zompist bboard

I am presently reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, which is really rather good.

I've been playing Fable III lately, which is quite good. The story is not quite as fluid as in the second game, but the characters feel more... likely? Whereas Fable 2 felt like a journey, the third game feels more like a to-do list. Still, it's been a very enjoyable one.

I've been watching the West Wing box set that my boyfriend puts on constantly. This is the first time I've seen episodes in the correct order. It's rather good.

Gulliver wrote:I am presently reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, which is really rather good.

That's my favorite book. I love it to bits.

I'm listening to the album Yu-Gi-Oh!: Music to Duel By. I'm not kidding.

I watched Starcrash last night. IMPERIAL BATTLESHIP...HALT THE FLOW OF TIME!

And, I'm playing Dwarf Fortress. Yeeahh.

dhokarena56 wrote:I'm listening to the album Yu-Gi-Oh!: Music to Duel By. I'm not kidding.

Did you get that idea from the thread a few days ago where I posted "Face Up, Face Down"?

Risla Amahendir wrote:

dhokarena56 wrote:I'm listening to the album Yu-Gi-Oh!: Music to Duel By. I'm not kidding.

Did you get that idea from the thread a few days ago where I posted "Face Up, Face Down"?

No, although that is indeed an awesome song; I found it for $1 at a yard sale and couldn't pass it up, it looked so stupid.

currently listening to Jimmy Thackery and the Drivers

Radius Solis wrote:I don't much read books or "watch" anything. As for listening, I last night ran across the good old Ieva's Polka by Loituma (it's in Finnish, for the unaquainted) and goddammit it's been repeating itself in my head ever since. Continuously. The song does not stop when you turn it off, or at all.

So true.

dhokarena56 wrote:And, I'm playing Dwarf Fortress. Yeeahh.

Have you tried this? *shameless plug*

The last thing I watched was an episode of How I Met Your Mother, which has forced me to concede that my girlfriend actually has good taste in TV. (Normally I don't watch TV.)

And as I type this I'm listening to The Don, by The View.

the duke of nuke wrote:

Radius Solis wrote:I don't much read books or "watch" anything. As for listening, I last night ran across the good old Ieva's Polka by Loituma (it's in Finnish, for the unaquainted) and goddammit it's been repeating itself in my head ever since. Continuously. The song does not stop when you turn it off, or at all.

So true.

dhokarena56 wrote:And, I'm playing Dwarf Fortress. Yeeahh.

Have you tried this? *shameless plug*

The last thing I watched was an episode of How I Met Your Mother, which has forced me to concede that my girlfriend actually has good taste in TV. (Normally I don't watch TV.)

And as I type this I'm listening to The Don, by The View.

I tried, what version does it work with? 'Cause it doesn't work with 31.16.

I'm currently reading Stiglitz, "Globalization and Its Discontents". I find it vaguely interesting, although I know nothing about economics so I don't get around 50% of what he's writing about (e.g. what is the link between a currency being overvalued and drops in domestic production/rises in imports). But the basic argument just seems to be "IMF is Stupid" (and World Bank less so).

Was reading a bit of The Economy of Cities by Jane Jacobs and listening to Bohemian Rhapsody.

So happy about Thanksgiving break, means I have time to read

I've been reading Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, which I bought in China for less than $2...it's pretty fascinating (I've already seen the movie/documentary/whatever-you-call-it adaptation in my World History class 5 years ago, and I've been meaning to read the book for some time).

The last movie I saw was the new Harry Potter movie, which I was very excited for...enjoyed that very much.

I last listened to Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan. Talk about orgasmic music.

Watching and listening to Gunslinger Girl.
Reading this in between episodes.

Cathbad wrote:(e.g. what is the link between a currency being overvalued and drops in domestic production/rises in imports)

It's pretty intuitive. Say, for example, the dollar is overvalued relative to the yuan. Since a dollar buys more yuan than it should, currency traders with dollars buy more yuan, which means American importers buy more Chinese goods, which are then cheaper to American consumers. American demand for Chinese imports goes up, which means demand for competing domestic goods goes down. Meanwhile, since the yuan doesn't buy as many dollars as it should, American exports are more expensive for Chinese consumers, which means Chinese demand for American goods goes down, which pushes American production down further.

In a nutshell, and ceteris paribus, and blah blah blah.

</nerd>

Anyway. I'm currently reading The Waxman Report: How Congress Really Works by Rep. Henry Waxman. It's pretty good, even if it is less about how Congress really works and more about how awesome Henry Waxman is.

Listening to... I've been on kind of a Fiery Furnaces kick lately.

Watching... I signed up for the trial of Hulu Plus since I have one of those Roku boxes, so I spent most of yesterday catching up on the current season of House. I cancelled Plus, though, because it was cool to have Hulu on my TV but I'd rather keep my $8 a month if they're still going to make me watch ads.

Reading: I recently began reading Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age by Peter Green. It's a hefty-ass book and I'm a slow reader, so I'll likely be on that for a while.

Watching: Over the weekend I rewatched the Lord of the Rings films. I hadn't seen them since probably 2006 or so. In review, I think the first one is superior to the second two. Also I'm watching The Event on Hulu, since Netflix doesn't have the second season of Dollhouse on Watch Instantly, and I like to keep myself watching 1 (no more, no less) tv shows at a time.

Listening: As always, if I ever listen to music it's either original video game music found via Youtube, or remixes from ocremix and other such sites. I think the reason I like video game music over other kinds is that it has no lyrics; "normal" music is almost always lyric-centered and the melody gets the shaft, but really, when's the last time a song had lyrics that seemed original or clever or interesting at all to you? Cause for me it's been a coon's age.

Colonel Cathcart wrote: currency traders with dollars buy more yuan, which means American importers buy more Chinese goods

See, this is exactly the bit I don't understand. I'm massively thick w/r/t economics anyway, but I still don't get it: why do such financial speculations encourage imports? It's not as if currency traders now have more Chinese money on hand which has to be spent by importers or something. Shouldn't importers simply be importing from the country which gives the lowest aggregate prices for its goods, no matter the currency?

EDIT: Oh, also, I've started reading my first ethnography in a while, Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination by Andrew Shryock. It's on oral history in Jordan. So far, it seems to be standard half-baked American cultural anthropologist fare (with very cursory ethnographic detail and contextualization, just a lot of Excerpts Which Show How Really Postmodern I Am By Giving My Informants A Voice), but I'm waiting to be more positively surprised.

Cathbad wrote:Shouldn't importers simply be importing from the country which gives the lowest aggregate prices for its goods, no matter the currency?

That's the point. If 1$ buys 100 yen instead of 85 yuan, that'll make Chinese goods a good bit cheaper, hence lots of Americans will buy Chinese goods. The opposite happens when a country devalues, like the UK did pretty recently.

Cathbad wrote:See, this is exactly the bit I don't understand. I'm massively thick w/r/t economics anyway, but I still don't get it: why do such financial speculations encourage imports? It's not as if currency traders now have more Chinese money on hand which has to be spent by importers or something.

Well, keep in mind Chinese companies (and only Chinese companies) accept payment in yuan (and only yuan), so there's only three things you can do if you've just bought yuan in America. You can use it to buy goods in China, you can use it to buy Chinese stocks and bonds, or you can just sit on it until it appreciates in value. Over/undervaluation can have a big effect on speculation and investment, but in general, if you have more money you can buy more stuff. Consider also that imports as an investment strategy are easier than buying foreign securities and less risky than speculation.

Shouldn't importers simply be importing from the country which gives the lowest aggregate prices for its goods, no matter the currency?

In international trade, price is as much a function of exchange rates as production costs, if not indeed more so. It's basically what Declan said, except when you're dealing with overvaluation of the dollar or undervaluation of the yuan (either way it's the same effect), the point is that a dollar buys more yuan than it should. It's not about what the numerical value of the currency is, it's about what the exchange rate actually is versus what the market rate says it should be. If a dollar can normally buy 5 yuan, then whatever. But if tomorrow the Chinese central bank devalues and suddenly you can get 10 yuan for a dollar, suddenly yuan are more attractive because, basically, they're on sale.

I am reading Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan.

Terrible world creation, awful failed attempt at a conlang, but just about an interesting enough a story and characters to keep me interested.

Reading: Frankenstein
Watching: Bruce Almighty, Sneakers, Firefly
Musicking: Scala's cover of Radiohead's "Creep"

Reading: Finnegans Wake
Listening: Sweetheart Like You- Bob Dylan
Watching: Absolutely Fabulous

the last book I read was some provegetarian panphlet a krsna guy gave me in hungary

Listening to... my brother's playing Debussy's Claire de Lune on the piano... not that well, but still

the last thing I watched on TV was France24's international news [good news channel, by the way, didn't know it until now]... and as far as movies go, Adam Sandler's Grownups, the comedy

the last game I played was some lame miniclip flash game involving monster trucks and NOS bottles

yeah, my cultural content consumption patters have been incredibly lame as of late... but, on the other hand, I'm in europe, so its not all that bad.

Reading: A few pages into The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics by Christopher Lasch
Watching: I have to watch Straw Dogs for class sometime in the next few hours, so...
Listening: Whatever hipster rap my roommate is blasting

Reading: "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson
Listening: one of Hedningarna's albums has just finished so I might listen to something else.
Watching: Nothing recently but QI and a bit of Tintin.

Nortaneous wrote:Watching: I have to watch Straw Dogs for class sometime in the next few hours, so...

Oh man I just love movies where the characters are all complete and utter scum except the guy who's apparently supposed to be the villain. That class is going to be interesting.