Monopoly

One of my favourite pasttime activitity is playing board games and Monopoly top that list as it's one of the most interactive game. Apparently this game was invented in the 1930s during the Great Depression.  Parker Brothers bought this game from the inventor for a mere few bucks and that's definitely one of the wisest investment ever made. Monopoly currently has about 750 million players worldwide, making this game the best investment made by Parker Brothers. This rumor is this game is made to symbolically show how sad life is during the great depression.

There are countless variations to this game. For my game, properties can only be developed once  they are all sold out. Hence the landing on a property at the beginning is crucial to the development of the game and this is heavily depended on luck. When they are no properties left to buy, the trading phase will begin. At the beginning of a player's turn, he is only allowed to trade with one person. He has 30 seconds to offer his proposal to the other player and that player can only accept or reject the trade without any alterations to the proposal. This stage is heavily depended upon the negotiating skills and common sense of the players as 'whoops' happens from time to time throughout the game. My advice in trading is always make a trade the other player cannot refuse. By doing so, you can blind the other players with their short term greed. Another important factor is there is no trade without losses and risks. For those players who only want to make trades in which you will be the single benefactor, good luck with that as your game will be the desperation of everyone else, including you. Another version is the Lord of the Rings Monopoly where  the player steps on the property with the ring on it will either get that property for free, or pay double the rent. I actually won this game with only owning the most expensive property (the dark blue one) and the leading player landed on it twice in a row with the ring there. Talking about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. 

To spice this game up, we can have the losers paying for breakfast, every player putting 5 bucks into the game, playing this game the adult game or any other combinations. In Strip Monopoly, any player can trade in their clothes anytime during the game for 500 dollars a piece. Once that player runs out of no alternative, then it would become a 'dare' activity. This will definitely prolong the game as it makes going bankrupt a lot more difficult.  Of course, the only thing more depressing than being naked in winter without heater is losing within 30 minutes in a 2 hour game.

Thankfully, the Germans are coming to the rescue with the creation of nonzero-sum boardgames. Board games that promote conquest and killing are apparently banned in German. However, one can still liberate other players. I just found out about this game called Settlers,http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/magazine/17-04/mf_settlers?currentPage=1 , and apparently it's a very big hit in Europe. Hopefully there can be many variations to this game. Else, ordinary college  students will not buy it.

Why is Google helping the Malaysian Government to censor the net?

In the Syariah Law, guys and girls cannot touch one another unless they are married. Failure to do so will bring you punishment by law enforcers. This Law applies to other intimate actions such as kissing among girls and girls and guys and guys. The Malaysian Religious Affairs Department has a kink to spend their resources on arresting these activities. Reports has shown the Department to intrude upon a person's home to check for these illicit activities. They normally do so without warrants; something which is beyond the police's authority. Statistics has shown these warrentless manueverings are affecting tourism as westerners also are targets of the Religious Affairs. I suspect this is due to the curiousity of how a naked westerner would look like by rural folks.

However, a few days ago  http://www.gutteruncensored.com/ (Warning:NSFW), uploaded pictures of sons of politicians from the Malaysia Government engaging in these khalwat activities. The Religious Affairs Department suddenly lost their interest of going after famous people. I can't imagine anyone more popular than the sons of our incoming Prime Minister as well as the Minister in the Prime Ministers Department. In fact these kids might even lead Malaysia some day. Google then decided to block access to the website. It took a few days for the owners to restore the site but was blocked repeatedly. In response, the owners of the site decided to publish the photos of the dad, who is the Minister of the Prime Ministers Department, having sex with an unknown lady. Google then decided to shut down the site 4 more times and still counting. 

Last year, another huge scandal took place in Asia. Edisen Chen, a popular popstar from Hong Kong, got his laptop hacked and pictures of his sex life were released. Careers were destroyed. Daughters and wives of prominent elites in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and Japan were among those who participated in his sex life. Even the Hong Kong triads put a hit of USD50,000 for one of Edisen's hand. Edisen is now in Canada and has refuse to return to Hong Kong. The elites tried to close down gutterspot by threatening lawsuits. The 1st Amendment protected the site. For this Malaysian scandal, Google somehow chose to aid those corrupted politicians by censoring free press. I wonder how much financial incentives are involve for Google to forget about the 1st Amendment.

I started using google when i found out that they defied the Justice Department's request of of turning in user records. All the other search engines complied with the request but Google. Google even decided to fight the case in Court. That convinced me to ditch Explorer for Chrome the moment Chrome came out. I believe in what Google stands for. Apparently Google has forgetten that Malaysians are one of the most internet savvy users on Earth and have the largest number of people surfing the net in South East Asia. I certainly do hope that Google will uphold the 1st Amendment by allowing the public to expose corrupt politicians from 3rd world countries. These politicians that Google is protecting are not only extremely corrupt, but also murderers. That scandal will be for another time.

You know the economy is really bad when ....

One of the most unimaginable thing happened two nights ago. I was doing my laundry and my clothes went missing from the dryer. The dryer at my apartment normally takes about 40 minutes to dry. Approximately 50 minutes after transfering my laundry to the dryer, i came down to check on the status of my clothing but was shocked to discover that my clothes were scattered on the top the dryer machine. The clothes weren't dryed and some of my clothes were gone including some of my CK underpants! Why would someone ever want to steal clothes from college kids especially SJSU college kids? The first thing that came to my mind was all the various garage sales that occur biweekly near my apartment. I've seen them selling clothes and i've always wonder how did they restock the clothes. Maybe i should check out the next sale to see if that conundrum is solved. 

This economy crisis is no doubt going to be worse than the great depression. Reputable economists had said that the best thing that could happen if the economy begins recovering at the end of 2010. Ford, GM, Toyota and many other manufacturing industries that are related to the auto industry have agreed that there will be no profits till the end of 2010. Warren Buffet has even said that the economy 'has fallen off the cliff' and the worst predictions that could happen are happening. Goldman Sachs and Dr. 'Doom' Roubini had said that our banking system would need > 3 trillion dollars. This is also the first economy crisis that cause the manufacturing industry from all over the globe to decline. All these and many more, yet our government is still not facing the truth and attempt to come out with solutions. So far the government is hoping that by dumping cash into the blackhole, the economy would recover miraculously when the time comes.  This is evident in the planning of the budgets. Just as Congress passed our 1st stimulus package, economic data had shown that the deterioration of the economy had made the objective of the stimulus moot. The idea of another stimulus is already being flooded to the public as test inputs. Even in California where the legislature took almost eternity to pass a budget to solve future state problems, the intend of the budget has become moot as the economy deteriorates beyond their negotiating expectations. With cuts in education, public transportation,and healthcare while raising sales tax by 1% to solve the mess, the economy had worsened in a week of passage and we faced a deficit once more. 

It's an irony that politicians can talk about how bad the economy will be in the future but when the time comes to present a solution, they suddenly have a changed of mind that the worst is over and a new beginning has arrive only to discover that the worst had yet to come and they have to go back to solving the budget crisis. This is the reason why the people are not trusting the government and view the government as incompetant. With the Democrats in control and they are known to advocate more government involvement, further attempting to follow through this current strategy will definitely hurt their cause as the more distrust to the government the people are, the worse the perception of big government will be. Not everyday Congress can pass a huge stimulus. It is time for the government to face the problems and not fiddle around by hoping that time will solve their problems.

Currency exchange during the Renassance

Till about 20 years ago, in England, human beings were taller during medieval times than in the 20th century. This was due to better health and diet. This could sound surprising but the cause of this is from the method of currency exchange being practiced at that period.  Our current system, the centralized currency, was invented during the Renassance period. The intent was to aid early chartered corporations and the monarchs, who gave them the monopoly. This just showed that the day corporations were founded, corruption and greed came with it. There were always two different systems of currency exchange that were active. The centralized system was normally used for foreign and long distance exchanges while as for local trades, a different currency was used.

The people will bring their harvest to a grain store and deposit them. In return they will get a receipt, which was the currency, where they can redeem something else in return at any other stores. But because grains will be lost due to rats and other unforseen circumstances, the value of the grain will depreciated overtime. This encourages the the population to spend and reinvest  the money as soon as possible. This is known as reinvesting with excess money from the present. For this reasons, cathedrals, roads, bridges and other infracstructures are being upgraded or built constantly. Since the currency is being back by a tangible commodity, towns and cities are able to redevelop and create value.  

The aristocracy were not happy with this system as their powers and influences were waning. They petitioned and finally got the monarch to ban local currencies and enforced the use of centralized currency. Centralized currency works by encouraging businesses to borrow from the central bank and then repaid back with interest. The effect was labor creating wealth for the banks and not for the people. Borrowing from the future to pay for the current. The banks then become richer than the value of combine goods. 95% of currency transactions today are made by currency speculators. Money is used to create wealth and not tangible goods such as technology creating the wealth. 

To prove the point, the measured economic output of the entire world in 2006 was around $47 trillion, while the total market capitalization of the world's stock markets was $51 trilion. The difference was just 10% when the value of the stock markets should have been at least double as the stock markets value reflects future profits. Investments were not targetted for future benefits. Lots of money were lost in speculations.The stock market is no different than gambling in a casino. You win the most when you lose the least!