Opinion: Money matters lead to discord among couples

Percentage of husbands who say they think their wives care about having the right investments: 27

Percentage of wives who say they care about having the right investments: 48

Spam world

Percentage of e-mails received worldwide in 2005 that were spam, according to a study done by MessageLabs: 68.6

Chance that an e-mail received contained a virus or a trojan: 1 in 36.15

Chance that an e-mail was part of a phishing campaign: 1 in 304

Innovative inventions

Number of patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2005: 157,750

Percentage of those granted to U.S.-resident inventors: 52.4

Percentage of all patents that were granted to U.S. independent inventors: 15.5

Rank of California, Texas and New York in the largest share of U.S.-resident inventor patents issued: 1, 2, 3

Home office

Percentage of remote and mobile workers worldwide who say they rely on their memories to keep track of their network passwords, according to a survey for SonicWall Inc.: 56

Percentage of respondents of both sexes who said they wear sweats while working from home: 39

Percentage of women surveyed who said they showered on work-at-home days: 44

Percentage of men who said they showered on work-at-home days: 30

100-grand debt

Percentage of medical students who borrow money to pay for school, according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges: 85

Of students who have debt, average debt medical students graduated with in 2005 (includes premedical borrowing): $120,280

Percentage of medical students who graduate with loans of more than $100,000: 67

Valuable resource

Number of liters of water it takes to produce one kilogram of wheat, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: 1,200

Number of liters of water it takes to produce one kilo of pork: 6,000

Number of liters of water it takes to produce one kilo of beef: 15,000

Number of liters of water it takes to produce a person’s daily food: 2,000 to 5,000

What’s in a name?

Rank of Google, Apple, Skype, Starbucks and Ikea as the five brand names that had the most impact on people in 2005, according to a global survey by Brandchannel.com: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Dial H for Help

Median cost per incident of information technology support via the phone, according to HDI, the world’s largest membership association for IT service and support professionals: $20

Median cost per incident via e-mail: $16

Median cost per self-service incident: $5

Percentage of customers who seek phone support: 62

Not permanent?

Percentage of employees laid off who were later rehired by the same employer in 2005, according to Right Management: 13

Idle Thought

“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” — Kurt Vonnegut, writer

John MacIntyre is an author and former city magazine editor. His Figuratively Speaking column, launched in 1989, is published in more than 40 newspapers and magazines.