Analog Climate Regions

I saw the above image on a website that didn't indicate its origin.  I'll speculate that whoever created it made use of climate regions as defined by geographers for areas in North America and then tried to match these with the same or similar climate regions elsewhere.

Actually, some of these North American regions are strike me as being larger and more diverse than they probably should be, and ditto the analog areas.  So a good deal of judgment went into what the map shows.

Some of this judgment strikes me as being legitimate in a broad-brush way.  Consider the analogy of India to Mexico and nearby areas.  India has both hot, humid parts along with deserts.  So does Mexico and northern Central America.  Russia has grain-growing areas, timberlands, and Arctic zones.  So does the map area from the American Midwest to northern Canada and Alaska.

That said, I can't vouch for the accuracy of most of the analogs due to the fact that the only places I've lived for extended periods of time are the Puget Sound area, the northeastern USA and Korea.  The Puget Sound climate is indeed roughly similar to that of the British Isles.  On a trip to Ireland my late wife kept commenting on how similar some of the vegetation was to what she had in her garden.  Likewise, my ten-month experience in Korea that included visits to Japan suggests that linking the Richmond-Halifax strip to Japanese climate is a halfway reasonable approximation.

Regardless, I found the map amusing.

Turning One's Coat Quickly

One interesting consequence of Donald Trump's election is some prominent media Republicans flipping to supporting the Democrat party.  Perhaps the best known are Bill Kristol and Max Boot.

Even though I've had coursework in psychology and social psychology, that was decades ago so I'm out of touch with that field.  Plus, I'm a bit skeptical of most "social science" research.  That's because I have a Ph.D. degree in a so-called social science.

Personal quirks aside, I imagine that there have been studies made regarding drastic switches in political beliefs -- even switches such as Kristol's and Boot's that appear like instantaneous religious conversions.  But since I am ignorant of such research, I'll simply forge ahead with some seat-of-the-pants speculation of the sort often found on blogs.

The impression I have is that, for mature adults, such belief flips are actually the result of the accumulation of many small events affecting one's belief system.  Any suddenness is caused by a triggering event such as the 2001 destruction of New York's World Trade Center towers, a straw that breaks the camel's back.

As for my own political shifts, the first was when I was in college and trying out new ideas for size, especially ideas that the "cool" crowd believed.  That was fairly rapid, though there was no obvious triggering event.

My second shift was gradual, taking place over the better part of a decade.  It was influenced by changing policy support by the main political parties plus my experience working in government.  Again, there was no trigger, though the 1980 presidential election might have pushed my conversion more rapidly.

As for the likes of Kristol and Boot, it's quite possible that there were accumulations of dissatisfactions with mainline Republican beliefs.  But there seemed to be limited evidence of this in their writing until Trump announced his candidacy.  Since I can't read minds, I have no idea as to the mental processes of their changed beliefs.  So I hope they and other turncoats eventually honestly explain their conversions.

Swiss Army Wristwatch Marketing Strategy?

I'm not into fancy wristwatches.  Nor into the ultra-cheap digital-display kind either.  Moreover, I'm not a mechanical movement snob: battery-powered does the job without the need for expensive periodic cleanings and maintenance.

Eons ago, I bought an Omega Seamaster at a PX in Korea and wore it for 20 years or longer.  But it didn't keep time well, and the maintenance costs drove me to cheapo digitals and Swatches.

In the late 1990s I finally settled on a nice line of watches from Victorinox, the Swiss Army knife company.  Black case and matching rubbery band: nice looking and less than $100 back then.  Over the years I bought two more similar watches.  Then that line disappeared.

In 2013 my wife bought me a different style Victorinox in Cologne (Köln) Germany -- a nice-looking gray item with a matching cloth band.  But this cost close to $300.  For the last few years the Victorinox watches I've seen in their London store have prices starting on the order of $400, a figure I just confirmed by checking their Web page.  That's more than I care to spend on a timepiece.

The only option was to shop other brands.  I did buy a nice Skagen watch at the fancy mall at Shepherd's Bush in London a few months ago, and use it on dressier occasions.  And a few weeks ago I bought a sporty Wenger watch while on a cruise ship.  The former sold for about $200, the latter for around $150.

Now it seems that Wenger was a maker of Swiss Army watches that was bought by Victorinox in 2005.  Wenger's knives have been phased out, and the brand is now used for travel items and watches.

My take is that by bringing in lower-priced Wenger watches, this allowed Victorinox watches to be moved upscale from where they were when I first started buying them.  The result is that, now that I know what happened, I can still but moderately-priced Swiss Army type wrist watches, but not the Victorinox branded ones.