View this Data (ep. 6)

This interactive feature compares previous plans to help ailing economies to the currently debated one.

If you're not an economically inclined person, just think of this feature as a way to browse through history and get a bit of comfort from knowing that we've been in similar situations before. Ok, it might be a bigger issue now (at least money-wise) but we've dealt with stuff like this before.

Let's hope we do the right thing.

"Since Hank Paulson, the Treasury secretary, unveiled his $700bn plan to rescue the American financial system all manner of alternative models have been debated. Here we take you through some examples of past bailout structures, drawing from the US, Sweden and Japan."
(FT.com)

Reminder RoBloggers2008

For all you Romanian bloggers - please take the annual RoBloggers survey.

A Good One. Finally!

Microsoft minds finally hit the nail with their new ad.

Yes, it's a late response, but it's a classic one: the attacked market leader claims - laut und deutlich* - that he rules and that the majority of clients use his products.

The only thing remaining on Msft checklist:
* Get (almost) everyone in the world use Windows
* Respond to Steve Jobs
* Write a decent OS



laut und deutlich - German for loud and clear :)

Update: Kit does not agree :)

What I’ve Learned in Barcelona

When on vacation, people relax, visit stuff and take sunbaths. So they tell me 

This September, I took a few days off and flew to Barcelona. It was one of the nicest adventures I’ve ever had in my life.

The bad sides: my photo camera was stolen, we lost the plane and came flew back with a Lufthansa plane. Key learning points: (1) don’t sit under palm trees in Barcelona and (2) don’t fly with clickair.

The best parts:
(1) Picasso Museum. Visiting a well-thought-through art museum helps you in discovering the artist behind the canvas. Who would have thought that Picasso had a problem with paintings eyes? It’s so obvious once you see his early works and sketches!
(2) Gaudi.
a. Passion for details is great but can lead to unsatisfied career goals. BUT, you can at least start a few larger than life projects. I think they need at least 80 additional years to finish Sagrada Familia
b. What-if. This brilliant man, Gaudi, thought about new ways of using nature-based structures in construction woks and architecture. They still wonder about how the hell he managed to use so many patterns from nature.
c. Usability and Design. Designers and design lovers: visit Barcelona and get inspired by Gaudi’s obsession with nature and usability.

From Barcelona 2008

(3) Science Museum. Ever wanted to play with numbers, magnets, lights, forces and fluids? Well than, 4 years worth of high-school experiments await you at “Europe’s finest science museum”.

Other nice things in Barcelona: parrots in the parks, IMAX theater, nice restaurants, great way-finding tools

FMCG Spending In Romania

From ACNielsen via adevarul.ro

7 Years Ago

On this day 7 years ago...

...I was a happy prospective student with the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest.
Fooling around with some Pascal or Delphi code on my PC, I am interrupted by my mother telling me that the guys at ProTv replaced her beloved "The Young and the Restless" with an action film. A movie with a plane crashing into a skyscraper.
As it turned out, it was not a movie. It was a breaking news which came to change many mundane things across the globe: from random security checks at airports to raised suspicions regarding Islamic neighbors.

...Cornel Nistorescu (back then, acting director with the Romanian daily "Evenimentul Zilei") wrote a beautiful editorial on the American way of being united. Although, some of the ideas expressed in his "Ode To America" were proven wrong later on (i.e. the "no conspiracy"-part), the text still holds some of the best prose regarding Americans and the unity in diversity.

What unites Americans in such a way? Their land? Their galloping history? Their economic power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases that risk sounding like commonplaces. I thought things over, but I reached only one conclusion.

Only freedom can work such miracles. (Cornel Nistorescu, Ode to America, September 2001)