Archive for the ‘Random Musings’ Category

Ryanair, a low-cost, no-frills airline that serves Europe out of its Great Britain hub, is pondering a pound-sterling coinbox on its toilet doors. “One thing we have looked at in the past and are looking at again is the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door so that people might actually [...]

To be honest, I’d never heard of this phenomenon before, so I thought I’d better share it. It seems that young Thai university students pay $3,000 and up to come to the U.S. and work in a fast-food joint for the honor of listing “foreign work experience” on their resumes. Now, $3,000 in Thai current [...]

The federal deficit for 2009 has already surged past the $1-trillion mark, supposedly for the first time in U.S. history, with the passage of the so-called stimulus plan optimistically named the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. But wait, the deficit for 2008, though officially announced as $455 billion, actually topped the trillion mark. [...]

A sign of the times, no doubt: A company is now marketing a bed with a safe under your pillow in which to stash your cash and a plasma television at feet’s end for your viewing pleasure. Like Uncle Scrooge, you can now stay home all day and count your dough while watching your favorite [...]

The International Longevity Center and Aging Services of California have issued a media guide for writing about older people, which lists acceptable (PC) words and unacceptable (non-PC) terms. However, it really depends on the audience reading what’s written to define acceptable. Readers in their 20s or 30s said in a survey they would take no [...]

A bunch of restrictions are included, including a 90-day make-it-profitable provision, but Mark Cuban is offering to fund your start-up. You can read all about it on his blog. I read through a bunch of business proposals pitched to him in the comments section, and I must say, there are a lot of daydreamers with [...]

I just went through the list of items covered in the final version of the stimulus plan (so called) and added up all the sums that were targeted at projects that could actually lead to jobs. I came up with $146.2 billion, which figures out to be 18.5 percent of the whole pie. The rest [...]

My headline is a little misleading. What I’m referring to is a survey showing that 39 percent of physicians would not encourage their children to pursue the same profession. When you factor in other health care professionals, however, the figure drops to 20 percent, according to a survey by HealthLeader Media. Reasons for not recommending [...]

You’ve no doubt heard of, or even participated in, the so-called online “dead pools,” where odds are placed on which celebrity will be the next to meet the Grim Reaper. That’s a bit too morbid for me, but when it comes to business, I don’t mind participating in some death watches since it’s instructive to [...]

A theory from 1999 is resurfacing as the world plunges deeper into its current economic woes: The theory that the building of skyscrapers predates economic doom. This tidy bit of logic was conceived by Andrew Lawrence, at one time a researcher for Deutsche Bank. Here are the “facts”: The Chrysler Building in 1929 and the [...]