Detour

Hey Torabisu,

Someone has a bone to pick with your Is Ahnold to blame? Someone calling himself Paul Samuelson (from Iowa State) writes,

[Torabisu wrote earlier] “I’m paying $100 for a 3 unit class I’d pay $500 for. That suggests that they’re not charging what the market will handle. “

Its a good thing you dropped out of economics grad school.

Just because youre paying less that your total willingness to pay, doesn’t mean the price is “too low”, and the market will support a higher price.

Im willing to pay more for my laptop a college student, and thats why manufacturers play the rebate game, but actually pay a price closer to what the student is willing to pay.

Didnt you ever learn about consumer surplus??

“Additionally, at California public schools the price for learning to taste wine is the same as learning how to optimize complex database IO algorithms. Seems to me something isn’t right….”

What if wine tasting classes was the in thing, and the computer class wasn’t? What if, because of job outsourcing, no one wanted the computer training, but the wine class was just fun and a way to get to know a bunch of people? Your have no evidence that the price of a computer class would be higher under market pricing than that of a wine tasting class. The basis of your claim is your own subjective preferences telling you that you would pay more for the computer class. So much for skeptical inquiry.

“What do you say we stop subsidizing education for those who can afford it, start charging market rates for classes, and stop whining about tuition fees?”

Because the citizens of California have consistently supported public education, and believe it is a means for achieving equality of opportunity.

I love it when a right wing talking head says something that SOUNDs logical, and supported by economic theory, but actually he is just spouting his own ideological dislike for government, and in effect talking out of his ass.

Torabisu

An interesting thing happened in the online community this last weekend that I thought was interesting.

A very popular online game is World of Warcraft. For the sum of $15/month users enter a world with several thousand others and go on adventures in pursuit of wealth, treasure and levels. I’m not a very big fan of this genre, but I happen to work with people that are quite passionate about it. For many, it serves as an alternate reality to escape to on a regular basis.

WoW is a constantly evolving world. Developers are adding new abilities, items, and places to explore. Players are discovering these new things and often do surprising things with these new game elements. Additionally, WoW provides a programming API so players can code some simple (and not so simple) macros to help reduce the monotony of the game. Some players have used this framework to become market makers and exploit arbitrage opportunities while trading in game commodities.

Anyway, last week the WoW developers intentionally introduced a new virus to the world. Fortunately for the inexperienced player this was placed in a location that only the most powerful players could access and it was so damaging that even the most powerful players would die after a few minutes.

Last weekend someone, in a valiant effort to survive as long as possible, managed to survive long enough to get to a populated area. In doing so, he infected some NPC (non-player characters) that were so powerful that they would not die. NPCs are guards, shop-keepers, and random people on the street that are controlled by the WoW servers.

Needless to say these NPCs became ‘carrier monkeys’ and entire cities were devastated by the plague. New players could not survive more then a few seconds in the major cities, and travel to populated areas became impossible without dying. Additionally, some NPCs regularly travel between cities so populations in some of the smaller towns would be killed off every half our or so as these NPCs made their regular rounds. Once the infected character left, the population would come alive and life would return for normal.

It appears that the problem has been resolved now, but sadly they fixed the problem by just removing the plague. Personally I think it would have been best to allow characters that could survive with the virus for more then an hour to develop ‘antibodies’ and thus become immune to the disease. I suppose the implementation would have been a bit too complex and some of the newer players demanding a quick resolution.

The concepts of plagues are not new in these games, but from what I can tell this is the first time one came about accidentally.

I find it fascinating that these worlds are becoming so complex that something that had never happened before was made possible by the systems.

Turns out I was slow to post this one. The BBC has an article on it.

Update: I fixed the link.

I am getting sick of the victicrats and race baiters turning the situation in the Gulf Coast into a race issue. Show me the person in the government that dragged their feet in helping the disaster victims because of race, and I will personally kick their ass. But somehow I doubt that is the reason for the slower response to the immense needs of the region. Racism is not the answer to every question involving blacks in America. Damn it, can’t we agree this situation sucks without injecting politics … BEFORE THE DISATER IS EVEN FINISHED!

Kanye West I don’t care about you, but it’s got nothing to do with your color. My lack of caring is a direct result of your negative race-baiting political views.

Update: Brad Delong commented,

New Orleans is 70% Black. FEMA and the state of Louisiana did not roll a single bus out of New Orleans before the hurricane hit.

That’s called “disparate impact.” You should think about it.

So let me get this straight.

(70% black population in New Orleans) + (painfully slow response after a disaster) = (Bush doesn’t care about black people)?

Brad, are you telling me that the ‘disparate impact’ was MOTIVATED by the color of the skin of 70% of the population? The mayor of New Orleans is a black man … was he racist because he didn’t order all of the school busses in town to evacuate those who could not evacuate themselves?