Parking

Bill Gates was obsessed with knowing how long his Microsoft employees worked. So I looked at the parking lot

by

All the millionaires who have triumphed in the field of technology They tend to be people of remarkable intelligence, who over time have developed skills that, to the rest of humanity, They seem curious to us at the very least. Jeff Bezos developed an almost unhealthy obsession with optimize time in meetings and Elon Musk He can’t stand anyone opposing him when he has made a decision. Bill Gates, for his part, is known for being especially inquisitive with his employees, developing his own techniques that bordered on toxic to control whether his employees were in the office or already they had gone home. If the boss doesn’t leave, neither will the employees.. In 2016, the founder of Microsoft made some surprising statements on the BBC about how it controlled which employees worked the most hours. One of the things Gates valued most when he ran Microsoft was the commitment and dedication of his employees. “At that time I was quite extreme with work. I worked on weekends. I didn’t really believe in vacations,” he told the British network. The millionaire has an excellent memory for data, which is why he was able to memorize the license plates of his employees’ cars and relate them to their owners to know who was in the offices when he arrived and who had left before him. His partner Paul Allen corroborated Gates’ confession in an interview with Vanity Fair. “Microsoft was a high-stress environment because Bill drove others as hard as he drove himself. He was becoming the foreman who hung around the parking lot on weekends to see who had arrived.” In-person presence is not enough. In addition to being a somewhat toxic attitude towards their employeesGates soon realized that this was not the most effective system to monitor your staff. Verifying the unreliability of this system helped Gates to recognize that presence is not the best indicator for measure employee performance. An approach that, perhaps, the current managers of some companies should review when it comes to design return to office policies. “The Fireproof” Gates. Paul Allen tells in his interview with Vanity Fair a Gates anecdote with an employee who had worked 81 hours in four days to get a project done: “Toward the end of the work week, Gates asked Greenberg what he would be working on the next day. Greenberg notified Gates that he planned to take the next day off, to which Gates responded, ‘Why would you want to do that?’ Gates couldn’t understand it. “He never seemed to need to recharge his batteries.” However, as Gates himself acknowledged when analyzing his own behavior, Working long hours has nothing to do with being more productive. Burnout takes a toll on productivity and can end up being counterproductive to your company’s interests. Furthermore, the company grew so much that it was increasingly difficult to learn all the car license plates. ”In the end, I had to relax when the company reached a reasonable size.” Burned worker syndrome. Overloading employees in this way with eternal hours is one of the main causes of sick leave and resignation among employees. The World Health Organization (WHO) includes the Burnout worker syndrome in your International Classification of Diseases This syndrome affects 10% of workers and in its most severe forms can cause more serious disorders in between 2% and 5% of workers, leading to depression and anxiety. The 2022 Labor Market Guide prepared by Hays detected that more than 30% of the workers surveyed stated that, after the pandemic, the feeling of burnout among employees had increased, being one of the main reasons for many of them to join the company. silent resignation. Take care of employees to improve productivity. Work culture has evolved significantly since the days when Gates was at the helm of Microsoft. Companies increasingly value work-life balanceand they recognize that employees need time to rest and recharge. Even Gates himself has changed his stance on vacations, recognizing the importance of rest for mental and physical health, as he stated in a talk about Alzheimer’s in your YouTube channel. In Xataka | Bill Gates has been a famous “workaholic” but he knew who to hire to solve problems: the lazy ones In Xataka | Bill Gates liked to step on him: his Porsche 911 discovered him on a 2,000 kilometer trip and the police also discovered him Image | Commons

convert offices and parking lots

by

If there is something that sister a multitude of countries at this time, that is the deep housing crisis we are going through. In Spain, and according to Idealisticthe average price of the square meter has triggered more than 40% these last five years. If we look at what the neighbors do, we have cases that are familiar to us. For example, Almost 10% of its real estate park are second residencesand in London it is so serious that They are uploading taxes to Mansalva. In the search for solutions, an idea has occurred to Paris: convert offices and parking lots. And he wants to do it with a coup d’etat. Social Housing. Paris is one of the European cities that is investing the most when creating protected housing. Fruit of different actions of these last decades, They have passed From about 126,000 social homes to almost 272,000. Currently, the Social Housing Park in the French capital is around 25%, but although the administration has increased Public spending up to 800 million euros (28% more than the previous figure), the demand is so high that it cannot be satisfied. What does this translate? In which, although there is more protected housing, prices are exorbitant. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, commented Recently, young people cannot access housing because “it is almost impossible, the price level is tremendous,” stating that without family support they cannot access as owners. And to solve it, they have begun to use the law. 2025-541. That is the number of a law that France promulgated in June of this year with the objective of facilitating the transformation of non -residential buildings. It is a regulation that gives the urban administration the power when allowing the change in the use of buildings, even if it contradicts local urban plans. As? Facilitating the transformation of offices and other non -residential buildings, such as parking, in homes. Besides, contemplate a reversible license which allows to modify the use of a building between residential and office without the need for new permits, all with the aim of expediting processes. Truillot garden Transformation. The purpose is to encourage the creation of housing in areas that already have an infrastructure, but whose qualification is not residential. That is, instead of Raise new floors (A longer and more expensive process), what they want to encourage is that certain spaces be remodeled to be converted into homes. It is another step in a practice that the French capital has been carrying out in recent years. It is estimated that 70% of urban permits issued since 2020 are linked to structure reconversion projects, an example being both both the Truillot garden (It was a parking lot and now it is a green space with urban garden) like the Lamarck Street parking which will become a mixed space of offices, homes, sport and social areas. It is something that also affects administrative buildings, such as the conversion of premises of the Ministry of Defense on 254 social floors. Truillot in 2014 And in 2024 Ambition. The objective of these proposals is to reach 40% of social housing before 2035. It is very ambitious if we take into account that they move in current 25%, a figure that took 20 years to reach. In addition, new projects must have a series of common characteristics such as efficient energy systems to achieve decarbonization objectives and have green areas, betting on a model of “vegetation“Of the neighborhoods. It is something that even has taken debate In Europe. An attack. Now, this plan has harvested criticism and doubts about its true impact when solving the housing crisis. Among the latter, there are who He thinks That betting on the conversion of empty offices is something that only responds to creating the illusion of acting in times of crisis, since the volume of really transformable offices is not so high and the figures will remain below the political objectives. In addition, it is not a simple process. HE points to transformable offices that have a good amount of years behind them, so the process would be complex and expensive to be energetically poor buildings that will have to adapt deeply to comply with residential regulations of light, ventilation and accessibility. Finally, and beyond political criticismit is estimated that the cost of rehabilitation would be so high that private companies would be discouraged by doubts about the return of investment, forcing To these expensive projects are financed with public aid. Images | Guilhem Vellut from Annecy, CHABE01 In Xataka | Paris is reinventing the architecture throughout the city. It has a good reason: heat waves

The parking ‘spine’

by

We are all angry at a shopping center and see that there is a car that is occupying two places. And sometimes, it is not the problem of drivers, but of cars themselves. They are getting biggerbut Parking squares do not change. But … Can’t you make larger places more efficiently? On a walk through Redditthere are those who have found the solution: German parking lots with 60% more space. It is not German efficiency, but the fish spine parking. The problem is that the miracle is relative. Fish spine parking. Battery parking is battery parking (also in reverse). The perpendicular is the perpendicular. There is no doubt there, but with the fish spina parking there is a problem: too many names and interpretations. It can be called ‘fish spine’ as a translation of ‘fishbone parking’, but it is also known as’ Angled Parking, ‘Geometric Parking’ or ‘Herringbone parking’. And there are also variants. The one in the image on these lines is the spine parking that they referred to in Reddit and it is easy to imagine the reason: it seems, indeed, the design of the fish thorns. In This parking lotthe vehicles are placed at an angle of 30º, 45º or 60º with respect to the circulation lane, in rows of two cars that coincide by the nose. Advantages. The maneuver when parking is very reduced, since you simply face the car at the right angle. That makes it much easier Occupy the exact point in the square, leaving a good distance with the cars to the sides. We have less maneuvers than in a 90º parking and space is much more optimized than in parallel parking. Another advantage is that it is safer. As is done in single -sense areas, we know where cars will come and, although we have to go back, low speeds in a parking should not be a security problem. The calculations seem contradictory. There are studies that They point That this angle parking is the best way to optimize the space and that the 60º is ideal. In 100 m², parking at 60º allows 5.2 seats. In 45, they are reduced to 4.9 places, in 30º it stays at 3.8 seats and in parallel the figure is 4.4 seats. At first glance, it may seem that the data contradicts themselves. While some studies indicate that the angle of 60º allows more cars per area, others suggest that perpendicular parking offers a similar capacity. The key is how the lines and the total available spaces are distributed. So? David Percy, a professor at the University of Salford, put himself Hands to work With mathematics and discovered that, if in a parking lot at 90º 500 cars entered, in a parking lot with lines drawn at 45º they fit 619. It represents an improvement of 23.8% that is far from the 60% that was stated in Reddit, but that evidently is an advance and contrasts with the previous data that 60º enter the same as 90º. And the key is that it depends on the size of the enclosure. The great advantage when using a fish spine system would be noticed in very large enclosures. It is in those in which the number of places is optimized because it is necessary less space for the car to make maneuvers and, therefore, the traffic lanes can be narrower. In smaller parking lots, the space wasted at the edges of the first and last bays would counteract that intended savings. Others studies In more content parking lots indicate that, with angle parking, 80 cars occupy 7% less than with the parking lot in 90º because this savings come for the lowest space necessary for maneuvers. It seems that the bigger the parking lot, the better it gets to opt for the fish spine parking. Practical use. Therefore, “in Germany they use this pattern that saves 60% space”, is very relative and, as we see, it all depends on the space available in the parking lot. It is easier to enter because you have to maneuver much less, but in great parking lots the priority is not so much that you have it easier (there you have to look for life) but to enter the more, the more. A very easy way to see where this type of parking is used is on Google Maps. And it is really not easy to find them. Where I have seen are in cars and factor concessionaires both in Germany as in other countries (in United KingdomFor example). Here we see that immense space that Percy spoke with the spike parking lot as the best solution, and it makes sense because what they need is to accumulate the more cars, the better. There are also plants such as Berlin Tesla Gigafactoría or BMW that have conventional parking. And others like the BMW of Oerctraubling in which they do what they want: But you don’t have to go to Germany to see a fish spine parking. This Parking of Ciudad Real is dwarf and it seems that when designed they asked “what parking model we applied.” And the answer was “yes.” We have in parallel, in 90º, in fish of fish and in another type of angle In the end, the conclusion is that there are Many types possible parking (some that I neither knew) and that implement one or the other depends on something obvious: the space you have. Images | Google Maps, m In Xataka | Reserve a parking space with the body is possible. And also that they mulitate us for it

A parking for 650 cars

by

The world has embarked on the adventure of the transport electrification. We see it on the roads with the electric carbut also makes sense at sea with concrete ships: the ferris. There are already several countries presuming from their electric ships and, if a few weeks ago Argentina and Uruguay They took chest with their China Zorrillanow it is Finland that has presented the largest electric ferri in the world. A 200 meters to batteries. Helios. Sea electrification is nothing new. More than a decade ago already They began to take steps in the transformation of transport in Ferri. They are ships that make relatively short, but constant tours between two ports, accumulating thousands of kilometers a year, and the estimates They point out that, electrifying the 50 -meter length ferris to cover 100 -kilometer routes would save 50% fossil fuel in this segment. Viking Line It is a Finnish shipping company that has a Ferris fleet that operates between Finland, Sweden and Estonia islands. Its ships are a mixture between cruise and ferri, with huge dimensions and considerable load capacity. Also They have cruises as suchbut its new 100% electric ship will be a ferri called Helios that scares its dimensions. Enormous. He MS Viking Cinderella It is the largest ferri of the company, a 191 -meter monster with capacity for 2,560 passengers and 480 vehicles. Helios will overcome it almost everything. To begin with, it will have 195 meters of length and another 30 meters of manga and its capacity will be 2,000 passengers, but it will have ‘hole’ for a whopping 650 cars. China Zorrilla measures 130 meters long, 32 wide and has capacity for 2,100 passengers and 225 vehicles. The China Zorrilla Green corridor. To move such a monster, Viking Line will provide helios with batteries that will have a capacity of between 85 and 100 MWh, more than double the 40 MWh of China Zorrilla, and will make the journey between the capitals of Finland and Estonia in a time of about two hours. Its batteries allow to complete this journey between Helsinki and Tallin at a speed of about 42 kilometers per hour (23 knots) which is the speed that other ferris of the company have. And the 80 kilometers of journey can be done with a single load. This is a fundamental point at the time of electrification of maritime corridors and, for this, each port will have an infrastructure capable of supplying 30 MWh during the scale. Trend? And we talk all the time in the future because there are a few years left to see this electric titan in operation. Viking Line expects to have helios and load infrastructure ready for 2030. We will see if before that date other actors surprise us with an even greater electric ship Because the truth is that there are several countries interested in this transformation of maritime mobility thanks to Advances in the ability of batteries. Without going far, in Spain we have the ‘Barbarian Cap‘, a ferri who joins Ibiza with Formentera who was a pioneer, but does not stand out with his 1 MWh battery. However, Balearia is already shaping Two twin ferris With 39 MWh batteries to join Tarifa and Tangier. From Viking they are clear that these electric ships will be as significant as those of candle, steam and motor of their time, and although in the ferris it makes a lot of sense, we must wait to see if the solid state batteries They can colonize the sea aboard huge cruises And above all, Portenero. In Xataka | The largest ultra -grape load electroinera is found in Asturias. And that is its greatest virtue

Barcelona began to excavate to build a parking. Ended up discovering a medieval ship of 10 my and uncertain origin

by

His intention was to build a new parking, but the team in charge of the works of the Ciutadella del Coneixementin Barcelona, ​​has ended up doing something very different: finding an archaeological finding that has already captured the interest of the historians of the Catalan capital. And it’s normal. What technicians have located under the ground of the city, to five meters Under the sea level, it is neither more nor less than a medieval long -won over 10 meters long and three wide. The first studies estimate that the boat dates from the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, but questions are left to answer. What happened? That the Barcelona subsoil has just given a surprise (and a joy) to historians. Another one. A few weeks ago, during the construction works of the future Parking of the BSM in the Ciutadella del Coneixement, archaeologists located the remains of a ship that, according to the first estimates, would date from the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. It is not the first once the work on the site of the old Mercat del Peix brought to light remains of historical interest, but as Recognize The Archeology Service of the Barcelona City Council is “exceptional”. Good proof is that the town hall has launched A statement (and a wide image gallery) to value the wreck and team of archaeologists in charge of documenting the remains has spoken with the means to clear some doubts. What have you discovered? The “partial remains Of a sunk ship “, a boat that ended up wafraling or abandoned and priori (already waiting for her to advance her study), experts have dated between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To be more precise, during their investigation, archaeologists have found a structure formed by thirty notebooks and part of the wooden pieces that covered the exterior of the fuselage. In total the pec ten meters long for just over three wide. “The tables are nailed in the notebooks with circular section timber, a kind of wooden nails that served to join the parts. Two longitudinal pieces set with iron nails are also preserved,” details The City Council Archeology Service. In the world’s surroundings, very fertile sand and alms have also been located that include “organic remains” of interest, such as hazelnut seeds or even pineapple remains. Do we know anything else? In addition to date it around the fifteenth and sixteenth, experts They point that the construction style of the ship was common in the Mediterranean medieval and extended throughout Europe from the mid -XV. They are however Some questions for responding, as its exact origin or what function I played. To clear some of those unknowns archaeologists are also investigating the remains of seeds and alms that surround the wreck. What will happen to him? The City Council He has stressed The importance of the finding because it is “a unique source of knowledge” on navigation and naval construction techniques that were used in the Barcelona of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. However, not everything is in his favor. The remains are found in a “very fragile state of conservation”, which forces experts to be cautious. To prevent the soaked from drying and degraded by being exposed to the weather, the technicians have partially kept it with the sand that has been used for centuries. The objective of the Archeology Service of Barcelona and the Archaeological Museum of Catalonia is now to document the remains and “guarantee the conservation” of the wreck, which has already been baptized as ‘Citadel I’. “The first actions have included three -dimensional documentation works, the marking of the pieces, the sampling and the preparation of the transfer in containers full of water that ensure the temporary conservation of the remains,” The Consistory requires. The materials will be transferred to “specialized facilities” so that they can treat them with water and hydrosoluble wax, a substance with which the structure is to be reinforced. What tells us about Barcelona? The wreck is not interesting only for the boat itself and what can be told about medieval navigation or naval. Another key is what can tell us about the development of Barcelona. After all, the remains appeared in the old Mercat del Peix, at a depth of more than five meters under sea level. Archaeologists have already They slid that its location can be related to the transformation of the maritime front. “The finding, which from a technical point of view is known as melter, is part of a historical context of transformation of the maritime front. From 1439, with the construction of the first artificial tenazes, the dynamics of the coastline was altered and the sand bar known as the task, which had protected the city for centuries” Clarify The City Council. In 2008 it was already located A similar ship near the station of France. Images | Barcelona’s Decrease In Xataka | We finally know what sailors ate at the high seas in the 16th century. Thanks to the CSIC and a sunk galeon

Parking ticket already adds 201,500 euros

by

Stations and airport parking are, in all likelihood, one of the busiest points, due to the constant coming and going of passengers and companions. However, instead of forgetting the toothbrush, someone seems to have forgotten a Volkswagen Golf in the short stay of Berlin airport. For a year! In all that time, the counter of the parking meter has not stopped adding. It may seem a funny anecdote, but with what the ticket will cost at the exit, six cars like the one he forgot can be bought. The abandoned car mystery According to him German newspaper Berliner Zeitung, uN Volkswagen Golf of fifth generation, the version sold between 2006 and 2010, has been parked in front of the main door of the Berlin-Brandeburg Airport Willy Brandt for more than a year, without anyone knowing who its owner is. The car, a diesel model with Hannover registration, did not show signs of external damage to the naked eye, except for the obvious dust accumulated by being outdoors for a whole year. But he showed no signs of having been forced. However, the inside the car It showed a very careless appearance. The central console screen was shattered, there were remains of food, wrappers and a half -empty water bottle. From the German medium they describe the appearance of the interior of the vehicle “as if someone had gone in a hurry.” Again, signs of careless use, but There were no obvious samples of having been stolen. In addition, there was a signaling plastic tape knotted to the rear windshield wiper, which added an even more mysterious touch to the situation. Touch the image to go to the original message A parking bill that exceeds, long, the value of the car The German newspaper notes that the Plaza de parking that has “out” This car for a whole year is intended for short stays in front of the flight exit door to leave passengers. These places offer the first 10 minutes free, but then 23 euros are charged per hour as a deterrent method for those who intend to occupy them for a longer time. This means that the parking cost for forgotten golf amounts to 552 euros every day. If that is multiplied by the more than 365 days that has remained forgotten, the bill of That ticket exceeds 201,500 euros. A cost equivalent to what six new Volkswagen Golf would cost. The company that manages the parking lot, Apcoa Deutschland GmbH, contacted the authorities, but according to what was published by Berliner Zeitung, So far no one has been able to locate the owner because the local police have no jurisdiction within the airport and, technically, the parking lot is not publicly, so they have not been able to act and the car is under the management of the winning company. Company sources declared Berliner Zeitung that “due parking quotas may be charged if the car owner is located and this has sufficient financial resources.” Theories about abandonment and lack of denunciation One of the theories is that golf could have been stolen, that false registrations were installed and used to commit a crime. Subsequently, it would have been discreetly abandoned in this airport parking. The truth is that the abandonment of vehicles in airports is not anecdotal. There have been cases of people who have returned to their countries of origin, leaving their cars in the parking lot. Another possibility is that the person who parked it there changed the enrollment intentionally to avoid being tracked, and thus Save the management of the casualty of the vehicle. However, all this are just speculation trying to find something as incredible as the car is forgotten in a parking lot, although we cannot say that it is something impossible. A millionaire forgot his Ferrari F40 in a parking lot in Munich for a decade. It is strange that no one has denounced the presence of this car for so long. A vehicle parked right at the entrance of the airport, in such a visible place, usually caught attention and would be removed quickly. However, this golf has remained there a whole year without anyone doing anything about it. What will happen to golf and its debt Although there are many cases of abandoned cars in airports that end up being auctioned, the situation of this golf is different due to the enormous accumulated debt. According The published in Autobildif the car had been abandoned in Spain, the concessionary company of the parking lot could process its withdrawal and scrapping, after showing signs of abandonment, although the process can take up to six months. Meanwhile, the mystery continues. The car frame number, visible on the windshield, could be the key to identifying the owner, but for now the golf remains an enigma at the Berlin airport. In Xataka | A Ferrari F40 of $ 700,000 Image | Unspash (Apollo Wolff)

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.