Odds and Ends

I just took the Mises Institute’s “Are You an Austrian?” quiz. Apparently, my economic views are 82/100 Austrian. A couple of my answers to the 25-question quiz were more in-line with the Chicago school, and a couple others with Keynesian/neo-classical economics. Somehow, I even managed to give one socialist answer(!).

Though my final score is probably accurate, and no such quiz is perfect, there were a few questions I had to hedge on. For example, one question asked about government involvement in endeavours like schools and roads. Well, I think government should build roads, but should not involve itself with schools.

Got out of a final exam for a language class today, in which a man was literally reduced to tears. I honestly can’t say I’ve ever seen that happen before, though this particular exam wasn’t that hard. Guess he just really, really, wanted to do well.

It’s a curse and blessing to me that I don’t get worked up over exams. I’ve seldom felt stressed over them, never lost any sleep or felt compelled to cease all forms of joy and happiness to cram every possible second of study time in order to get a few extra points, and certainly never shed tears over a grade. Unfortunately, my GPA is also lower than it could be because of my laid-back attitude.

This is the last week before finals at my university, and I know others are also nearing the end of the semester. Perhaps I should give up Civilization IV for a while and start getting up earlier to study?

I present to you, my reader (yes, I’m pretty sure it’s “reader,” singular), the modern system of economics, as proposed by those in favor of music piracy:

1: Artist produces something

2: Artist gives said something away for free

3: ????

4: PROFIT!

Actually, this system has been thought through more than that chart. According to this article from the Illinois Business Law Journal, this story from the New York Times, and a number of other places, step three is “Artist gives concerts and sells merchandise.” At first, I thought this sounded fair enough, but then I realized that step three is a non sequiter. It isn’t related to the original product.

“[iTunes has shown that] the natural unit of the album is the track.”

This is a quote (more or less direct) from David Weinberg, and I was reminded of it while reading Chris Anderson’s article “The Long Tail” in Wired magazine, when he discusses the online music industry, since he appears to assume a similar viewpoint to what Weinberg stated explicitly.

Put briefly, they are both wrong. The natural unit of the album is the album, and the track relates to the album as a chapter relates to a book.

Last month the White Stripes released their sixth album, Icky Thump, to mostly positive reviews and strong sales. So, the music must be pretty good, right? Rolling Stone’s review seems to think so, but while reading their review I noticed that their main critique seems to be not the music, but the lack of a message. For example, the critic (Robert Christgau) said:

Still, what do the White Stripes have to say? What do they stand for? Why do simple pop fans care about minimal Jack and his mythical sister, Meg?

You probably won’t read past this sentence if said sentence does not amuse you.

Maybe that’s too presumptuous, but it’s a thought I had while reading about Dickens World, one of the more surprising attempts at making education entertaining I’ve seen in a while. The place is just what it sounds like - a theme park based on the life and stories of Charles Dickens. While there is nothing wrong with making literature more interesting, a full theme park is too much.