Asides

A Guide To A Good Life

While in Bucharest on a day filled with meetings and traffic, we stopped at the Ramada Majestic Hotel to relax and have a couple of drinks at the bar. Ligia had a hot chocolate, and I had an espresso.

The espresso was pretty good. It had the right aroma, though it was a bit on the bitter side, and there wasn’t enough crema. The aftertaste was about right.

The bar was a welcome break from the stress of the day. I loved their large couches. I sunk into one and didn’t move for 15 minutes. When we got up, we were ready to take on the town again.

Espresso at the Ramada Majestic Hotel in Bucharest

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Thoughts

 

The empty page waits to be filled

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Thoughts

Neat infographic about Walmart. See below:

  • Last year’s sales: $405 Billion.
  • Walton family’s net worth: $83.6 Billion, out of which they give 2% annually to charities. By contrast, Warren Buffett’s net worth is $47 Billion, and he gives 78% annually to charities.
  • It has 1,400,000 employees.
  • The average salary of a Walmart employee is $20,774/year. The annual salary of Walmart’s CEO is $19,200,000.
  • Walmart’s “Buy America” campaign showcased “Made in America” banners hanging over imported goods made in China and other countries.
  • Walmart imports over $30 billion in merchandise from China every year.

Walmart: The Stats
Via: Home Loans

The stats on Walmart

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Places

A tourism film from 1964, promoting Miami Beach, culled from the travelfilmarchive channel on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SoJhbaz2Mk

For one who grew up in the area, it’s interesting to see how the place has changed since, and how many resorts popular then still exist (or don’t) today. Some scenes in the film are natural, some are staged and awkward, but it is fun to watch.

It’s also worth noting that the same studios that made cartoons (Van Beuren Films, Castle Films) also made travel films.

Miami Beach in 1964

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Thoughts

A neat talk by Peter Tyack at TED, entitled “The Intriguing Sound of Marine Mammals“, in which he explains the effect of human noise on the sounds made by marine mammals, and what’s being done to correct the situation. A few tidbits:

  • Better propeller designs decrease propeller noise by up to 90%
  • Insulating the engine chamber from the hull reduces engine noise by up to 99%
  • Slowing down the ships by 50% decreases overall noise and reduces fuel consumption by 30%

There’s also a cool cartoon at the end of the talk, called “Good Vibrations”, made by Jeremy Clapin.

Marine mammals, underwater sounds and shipping noise

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