See this Speech?

What did Mrs. Clinton talk about last night?
Well, let's see: America, Barack, Obama, going, keep, years, care, people and children.


And if you have the time, read it or watch it.

8GB iPhone Costs up to 1864 EUROS in Romania

8GB iPhone Cost Romania
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

As a new subscriber, one gets 4 options for buying an iPhone.
Adding up monthly subscription fees and including VAT, one could get to a total cost of ownership of €1,864.04.
Source: orange.ro

iPhone Launch Romania

iPhone Launch Romania
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

People Flocking for iPhone Launch

One Common Language

This should be one more proof that besides math we also have a second global language.
Here's Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" final scene (theme song) in 9 languages. Same message different spoken languages. i particularly like the Korean version. :)

Top 20% Economic Research Institutions in Romania

Judging by number of citations, number of papers written and other similar academic key performance indicators, the most respected academic authors in Romania are:

• The National Institute of Economic Research (Romanian Academy) - 1st in Institutions

and


• Mr. Catalin Pauna (The World Bank's Mission in Romania) - 1st in Authors
  

To see other Romanian top economic research click here, or click here and choose your country / region.

View This Data (ep. 5)

Artists To Be Covered
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

secondhandsongs.com maintains and builds a database of covers, covered artists and other info regarding such musical issues.
Playing with their statistics, one can easily identify the 4 most covered artists of all times. Surprisingly, ABBA is in the gray quadrant.

Incentives and the US Housing Market

Alan Greenspan (cited by Gregory Mankiw) says that one way for America to exist the subprime crisis is to let high(er) skilled labour force into the country. However, such a measure seems pretty unpopular at the moment (almost, dare I say, politically incorrect).
But hey, people respond to incentives. I've come up with 2 alternatives. See them as serious fun.



Personally, I would suggest that the new president in the US comes out and offers the following options:

Option 1
(a) Let high-skilled labour force in our country
or
(b) Legalize gay marriage across the US

or
Option 2
(a) Let high-skilled labour force in our country
or
(b) Pass a law that stipulates that all unmarried American couples get married and instantly start having 2 or 3 children


Oh what a swell party it would be! :)

Greg Mankiw's Blog: How to Prop Up the Housing Market

Follow the Money

Scenario 1:
Your company produces cars. As in automobiles :)

Question:

Where are your big profits coming from?
(a) Selling the plane cars
(b) Selling the customized cars (read: full option :) )
(c) Selling parts and accessories

Scenario 2:
Your company produces digital cameras. (DSLR)

Question:



Where are your big profits coming from?

(a) Selling cameras

(b) Selling accessories
(c) Selling printers and papers

Facts from the Romanian market:
A big high tech company has a dedicated outlet chain but one can not buy accessories for their cameras (read batteries :) ). They have call the Service division and ask them for a special order.
Well... my camera is not broken, so why should I call the service helpline?
And... their batteries can be bought in other electronics shops across Romania.
My personal question: What's the company's business strategy? Market skimming? :)



PS: If at least one of your answers is (a), please drop me a line so that I can convince you otherwise

View This Data (ep. 4)

PopulationUNDataGoogleEarth
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

Who's the biggest puppet? And where are the strings? :)

via thematic mapping

BBC Olympics08 Content Blocked

BBC Olympics08 Content Blocked
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

"We know the internet is not really prone towards boundaries. But hey, we can tweak the site in order for you surfers not to be able to view stuff on our web page. The internet is free but your money's not good here" :)

Breaking News: Men Cook!

Emancipation finally shows some true results: men cook!

When there's a new segmentation study identifying some "keen and accomplished male cooks" as gastrosexuals, it's time i also put the info on the table:

Yes, I'm cooking for pleasure, praise and seduction ;)

Move over all you metro - and uebersexuals, gastrosexuals rule the kitchen... ahm... world. We know how to boil an egg and we're not afraid of baking cookies.

However, don't make us wash the dishes or other blue collar stuff - we are true creative people and not washing machines. Hint: Think of Ratatouille.


Gastrosexuals cook for:
(1) pleasure
(2) praise
and
(3) potential seduction

A few words on this study: Commissioned by PurAsia (trademark owned by Mars), the study has been done by Future Foundation and can be requested on their website or at gastrosexual.com

Flickr888

Struck Gold
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

This is my contribution. May I see yours? :)

flickr 888 or search for Flickr 888 group.

Inspired by Mountains?

Code names at Microsoft

Microsoft seems to be gradually parting from it's usual code names inspired by the same mountain region: Whistler Blackcomb.

Midori, their new code name, raises at least one big question: "Did Microsoft change their travel agent?"

bbc has this story with witty comments

Can Microsoft Excel Do Good Science Fiction?

I have discovered Spin, the Excel based SF writer :)

Here's a sample story:
"Mars falls toward the Sun and is visited by evil aliens who rewind time to before the disaster but then Mars falls toward a black hole and is visited by good mutant brewers yeast cells who copy the lot into a giant Sextium 3000 and edit out the nasty bits but the system crashes"