By Chewxy, on January 19th, 2010%
Oh look, I have a blog. A couple of nights ago, I had a wonderful dinner with a good firend and the topic of reading came up many times. I mentioned that I have stopped reading fiction, and instead, I’m concentrating on non-fiction instead. Maybe some day I’ll pick up fiction again, who knows.
In my opinion, there are really, only two ways of reading things. And these two ways can easily be approximated by the classes of books out there. There are generally only 2 superclasses of books – fiction and non-fiction, and you’d only read books with roughly these two mindsets.
Let’s say, for now, that I am correct, and there are only two ways of reading a book (or article) – you can read it like reading a non-fiction, or you can read it like fiction. The actual genre or class of the book doesn’t really matter.
Reading fiction is quite different from reading non-fiction. Ask yourself what the difference is when the last time you switched between reading non-fiction and fiction (the last time for me was in October, when I stopped reading Sala-i-Martin et al.’s Determinant of Long Term Growth; and picked up Terry Pratchett’s Unseen Academicals (apparently I got the limited edition cover too!)). My mindset sort of switched gears. I thoroughly enjoyed reading both, but I was also very aware that my approach to them both were very different.
When reading fiction, the mind is less preoccupied with external logic and correctness. This is because the mind is aware of the construct of the fiction – that it is entirely fictional. The mind is less analytical (perhaps not when reading Agatha Christie’s books – but that’s the effect of a good author) when reading fiction, where as when reading non-fiction, even when it’s light reading like Superfreakonomics (you can read my review of Superfreakonomics when you’re done with this article), the mind starts probing for all sorts of errors or logical inconsistencies.
Now, I am not saying that there is a discrete barrier between reading fiction and non-fiction. Both give utility when reading (which is why I prefer to read epics and comedies instead of tragedies – in that I like to come out from reading fiction feeling happy and not depressed) – fiction feeds the imagination, and non-fiction feeds knowledge. Both fiction and non-fiction also evokes emotion, though arguably less in the latter (it’s quite hard to get any emotion from seeing a difference in GDP values, now can it).
However, I am arguing that meta-awareness in the classes of books being read – fiction or non-fiction – will impose upon a mindset that affects the understanding of the subject being read. Simply put, we treat fictions and non-fictions differently. Continue reading Two Ways of Reading
By Chewxy, on December 2nd, 2007%
Our good friend, Pope Benedict XVI claimed today that the world’s cruelty comes from atheists (Hat tip to John Walkenbach). You can read the actual excepts here.
You know, I have always been led to believe that Christianity is a ‘loving’ religion (the woman I love is of a Christian faith, even when I am not). However, the Pope has indeed proved me wrong, once again.
Continue reading A Pope’s Cruel Belief
By Chewxy, on October 18th, 2007%
About a week or two ago, one of my housemates wondered whether it would be feasible for him to porn himself, seeing that there are many pedophiles preying on him (he looks really really really young and small, despite already doing his PhD.). Specifically, he was wondering on whether anyone would want to watch him on webcam.And so, gleefully, I embarked on a research into porn (which hot blooded 20 year old male wouldn’t?).  Despite TPG throttling me, I still managed to get some data on some sites (mainly because I didn’t visit the sites themselves, other than a brief look-see).
I will be looking at the economics of porn sites (specifically here, on the adult webcam business). I will start off by first discussing the statistics of the websites, their business models, and the estimated earnings, and then I’ll proceed to discuss the economic theories behind. Mainly, the theory of contestable markets and the principle-agent problem will be discussed. Continue reading The Economics of Adult Webcam Sites
By Chewxy, on September 24th, 2007%
I first read the term on Dyske (I mentioned him in an earlier post of mine), and this is a reply-of-sorts to Tou’s post on the ladyslug. Coming from a country where racism is in its tenets of the law (yea, try extremely racist economics), I don’t notice such things. In fact, I’m oblivious to such things happening around me, so reading Tou’s blog was a most interesting revelation on his observation skills.
But coming to think about it, I do notice (well, at least, subconsciously), that some asians do have some form of reverse racism. They revere the caucasoids. But this hasn’t always been the case. Way back in the Ming dynasty, the whites were kicked out of China. The ideal then was that the Chinese were the most technologically superior race (technically true too), hence they don’t need foreigners to meddle with their affairs. Continue reading Reverse Racism
By Chewxy, on September 8th, 2007%
Let’s make it straight. I completely forgot that 31st August was Merdeka Day (to non-Malaysian readers: it’s Malaysia’s Independence Day). And frankly, I don’t care. I’ve said it once (on this blog at least; I must have said it a million times elsewhere), I’ll say it again – I pay no allegience to any country. If anything, I am not a citizen of any country, but of the world. I am human being (Homo sapiens sapiens; idaltus are not welcome here) before I am Malaysian, Australian, or American. I am human before I am buddhist, or Christian. I am human being, before I am chinese, or caucasian, or black (yes, I’m intentionally mixing the usage of different definitions of race and ethnicity). Continue reading Patriotism as a Superstition
By Chewxy, on March 17th, 2007%
Today, I’m taking a break from the Miscellaneous series, a series of posts about random miscellany in life. Instead, I will delve into some more serious economic topics like Elanor (hah! I wish!). More specifically, I’ll be talking nonsense about WiMAX in Malaysia.
In the year 2000, the United Kingdom decided to auction off 3G airwaves. Designed by Ken Binmore (his book, Fun and Games is a good read, but way too expensive. Go to the library to read it like I did), Paul Klemperer and team, the UK auction of 3G airwaves ended up as one of the most successful auctions in history, raising £22.5 billion. The auction had been surprisingly simple – based on simple competition theory: You can’t compete, out you go. It was an open auction, so the general public and the competitors to the 4 licenses know who was in the race, and how much each bid.
In Malaysia, however, airwave licenses, including the licenses for WiMAX airwaves were awarded in a “beauty contest” of sorts (unfortunately, there are no official websites where I can confirm the method of awarding the licenses, a sad case of the lack of transparency in Malaysia – something to be addressed in another article). [other sources: theEdge Daily Article | theEdge Daily Interview]
They call it a “tender evaluation” though. And what happens is that the prospective licensees submit their proposals to the Government (or in this case, the MCMC – Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission). The MCMC will then evaluate each proposal based on the technical capabilities, price offered for the licence (or maybe the price for the licence is fixed) and various other factors. Then the MCMC decides who to award the licences to.
Not a bad idea, if MCMC knows truly the individual capability of each company. But as with information asymmetry goes, there is no perfect information about the true capabilities of the companies competing for the license. The MCMC will have only information from the tender proposals, which can be skewed. An example of such a failure would be the 3G licence being awarded to MiTV, which to this date, has no updates on how it plans to use the 3G licence.
Then there is also the fact that in this closed-door decisions, you (meaning the general public as well as the competitors) do not know what is behind the closed doors. Anything could happen while the committee is making decisions on who to award the licence. Corruption, for one, could happen. It causes controversy. For example – the Spanish 3G airwaves licensing caused many legal and financial problems that spanned a few years. Another thing that could happen is favoritism. Paul Klemperer noted that
…some governments make no secret of choosing beauty contests precisely because of the possibilities for favoring their ‘national champions’ over foreign firms. But such protectionism is unlikely to benefit consumers or taxpayers.
If you thought that sounded familiar… think DiGi, which is partially owned by Telenor, and their failed bid to acquire a 3G licence and a WiMAX licence.
Continue reading WiMAX, Auctions, Beauty Contests and et cetera
By Chewxy, on March 2nd, 2007%
Friends, Romans Earthlings, Countrymen Planetmen, lend me your ears:
Homo Economicus is dead. We have lost him a few days ago, but we have missed him for a long time. We have missed his rational actions, his rational voice in our daily actions.
Homo Economicus was the man whom, when given a set of information, would make the most rational and economic decisions. He was the man, who would strife to incur the least costs to gain maximum benefits. He was the man who would try to balance out the information asymmetry faced, by looking for more information. He was the man that could be depended upon when making decisions for himself.
Continue reading Irrational Panic – Homo Economicus is Dead
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