Category Archives: Culture

The Rise and Fall of the Cruise Industry

Cruise ships are scrapped and dismantled in an industry that's in a declining free fall.

By Robert Leslie , Noah Lewis , and Claire Price

Until COVID-19 hit, the global cruise industry was on course for a record-breaking year. But major coronavirus outbreaks on board ships cost lives, jobs, and damaged the reputation of the fastest-growing sector of the travel industry.

See More [Business Insider]

James Patterson’s Writing Started as a Side Hustle — Now He’s One of the World’s Highest Paid Authors

James Patterson at play in his home in the Town of Palm Beach, Florida
James Patterson at home in the Town of Palm Beach, Florida

By Jade Scipioni

At 73, James Patterson has sold more than 425 million copies of his 200 novels globally, making him one of the highest paid authors in the world.

Patterson had annual earnings topping more than $80 million between June 2019 to June 2020 and sold nearly 5 million in books in the U.S. during that time, according to Forbes.

In July, Patterson signed a multi-project deal with Amazon’s Audible for an undisclosed amount, with his first Audible Original, “The Coldest Case” out Thursday.

“I do not work for a living, I play for a living. I love doing it,” Patterson tells CNBC Make It.

But Patterson’s road to success didn’t happen overnight. He started writing as a side hustle and he faced a lot of rejection before getting his first book published.

See More [CNBC]

Small American Cities are Making Attractive Offers to Lure Tech Workers Away from the Metros

Fayetteville, Arkansas

Cities in North-West Arkansas are making offers to workers in New York and Los Angeles that’re simply too good to pass. Incentives including cash bonuses, free mountain bikes and year-long discounted rent prices.

Are you ready to move out of the big metro areas and why?

NYC’s Financial District Faces Office Glut as Tenant Exits Loom

NYC’s Financial District Faces Office Glut as Tenant Exits Loom
Manhattan has been battered with workers staying home

Our Take from Brownie Bytes: This is happening throughout the country. Bad time for commercial real estate. Great time to consider a move to Florida – a no-state income tax location with a great workforce ready to work remotely from anywhere.

Companies looking to trim costs are trying to shed space

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is the latest high-profile tenant to look for an exit from the neighborhood, a historic part of lower Manhattan that is home to the New York Stock Exchange and Federal Reserve.

S&P Global and Fitch Ratings Inc. are also marketing big blocks of offices, driving an 80% surge in the amount of sublease space available. That’s more than double the rate in Midtown, according to data from CoStar Group Inc.

“The sublet spaces currently on offer at deeply discounted rates is a veritable flood of biblical proportions, with more likely to come online soon,” said Ruth Colp-Haber, chief executive officer of brokerage Wharton Property Advisors.

Manhattan’s office market has taken a big hit in the past year, with the pandemic emptying out skyscrapers and pushing cost-conscious companies to reconsider how much space they need after months of remote working.

See More [Bloomberg]

Jeff Bezos and Amazon: A complicated design legacy

Cool like Apple and Nike? Nah….

We talked to more than a dozen designers, many of whom worked with Bezos on Amazon’s most important products, as he steps down as CEO.

— Read on www.fastcompany.com/90611088/the-complicated-design-legacy-of-jeff-bezos

National White Chocolate Cheesecake Day on March 6th offers another way to celebrate one of our favorite desserts.

National White Chocolate Cheesecake Day on March 6th offers another way to celebrate one of our favorite desserts

Cheesecake is a sweet dessert that is a mixture of soft fresh cheese, cream cheese or cottage cheese, eggs and sugar on a crust made from crushed graham crackers, crushed cookies, pastry or sponge cake. Cheesecakes can be prepared baked or unbaked and are often served topped with fruit, chocolate or whipped cream.

There are many flavors in which cheesecakes can be prepared. However, this day honors the white chocolate cheesecake.

“Now, white chocolate is not chocolate in the strictest sense. It doesn’t contact cocoa solids.”

See More [National Day Calendar]

 

Today is #WorldBookDay

My personal library of First Editions.

I became a professional writer by first becoming a professional reader. Didn’t grow up with a television. I was in 7th grade when I first saw American TV. So the first years of my life it was all about books. The US Naval base library in Naples, Italy became my second home.

What has your relationship with books been like? Tell me your story.

Happy #WorldBookDay