A new World Watch report about China and its consumption of coal just came out and the numbers are staggering. The US and EU have to some extent curved up their coal dependency but China needs cheap energy for the long praise growth.
In the latest Mac versus PC ad, that put-upon Windows guy quietly concedes he's "downgrading" from Vista to XP. He may have good reason: new tests show that the older XP runs common productivity tasks significantly faster than Microsoft's newest operating system.
Flying Low Cost for the First Time. Well, yes...it is a first-timer for me. Again, not the very best one I guess. Objective: book a Budapest-Cluj Napoca and return flight. Price: unknown at the moment but expected to be cheaper and for sure faster than those small buses serving the same route. Instruments employed:4 cards (two debit and two credit; two Mastercard from the US and one Mastercard Romanian and one Maestro Romania). Result: no results.:) The two Romanian didn't work, as well as the two US ones (which is strange) so finally I just used another Mastercard from Belgium (with love?):)), which strangely enough did the job. Anyways, it is so interesting to see the taxes, fees and more fees pilling up from those 0.001 or 0.000 prices, that ones MUST be always aware of his/her final price (like on Ebay) in order to make the right choice. Plus, do not forger the getting-to-those-airports fees which may turn up to be equally if not more expensive than the low-cost flight. In my case, it quite even: price is about the same, time-I have to wait both trips about 6 hrs in Budapest (which I still value to be better than spending it on some microbus; moreover on the inbound flight I have to change in Zurich so..if there are any delays, I am covered). Let's not forget the free wireless in Budapest inside the terminal. Not so bad after all.
It seems that I have a need to do ALL the THINGS that I should do over the next few months..right NOW. Thus, along these lines, I finally started to write a small blog in Romanian as well, about all those little and characteristics of a transitional Eastern and Balcanic (mostly) country. First post is about the depreciation of the RON (Romanian New Leu, ROL- Romanian Leu was the previous currency which made us more of a millionaires than the Italians with their Lira). This relates also to the title of the blog, "The worlds of an Old RONin", which would be me.:)) Cheers! or Noroc! as we say it in Romanian.
Recently, I have started working on a paper attempting to quantify and explain productivity growth in the transitional countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. While doing this, I though it would be interesting to open up a new blog which describes in detail the daily product and challenges of this new endeavor. Let's see how it works.
Two of Caravaggio's major works are still in Santa Maria church in Piazza del Popolo, ROme: "The conversion on the way to Damascus" and "The Crucifixion of Saint Peter". Amazing pieces of art..the details are better than anything I have seen before in my humble existence. and amazingly enough that they are still there..exhibited for free and still hidden from most of the touristic waves (hopefully). 
Caravaggio was considered enigmatic, fascinating, rebellious and dangerous. He burst upon the Rome art scene in 1600, and thereafter never lacked for commissions or patrons, yet handled his success atrociously.An early published notice on him, dating from 1604 and describing his lifestyle some three years previously, tells how "after a fortnight's work he will swagger about for a month or two with a sword at his side and a servant following him, from one ball-court to the next, ever ready to engage in a fight or an argument, so that it is most awkward to get along with him." In 1606 he killed a young man in a brawl and fled from Rome with a price on his head. In Malta in 1608 he was involved in another brawl, and yet another in Naples in 1609, possibly a deliberate attempt on his life by unidentified enemies. By the next year, after a career of little more than a decade, he was dead. (wiki)
