The Fastest Growing City in the U.S.

By Brad Rollins at the San Marcos Mercury

San Marcos, TX is the fastest-growing large city in the United States, according to updated population estimates announced today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The city added 2,339 new residents — an increase of 4.91 percent — between July 2011 and July 2012, the bureau said,

Image Source

pushing its official population above 50,000 for the first time. South Jordan, Utah was the second fastest-growing with a 4.87 percent increase to 55,934.

San Marcos Mayor Daniel Guerrero said news that San Marcos’ population is well beyond booming does not come as a total surprise based on “the growth trends that we’ve seen over the last 10-15 years.”

“We knew San Marcos is a growing city. The population of Central Texas as a whole is booming and San Marcos happens to be in the center of all that action. So we ended up with the largest gains,” Guerrero said. “When you have that kind of proximity to Austin and San Antonio — and you’re three hours away from every major city in Texas — those are certainly big facets” in attracting new residents.

Texas State University is a leading factor in the city’s growth, the mayor said, as is the city’s and county’s aggressive drive over the last decade to update and expand roads and other infrastructure. In addition, he said, “San Marcos’ overall natural beauty is something that brings people in.”

Elsewhere in the Interstate 35 corridor, Austin moved from the 13th most populous city in the nation to the 11th with a population of 842,592, according to the new estimates. San Antonio grew to 1,382,951 residents and kept its spot as the seventh-largest city in the U.S.

Continue on to the full article..

Source / Via

True Greatness

Via / Source.. Logo Source

Internet 2011 in Numbers

(an article by Pingdom)


Image Source

So what happened with the Internet in 2011? How many email accounts were there in the world in 2011? How many websites? How much did the most expensive domain name cost? How many photos were hosted on Facebook? How many videos were viewed to YouTube?

We’ve got answers to these questions and many more. A veritable smorgasbord of numbers, statistics and data lies in front of you. Using a variety of sources we’ve compiled what we think are some of the more interesting numbers that describe the Internet in 2011. (Source)

Email
• 3.146 billion – Number of email accounts worldwide.
• 27.6% – Microsoft Outlook was the most popular email client.
• 19% – Percentage of spam emails delivered to corporate email inboxes despite spam filters.
• 112 – Number of emails sent and received per day by the average corporate user.
• 71% – Percentage of worldwide email traffic that was spam (November 2011).
• 360 million – Total number of Hotmail users (largest email service in the world).
• $44.25 – The estimated return on $1 invested in email marketing in 2011.
• 40 – Years since the first email was sent, in 1971.
• 0.39% – Percentage of email that was malicious (November 2011).

Websites
• 555 million – Number of websites (December 2011).
• 300 million – Added websites in 2011.

Click here to continue to the rest of the article.. (I've only shown you about a tenth of it.)

Via

Yes You Are

Via

Some Tips For Tipping

Tipping dates back to 18th century England, when an urn would be placed in pubs with a simple sign that read, "To Insure Promptitude." This was later shortened to the acronym T.I.P. or "tip," as it is currently called. While originally a way of ensuring good service, tipping is now expected at most businesses where a personal service is performed.

Some establishments include a tip or gratuity on your bill no matter how small the size of your party, but this is rare. Rather, tipping is an expected and essential part of any experience. In most cases, employees working in industries where tipping is expected make less than minimum wage, and rely heavily on tips. At present, average pay for waiters and waitresses is $2.12 per hour, most or all of which is used to pay taxes on their reported tips.

How do you know when and whom to tip? How much is the appropriate amount? (Source)

Here's the full article..

Via - (NSFW)

Welcome To America

Via

All About Coffees

Click 2wice to embiggify..

Via

World Consumption

Via