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:: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 ::

Interesting web site today - Anita Roddick is the founder of The Body Shop, and a confirmed (perhaps even card-carrying) activist. I ran across her site while researching the anti-globalisation movement (upon which I will be working this Spring).
:: David 2:36 PM [+] ::
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I wonder if someday I'll actually start using web design tools. I think I may have worked with text editors for too long now - even though I know HTML can be more easily constructed using something like Adobe GoLive, I still like notepad (or vi on the Mac) for my web creations.
:: David 10:17 AM [+] ::
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Doing a little testing, a little updating, a little bit of this 'n' that. Hoping to meet with the department head today about changes to my paper class - something to make the whole process a little smoother.

Buffy and Frosted Flakes for breakfast. What could be more fun? And Angel in the evening! I'm a TV addict.
:: David 10:13 AM [+] ::
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:: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 ::
I called Jason in Egypt today. He's doing well, although a little culture shocked, I think. It was good to talk to him (and I like to think the feeling was mutual :-)

There are some true advantages to being an ex-expat. Like knowing that there's always a cheaper way. I can't believe how difficult it is the first time around. I should ask Maria (the woman in my class who publishes "La Voz Latina" - the Washtenaw county Latino paper) if she knows anything I could do to help out this summer. That'd be fun.
:: David 11:09 PM [+] ::
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Whew! Crazy weekend! Sasha's family was, as always, a laugh riot, and the inauguration was a neat chance to see what her dad does when not goofing off, although it was something of a cross between a celebration and a goof-off as well - the article from the Danville Bee & Register shows that.

But it was fun. Now I have returned to the fray, as it were, trying to polish off some of the projects left until late, like my project for my paper-writing class, which, due to mechinations by the students, may actually become a paper-writing class. Light at the end of the tunnel.
:: David 10:58 PM [+] ::
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:: Friday, March 28, 2003 ::

Leavin', on a jet plane...

Virginia here I come!
:: David 8:12 AM [+] ::
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:: Thursday, March 27, 2003 ::
Oh - BTW - if erik is reading this, I watched all seven hours of Star Trek while studying for my Microeconomics test. So I'm ready for more!

Erik is my supplier. If it's candy television, he can hook you up.
:: David 4:17 PM [+] ::
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Waiting on simCity 4. Sooner or later it will go down below $30. And I will be there, waiting. If it weren't for the distance and time I'd drive over to Canada and buy it. Software is -so- cheap in canada. But I don't have the time. Fortunately I don't really have time to play the game eaither, so it works out nicely. By the time I am able, it will be cheap. I hope.

Thursday. Almost done with my work week, and then it's off to Virginia I go. I honestly can't wait. I'm ready for any sort of distraction.
:: David 4:16 PM [+] ::
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Late night blogging! Is there another kind? I've been scanning old pictures (from negatives). Slow, and not as nice as you might hope. I think the only way to get the excellent photos you might hope for is to take far more time than I'm willing to take. *sigh*

I survived yet another exam, this time in Microeconomics. Now I just have the weekend festivities down at Averett college. You know, I've never visited their Web Page. Hmm. It's not bad. Certainly better than Eastern Michigan used to have. I think that was done by somebody in their basement. Late at night. Just like... my website. Uh oh.
:: David 12:53 AM [+] ::
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:: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 ::
So much funny stuff, and it's only 10 AM!!! This morning I discovered where my web server keeps its log files, and reviewed what people were looking at on my website. Unsurprisingly people who search for things like 'Saga, Japan' find my Japan section. And even more specific items - just today someone went looking for Haus Ten Bosch (I think I spelled that right), which is a theme park in Southern Japan. Why did they look? I don't know.

But the fun thing are the porn hits. People looking for the word 'boobs' find this picture I took of a billboard, and people looking for 'naughty schoolgirls' find this picture of, well, naughty schoolgirls.

So, after that, I had to come to blogger.com (the website which lets me post to my blog) and put all this online. But before I logged in to my blog, there was an ad telling me I could sell my own 'blog merchandise.' Apparently there's a company which will create t-shirts, coffee mugs, whatever, for free, and let you sell them through your site. They keep the lion's share of the profit, and send you a check for all the proceeds over their cost and profit margin. Of course, they don't have to print anything until the shirt is ordered, so their costs are minimal, and assuming they have any traffic at all I bet they have a great profit margin! It's simply brilliant!
:: David 10:07 AM [+] ::
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:: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 ::
Another day half done. I think I may have a French class for the spring - like $600 for 12 weeks of French class, 5 hours per week. I may learn the silly language yet!If I don't, I really won't have anyone to blame but myself.

5pm. Four hours of class to go. *sigh*
:: David 4:48 PM [+] ::
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Purportedly, a blog from Iraq. Take it cum grano salis, but I do recommend taking a look!
Where is Raed?
:: David 3:50 PM [+] ::
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:: Monday, March 24, 2003 ::
Well, if all work and no play make David a dull boy, I am not yet dull, having wasted yet another weekend and got almost nothing done. Ack! Thankfully, I'm getting closer to being ready to write my big (ish) paper, and other stuff (namely the test in Micro I have this week) is closer to being done. Thank goodness!
:: David 9:59 PM [+] ::
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Data! I got data! Thank goodness for the IMF! I will, of course, never admit to ever having thought or said that again, but they gave me quarterly data on the economy of Portugal when noone else would, and I thank them for it!

And since I found data, there was much SimCity playing. Silly, silly time wasting, but it felt goooooooood!

I see the Oscars happened this evening, and they spoke out against the war. Good for them. Of course, the credibility of Hollywood is not much (if any) better than the credibility of George W. Bush, but every little bit, especially in such a world-wide forum, to show that not all of america wanted this war, is good.

And for the first time in a long time, I got the chance to speak to my nephew for an extended period of time. I wish I had more time to do things like that, instead of trying to find data on Portugal and other such random stuff.
:: David 1:59 AM [+] ::
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:: Friday, March 21, 2003 ::

Oh yeah - yesterday I managed to get my last class (an independent study) set up for the spring semester. So I'll be finishing my MA in Economics in June, at which point I'll start madly looking for a job. Did I mention madly looking for a job? That's what I'll be doing.
:: David 5:26 PM [+] ::
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No progress on the homework front, but I managed to download more Samurai Jack episodes! So the morning and afternoon get piddled away, and tonight a friends of ours is having a birthday party. We went to the used clothing shop today (more time not spent doing homework!) and got him some truly bizarre clothes - 70's stuff and a shirt with hula girls on it. Ouch! And of course, throughout the day, checks on the war.
:: David 5:24 PM [+] ::
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:: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 ::
Discussing technology today - I was reminded of how much fun the gee-whiz factor is. I wonder what big thing will be next. Another reason to dislike war, much less altruistic - as long as the economy is slow due to war fears, noone makes fun toys. Maybe if we pushed that as our anti-war message, people would listen....
:: David 4:25 PM [+] ::
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I received a forward today, quoting Peter Freundlich, a freelance journalist. I'd like to quote a section or two:

"We are going to ignore the United Nations in order to make clear to Saddam Hussein that the United Nations cannot be ignored.

We're going to wage war to preserve the UN's ability to avert war. The paramount principle is that the UN's word must be taken seriously, and if we have to subvert its word to guarantee that it is, then by gum, we will. Peace is too important not to take up arms to defend. Am I getting this right?

Further, if the only way to bring democracy to Iraq is to vitiate the democracy of the Security Council, then we are honor-bound to do that too, because democracy, as we define it, is too important to be stopped by a little thing like democracy as they define it.

Also, in dealing with a man who brooks no dissension at home, we cannot afford dissension among ourselves. We must speak with one voice against Saddam Hussein's failure to allow opposing voices to be heard.

We are sending our gathered might to the Persian Gulf to make the point that might does not make right, as Saddam Hussein seems to think it does.

And we are twisting the arms of the opposition until it agrees to let us oust a regime that twists the arms of the opposition. We cannot leave in power a dictator who ignores his own people. And if our people, and people elsewhere in the world, fail to understand that, then we have no choice but to ignore them."

I think this, as much as anything, explains why I am against this war.
:: David 9:30 AM [+] ::
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:: Monday, March 17, 2003 ::
Ah, another brilliant Bush speech! We watched it and then played 'Pin the tail on the Jackass' with a photo of Bush from the New York Times. War! Who knew? I was so surprised I quite nearly fell off my chair. And yet people seem to think it wasn't a foregone conclusion (or they think it was, but only because of Saddam Hussein). I have to get out of this country before it infects me!
:: David 11:55 PM [+] ::
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:: Saturday, March 15, 2003 ::

Although I am theoretically working primarily on a paper this weekend, I am reserving at least some of my energy for the Sci-Fi channel's 'Children of Dune' miniseries. I would like someone to finally do something right with at least one of his books. It's a lot like Heinlein - he writes these great books full of grand visions (and regadless of whether you like what he had to say, you have to admit he had grand visions) and then they go and make stupid movies which miss everything. Admittedly there were some clever moments in 'Starship Troopers' but for the most part it's all been a waste of time. So maybe this one will be different. Maybe.
:: David 3:48 PM [+] ::
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Movie for today: Next Stop Wonderland. Quirky and fun with the look of a local film. Lots of Boston related stuff. Overall it's a romantic comedy - one of those 'two people destined to meet, but never quite getting there' movies. Well worth the rental.
:: David 3:29 PM [+] ::
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:: Thursday, March 13, 2003 ::
I had some further thoughts regarding the shipping abroad of jobs. It comes from a class (well, a number of classes) I took this year. Hopefully I can keep it nice and simple:

Theoretically, costs are higher in one place than another due to the fact that one place is more efficient at producing something than another place. I recognize in the case of computer programmers this is something of an odd thing, but for the moment I think we all can accept that it is cheaper to hire folks in India than in the United States for programming work. So now here's the rest of the theory - if the producer of software in the US is able to make software more cheaply (by hiring foreign workers) then they will be able to charge less for their software, as well as presumably pay their management more. Both of these will have a positive effect on people in the US - the higher paid managers will spend more, boosting the economy and creating jobs elsewhere, and the lower cost software will allow more people to buy it. In the fluffy world of theory this will make people happier because they are able to buy more stuff - and I think at some level this translates into reality - my ability to purchase more things because they are cheaper tends to make me happier (not like a dance and sing kind of happy, but you know what I mean). So the people, generally, in the US are better off.

And I think everyone agrees the (again, for example) Indian programmer is happier, with a high paying hi-tech job.

So who loses? The programmer in the US does, at first, as he or she is unemployed. However, once they get a job again, they benefit from the lower software costs and the stronger economy. So the real question is what are the short term effects on them versus the long term? Do they lose so much in the short term that the benefits seen over the long term do not make up for it? Here I would argue that the sum total effect is positive - certainly our economy as a whole tends to grow faster.

I should qualify that - the total effect on a highly skilled worker is positive. Less qualified people... I'm very skeptical on this point. While there are many jobs which require lower qualifications which cannot be done remotely, I think over time we are moving towards a point when there are fewer jobs than people in areas like manual labour and somesuch.

:: David 11:53 AM [+] ::
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:: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 ::
That reminds me - at some point I'll have to write up the notes from my class yesterday - it was "The Anti-Globalisation movement in a nutshell." Damned interesting stuff.
:: David 10:26 AM [+] ::
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A friend of mine, a guy who programs (and loves it!) recently sent me an email regarding the movement of programming jobs to an overseas back office. I had the following thoughts:

Offshore development. It's cheap, and it's good. But they don't know your code like you do. And the code quality can suffer. But consider - if something comes in that 98% works, how much quicker can someone get up to speed on the code and fix what's wrong, as opposed to writing it from scratch? It's tough not to see those opportunities, if you are a manager. It's certainly cheaper.

Do I worry about the folks here? Yes, and no. I think at the level my friend and his compatriots have it is not a question of getting a job. Some uncertainty and some scrambling, absolutely. But actual unemployment for any period of time? I doubt it.

The other side of things is that somewhere else folks are getting a better living. Computer programming, as a general rule, is not sweatshop work. I do worry sometimes about quality of life standards, but I think in this case it would probably not be too tedious. There have been examples of exceptions, however, and I think any company has a certain responsibility to investigate that before they buy.

I read in the Economist recently that India is trying to move upmarket, because they themselves are being priced out of easier computer jobs by lower cost areas.

I find it interesting that jobs moving overseas should hit so close to home, especially now that I am doing so much in economics about international trade, which has augmented my own knowledge and interests with facts and figures from a second direction. And I do at some level believe that job loyalty should be worth something. I'm just never certain how much....
:: David 10:25 AM [+] ::
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:: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 ::
So I was thinking yesterday, while trapped in yet another line at the grocery store, about some reading I had done recently regarding consumer choice. Specifically, it was an article which stated that although consumers in the United States had a wide variety of cheeses to choose from in their specialty stores, it wasn't the same as Europe because the stores in the US were often located far away from consumers, and as such required a special effort to get to, whereas the stores in Europe were located close to people's homes. And I stood in line and waited. And driving home I realized that it had taken me over half an hour to get the items I needed, and that I had driven several miles. The compensation rate most people expect for driving their vehicles on work-related things is generally around 35 cents per mile. And pay per hour is, at minimum, $5 and some odd cents. So, assuming I drove two miles each way and took half an hour, I spent $1.40 in mileage and $2.50 in time, or $3.90 - and that's before I bought anything from the store. Yikes!

Of course, this is only useful comparatively, but still, I wonder how many areas we've chosen to ignore any cost that wasn't measured in dollars and cents - how much time and energy does it take you to save money by going to the supergargantuan store?
:: David 3:51 PM [+] ::
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:: Saturday, March 08, 2003 ::

So I have mostly got it working, which is nice. I'll have to tell Jason, who does have to pay per minute on his internet.
:: David 8:13 PM [+] ::
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I've been wondering for a while if it was possible to save the blog update web page on your own computer so you could type a blog and submit it without going online. This is a throwback to my days of by-the-minute internet charges and limited bandwidth. Of course, I still suffer from limited bandwidth (who doesn't?) so I still occasionally try experiments. Of course, there's always the chance I'll erase my blog....
:: David 8:10 PM [+] ::
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Crazy crazy weekend, and it's only Saturday evening! My friend Tammy from high school came over with her husband last night and we did the Ann Arbor thing. Since I've lived here so long I always forget how cool Ann Arbor seems when you come from somewhere like Kalamazoo. All the culture and night life and shopping and all that. And, believe you me, it is a gigantic step up from the west side of Michigan. Of course, having lived and stayed other places it seems sometimes barely tolerable.
:: David 7:58 PM [+] ::
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:: Friday, March 07, 2003 ::
The first time I saw Roman Holiday was about five years ago. At the time, I thought the scene where she comments about cooking and cleaning was some sort of bizarre sexist thing. Watching it again this evening, I've come to realize that I missed the point, five years ago. Both of them are saying something they know to be a sad, hopeless wish, and the other knows it, and there's nothing either of them can do about the situation. What a great movie!

And yes, Audrey Hepburn. Yay!

Meanwhile, more cork. More portugal. Ack!
:: David 1:05 AM [+] ::
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:: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 ::
Must... work... on... paper!

I remember now why I was so pleased to graduate. Well, that's not entirely true, but I can certainly think of things more entertaining than scouring the internet for cork exports from portugal.
:: David 9:51 AM [+] ::
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