Things I learned lately - 22 February

• The single most useful piece of software ever invented is free for anyone to use. Google Maps.
• The average American house or apartment is twice as large as the average house or apartment in Japan, and three times larger than the average home or apartment in Russia.
• The average new home now has more bathrooms than occupants.
• Even in 1950, close to 30% of American homes didn't have electricity.
• Unemployment in Japan hasn't been above 5.6% in the past 25 years.
• No one has died from a new nuclear weapon attack since 1945. In 1950 the world's smartest political scientists would have given that situation 0% odds. The most important news story of the past 70 years is what didn't happen.
• In 1949, Popular Mechanics magazine made the bold prediction that someday a computer could weigh less than 1 ton. I wrote this sentence on an iPad that weighs 0.73 pounds.
• Life expectancy at birth was 39 years in 1800, 49 years in 1900, 68 years in 1950, and 79 years today.
• Of the top 10 air routes in the world, 4 of them involve Tokyo, for a combined total of 26 million passengers per year.
• China is projected to install 12,000 megawatts of solar power in 2014. That's greater than what the US has installed in all of its solar history.
• The top US administration officials working on the TPP came from investment banks who will benefit immensely from its provisions, which severely curtail countries' ability to pass laws regulating banks and other corporations. These advisers were given multimillion-dollar exit bonuses when they left their banks for government.