May 23, 2010

Richest self-made men and women of 2010

Filed under: General,Sports by Branko Collin @ 3:17 pm

Glossy money magazine Quote presented its 100% Selfmade list last week, an overview of the 100 richest self-made Dutch people of under the age of 40.

The Top 5 is:

  1. David Slager (37), 270 million euro, stock trader
  2. Reinout Oerlemans (38), 73 million euro, TV director and producer
  3. Roger Hodenius (38), 60 million euro, stock trader
  4. Andruw Jones (33), 54 million euro, professional baseball player
  5. Ruud van Nistelrooij (33), 53 million euro, professional football player

Quote regularly publishes a list of the 500 richest people of the Netherlands, including those who inherited their fortunes, and the difference with the self-made folks is stunning. The latter only lost half a million euro per capita in the past 12 months, whereas all the rich combined lost 17.8 billion, which comes down to 36 million euro per person.

In fact, only the losses of one man, Maasbert Schouten (banker, 38), who saw 200 million of his 235 million euro evaporate last year, stunted the growth of the self-made rich. Collectively they went from 2 billion euro to 1.95 billion euro.

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April 19, 2010

Delft students improve surgery for cross-eyed

Filed under: Health,Science by Branko Collin @ 1:48 pm

Team Daisy, made up of Elsbeth Geukers and Nicole de Bakker, has won the 2010 Philips Innovation Award with a diagnostic technique that should drastically reduce the amount of operations required to treat strabismus (aka “cross-eyed”) in young children.

One of the problems that apparently plague doctors when trying to measure the angle of ‘crossed’ eyes is that young children do not sit still enough for an accurate measurement. Sprout.nl claims that this can lead to a failure rate of the operations of up to 50%.

The technique developed by the TU Delft students will simply measure from different angles simultaneously.

Earlier this year Geukers and De Bakker proved not only to be successful inventors but also promising businesswomen, when they won first prize (1500 euro) in the Writing a Business Plan course at their university.

(Photo by Flickr user net_efekt, some rights reserved)

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September 18, 2008

Urinal lift on a terrace kills business

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 8:55 am
Urilift

City hotel Queens in Amersfoort has a serious problem that is basically killing their business. The city council decided to place a urinal, albeit a nifty one that rises above ground at 10 pm, right on their terrace. Can you picture taking a leak while people are having a drink on a terrace watching you? Would you want to be watching while having your drink? Ickeepoo. Well, other people don’t want to either, and so the hotel owner is pissed (pun intended).

After having spent hundreds of thousands buying and renovating an old building on the popular Groenenmarkt, the city council chose her outdoor terrace as the place for the urinal. And according to the owner, Paula Brouwer, the day before she was to receive the terrace permit, there was talk of a urinal, and her permit has been tied up in red tape ever since.

The city council came up with a deal: we’ll give you the permit, but you have to close your terrace at 10 pm. All the other terraces are allowed to stay open until 1 am, so imagine how much business she’d be losing. She has refused and has lawyered up. Why does this have a maffia feel to it? It’s also proof positive the city screwed up.

(Link: ad.nl, photo: urilift)

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