Yellowstone- billionaire club is bankrupt

In this current slow and depleting economy the Yellowstone club which is a club for billionaires and has members such as Bill Gates and the who’s-who has filed for bankruptcy. They owe about $343 million dollars. I do not think in this current economic conditions they can revive themselves, but if people are looking to invest i think it is a good time as the economy is supposed to pick up.

Innovative way to generate electricity

In Australia they have come up with a new way to generate electricity which i think is very innovative and a good way to use resources. At some warm place they dig two deep holes at a distance away from each other. they pump in sea water in one of the holes and the water goes down to the bedrock, heats up into steam and with great pressure exits the other one. The other one is connected to a turbine which creates electricity. i think its a very innovative idea.

Thanksgiving break

This thanksgiving break i went home, Mumbai- India and unfortunately the terrorist attacks took place. I live pretty close to where they took place. I have never scene mumbai like that. There was a curfew, police everywhere, people runnning around, people looking for their loved ones, phone lines jammed. It was a crazy experience. They cancelled internatinal flights and i was not sure if i would make it back in time before school started, luckily i did. I hope the government cracks down such acts and the people responsible for it.

Post-It

The other day i read that post it’s are patented and every single one produced; some kind of royalty goes to 3M. It was funny how it was developed. Mr. Fry was looking for something that he could stick on his church hymnal and would neither fall nor damage the book when removed. With the help of his collegue who created a kind of glue and Post-it’s were invented and the rest is history.

Economic Crunch

The other day i was on my was back home and read an article in some newspaper on a flight. I was shocked to see the economic conditions and it is everyone who is getting affected. There were reports of the government trying to bail out/help banks and so on. One of the articles were the conditions that college students are going through. And they to are going through a tought time. They are not only having trouble finding jobs but finding it difficult to pay of their loans. One student from University of Arkinsas was worried about finishing this semester and graduating as he still owed the university $2000. He had trouble finding loans when it was a mere $2000 compared to the rest of $10000-$15000 being paid of. Obama promises that the economy will pick up by 2011, but i forsee the economy picking up by the end of 2009.

Current world Economic Conditions

The current world economic situation is jaw dropping. People are getting laid off, sales are low, stock prices are down and so on. I was reading an article on BBC’s website that showed the current world economy. Some of the things were that the US customer confidence has plunged to the lowest since 1967; global bank losses summed upto 1.8 trillion pounds; Volkswagen briefly becomes the largest company by market value in the world due to the bizzare change in stock prices; oil prices have halved in the last three months and still the airline industry is having a hard time to break even; half on the Indian airlines will shut down due to the current downfall of the economy. All these factors i think are solely affected because of the US market. This shows how the US build such a strong market over the years and the rest of the world dances on their moves. I think other countries should wake up and see what is happeing and move towards the strengthening of their economy without wholely being affected by one country or a major chunk.

Profitability and Break Even Prices of Oil Producing Nations

The other day i came across these figures. They show the break even oil prices of the respective producing countries and the profit percentage when one barrel of oil was sold for $100. This is mind boggling and in the gulf, water is more expensive then a gallon of gas. They have one of the most numbers of gas guzzling cars.

 

Oil Break-Even Prices
Nation	US$/Barrel
Bahrain	40
Kuwait	17
Saudi Arabia	30
U.A.E.	25
Oman	40
Qatar	30
Canada’s oil sands	33

 

 

Based on the formula, profitability of these countries’ oil operations are in order:

Profitability at $100/barrel oil
Nation	Break-Even Price	Profitability
Kuwait	17	488%
U.A.E.	25	300%
Saudi Arabia	30	233%
Qatar	30	233%
Canada’s oil sands	33	203%
Bahrain	40	150%
Oman	40	150%

Nintendo Wii vs Sony’s PSP

More than two years after their debut Wii’s are still tough to find in stores. In that time, Nintendo has re leased just enough great games (and non games like Wii Fit) to tease gamers. Nintendo continues to develop new peripherals like the WiiSpeak speakerphone attachment (coming this fall), but the company says that only a handful of marquee titles will appear by the end of 2008.

In contrast Sony’s PSP continues to gain unique titles and cool features — if you have a Wi-Fi connection (having a PlayStation 3 doesn’t hurt either). Now in its second generation, the PSP offers Skype, Internet radio, the ability to up load movies from a PS3 directly to your handheld, and downloadable translation travel packs. Plus, you can play games remotely and view content stored on your PlayStation 3 over a Wi-Fi network.

Niketown

The other day we had a guest speaker in class who works for Nike. He graduated from Penn State as an Architectural Engineer. He was one of the main guys behind the design of Niketown. I think it was amazing how they went about it. They invested about $28 million and were sure of getting back $60 million. Some of their key attractions were the lighting effects, showing a 3 minute video after every thirty minutes, using more customer floor space rather than storage space and giving the customer a real life experience with the shoe or apparel the customer is going to buy. Some of the pictures he showed us how they developed (innovation, re-furbishing and inventions) Niketown and it is mind blowing. And finally to top it all, Niketown is the third most visited attraction in New York.

Woman turns blind 3 days a week

An Australian woman becomes blind for three days a week when her eyes clamp shut voluntarily for the period and she can’t open them, a baffling medical condition according to experts. 

Natalie Adler (21), who doctors believe may be the only person in the world with this condition, has been living with the extraordinary visual impairment for four years. During ‘closed eye days’ her eyes are completely shut, except for a small slit in her left eye. On ‘open eye days’ they function normally, although the left eyelid sometimes droops.

Adler tries to cram as much as she can into those good days, which are marked in her diary months ahead.