's trade-offs. We find that the introduction of UBP led consumers to upgrade their internet service plans and lower overall internet usage. Our findings suggest that while steering consumers towards TV services is possible, it is likely costly for the ISP and therefore unlikely to be profitable. This is especially true if the ISP can offer rich pricing menus that allow it to capture some of the surplus generated by a better internet service. The results suggest that policies like UBP can increase ISPs' incentive to maintain open access to new internet content.

Dominican Yankees and Mets stars are working with Pedro Martinez to respond to the coronavirus pandemic in their homeland.

Innovation policy involves trading off monopoly output and pricing in the short run in exchange for incentives for firms to develop new products in the future. While existing research demonstrates that expected profits fuel R&D investments, little is known about the novelty of the projects funded by these investments. Relying on data that describe the scientific approaches used by a large sample of experimental drug projects, we expand on this literature by examining the scientific novelty of pharmaceutical R&D investments following the creation of the Medicare Part D program. We find little evidence that the positive demand shock implied by this program prompted firms to undertake scientifically novel R&D activity, as measured by whether the specific scientific approach had been used before. However, we find some evidence that firms invested in products involving novel combinations of scientific approaches. These estimates can inform economists and policymakers assessing the tradeoffs associated with marginal changes in commercial returns from newly developed pharmaceutical products.

We use longitudinal data from the income tax system to study the impacts of firms’ employment and wage-setting policies on the level and change in immigrant-native wage differences in Canada. We focus on immigrants who arrived in the early 2000s, distinguishing between those with and without a college degree from two broad groups of countries – the U.S., the U.K. and Northern Europe, and the rest of the world. Consistent with a growing literature based on the two-way fixed effects model of Abowd, Kramarz, and Margolis (1999), we find that firm-specific wage premiums explain a significant share of earnings inequality in Canada and contribute to the average earnings gap between immigrants and natives. In the decade after receiving permanent status, earnings of immigrants rise relative to those of natives. Compositional effects due to selective outmigration and changing participation play no role in this gain. About one-sixth is attributable to movements up the job ladder to employers that offer higher pay premiums for all groups, with particularly large gains for immigrants from the “rest of the world” countries.

How should the design of incentives vary with agent time preferences? We develop two predictions. First, “bundling” the payment function over time – specifically by making the payment for future effort increase in current effort – is more effective if individuals are impatient over effort. Second, increasing the frequency of payment is more effective if individuals are impatient over payment. We test the efficacy of time-bundling and payment frequency, and their interactions with impatience, using a randomized evaluation of an incentive program for exercise among diabetics in India. Consistent with our theoretical predictions, bundling payments over time meaningfully increases effort among the impatient relative to the patient. In contrast, increasing payment frequency has limited efficacy, suggesting limited impatience over payments. On average, incentives increase daily steps by 1,266 (13 minutes of brisk walking) and improve health.

Most jobs require teamwork. Are some people good team players? In this paper we design and test a new method for identifying individual contributions to group performance. We randomly assign people to multiple teams and predict team performance based on previously assessed individual skills. Some people consistently cause their group to exceed its predicted performance. We call these individuals “team players”. Team players score significantly higher on a well-established measure of social intelligence, but do not differ across a variety of other dimensions, including IQ, personality, education and gender. Social skills – defined as a single latent factor that combines social intelligence scores with the team player effect – improve group performance about as much as IQ. We find suggestive evidence that team players increase effort among teammates.

Economist Nouriel Roubini correctly predicted the 2008 financial crisis. Now, he believes that stock markets will plunge by 30 to 40 percent because of the coronavirus. And that Trump will lose his re-election bid.

Greed, envy, poor leadership and a poisonous internal culture: New York Times journalist David Enrich has written a book about Deutsche Bank that also sheds light on the financial institution's relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump.

It is an unprecedented crisis: The coronavirus pandemic is crippling entire economies, while governments and central banks are deploying all means available to prevent a systemic collapse. How long can we hold out?

The corona crisis has hit the German economy at full force. Already, 470,000 applications have been filed for a German government subsidy that prevents employees from getting laid off, 20 times more than the previous record during the 2009 financial crisis.

The coronavirus pandemic has inflicted massive damage on the aviation industry. But Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr says that the German flag carrier is in a good position to survive, even if it will take several years for the industry to recover.