Economics Paper

This is my economics report on Supply and Demand, this being the demand part of it.
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In this essay, I will be writing about about five goods that I have bought recently, and if I consider my demand for these goods elastic or inelastic. The five goods I decided on are my iPod, my cell phone, my computer, the internet, and music from the iTunes Music Store. I will be talking about my demand for these items, and weather such demands are elastic or inelastic, and two factors that may change my conclusion.

The first item, is the iPod, a small, portable music player which was bought because I required a CD player replacement. My demand for this item so far is elastic. My demand on the item changes all the time. Two factors that may change my decision are repairs, should it break; and accessories.

The second item I have chosen for this list is my cell phone. I consider my demand for this item elastic, as demand for the item may increase at any given time, for example, if the phone should break, or if I decide to sell it to buy a better model. Two factors that could change my decision on the elasticity of demand on this item are repairs, and if the carrier should ever decide to drop support for my model of phone.

The third item I selected to assemble this list is my computer, which was built in 1999. My demands for this item are once again, considered inelastic, because my computer does well with the equipment it currently has, and I find free software on the internet as alternatives to the corporate offerings. The two factors that will change my decision for demand are repairs, and a necessary piece of software that I should need to get work done.

The fourth item on the list I have put together is the internet. I require the internet for various research on certain topics, and to assist me in certain endeavors. I consider my demand for internet inelastic, because with the internet provider I currently have, there is no demand for an alternative service, or better service, because what I have is just fine, though some factors that may change that decision would be if the equipment breaks, or if I desire faster internet.

Lastly, the fifth item I chose on my list is the iTunes Music Store, for which I get music for my iPod (Item #1). In my opinion, this can be considered one of the factors which could change my demand for the iPod. However, in my opinion, the iTunes Music Store has its own factors. I consider my demand for the iTunes music store elastic, because my demand for music changes very frequently. Some factors that could change my demand for this item are rises and falls in price, and the availability of more music.

In this essay, I have disclosed above my demands for five recently bought goods: The iPod, my cell phone, my computer, the internet, and the iTunes music store, and weather I consider the demands for them inelastic or elastic, and what two factors would change my decisions.

Retagged.

All entries have been tagged for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.

Music Library!

http://home.earthlink.net/~itoilet/library.pdf

All my music. Now with perty album art!

6956

WHAT?!!

Hardware Inventory 9/06

Yay. I just completed the audio system, time for an inventory, Methinks.

Computer stuff

Main Computer: Power Macintosh G4
450MHz G4
60GB Hard disk
896MB memory
Mac OS X 10.3.9
DVD-ROM drive

This little computer arrived at my doorstep dead. It was a gift from a friend of mine named Alex, who handed it off to another friend named Ben, who was closer to me, and could likely get the computer to me more sucessfully. I had to fix it, and for some reason the Hard drive dislikes being on the ATA/66 controller, and that was the problem. Runs smoothly now.

Current Laptop:
Compaq Armada 110
800MHz Pentium 3
10GB Hard drive
128MB Memory
Windows 2000
CD-ROM drive

Let’s get one thing straight. I hate this laptop. I don’t like anything about it, It’s heavy, slow, and really bad. It’s a rental from the school I go to, and it’s seen better days. It has a lot of trash on it that I cannot delete, and it slows it down, A LOT. Soon to be replaced by a brand new White MacBook.

Audio devices:

-iPod Video 30 GB

-Yamaha Natural Sound Stereo Reciever R-50
–6 Speakers (3 Left, 3 right)

Sony intentionally gimped Dell, Apple?

Looking at the latest bit of news from Reg Hardware: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/09/14/virgin_apple_dell_battery_ban/

“Virgin Atlantic has banned the use of iBook, PowerBook, MacBook, etc, and Dell batteries. Sony Viaos and batteries are not banned”

Woah woah STOP. So Sony’s laptops and accompanying batteries are completely clear? No Viao laptops exploded?

Something seems a bit amiss here. Could there be a possibility that Sony intentionally gimped the batteries in Dell and Apple laptops? Or that they didn’t put any effort into making them?

And what’s funny, is visiting Sony’s website, I found nothing about a recall.

Something’s up here.

Turnaround trip

With benefits, of course

I was supposed to travel to Los Angeles today. It was supposed to be until Monday. We left on 3 AM on Thursday.

About 1/4th of the way there, I realize I forgot the charger to my iPod. Not good. That had me in a shitty mood as it is, but then we arrive at good ol’ Reseda, and look, our money is all gone. All of it.

Barely having enough money to get back, we decide to stay a few hours, and head back. I got to take some stuff back with me, one of which was 2 floor-standing Sony speakers. Perfect replacements for the little 3 inch ones that make up the back part of my room. Also I picked up a nice little tennis racket set.

And we made it back with slightly above a fourth of a tank of gas. How’s that for close?

5780

Okay, this is for you, Windows users. And Microsoft pundits.

Why, for god’s sake WHY do you people keep cheating yourself by using Windows? Honestly.

I do have respect for people who have good things to say, that actually make sense. But no respect to the canned responses such as:

“Microsoft is an innovator.”

“Windows is good because a lot of people use it”

“Macs sux”

“Apple copied Microsoft”

I shall prove each of these points FALSE.

Microsoft is an Innovator

What? To be quite honest, Microsoft didn’t innovate SHIT. Microsoft, as we can see in the WWDC2006 video on Apple.com and on YouTube, Vista copied tons of features from Mac OS X. Apple did the innovating, and MS did the imitating. There’s a fine line between the two.

Even in history, Microsoft took ideas from Apple. Microsoft shamelessly copied the Mac GUI when Windows 1.0 was released. Hell, even Windows 95 copied from the Mac. Microsoft has never innovated anything. The fact is, Apple did the innovating and Microsoft does the imitating!

Since Apple has had major success with the iPod, of course, Microsoft has to try and copy good ol’ Apple with their Zune player. Knowing how Microsoft tried the portable media centers, we all know where this is going.

Windows is good because a lot of people use it.

This is about as good as saying McDonalds is good for you because everyone eats it. If everyone uses it, that doesn’t necessairily mean it’s any good. Look at old Saturn cars for example. Yes, you see a lot of them out on the road (Where I live, anyway), but you also see EVEN MORE IN THE JUNKYARDS!

True true.

I’ll write more later. For now, go to http://macvspc.info for more answers.

More standard bashing

I got a chance to read the Kate Kinsella presentation that all the teachers at my school were given. I thought the majority of it was good…until I tripped on this little tidbit:

“NO Students know AESL (Academic English as a Second Language)”

Waiiiiit. NO students? So this woman is assuming we are complete idiots.

Then she goes on to say that such “AESL” consists of responses such as

-In my opinion
-I believe that
-He/she said x, and I am adding x

Stuff like that. I use such “AESL” language all the time, in and out of school.

Honestly, these people need to stop assuming. I’m sick of being called an idiot because of statistics.

iPod has more scratches

I swear.

This iPod has been so much trouble. It now has all sorts of scratches in it again.

Time for another coat of Brasso. And another high. Yay.

Another project?! WHAT?!

I’m afraid it is so. A Toshiba Tecra M2 I lent to my sister came back to my door, completely dead. Won’t start no matter how many times I press the power button.

The only solution I can think of is to completely take it apart and rebuild it, like I did the Dell that I have.

I’ll post the results later.

A new laptop!

It’s not really mine, though.

I have in my hands a somewhat dead Dell Latitude c610 laptop. The keyboard is b0rked, and the Trackpad hangs.

Upon opening it, I discovered that it had coffee spilled all inside it. I completely pulled apart the keyboard, removed the heatsink, processor, video card/chipset heatsink. Coffee all over it.

I took a paper towel and dabbed the inside, cleaning up the coffee. Dried it out, and it boots into Windows XP fine. The Trackpad works fine when the keyboard (Internal) is disconnected.

I am going to work on this. Hopefully I can revive it.

Firefox is overrated

Here’s a true story that just happened on my Power Mac G4 with 896MB of memory in it.

I ran Firefox. My memory status Widget reported 638MB remaining memory.

I run Firefox. It sinks to 570MB. (Jesus!)

I visit Resensitized. It sinks to 564.6MB. I then visit Proboards. It goes down to 553.1MB. It should come back up to 570, right? Nope. It stays at 553MB.

I visit www.muse.mu. Sinks it another 20MB.

I then quit Firefox. The total comes up to 620MB, 18MB short of what I had BEFORE I STARTED FIREFOX!

And then, it sinks to 615.4MB, and hangs around that area, I started with, oh, 688MB before starting ANY applications (Xchat Aqua, iTunes, Safari, iChat)

Let’s see what happens when I do that. iTunes quits. 638MB. iChat quits. 635.2MB (WTF?), and then, we quit Safari and Xchat, 656MB remain.

So, with all due respect, Screw you, Firefox. I am now going to restart the computer.

Standards? We don’t need no friggin’ standards.

A few people in the same age group may say “amen” to this post.

I go to high school, and am finishing my last year. Unfortunately, this may end up being the hardest year, due to new school policies and standards. I am talking about one of these today.

I am going to talk about the standards of Kate Kinsella, which have been forced upon the student body by the administration.

The one glaring problem with the standardization? It forces both Students and teachers alike to learn and teach the way Kinsella sees things. We have to use high-grade academic language, which may not rub some students and teachers the right way.

I heard a teacher actually say that Kinsella was rude, and that the teacher didn’t like her. I will not name that teacher for privacy concerns.

I see some of my peers actually taking this in, and some totally hate it. My problem is I do not like to walk in someone else’s shoes, EVER. I do not learn the way Kinsella learns, and I hate it when the administration assumes that we do, and forces us to learn the way someone else learns. It apalls me that the administration does not think that each student is unique, and learns material in different ways, be it hands on, or be it seeing it done, or writing it down.

A few teachers have adopted the standard, a few have, and really dislike it. Another teacher said that he would not be using the standard, and that he strongly dislikes the standard.

If teachers and students hate it alike, you know something’s wrong here. When the misfit students and teachers actually agree with eachother, something’s really wrong.

What a great last year, eh?