Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as financial blind spots, global inflation, crypto violence, new Bilt and Apple cards, CES 2026 awards, Russia into tyranny, weirdest driving laws, world oil reserves, Allegiant buying Sun Country, 2026 art exhibitions to visit, the best photography links and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of frequent flyer miles and points at the lower half of the post.

 

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This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to curated posts featuring the best web content along with my commentary.

 

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BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

I should have Edition #4 of the 2025 Annual Best of Lists up this Friday.

 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

 

“The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become”. – Heraclitus

 

MUST READ GEMS

Well, here is another one:

52 Things I Learned in 2025

What we now call a zipper was originally called the Hookless Hooker.

Seventy-one percent of people in Iceland are Costco members.

A giant Pacific octopus in the Vancouver (British Columbia) Aquarium is named Ceph Rogen in honor of the actor Seth Rogen, a Vancouver native.

 

PERSONAL FINANCE

This is really good: “nobody knows anything a.k.a. how to trade the market in 2026“. Remember, there are no gurus. Certainly in investing!

…people who make predictions for a living are about as accurate as a 50/50 coin toss.

…the weakest moments in how people are feeling  tend to precede strong equity returns while peaks in sentiment do not see as much upside.

And actually this is pretty good advice. If only people could successfully stick to doing these:

• Don’t let your emotions drive your investing decisions. The days when you are feeling particularly greedy, particularly nervous, or particularly confident correlate highly with the days you are most likely to mess up your portfolio with impetuous buying and selling. 
• Don’t act on predictions or hot tips, whether they’re coming from experts (see above charts) or your BFF’s smart-sounding uncle. If you insist, size those bets small. If you get lucky, yay. If you’re wrong, at least you won’t be broke.
• Diversify. It helps you spread risk and give your portfolio more chances to participate in growth.
• Match your investment strategy to your time horizon.

At some point this will happen, be careful and prepare now: Five Financial Blind Spots That Burden Grieving Spouses. Proactive strategies can help avoid the financial fog of loss later.

Global Inflation by Country in 2025.

Great visual found here. I don’t do market predictions, the only valid prediction is that prices will fluctuate and we will have surprises. And so we did again last year:

…there was a peak-to-trough drawdown of around 19% but the market still finished the year up nearly 18%, a double-digit gain despite a double-digit drawdown.

 

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

I visited CES about 10 years ago and loved it, here are The Verge Awards at CES 2026. Rollable laptops, twice-folding phones, and a ‘longevity station.’ This is the CES tech we come back for.

If you are into crypto you should be aware of this, be careful out there: Small-Time Crypto Investors Are Facing Violent Attacks. Rising prices and the irreversible nature of crypto transactions have led to a surge of brutal home invasions and kidnappings. I wonder about both the people investing in crypto and the criminals doing this as they don’t appear very bright sadly. This lady got hacked in 2021 and yet, there she was again:

Now, guns at her throat and temple during this second assault, Julia wanted to shriek at her captors for trying to steal the few coins she had left in a separate crypto account on a different exchange. As one masked intruder ransacked the place looking for printouts of backup authentication codes, she determined not to give up her passwords. “Shoot me!” she shouted. “Just shoot me, just shoot me!”

And the young criminals were easily arrested and going to spend decades in prison. The judge was not convinced with this at all:

During a sentencing hearing, Remy’s attorney attempted to blame the nothing-matters culture that’s corrupting Generation Z.

Also, science! Penn and Michigan Create World’s Smallest Programmable, Autonomous Robots.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan have created the world’s smallest fully programmable, autonomous robots: microscopic swimming machines that can independently sense and respond to their surroundings, operate for months and cost just a penny each.

 

AI

Fun read: Why does AI suck at making clocks? Sometimes I wonder how this amazing AI can suck so bad doing very simple tasks. Check out this hilarious site: AI World Clocks.

Can you please share in the comments any AI thingies you absolutely use every day making a true difference in your life? Let me share mine: