switchiness

I've decided to switch over to wordpress, because it has cooler features. To big A and the 2.5 other people who read this, here is the new interblogowebasphere location:

http://andreality.wordpress.com/

The good ol' days

In anticipation of teaching a microeconomics course this summer, I've been scouting out the collection of books that are discarded from the department's reference center for old micro texts to use in the creation of my lecture notes. And some of them are truly old. You can get a sense of just how old by taking a look at some of the practice questions. In C.E. Ferguson's "Microeconomic Theory" from 1972, we have the following gems:

1. Why would an attractive young girl just out of high school become a call girl or prostitute?
2. Why do more unmarried women lose their virginity in wartime than in peacetime?

(Sadly, the book doesn't come with solutions)

Walter Nicholson's 1983 "Intermediate Microeconomics and its Applications" has this to offer:

Each year Sam Mellow grows 200 units of wheat and 100 units of pot for his own consumption and for sale to the outside world. Wheat and pot are the only two items that provide utility to Sam.

"Sam Mellow" ... classic. I'm pretty sure I would be facing a reprimand or two if I put questions like this on a test. Still, I can't help but experience a wistful longing for the days when one could make math questions about prostitution and illicit substances.

why is everyone wasting their time on swine flu?

My sister recently sent me this link to a new zealand news story, filed under "World Breaking News": http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25426069-23109,00.html

Unfortunately they didn't supply a picture of this amazing fruit, but a quick search of the interwebs saved the day:I was expecting something a little less like a moldy pear and more like a kiwi bird. Still, I guess it's sort of newsworthy that someone spent $680 canadian on this thing. This just in... man wastes money on old piece of fruit.

In other news, I love the calculating function on google. I just typed in "1000 NZD in canadian dollars" and it did the conversion for me. It's also handy for mile-km, lbs-kg conversions. And it does math computations too. Is there anything google can't do?