A European engineering company is alleged to have paid over $1 billion in bribes to government officials in order to win infrastructure contracts. It has been reported that the company settled with the US Department of Justice and SEC at around $800million; a further €201 million fine was paid to the local government; and over €850million was paid to external consultants during the investigations.

The biggest slap in the face was probably what they paid to external consultants. They gained more than the governments!

Whatever you do there will always be people who don't like what you are doing. It's normal.

Two Princeton University professors found that in most of the US, people feel comfortably middle class if they earn $70,000 per year. In New York City, the figure is $165,000. The median income of New York City is $55,980, according to the Census Bureau.

Why do you need to earn three times the median income to feel middle class in New York? There's something inherently wrong with that. To me if one earns the median income, or 10% less, or 30% more, then they should feel middle class. It's a sorry state (or a situation which keeps you humble) when people need to earn 295% more than the median income to feel middle class.

Is it that the incomes at the upper end are skewed very high, and there's a lot of upward comparison? Or that there are too many ways to spend money in NY, and people can't afford to do that all the time? Or that the tax rates are higher in NY? Or that you get a lot less for your money here? Or that you have to pay a lot to avoid living in old buildings and having inconvenient commutes? Or remembering how much space and the other comforts you had when you were living in other places? It's likely a combination of all this and more.

I read an article that says to sell videogames well, the female lead characters need to be beautiful but not slutty, strong but not butch, and smart but not nerdy. It's interesting how they almost ALL comply with this description.

Imagine if we had this narrow a view of who we hired at our places of work. There would be an uproar. Will there be a movement towards a more normal range of female characters in games?

Barbie dolls have come under fire over the years for intensifying body-image issues in society. No one has pointed any fingers at the video game industry. Today almost 30% of console gamers, and about 40% of PC gamers are female. With people spending more time playing video games, it's only a matter of time that game developers will be pressured to create more normal characters.

What would happen if a tiger appeared in the office? I wonder what people would do. Hide under their desk and use the chair to blockade them in? Run out the emergency exit and hope they're not followed? Run into an office and lock the door, hoping the tiger won't break through the glass? Run to the bathroom, find a stall and lock themselves in? Ensure that there's someone else that's between them and the tiger?