More Restaurants in Malta than in Paris? Time to Debunk a Myth! How to Discern Reality from Distorted Data…
I recently came across an article (https://maltadaily.mt/there-are-more-restaurants-in-malta-than-paris-or-new-york/) claiming a surprising fact: there would be more restaurants in Malta than in Paris or New York. Intrigued by this assertion, and being passionate about numbers and statistics, I decided to delve deeper into this matter. I compared Malta not only with Paris and New York but also with Rome and Valencia, creating a simple Excel table including cities, population, “restaurants” (interpreted as “places to eat,” following the logic of the article), and their ratio, measured in the last column with a multiplication factor of 1,000 to make it more “intuitive.”
Data Under the Microscope:
The Reality of the Numbers:
After careful analysis, the actual ranking turns out to be quite different from what was suggested: Paris emerges as the absolute winner, followed by Rome and Valencia. Malta holds the penultimate position, only ahead of New York.
Methodology and Considerations:
For the numbers, I relied on the most logical groupings: namely, considering the population density category that is most consistent with what can be compared to Malta, which, although a nation, due to its geographical conformation is more similar to a large city. In the referenced article, for example, they compared the population of Malta with that of “Paris,” understood however as the region “Île-de-France,” i.e., Paris, Seine-et-Marne, Yvelines, Essonne, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne, and Val-d’Oise. This makes a huge difference: in Paris “city” there are 2 million people, while in Paris “Île-de-France” there are about 13 million. Consequently, the ratio was distorted, and the wrong place emerged as the winner. That’s why I have considered, for my numbers, “Paris city”, “Rome city”, “Valencia city”, “Malta” and “New York city”.
Then, of course, there are variables and considerations that are very difficult to quantify, but which render all this data (including that of the referenced article) absolutely useless: one must indeed consider that restaurants do not “serve” only the resident population (which, on the contrary, might be used to always eating at home), but also tourists. To make sense, one should understand how many “users” of real restaurants there are and use that number to make a ratio with the number of restaurants. For instance, an island in the middle of the sea with one inhabitant and one restaurant would become the absolute first in the ranking, with a ratio of 1:1. But if a cruise ship arrives with 1 million tourists, then everything changes in the reality, but not in the numbers. So, this ranking, besides being incorrect in the starting article, makes no sense at all.
These types of comparisons, especially when based on distorted or manipulated data, seem to have the sole purpose of promoting a reality in a misleading way, rather than correctly informing the public.
Luis.
References:
Malta: The main link of this article Valencia: https://valencia-cityguide.com and https://www.europapress.es/comunitat-valenciana/noticia-establecimientos-restauracion-crecen-12-valencia-06-comunitat-2018-20190402142536.html#:~:text=Seg%C3%BAn%20el%20informe%2C%20la%20hosteler%C3%ADa,Castell%C3%B3n%2C%20que%20cuenta%20con%201.721.
New York: https://www.osc.state.ny.us/files/reports/osdc/pdf/nyc-restaurant-industry-final.pdf
Rome: Official “FIPE” data of Rome (https://www.fiperoma.com/)
Paris: https://www.fodors.com/world/europe/france/paris/experiences/news/photos/a-chefs-guide-to-eating-in-paris-france (reports 44,000, but I made an average between various sites)
Other Data: http://www.worldcitiescultureforum.com/data/number-of-restaurants
how to change Windows NTP Server to OVH NTP (for example, for OVH Public Cloud servers)
OVH lacks of documentation, especially for windows, and when you find something, it’s too old. So here it is… how to change Windows NTP Server to OVH NTP…
Open POWERSHELL, check current state:
w32tm /query /peers
Set the NTP Server to OVH one:
w32tm /config /syncfromflags:manual /manualpeerlist:”ntp0.ovh.net”
Restart the w32time Service:
restart-service w32time (instead of stop-service w32time ; start-service w32time)
Check current state again:
w32tm /query /peers
If it says “State: Active” then everything went fine!
Done!
How to change email on ryanair website ?
Can I change my email on ryanair website ? Straight answer: ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Seems it’s waaay too complex for their technicians. Yes, they have a technology able to check for air reservations, and let you book a flight all over the world. And yes, you can easily change your name/surname, date of birth, password, and mobile number. But not the email: it’s just really really too much effort for them.
Hey, Ryainar, if you’re reading: if you want to hire me to add a “change” botton on your website, I’ll do it for free.
La vagabonda
Era lì, senza domandarsi quando fosse nata o chi fossero i suoi genitori.
Era lì a gironzolare, senza troppi pensieri.
Senza dover pensare agli affitti o ai mutui o alle tasse o al traffico del mattino…
How to disable freemake notifications and auto updater
So, you had enough of that annoying update notifications multiple times a day, when you don’t use Freemake products (like the Video Downloader) so often ? Here is how to disable freemake updater and freemake notifications at the same time.
Read MorePostmark vs Sendgrid
Very simple article. I am testing several transactional email services.
Among them, PostMark and Sendgrid.
Let’s go straight to the results without wasting any time…
Read More
AjaxControlToolkit.Sanitizer class disappeared ?
So, you just updated your AjaxControlToolkit, and found out you don’t have anymore AjaxControlToolkit.Sanitizer class, right ? And there’s not even ONE single post on all the world talking about it, right ? Ok, you’ve come in the right place.
This is what happens when Microsoft starts behaving with *nux (il)logic, that is “fcb”: fuck backward compatibility !!! You wrote your code more than 2/3 years ago ? You’re old ! You should be banned ! Nothing should last so long !!!
The solution is… Read More
Gli errori sul sito di repubblica.it (ovvero come buttare al cesso la grammatica italiana)
Quando ero piccolo (anni ’80) mi ricordo benissimo mio padre che mi diceva sempre che i giornali erano la fonte “ufficiale” della lingua italiana. Se avevi un dubbio su come si scrivesse una parola, dovevi guardare lì: se era uscita sul giornale allora significava che quella parola esisteva, e si scriveva proprio così. Garantito. Al limone…
Un tuffo nel passato da videogiocatore…
Se c’è una cosa che mi manca sono i giochi di quando ero più piccolo. Mi riferisco ai videogiochi, i “coin up”, quelli in cui mettevi la monetina, a cui io ho giocato dai 13 ai 25 anni circa (quindi dall’84 al ’99). Quello che sarà difficile da tramettere alle “nuove generazioni” è la sensazione che si provava a giocare a quei giochini malefici, quindi cercherò di fare una panoramica…
Aprire una società all’estero e affidarsi a chiunque spunti fuori su google…
L’altro giorno sono incappato in questo articolo, di un tale “Massimo Tonci”, su cui esprimo personali dubbi in merito alla sua preparazione.
www.massimotonci.it/aprire-una-societa-all-estero/
L’articolo, sempre secondo il mio modesto parere, contiene una serie di inesattezze – l’autore, da me contattato, ha preferito non discutere le mie rettifiche ne’ tantomeno ha provveduto a sistemarle sul suo articolo, in quanto pare che per avere il lusso di poter proferire parola con tale Eminenza, sarebbe stato obbligatorio per lui che io fornissi anche il mio numero di cellulare privato (oltre al mio indirizzo email, nome e cognome che già aveva), cosa che ovviamente non ho voluto fare. Neanche fosse un funzionario di polizia… !
Queste le inesattezze che ho riscontrato nel suo articolo: