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LJ killer time, and economics - Virtual Sacrifice Log
Aici zace un om despre care nu se ştie prea mult
05:15 pm March 23rd, 2005
kingfox
kingfox
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LJ killer time, and economics
xxhardcoremoxx wins the clueless guy of the day award.
(16:20:03) Decorus87: woah
(16:20:15) Decorus87: you were friends with that kid...that shot people
Because I friended weise, they assumed that we were connected. Sure. I friended jwz, but I'm still nothing more than a jwz fanboy. That's like saying that I'm friends with dildobucket_1a. How can someone use LJ, yet fail to understand the difference between Friend and Friend of?
Yesterday, while giving out over a dozen loaners, I impulse bought an Iron Maiden hip flask. The day before, while fixing up a computer, I impluse bought a couple LJ Drama pins. I need to stop this. Next thing you know, I'll be buying a permanent account on LJ or black vodka again. It could be worse, I guess. We all make mistakes.
Tonight's the smchyrocky episode of A Current Affair. My TiVo is primed and ready. Monday's episode was about The Crew. I'd make a link to itsthecrew and draw some comparisons between the guy buried in the desert and thelusciousone, but the ITC website's down as usual.
It feels so good to be taking an economics class again. I had completely forgotten how much I love the mindset. When I entered drewuniversity in 1996 (holy shit), I intended to be a computer science major with a business management minor. After taking a couple of economics classes, I wanted to double minor in business management and economics. After a couple more, I wanted to double major in computer science and economics. I wasn't raised to be a sports fan. While I didn't seek opportunities to do as such, I never really played catch or any sports as a kid. So I didn't get to know sports that well until my adult life. During middle school I picked my teams (Yankees and Giants as my godfather and dad wanted, Jazz, and Devils), but didn't really get into memorizing facts. I can't look at a random person on the television and recite their history with my favorite team, as petemagyar can. Really, I'll just watch the finals, and root for my team. Living with petemagyar and reading thompson_hunter up until his death has gotten me into it a bit more, but I'm nowhere near your average male. Though not as bad as my current computer science professor, who asked what the NCAA was. He had never heard about Sweet Sixteen or Final Four, and thought March Madness had to do with sweeps week.

Instead, I was raised to love supply and demand. Greed and fear. My father didn't have Sports Illustrated lying around for me to read as a kid, it was The Economist. We didn't play fantasy football or baseball leagues as a bonding activity. Instead I had a fake hundred grand, a set commission fee, could only trade in whole lots, and a few months to see what I could earn. While aggressive, and not really capitalizing on the interest rate at the time of the games for my liquid assets, I usually did quite well. That was my upbringing. Instead of ERAs and FG%s, I focused on P/E ratios.

So when I started taking economics classes, I just fell in love. Everything made sense. History, political science, sociology, and even classics made much more sense when looked at through the eyes of an economist. Nothing helped shape my worldview as much as those introductory classes except for Ultima's moral code. Fuck all of the political treatises I had read before, fuck all of the manifestos and lofty works breaking down these hairless talking monkeys - the why and how of their doings. Supply and demand, curves of indifference, game theory, elasticity of demand, unf unf unf! When my father was a day trader, I loved going in with him, watching supply and demand become greed and fear. A group of young guys sitting in a room, cursing at computer screens like they were watching friends in hardcore pornography on webcams, sitting under televisions blaring market news. It was Nirvana. The dot coms rising and crashing like experimental aircraft, these guys operating like Shadowrunners, trying to cut slices of money off of the large lumbering megacorporate giants. The first time I went in with him, I cursed the closing bell, and prayed for the next day to come faster.

Maybe I'm a heartless greedy tool, but man, I love economics.
(16:51:34) Pwn3dy0: Hello there! How are you?
(16:51:47) Pwn3dy0: i heard ur friends with the kid who pulled out da gun at schoo
(16:51:50) Pwn3dy0: sh0t up a few foo
(16:51:52) Pwn3dy0: is dat tru
EDIT: It's so odd, watching LJ screenshots on national television.

Feeling: complacent complacent
Listening to: Tool, Die Eier Von Satan
Chorus of 39 demons || Preach it
Comments
Thread started by EmptyInside
thelastbandito From: thelastbandito Date: March 23rd, 2005 10:28 pm (UTC) (Hard link)
Who shot the whatsit in the where now?

I don't keep up with current events. I require more explanation when you reference things.
(Reply) (Thread)
kingfox From: kingfox Date: March 23rd, 2005 10:34 pm (UTC) (Hard link)
This kid was weise. In short: He killed his grandfather and said grandparent's partner, went to school, shot up a bunch of people, then killed himself. The press are playing up the Indian, goth, and neo-nazi angles of the kid.
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Expand)
Thread started by Nemo Wistar, Escaped Lab Rat
nemo_wistar From: nemo_wistar Date: March 23rd, 2005 10:37 pm (UTC) (Hard link)
OMG u were his FRIEDN???!?

PH333r K!NGF0X!!

Sorry. Couldn't resist :)
(Reply) (Thread)
kingfox From: kingfox Date: March 23rd, 2005 10:57 pm (UTC) (Hard link)
I probably should have responded in the positive and ran with it, instead of blowing them off and doing work instead.
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Expand)
Thread started by Graye
From: graye Date: March 23rd, 2005 10:38 pm (UTC) (Hard link)
You sound like me, only my economics was politics.

I grew up watching the evening news, listening to the CBC's political commentators, and laughing at the Royal Canadian Air farce.

By 8, I knew who all the leaders of the major parties were, and roughly what they stood for.


And I need to take some economics classes, because the more I read about it, the more I think it's great at rationalization and useless at prediction, and therefore, not a theory.

But I'm still grudgingly willing to give it a shot.
(Reply) (Thread)
kingfox From: kingfox Date: March 23rd, 2005 10:56 pm (UTC) (Hard link)
There were plenty of people like you at Drew. The most popular major here is political science, and many of my friends were big political fanboys.

I remember watching a State of the Union with a bunch of other students, watching them trying to name off different figures in the audience. Most of them could name every single senator, congressman, secretary, and assorted other breed of VIP on the screen. I was amazed. fmrflyboy offered to find me a ride to my hometown so I could vote on year. Our Student Government Association takes itself more seriously than the SGA at most schools that friends of mine went to.

That's another thing I love about economics. The other social sciences just didn't seem scientific enough for me, and a little too fluffy. Meanwhile, economics could pull out some hard numbers, and throw some meat onto the skeletons of their ideas. The average discussion between two economists seems to have more graphs than Ross Perot.

But the one problem I do have with it is something you've nailed, the uselessness of it when it comes to prediction. The history of most economic schools of thought seem to go along the same lines. The last theory failed to predict or explain this major shift, so here's a new theory that's made up of either the last trendy theory or another earlier one, plus a new clause that handles [the Great Depression/dot com bubble/etc]. I'd like something a little less reactive, but eh. Still, they're usually better than meteorologists. For certain things, it's fairly cut and dry, and they're always right.
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)
Thread started by Peter Barnes
periol From: periol Date: March 23rd, 2005 10:59 pm (UTC) (Hard link)

how did you find him?
he only has three journal entries, right? and i assume most of those comments are post-shooting? so how did you find this guy?
(Reply) (Thread)
kingfox From: kingfox Date: March 23rd, 2005 11:08 pm (UTC) (Hard link)

Re: how did you find him?
I'd like to take credit for finding this LJ killer, but I wasn't the first. Someone else (I can't remember who at this point) tipped me off to the journal.

He was found because he was quite active on many online communities. On some of these communities, he used the same email address as is listed in his journal. Plus, the journal's username is his last name. Other people who were friended by the journal until last night confirmed that he was, in fact, the kid. And if you look at the pictures of him in the news stories out there, it looks like the one icon of his face.

How many 16 year old native Americans named weise could there be in Red Lake, Minnesota?
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)
Thread started by Rizzo
rizzo From: rizzo Date: March 23rd, 2005 11:31 pm (UTC) (Hard link)
Must... set... VCR...
(Reply) (Thread)
kingfox From: kingfox Date: March 23rd, 2005 11:40 pm (UTC) (Hard link)
If I can find a place to host it, I'll throw my TiVo2Go file of the special somewhere you could download it from.
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Expand)
Thread started by It's All About Tink
slave2tehtink From: slave2tehtink Date: March 24th, 2005 01:55 am (UTC) (Hard link)
Fuck the NCAA, the Sweet Sixteen, and the Final Four, and March Madness. Apparently some large and important chunk of some of the above is taking place at the Charlotte Colisseum, which is close enough to my duty station that it periodically makes getting to or from work a complete pain in the ass.
(Reply) (Thread)
kingfox From: kingfox Date: March 24th, 2005 03:09 am (UTC) (Hard link)

I almost lived in East Rutherford once...
That would have put me next to the Meadowlands. Every Giants game, every Jets game, every concert, every fair, every single event at any of those huge locations would have made my life a living hell.

It's amazing how many fucking people can show up for an event, clogging up every road leading to the location so utterly.
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)
Thread started by Noel®
noelr From: noelr Date: March 24th, 2005 03:16 am (UTC) (Hard link)
yeah, I'm very disappointed in my hosting service... my sister swore up and down that they'd have the server back up by last weekend. the worst part is my brother-in-law just got fired (again) so its not like he doesn't have the spare time to hook a goddamn computer up. I was really hoping to have Episode Ten: (BluesForChristMix) up by Good Friday but alas that doesn't seem particularly likely. sorry, Jesus, I tried.

did you save that episode of A Current Affair? I will of course have to do the ITC version next season and the more research tools I have available the better. nahmean?
(Reply) (Thread)
kingfox From: kingfox Date: March 24th, 2005 03:40 am (UTC) (Hard link)
I still haven't seen the episode you threw up the weekend of towelboy's birthday. towelboy and v00d00girl looked at it while you were on the road, and by the time I remembered to check it out at home, it was down.

I'll save that episode, I'll transfer it to my computer right now. It's a 372 MB file, you need a certain codec (check Google for "Tivo2go" and "codec") to play it, and you need to know my top secret DRM password for the file. It's a secret password impossible for anyone to guess, unless they know my LJ username. 'Cause it is, well, my LJ username.
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Expand)
Thread started by A world tree and the last of three
idunn From: idunn Date: March 24th, 2005 04:05 am (UTC) (Hard link)
It's so odd, watching LJ screenshots on national television.

We're taking over the world, Russ. I can feel it. Slowly but surely now.

I love how your Nirvana link linked directly to the kid's journal, replete with Nirvana iconage. Yes, somebody here clicks on your links. Your work is not in vain!!

Oh, yeah, and speaking of Iron Maiden hip flasks - because it reminds me of other nerdy things - how cool is this, motherfucker?
(Reply) (Thread)
kingfox From: kingfox Date: March 24th, 2005 04:27 am (UTC) (Hard link)
I'm glad someone's clicking on them. It makes me weep with joy. If kingfoxlinks were up to date, I'm sure it would cry with joy, while kingfox_lite weeps with sadness.

Those wallets are pretty sweet. I'm sure you've heard the rumor that his purple lightsaber had BMF stenciled onto it.

The next gadget I really want is this one.
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Expand)
Thread started by Jenni
jenniever From: jenniever Date: March 24th, 2005 12:28 pm (UTC) (Hard link)

Wait a sec...
A Current Affair is still on???


I thought that show died years ago. Is John Whats-His-Name-Piano-Guy still hosting?
(Reply) (Thread)
runstaverun From: runstaverun Date: March 24th, 2005 03:15 pm (UTC) (Hard link)

Re: Wait a sec...
not still on ... back on... apparently the world hadn't seen enough crap.
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Expand)
Comment by Cessna
cessna182 From: cessna182 Date: March 24th, 2005 06:42 pm (UTC) (Hard link)
Yeah, I, too, have memories of an econ-based childhood.

Did you know "Wall Street Week" was just canceled? I haven't watched it since they took Louis Rukeyser off, but the theme song - such as it is - still reminds me of growing up.

Well, that and the 1010 WINS theme...
(Reply) (Thread)
Chorus of 39 demons || Preach it