Business and Finance

The relative cost of war – sad and astounding.

David McCandless (Information Is Beautiful .net) prepares interesting diagrams to present information and statistics in an accessible way. This one really brings home the cost of the Iraq war when a meaningless figure merely bamboozles the brain.

How to decontaminate nuclear power stations for a few British pounds…

In 2009 it was revealed that Dounreay nuclear power station in Caithness, Scotland is using a household cleaning product, Cillit Bang, to clean up radioactive plutonium stains from a disused facility. In an astonishing success story of shopfloor innovation, one worker saw a tv ad for the cleaning product in which it was used to strip grime from a coin. The suggestion was trialled and found the £2 cleaner to be more efficient than the industrial products that had so far been in use, attracting interest from other nuclear stations and eating into the £2.6 billion pound cost of demolishing the plant.

Let’s hope the worker whose suggestion has saved all this money is amply rewarded, both by his employers and the Cillit Bang producers.

Tweet This Post Buzz This Post Delicious Digg This Post Facebook MySpace Reddit Stumble This Post

Posted by majordomo@incrediblefacts.com on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 12:03 pm in Business and Finance, Science | No Comments »

Johnnie Walker whisky – where is it from?

It’s from the town of Kilmarnock in Scotland of course…..eh, not much longer!

The company, Diageo, which owns the Johnnie Walker brand has INCREDIBLY decided to close its operations in Kilmarnock (and neighbouring village of Hurlford) with the loss of 700 local jobs. This is a devastating blow to the area in Ayrshire, Scotland, and could ruin the town.  This website finds the decision deplorable and urges Diageo to change its corporate mind.

PLEASE SUPPORT THE CAMPAIGN TO SAVE THE STRIDING MAN!

Tweet This Post Buzz This Post Delicious Digg This Post Facebook MySpace Reddit Stumble This Post

Posted by majordomo@incrediblefacts.com on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 at 10:34 am in Business and Finance | No Comments »

Google story mistakenly prompts $1 billion price fall in United Airlines stock!!

Now this one is hard to believe! On Monday 8th Sept, 2008, automated programs were allowed to wipe more than $1 billion from a company’s value unchecked.

When a website ran a story which merely referenced an old Google news article from 2002 about United Airlines financial problems, the hits to Google boosted the old story’s ranking and it appeared high up in Google’s rankings. This would normally be no problem, but because it appeared highly ranked, the story was then reported like a NEW story by a newspaper website – and this prompted the automated trading programs to dump United Airlines shares in a panic, even though the airline was no longer experiencing any money problems. It is estimated that $1.3 billion was wiped from the company’s value, for no real reason whatsoever!

Source: slashdot , TimesOnline

Tweet This Post Buzz This Post Delicious Digg This Post Facebook MySpace Reddit Stumble This Post

Tags: airliine, market, money, share, stocks
Posted by majordomo@incrediblefacts.com on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 7:07 pm in Business and Finance, Current Affairs | No Comments »