World’s 10 rudest countries for travelers

Travel search site Skyscanner recently released a list of the world’s rudest nations for visitors, naming the countries whose smiley and friendly natives are apparently confined to their promotional videos.

The result, which lists 34 countries, is based on Skyscanner’s online poll, which received more than 1,200 responses from Europe, North America and Australia.

France, the champion of impoliteness. La Belle France was declared the champion of impoliteness, garnering nearly 20 percent of the total votes. French people are known for “their abrupt and curt nature,” especially while facing foreign tourists, Edinburgh-based Skyscanner told International Business Times. 

Russia took second place with 16.6 percent of the votes, followed by the United Kingdom (10.4 percent), Germany (9.93 percent) and a puzzingly labeled “Others” (miscellaneous countries).

China (4.3 percent) ranked sixth on the list, leading Asia. Language barriers and cultural differences are the main causes China-based etiquette expert Lawrence Lo (卢浩研) pointed out that language barriers and cultural differences are the two major players behind the ranking.

“The French are very protective of their language, and customers can get different responses for ordering in French or in another language,” said Lo.

Yi Bao, Skyscanner marketing manager for China, gave an example to back the "culture difference" theory.

According to Yi, though queuing is a social norm in the West, it’s not a common behavior for Chinese people, “so [it] could be interpreted as being rude [by international travelers.]”

The personality of hospitality staff is another contributing factor. Lo said many restaurants’ waiting staff in Chinese cities are usually young women from rural areas, and that the Chinese are naturally more shy than Westerners.

“[These waitresses] don’t have the confidence or language skill to handle foreign travelers. Sometimes, they’d rather avoid them,” said Lo. “On the other hand, a lot of French waiters have worked in this position their whole life, so they have a superiority complex in front of travelers.” Lo also said the result of the survey depended on what type of travelers were voting.  "For many backpackers, challenges in language and culture actually form part of the fun of traveling," said Lo.

Here are the 10 rudest countries on Skyscanner’s list:

1. France
2. Russia
3. United Kingdom
4. Germany
5. Others
6. China
7. United States
8. Spain
9. Italy
10. Poland

The countries voted least rude were:

25. Japan
26. Denmark
27. Canada
28. New Zealand
29. Indonesia
30. Portugal
31. Thailand
32. The Philippines
33. Caribbean region
34. Brazil

Adopted from CNN travel

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Are These Women Vulgar to You?

Dictionary Definition

1. characterized by ignorance of or lack of good breeding or taste: vulgar ostentation.

2. indecent; obscene; lewd: a vulgar gesture.

3. crude; coarse; unrefined: a vulgar peasant.

4. of, pertaining to, or constituting the ordinary people in a society: the vulgar masses.

5. current; popular; common: a vulgar success; vulgar beliefs.

Of Wit & Will Definition

1. wildly fashionable and independent style with total disregard for convention.

List of some womens considred to be vulgar 

1.Cleopatra

Cleopatra was the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. Her romantic liaisons and military alliances, as well as her exotic beauty and powers of seduction, earned her an enduring place in history. In the 1963 film Cleopatra, the titular character was portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor, an Oscar-winning actress who mesmermized audiences with not only her dramatic performances but also with her private life.

Both women share my required traits for the truly Fab-Vulgar:

A curious intellect

Innate confidence

Physical beauty

Take-no-prisoners attitude

Powerful, perceived control over their destiny

Disdain and disregard for convention

Layer, layer, layer

“Successories” – each required jewels from her many lovers

Unlimited fashion opportunities

Very public downfall

…and powerful lovers wrapped around their little fingers. Caesar, Mark Antony, Mike Todd and Richard Burton.

Hum, if I am to use this attribute as a requirement for true Fab-Vulgarity, I may have to add Wallis Simpson to my list. She does meet all the requirements and was very publicly foiled in becoming Queen of England. But the King did abdicate for her. That may be the historical height of a vulgarity.

Wallis Simpson

American socialite whose third husband, Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom and the Dominions, abdicated his throne to marry her.

Imelda Marcos

A Filipino politician and widow of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Imelda Marcos is often remembered as a symbol of the extravagance of her husband’s political reign, including her collection of 2700 pairs of shoes.

Stefani Germanotta AKA  Lady Gaga

Stefani Germanotta, known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is one of the most successful pop singers in the world. She is characterized by her eccentric style and provocative performances.

Joan of Arc

Claiming divine guidance, Joan of Arc, a peasant girl living in medieval France, convinced the embattled crown prince Charles of Valois to allow her to lead a French army to the besieged city of Orléans, where it achieved a momentous victory over the English.

Ivana Trump

Ivana Trump is a former athlete, socialite, and fashion model noted for her marriage to American business magnate Donald Trump.

Georgiana Cavendish

Georgiana Cavendish’s tumultuous private life as Duchess was marked by traits often characteristic of eighteenth century nobility: wild gambling, extravagant spending, and scandalous affairs.

Mae West

Mae West was an American stage and film actress whose frank sensuality, languid postures, and frequent wisecracking became her trademarks.

Marie Antoinette 

At just 15 years old, Marie Antoinette married the future French king Louis XVI. The young couple soon came to symbolize all of the excesses of the reviled French monarchy, and Marie Antoinette herself became the target of a great deal of vicious gossip.

Daphne Guiness

Daphne Guiness is the daughter of brewery heir Jonathan Guinness. She is regarded as an icon in the fashion world and noted for her work as an artist, model, and designer.

Eve

At first, Eve and Adam, the first man, live with God in the Garden of Eden, but both are banished when a serpent tempts Eve to eat fruit from the forbidden tree.

Adopted from ofwitandwill

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Apple iOS 7’s Biggest Design Problem

First off, let me say how much I love the design of iOS 7. I’m a Helvetica man myself. I love the look and feel of Dieter Rams products—part of me will be forevermidcentury modern. All of that combined means I feel welcomed into the bosom of iOS 7 in a way I didn’t really feel with any of Apple’s (AAPL) other operating systems. So I’m a sucker before I even pick it up.

When Apple initially revealed iOS 7 there was a lot of talk in nerdier design circles about such things as type rendering, or pixels or something. And in fairness, the beta of iOS 7 was probably a bit clunky. But then, it was a damn beta. Design critics with itchy trigger fingers should control themselves. For some in the design community, the gift of someone using Helvetica in a big project encourages untethered opinions and frustrations with the font. Like how Helvetica’s “Euro-centric sophistication” is “near-anorexic,” “aspirational,” or “feminine.” There lies with Helvetica, unlike any other font, a bizarre desire to understand it, to find out what it “means.” 

Alas, reader, I can throw no further light on this. What I can tell you is this: If you’re going to use a Helvetica, you don’t want to actually use Helvetica. If I have a single criticism of Apple’s font, it’s that the designers didn’t go back to the source. The desire for the purity of essence and obsessive detail on which Apple prides itself should have led the company to Christian Schwartz’s recut of Helvetica (which,cough, I played a small part in bringing to the world). Schwartz went back to the original forms of Max Miedinger’s Neue Haas Grotesk, before it evolved through various compromises and mutated into Helvetica. That’s even before you get to Neue Helvetica, a further mutation, which Apple is using here. More weights, more rational, more square, designed by committee, and even less like the original. So. You make a big play of spending every waking hour committed to perfection, Apple? Not in my book. 

With those admittedly absurdist types of quibbles out of the way, as we all know now iOS 7 is largely about the stripping away. About growing up. It’s about saying we don’t need a 3D rendering of an address book to tell us Click here for your address book. This has an unexpected outcome. By uncoupling the desire for direct replications of reality, you can play much more with colors at the more saturated end of what’s been seen before on Apple products. Color has become an idea, a form to push and pull around. And it’s used to great effect: The colors feel undistilled, refreshing. Modern. A lot of the drama and surprise in this redesign start with the zingy, almost iridescent color. 

(Disclaimer: To be honest, all of these things are probably happening in other operating systems, but I’m an Apple man through and through. Nothing else is in my sightline. I couldn’t even find the phone function on my dad’s Android device when I had to borrow his phone to make a call.) 

But the thing about Apple’s purity of essence is that it’s OK in a bubble, when you can control everything. Apple can’t. And until every single one of its app developers (whose app icons are the de facto visual language of the operating system) buy into the same purity of vision that the Apple design team has—the aesthetics of austerity—your screen, superficially at least, is a mess. A jangle of competing ideologies, a dissonance made even more acute when the azure blue of the Safari app neighbors a rendering of Swampy, the crocodile from Where’s My Water? 2. (Don’t judge me. A 30-minute subway journey sometimes feels really long and requires augmentation.) Facebook (FB), Twitter, and the like have adopted Apple’s new aesthetic, and it’s very lovely, but I’m guessing it’ll be a while before the Where’s My Water? design team goes reductive midcentury modern in their approach to iconography. 

Or maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe the dissonance between the competing visions will help the user separate Apple’s apps from those made by third-party developers. Maybe it will aid navigation by separating church from state, if you will.

Does this mean iOS 7 is a flop? Not for me. It’s just currently a bit too future for its own good. Part of the design challenge in creating something new is making sure it’s also well-integrated with the world around it. Otherwise the designer’s intention, no matter how well-executed, ends up feeling compromised. 

Adopted from Businessweek.

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Porn Star Dies After Sixth Surgery

German porn star and "Big Brother" participant Carolin Berger a.k.a. "Sexy Cora" died last Thursday after her sixth breast enlargement operation to go from a 34F to a 34G, Sky News reports. She was 23. 

Cora has been in an artificial coma since January 11 at a clinic in Hamburg. Sky News explains, "She went under the knife for the last time at the Alster Clinic and was having 800g (28oz) of silicone injected into each breast. But her heart stopped beating during the operation. She suffered brain damage and was put into an induced coma." Cora's husband Tim Wosnitza remarked, "The doctors told me that she wouldn't make it. The brain damage was too big." 

According to CNN, two of the doctors who performed the surgery have been charged with negligent manslaughter. The clinic released a statement saying it is giving "full and complete support" to investigators: 

"As matters stand currently a defect in the anesthetizing device can be ruled out....The claim that the monitoring could have given readings other than the actual vital functions of the patient has nothing to do with the facts and has no connection to reality. [....] Erroneous behavior by the doctors is unproven and at this point just an 'assessment' by one of the emergency medical personnel who'd brought [Cora] to the University Clinic Hamburg." 

Sky News notes, Cora had her five previous surgeries in Poland at a clinic that refused to see her again for a sixth time. 

Relatedly, Sheyla Hershey, the woman with the world's biggest breasts (size 38M), had doctors remove her four implants and much of her natural tissue last year in order to save her life from staph and strep infections. 

Adopted from huffingtonpost

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