Joao Rei's random thoughts

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Infographics of the Day: Obama’s 2011 Budget, Cut Three Ways

BY Cliff Kuang Today Yesterday President Obama released his proposed budget for 2011, and the newspapers naturally sniffed out the massive infographic possibility. Here are the offers from The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal. The New York Times, naturally, has the best, most useful graphs. Here, a map of all the spending categories in the budget, along with color coding for whether the budget grew or shrank compared to last year. (Green: Grow, Pink: Shrank) Also via The New York Times, maybe the most intriguing graphic of the lot. The series focuses on budget forecasts of the past and present–and how they’ve stacked against reality. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that budget forecasts are usually far too optimistic, but check out how systematic the effect has been. Forecasts are shown in light blue, and reality is in dark blue. (The interactive version lets you mouse over each line for details): The Guardian also has a graph (ignore the typo in the subhed) comparing Obama’s budget to George Bush’s last one. Spending is up almost across the board–a difference driven largely by funds yet to be spent from the $787 economic stimulus passed in 2009. (Only about a …

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Dear Rupert Murdoch: Here’s Some Free Online Content That You Don’t Own

BY Kit Eaton Today It’s okay, Mr. Murdoch. We think we finally understand why you hate Google and the Net so much–you gave it away in your rant during News Corp.’s finances: It’s because you really don’t get technology–or people–very much. I’m referencing a little aside the news industry billionaire made during a conference call about News Corporation’s second quarter earnings yesterday. On the subject of tablet PCs (clearly driven by all the news of Apple’s iPad,) e-readers and smartphones, Murdoch admitted these devices were a growing phenomenon. But he then immediately launched a venomous attack on the technology, denouncing the gizmos as lifeless “empty vessels.” His argument is that without content, the hoard of tablets and e-readers and smartphones are dead things, useless and un-engaging. “Content isn’t just King anymore but rather the emperor of all things electronic,” and though larger flat-screen devices are an advance, without content they’ll remain “unloved and unsold.” What you’re referring to, Rupert, is, of course, your content: That’s what you think we should be viewing on these devices. “Undercover” reports on what it’s like to visit the country’s first legal ma…

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Nearly 850 passengers are stranded on an Eckerö Line ferry that got stuck in the ice half an hour after leaving Helsinki Friday morning. The vessel, which was heading to Tallinn, is waiting for an icebreaker to dislodge it. Officials say they can’t predict when the ferry will be freed. The ferry was scheduled to arrive in Tallinn at 11 am. The vessel is still waiting for an icebreaker from Finland to dislodge it from the ice. However icebreakers are currently busy helping free other vessels.

Eckerö Line says the passengers are not in any danger and are being offered food and beverages. The company says it doesn’t expect the Nordlandia ferry will face travel difficulties in the coming days. Port authorities say this is the worst ice situation in years.

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How can we tolerate this happening in Europe?

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