The Less Well Known

“Monster Mash”, “Thriller”, and any cover done by Marilyn Manson of course top the list, but here are some, “lesser knowns” that are still very appropriate to round out your two hours:

1. “Dear Clarice” from the Hannibal soundtrack: The entire soundtrack is great for a more “sophisticated” party feel, but this track, with Anthony Hopkin’s voice-over, is downright chilling. “Ta-ta… -H”.
2. “Vampires, Mummies, and the Holy Ghost” by Jimmy Buffett: A very funny, and strangely perfect song for parties, especially in warmer-weather states. “No aliens, psychopaths, or MTV hosts scare me like Vampires, Mummies, and the Holy Ghost.”
3. “The Simpsons Halloween Special End Credits Theme” from the album Songs in the Key of Springfield: Most people hear the Addams Family theme over and over again during Halloween, so here is a little twist. Just so you know, the James Earl Jones reading of Poe’s “The Raven” on the Simpsons ruined that poem forever for me, so please do not put it on there.
4. “Witchy Woman” by the Eagles: Why is this not on everyone’s list?
5. “Pain [Slayer Mix]” and “Strong” from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer album: Rasputina’s “Transylvanian Concubine” makes the iTunes cut, but I think these two deserve an honorable mention.
6. “Paint it Black” and “Sympathy for the Devil” from Symphonic: The London Symphony Orchestra plays the Rolling Stones: Everyone knows the words; the originals will be played; play the twist.
7. “We Only Come Out at Night” by the Smashing Pumpkins: It should be obvious, but it is one that does not make it on many playlists.

My Top Ten Halloween Songs

Of course, the above songs do not top the list, but are the ones people forget or do not know about. Here is my top ten, just in case you care:

1. “Warewolves of London” – Warren Zevon
2. “Tocacata and Fugue in D Minor” – Back
3. “Monster Mash” – Bobby “Boris” Pickett
4. “I Put a Spell on You” – Marilyn Manson version and Nina Simone version
5. “Love Potion No. 9″ – Joey Gaynor
6. “Transylvanian Concubine” – Rasputina
7. “Thriller” – Michael Jackson
8. “Witchy Woman” – Eagles
9. “Vampires, Mummies, and the Holy Ghost” – Jimmy Buffett
10. “Bad Moon Rising” – Creedence Clearwater Revival

In case I am missing anything good, please comment.

Truman once said he wanted a one-arm economist, “so he couldn’t say ‘on the other hand’.” I have an MA in economics, so I should hedge, but on the other hand, I only have an MA, so I should “half-hedge” (that “hedging my hedging” bit should earn me a PhD on its own). I am also an Episcopalian, which means that on the one hand, I am Anglican and hedging is that most Anglican of instincts, but on the other hand, the Episcopal Church will take up some principles as long as they aren’t in the Bible, so I’ll half hedge from that.

On the other hand (and if the Hindus are right, I will be coming back as an octopus: eight hands and no backbone), I’m not going to hedge as much as present some “gradient alternatives”, especially when I talk about policy. I’ll call this the “better sex-education” argument – you should be abstinent until marriage, but if your aren’t going to be, condoms are better than birth control pills, which are in turn better than nothing. Since we could replace the public school system with a million better alternatives, and still be screwed by the system, I think this is the perfect analogy.

I am proud to say that I have been Windows-free (booting directly on hardware for use as desktop for something other than using “one app”) for a year now , and off Windows as my primary system for two… first to Mac and then to Linux (I still use Mac on the laptop). I’ve come around to the position that largest barrier to Linux on the desktop is not usability, but Killer Apps that are not available for Linux, and lately, I have been thinking about the Windows applications that force me to pull up my VM or run Wine.

Of course there is World of Warcraft, Microsoft Office (just checking to make sure the export worked), iTunes (remember I have a Mac laptop), and Internet Explorer to check my sites. But, the application I run in Wine the most is an Open Source text editor, Notepad++. I’m not the only one; there are even instructions for running Notepad++ in Linux on the project’s FAQ’s.

Linux if full of great text editors, but none really “fill the shoes” of Notepad++. It is in that niche of text editors that go beyond “basic”, but don’t have all the bloat and complexity of a full integrated development environment. On Linux, there is Kate, Gedit, Geany, and a whole bunch of others in that same category, but none of them quite match up.

Granted, much of this is the fact that I am “just used to” Notepad++ – I have been using it since… 2004 I think…, and I have loved it since then. But more than familiarity, there are some things it does that no one text editor for Linux does, and that is why I Wine it.

• Advanced Find & Replace that includes regular expressions, line endings, and can search entire directories for strings in files.
• Macros Macros Macros. It lets you record Macros for repetitive tasks.
• Good “Large-File” handling – some editors choke when you give it a 25meg xml file.
• Spell checker (it’s a plugin).
• Plugin support in general.
• Easy to set up custom syntax highlighting.
• Support for Windows line endings.
• Support for Windows Batch Files (yes, some of us have to write .bat files for Windows clients).
• Color code printing – the syntax highlighting prints.
• TextFX – think of all those annoying Search&Replaces you are always doing, like inserting back slashes in front of quote marks – that’s what TextFX does, on steroids. All the things that you do in Tidy, plus a little more, right on the menu bar.
• Block comment/uncomment in several languages.
• Tabs
• Auto-complete

Geany comes closest, and it does several things (like version control system interaction – I really love that) that Notepad++ doesn’t do. It’s not that one is better than the other, in fact, I think they are at about the same level, but they’re different. I find myself using Geany more and more, and Notepad++ in Wine less and less, as I get used to Geany, but for those few things it won’t do…

I don’t think a port to Linux is necessary – the stuff that Geany won’t do, Notepad++ will do in Wine. Notepad++’s strongest feature is it’s fast run speed in Windows, and that is something that won’t translate as well to a new OS. The rest of the items could be added as plug-ins to Geany.

I’m not advocating anything, and I really don’t have a point; I’m just saying the application I launch in Wine the most often is an Open Source Text Editor, and I thought it was a little odd.

1. My cat throws up anything with the common cat food additives, the organic stuff is cheaper than the “sensitive stomach” stuff he won’t throw up, and he likes the organic better than the “sensitive stomach” food to boot.  It took me a while to figure this out, but he can’t eat anything with canned fish (even canned tuna for humans), any of the paté cat foods, any of the “mixed” canned cat foods like “Turkey and Cheese”, or most regular dry cat food.  He will sometimes throw up the shredded canned chicken and steak, but he can usually eat it.  He never throws up fresh chicken and fresh steak.  So yes, I buy the organic cat food.
2. Other organic food I eat (will pay money to buy the organic over the regular).
   • Organic Milk – I am of the opinion (and other people agree with me) that organic milk tastes better.  To me, it tastes like you are getting “one grade up” when you buy it – i.e., skim tastes like 1%, 2% tastes like whole, and whole tastes like half & half.  It may be that the “skimming” process is simply less effective, and that is why it tastes better, but I like the illusion that I am eating something healthier. To review: I think it tastes better.
   • Organic Ketchup – I think the Greenwise (and only Greenwise) generic organic ketchup tastes better than all of the others. I think it is a little sweeter, and it costs the same as Heinz, which is the only other ketchup I like (but not as much). I think the agave ketchup tastes horrible, and I will eat my fries straight if that agave stuff is the only thing on the table. The only organic ketchup I buy is the Greenwise brand; to review: I think it tastes better (and is the same price).
   • Organic Whey Protien – I don’t remember the brand, but it is the only whey protein that Greenwise sells in packs, and I like the taste of that one. I tried a big can of some other brands, but I didn’t like the way they tasted. To review: I think it tastes better.

   That’s it, end of list. If you see me buy anything else that’s organic, it is either (a) on sale, or (b) the only one on the shelf at Greenwise.

3. Greenwise has covered parking. What a great idea! In Florida, where it thunderstorms every afternoon in the summer, have a covered parking garage above the store, so customers don’t get rained on/struck by lightning.
4. The service is better. Greenwise has a higher associate to customer ratio, so you can usually find someone to help you, and you don’t have to wait as long in line to checkout. However, you are paying for that extra service.
5. It is down the street from The Dubliner, which makes it a destination on its own.

I don’t buy all of my food at Greenwise, but when it’s raining, I run in there for stuff on my way home. While I am there, I buy the stuff I always get there: organic cat food, organic ketchup, and organic milk. I have not gone “pinko-green” (talk about a mixed metaphor), so those of you that bring up my Greenwise shopping habits, now you know why.

I believe in the free market to provide great goods and services, and the organic foods and the Greenwise stores are a great example why: we shouldn’t force people to adopt our attitudes about food (like the Europeans do), but the market will produce a variety of products for a variety of tastes. Some people can be religious and buy only organic food, some people can be thrifty and only shop at big-box stores for the cheapest products, and some people can be like me – balancing cost and taste to purchase the product bundle that gives us the most satisfaction.

PS: Organic beer (beer marketed as “organic”) tastes like (insert “more colorful metaphor” here).

PPS: Now I’m hungry; and it’s raining – I am heading to Greenwise.

All of the other instructors I have talked to have told me not to obsess about student ratings, but I view my class as my product like a small business owner views his product, and you are the customer. I care about customer experience and satisfaction, so I obsess a little about reviews, and, short of inflating grades, take poor ones as constructive criticism and try to do better in the future.

I am sorry you had a bad experience in my class. Economics is a very tough subject, and it was always my intention to try to make my class engaging and relevant (hence, tangents). You have to work hard at economics, and most students don’t realize how tough the subject is, and consequently don’t study enough for tests. I tried to combat this problem, assigning problem sets filled with discussion problems, [i]making[/i] you think about economics and use economics to look at the world around you. It apparently worked, because the class did very well on the “standardized” questions on the final exam.

I didn’t say I wanted to teach Macroeconomics; I said that economists have improperly bifurcated economics between macro and micro, confusing in both subjects, especially among young students (but among professors to). I said this in the introduction to the lecture on the one-person economy over time, normally not taught until Macro (or worse, Macro II).

It is my continued belief that it is better to introduce “trade-offs between time periods” [i]before[/i] talking about two person trade. It is easiest to understand two-person trade if you already understand inter-time trade, and it is harder to understand inter-time trade once two-person trade has been explained to you. More importantly, the inter-time trade model makes the more complicated micro models much less abstract, because you are aware of the issues we are now assuming away. It gives you less of the feeling that these models, especially those of the firm, are completely devoid of any real-world application, motivating the student to learn the models (or at least not de-motivating them), making them easier to understand.

I’m not the only one who thinks this – I chose the textbook I used in class, Economics for Real People, because Callahan organizes that book in the same way. (And you thought I did it just because the book was free.)

I am sorry about my handwriting. The more times I teach the class, the better my typed overhead notes will get and the less I will write on the board. I also don’t like white boards: I grew up on chalk, and I think it is much easier to write with. That’s not an excuse, just an explanation.

I stand by the course. The class did very well on the standardized questions the department put on my final. I hope the course prepared you for other economics courses you may need to take. I didn’t cover all of the topics normally “breezed over” in Micro, and I added some things that I thought would interest you. If you didn’t like that, I am sorry. I would offer you your money back if the University would let me, but if you take more economics courses, I hope you feel differently about mine (you might not – they will probably be easier than mine was because you took my class).

Note, this post is back-dated since the original forum is not available on-line. I significantly edited my remarks before posting them here.

Before asking how can the government fix a problem, ask if the government makes the problem.

That is the core of the issue: the government placed a gun against your head and told you to give it money, and then spent the money on Ann Coulter. True, the money spent is from students’ fees; so technically, if you don’t attend USF, you aren’t paying for Ann Coulter. However, USF is a state-subsidized institution; therefore, tax dollars are being used to pay Ann Coulter.

Think of it this way: the state subsidizes university education, ostensibly because there is a public interest in having educated students. Students make a decision to attend USF based on the total cost to the student of attending, not merely on the cost of tuition. If the university did not pay for speakers, it could provide that same education for a lower total cost. The government could then educate the same number of students for a lower subsidy. Thus, the burden of payment for speakers is on the tax payer. The university even acknowledges this to some extent: the speeches are open to the public in general, not just to USF students.

If the protesters for Ann Coulter’s speech are opposed to all of the speakers paid for by tax dollars, then I applaud them. However, I think instead they are opposed only to spending the money on such a conservative speaker. What they are saying is, “We don’t have a problem stealing your money to make our views heard; we just don’t want to pass the stolen megaphone.” To this I say either, “Woe to ye hypocrites,” or in my best sarcastic and disdainful Jay Leno voice, “Shut-Up.”

As for Ann Coulter: don’t give the money back Ann, even if it is stolen. They wouldn’t give it back to us, but would just use it to pay some socialist to speak. We already have enough of those on campus.

This article was originally published by the USF Oracle as a letter to the editor, October 19, 2006. Discrepancies between this post and the letter are due to editorial changes I made to this post after the letter was submitted.