Dealing with the Russians is nothing like dealing with the Chinese, and dealing with the Germans is nothing like dealing with the French. Indeed, despite globalization, cultural habits and preferences aren't going anywhere, and understanding them is critical to international partnerships.

British linguist Richard Lewis and his consulting firm have extensively analyzed cultural interactions, as detailed in his book, "When Cultures Collide." (You'll find more good analysis in recent bestseller "The Culture Map" by Erin Meyer.)

We've published some of Lewis' insights here, and none are more popular than a set of his communication charts. Now we've got permission to post many more in the series, along with commentary from his book.

"A working knowledge of the basic traits of other cultures (as well as our own) will minimize unpleasant surprises (culture shock), give us insights in advance, and enable us to interact successfully with nationalities with whom we previously had difficulty," Lewis writes.

Although cultural generalizations are controversial, Lewis insists they can be made fairly: "Determining national characteristics is treading a minefield of inaccurate assessment and surprising exception. There is, however, such a thing as a national norm."

"Arabs are looking for sincerity in your dealings with them and expect to be shown the same respect they show you."

"Argentineans can be won over by a combination of intellectual argument and openly friendly stance."

"A sense of humor is essential for getting the best out of Australians."

Etsy, the online marketplace that specializes in crafts and other artistic items, plans to hold a $300 million initial public offering as soon as this quarter, sources tell Bloomberg.

Earlier this year, we checked out Etsy's gorgeous office space in Brooklyn, New York.

Etsy's office is in Brooklyn, in a neighborhood called DUMBO (it stands for "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass").

The lobby of its building — 55 Washington St. — is pretty slick.

Head up to the fifth floor, and you'll find Etsy.

The future of mobile is being redefined. The smartphone and tablet markets are nearing saturation. The days of heady hardware growth are long gone.

Mobile growth is moving into media, advertising, software, and services. Meanwhile, new devices are expanding the meaning of "mobile."

BI Intelligence has created a slideshow that highlights the new markets growing up around the multiscreen consumer.  

1. Mobile Commerce

2. Mobile Advertising

3. Mobile Apps

4. Emerging Devices And Platforms

5. Mobile Payments And Banking

6. Mobile Health 

Only BI Intelligence subscribers can download the individual charts and datasets in Excel, along with the PowerPoint and PDF versions of this deck. Please sign up for a membership here. BI Intelligence is a research and analysis service focused on mobile computing, digital media, payments, e-commerce, and the Internet of Things. 

Temperatures have dropped below freezing in North America, which means that it's time to think about heading south for a warm weather vacation.

We recently ranked the Best Caribbean Islands, but it can still be difficult to determine which island is best for you. 

From family-friendly locales to romantic island getaways, here are the best Caribbean islands for every type of traveler.  

Best For A Romantic Getaway: Martinique

Martinique combines the romantic sensibilities of the French with the natural beauty of the Caribbean.

The French island has secluded white sand beaches, luxury resorts, and enough privacy to make it an ideal honeymoon spot. 

Best For Families: The Bahamas

Just south of Florida, the Bahamas are one of the most accessible island countries from the US. They're also one of the most family-friendly countries, with tons of all-inclusive resorts.

The most famous resort is The Atlantis, which has its own water park, aquarium, movie theater, kids' club, game room, and dolphin cay.

Best For Singles: Puerto Rico

Old San Juan is one of the best places for nightlife in the Caribbean, which means that it's great for singles. Nightlife in the historic walled city starts late: The clubs start hopping with salsa, Latin, or rock music after people emerge from their late dinners. 

But many of the big hotels around San Juan, and the rest of Puerto Rico, have their own hot restaurants, clubs, and casinos.

Venture Capitalist Baline Wesner and wife Alexa Wesner are selling their ‘floating box house,’ in Austin, Texas for an undisclosed price, reports Curbed.   

Designed by architect Peter Gluck, the contemporary home uses glass walls to seamlessly integrate into the beautiful surroundings. 

The incredible 10,563 square-foot home has 7 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, a guest house, and once even hosted President Obama. 

Although the price is undisclosed, it is estimated that the owners are looking for an offer "in the $20 million range," according to Curbed.

Laura Gottesman of Gottesman Residential Real Estate has the listing. 

Welcome to 200 Heritage Live Oaks.

The home is designed as a series of boxes with one stack on top of the other. The second level sits on the transparent glass living room.

It is located on a secluded four acres in Austin’s neighborhood of West Lake Hills — which is helpful since the entire home is basically made from glass.

With over a million apps out there and more launching every day, it can be tough to keep track of them all.

Luckily, we've collected the best apps of the past month so you can find something new to try out.

From time-saving productivity apps like Workflow to fun little games for passing the time like Bloks, you're bound to find something you like.

If you like Dots, Threes, or Tetris, you'll love Bloks.

Bloks is a simple and addicting little game that's great for passing time. The goal is to match four blocks of the same color in either a row or column by tapping and dragging individual blocks to switch their position.

Price: Free (iOS)

Nintype lets you type more than 100 words per minute.

Nintype is a keyboard app that combines swipes and double taps (for double letters) to make typing on your phone faster and easier, though you can always type normally if you'd like. There's also shortcuts for punctuation, emojis, saved texts, and hashtags.

Price: $4.99 (iOS)

Cloe is a concierge service that calls itself "Siri's smarter sister."

A mixture of Siri, Ethan, and Cha-Cha, Cloe comes in handy if you're looking for an answer powered by an actual human being. There's no literal app, instead you can simply text Cloe like you would a friend and ask her to help you find everything from a first-date spot to a place to board your dog.

Price: Free (sign up for wait list here)

Designed by Steven B. Wheeler, the Space Jacket is a lightweight thermal jacket that was made for space enthusiasts — but instead of being just a typical replica space jacket, it is a “completely wearable and well-suited for space.” 

Wheeler, a long time NASA fan, designed the jacket as a tribute to the legacy of American spaceflight. 

"I wanted it to embody everything I loved about the space program, and to eventually serve as an actual flight jacket for present-day astronauts on missions to the ISS (International Space Station)," Wheeler wrote on Betabrand. 

The jacket was even modeled to look like the exterior of a Space Shuttle with quilted lines of stitching that resemble the paneled surface of a spacecraft. 

The inside of the jacket is lined with nylon taffeta, which helps to retain radiant body heat and looks like the “foil” multi-layer insulation used on the exterior of satellites. 

The insulation in the jacket is Primaloft Sport, which is a ultra-efficient synthetic insulation that is used to keep a person warm and dry even in extreme conditions. 

The outer layer is made from Tyvek, a light, breathable, and resilient material made from high-density polyethylene fibers, and was modeled after the EVA (extra-vehicular activity) spacesuits worn by astronauts during actual spacewalks. 

And for true NASA-enthusiasts, the Space Jacket has a replica of the STS-53 shuttle mission patch, the infamous NASA “worm” logo, and an American flag shoulder patch. 

Needless to say, this jacket would be the perfect thing to take with you on those possible future space travel expeditions— or just to use on a really chilly day.

The Space Jacket was successfully funded through Betabrand’s Think Tank crowdfunding campaign. It will cost $265, and is expected to ship in March 2015. 

For more information about the ‘Space Jacket,’ check out the website here. 

SEE ALSO: The 3 Kinds Of Boots Men Need For Winter

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When it's finished, it'll be the tallest skyscraper in South America. But despite its mammoth size, few people will work or live inside it.

Instead, the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory, which is nearing completion in the middle of the Amazon rain forest, will gather data on gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and other components of pollution to help scientists better understand what is happening to our climate.

It could also help us answer a key question about the rain forest's relationship to CO2.

The Amazon Tall Tower, which is being painted a bright orange, floats in a sea of green — from where this worker stands, the nearest city is Manaus, at 100 miles away. To build it, construction crews had to use steel carried thousands of miles from southern Brazil.

A thick carpet of Amazonian jungle blankets the earth in all directions. Hundreds of miles from the closest sign of human life, the tower can provide scientists with a snapshot of how the earth is responding to the indirect changes to the planet's climate we are causing.

At nearly 1,100 feet from the ground, the tower will be able to notify researchers of changes in cloud formations and shifts in weather patterns.

The letter of a wealthy survivor of the Titanic sinking is being auctioned this month by RR Auction of Boston, according to the Associate Press. 

The May 1912 letter was written by fashion designer Lady Lucile Duff-Gordon, who was a first class passenger on the ill-fated Titanic with her husband Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon. In addition to being survivors, they were among a dozen people who survived in a lifeboat that could have held 40.

Tabloids dubbed it the “Money Boat” because rumor had it that Sir Cosmo bribed the crew with £5 each to row away from the sinking ship so that their boat would not be swamped. Today, that £5 would be the equivalent of a little over £500 or $760.

As news of their survival spread, the Duff-Gordons were besieged with rumors and whispers. In the private letter to a friend that’s up for auction, Lady Duff-Gordon writes, “We didn’t seem to have done the right thing in being saved at all!!!! Isn’t it disgraceful.”

The Duff-Gordons were interviewed and later cleared by the British Wreck Commissioner’s inquiry of their actions. The couple’s account said that they turned down places in two lifeboats for women and children before coming across a captain’s emergency boat that was filled with clutter. Seven sailors and five passengers, including the Duff-Gordons and their secretary, boarded.

As for the £5, Sir Cosmo said that the crew had lost their jobs and their possessions and the money was an act of restitution.

But despite being cleared of any wrongdoing, the harm to their reputations was absolute.

Sir Cosmo, who had never liked the spotlight and ironically booked passage on the Titanic under an assumed name, retreated even further into isolation.

Lucille — who was a well-known fashion designer at the time who dressed royals, aristocrats, and socialists — did not back down as easily. When WWI forced her to close her shops in Paris and London, she moved her base to New York and Chicago.

However, bad business decisions, court cases, and changing fashions left Lucille bankrupt and her business in ruins.

RR Auction said that the letter could be sold for as much as $6,000 at the auction in Boston on January 22. The lowest possible bid will be $300.

Here's the full text of the letter:

27 May - Harlow

Dear old friend,

How kind of you to send me a cable of sympathy from New York on our safety. According to the way we've been treated by England on our return we didn't seem to have done the right thing in being saved at all!!!!

Isn't it disgraceful.

[Illegible] come and see me and talk of old times. Ring me up.

Shall be home on Wednesday.

Yours sincerely,

Lucile Duff-Gordon

SEE ALSO: 12 Amazing Photos Of The World's Largest Cruise Ship, Which Is More Than Five Times The Size Of The Titanic

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Imagine if search engines like Google didn't exist. How would you find answers to your questions pre-Internet?

Well, you'd probably have to go to the library and do some research. That, or ask a librarian to do it for you. 

The New York Public Library recently discovered an archive of reference questions that people asked its librarians back in the last century. The NYPL has been posting some of the questions on itssocialmedia pages, but has given Business Insider permission to answer republish a selection of them here. 

Back then, it wasn't easy to get instant answers to all of your most pressing questions:

No one had computers...

Instead, you'd have to try firing your questions off to a librarian:

The Macintosh is over 30 years old.

In honor of how far the personal computer has come since then, Curved Labs designed a modern Macintosh that draws on the iPad Air.

We won't ever see this computer in the Apple Store, but it's still fun to look at.

This computer would be hard to miss, thanks to its curved base and striking resemblance to the original Macintosh. It would have an 11-inch touchscreen in real life.

In this side-by-side shot, you can see how much computer design has evolved since the 1980s.

Curved's concept kept the glowing Apple logo that we've seen on so many iMacs and MacBooks.

New images released today by Amnesty International show the terrible damage caused by terrorist group Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, ABC News reports.

Between Jan. 3 and Jan. 4, Boko Haram mounted the deadliest offensive in its five year history, killing more than 2,000 people in the Nigerian town of Baga and its surrounding villages. 

Baga used to host an outpost of the Nigerian army, which was completely erased.

According to Musa Alhaji Bukar, a senior government official who spoke to the BBC, Baga, which once had a population of about 10,000 people, is now "virtually nonexistent." 

The new set of pictures released by Amnesty shows how devastating the attack had been: the pictures use a False Color Infrared Image technology to show flourishing vegetation in bright red.

This picture had been taken on Jan. 2, just one day before the raid took over. You can see how healthy the vegetation was:

And this is how the village looked on Jan. 7, after the terrorists had burned away much of it:

The comparison is staggering:

According to Amnesty's managing director for government relations Adotei Akwei, who spoke with ABC News, the photos directly contradicted the Nigerian government's report of 150 victims in total.

Akwei said that those figures "confirm the Nigerian government's continuing policy of underreporting the attacks of Boko Haram and the civilian casualties." Getting information from the region is increasingly hard, and the violence has kept reporters and foreign observers away. 

These two pictures show that many of boats which used to lay at the shore of Lake Chad, close to Baga, had disappeared after the attack. Amnesty International believes that many civilians tried to escape from the massacre by crossing the lake.

This picture shows the area between Baga and Lake Chad. The yellow dots are once again flourishing vegetation, which has been burnt away from Baga:

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Job interviews are nerve-wracking — but nerves are no excuse for the odd behaviors some hiring managers have seen from candidates in the hot seat.   

In a new survey from CareerBuilder, which was conducted online within the US by Harris Poll among 2,192 human resource and hiring managers, employers were asked to share the most memorable or unusual mistakes candidates made during the interview process. 

Scroll down to see the strange interview behavior.

The candidate kept repositioning and fidgeting with his duffel bag, which turned out to have a dog inside.

The candidate brought about 50 ink pens to the interview and proceeded to spread them out on the table.

The candidate sat in a yoga pose during the interview.

Tucked away inside a former carpet factory in trendy east London is a futuristic office space that London's most innovative companies all want to join. 

Second Home was co-founded by Rohan Silva, the senior policy advisor to David Cameron who left government in 2013 to get into tech.

We got a look inside.

Second Home is inside an office building near Spitalfields Market and Brick Lane

But it's not your average office building, as the main entrance shows

The former carpet factory has been transformed into something very different

The 87th annual Academy Award nominations were announced early Thursday morning in Los Angeles.

While "Birdman" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel" led with nine nominations, people are up in arms over the absence of "The Lego Movie" from the category of best animated feature film.

Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, and Amy Adams are among the stars we surprisingly won't be seeing at the Oscars on Feb. 22.

SNUB: Amy Adams just won the Golden Globe for her role in "Big Eyes," but she didn't even get nominated for the Oscar.

More:

Amy Adams Wins Golden Globe For Best Actress In A Comedy

SURPRISE: Only 8 of the 10 Best Picture spots were filled. Apparently the Academy didn't think any other films were worthy.

SNUB: Twitter was up in arms after "The Lego Movie" failed to get a nod for best animated feature film. The movie made over $468 million worldwide at the box office and was the first hit film of 2014.

More:

The Lego Movie" Got Robbed At The Oscar Nominations

‘The Lego Movie’ Has 2nd-Largest February Opening Weekend Ever

15 Easter Eggs In 'The Lego Movie'

Alaska is the final frontier of the US.

Sparsely populated, disconnected from the contiguous states, subjected to a harsh Arctic climate, and almost unimaginably vast, the mere mention of Alaska conjures images of forbidding wilderness. But it's in these conditions that the US Coast Guard in Alaska must operate.

Dedicated to patrolling Alaska's territorial waters, coming to the aid of damaged vessels, breaking through the routine sea ice blocking ports, and carrying out scientific studies, the Coast Guard has its work cut out. 

The Coast Guard in Alaska operates in some of the most isolated parts of the US. Here, a Coast Guard vessel gets underway in their winter Bering Sea patrol.

In this photo a Coast Guard vessel docks at Little Diomede Island in the middle of the Bering Strait. The island has a population of 135.

The Alaskan wilderness offers thousands of square miles of unspoiled natural beauty. Here, a Coast Guard ship makes port call at Kodiak.

Due to the relaxed immigration laws of the early 1980s, New York City's Chinatown underwent a rapid demographic shift.

Bud Glick was a photographer tasked by the the New York Chinatown History Project (now the Museum of Chinese in America) with documenting this transition from an older, primarily male community to one of young, newly immigrated families.

But looking at the photos now, 30 years later and newly digitized, it's clear that he captured much more than just a demographic shift in a small period in time.

With his photo series, Glick captured a revolution.

From 1981 to 1984 photographer Bud Glick worked on the New York Chinatown History Project.

The New York Chinatown History Project eventually came to be known as the Museum of Chinese in America. They currently have a number of Glick's photos in their archive.

Glick was tasked with revealing in his photos a changing Chinatown, one undergoing a rapid demographic shift.

On a recent visit to San Francisco, friends and coworkers urged me to check out the Mission District, a bustling Latino neighborhood famed for its oversize burritos, arts scene, and activism.

The word "hipster" may have originated in Brooklyn, but the Mission District has co-opted it and taken it to a new level. The neighborhood is abundant in beards, denim shirts, artisanal cheese, bicycles, and overpriced lattes. It felt like Williamsburg on steroids.

Just as many of Brooklyn's neighborhoods became havens of urban wealth in the 1990s, the Mission is no stranger to gentrification, having lost much of its working-class community during the dot-com bubble. As the demand for tech workers rises again in San Francisco, rents in the neighborhood are skyrocketing — they rose 20% in 2014, according to Zumper — and trendy retailers are moving in.

I spent a day in the Mission to see how this transformation was playing out.

In the last five years, the tech sector created 34,000 jobs in San Francisco. In search of affordable housing, programmers, developers, and designers rode into the outlying neighborhoods on winged chariots, or tech campus shuttle buses.

Ten thousand of those new jobs popped up in the last year alone, according to Jordan Levine, director of economic research at Beacon Economics. Levine says those numbers could be even higher, as the Employment Development Department is subject to confidentiality rules that blur the full "tech" picture.

The influx of tech workers is changing the fabric of the Mission District, a vibrant Latino neighborhood situated just south of the downtown area. The hipsters have arrived.

I spent a day gallivanting between S. Van Ness Avenue and Dolores Street, talking to local business owners and witnessing the earthy-crunchy yuppie invasion firsthand.

New York City is home to some of the world's most celebrated restaurants, with the most celebrated dishes — and that can get a little overwhelming. That's why we have tasting menus.

The Infatuation helped us compile a list of the best tasting menus in NYC, spread throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Dig in and enjoy.

Battersby

255 Smith St., Brooklyn

The Infatuation calls Battersby, located in Cobble Hill, an "under-the-radar gem." The food is "minimalist" but full of flavor and chefs pay close attention to detail. The seven-course tasting menu costs $85, but it's worth the price (and the trip out to Brooklyn).

Read The Infatuation's full Battersby review here

Betony

41 W. 57th St., Manhattan

Betony takes a relaxed, creative approach to fine dining and the people there don't take themselves too seriously.

"Great restaurants shouldn’t only be designed for rich people who love Bordeaux and struggle with gout," wrote The Infatuation's Christ Stang.

The menu is set up like a traditional tasting menu with three courses, but you order everything individually. It ranges from about $63-$108. Don't forget to try out their top-notch cocktails.

Read The Infatuation's full Betony review here

Brooklyn Fare

200 Schermerhorn St., Brooklyn

Brooklyn Fare has just one chef's table — and it has a world-class tasting menu. The entrees, according to The Infatuation, are a "demonstration in not only creativity, but perfect balance." 

This Michelin-starred restaurant is not a particularly cheap spot to dine (the current prix fixe is $255), but remember, you get what you pay for.

Oh, and men, don't forget your jacket.

Read The Infatuation's full Brooklyn Fare review here

In 2012, photographer Mark Hirsch was in a serious automobile accident that left him with severe injuries. His condition forced him to rest his body for three months with very little activity.

"It was a physically and emotionally challenging experience," he says. 

Around the same time, he bought an iPhone, and a friend, raving about the phone's camera, challenged him to use it for serious photography. 

After Hirsch posted two beautiful pictures of a tree in a cornfield near his Wisconsin home, his friend suggested he use the iPhone to take a photo a day of the tree for a year.

Hirsch rose to the technological and creative dare, shooting the tree from hundreds of angles in all conditions, calling it "challenging but also quite liberating."  

His project, "That Tree," has been recently compiled into a book and a calendar. We asked Hirsch to share three weeks of images in chronological order with us, along with his own captions from each day. You can the whole year on his website and his Facebook page.

February 19, Day 333: "It was a howling, blowing snow morning. Air temp, 1 degree. Wind chill, -19. Experiential rating, perfect!"

February 20, Day 334: "Contrasty, cold, and colorful! It was a brisk but sunny -2 when my publishing partner Warren Winter and I headed out to wait for this mornings sunrise. I photographed That Tree and he photographed me."

February 21, Day 335: "Destined to be the heart of a future oak, an acorn and fallen leaf ar exposed by the recent thaw. By the end of the day, they are forecast to be buried under a fresh blanket of six to eight inches of snow."