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On Tuesday I also visited the Dick Bruna house, dedicated to a guy who draw a retarded looking bunny called "Miffy". I don't get it.
How my university tries to protect against moral hazard
Examinations here are so slack: there is no fixed seating arrangement, and you can bring in food and drink.
I saw a man in a blue skirt, red stockings and golden shoes. Wah.
I bought a 330ml can of Schweppes Cream Soda for €0.80. Meanwhile a 330ml can of Heineken cost €1. No wonder people here drink so much.
I finally saw a Segway in the flesh (or in the metal). Of all things, it was a moving ad for AMD.
For some reason, my blasted phone keeps loading the T-mobile GPRS site automatically despite my locking the keypad, costing me €0.15 each time (€0.30 in all). I had to manually change the address to an invalid one.
I should go to a DVD store, ask for Eurotrip and see what happens.
Dear Walls, in keeping with its tradition of having a different name in each country, is called "Ola" here. Wikipedia has a full listing. The number of names for "Heartbrand" ice cream is really shocking.
I saw a car with many white splotches on it. There were so many, and they were so well-spaced out along the car's body, that I was inclined to think that it was a piece of modern art rather than bird shit. This is even worse than most Greek cars.
Buskers crooning to guitars are passe. I saw this guy playing a xylophone to the Barber of Seville Overture blaring in the background.
There's something to be said for not giving up without a fight during a war, but sometimes resistance at all costs just doesn't make any sense. In World War II, the Dutch hadn't surrendered to the Germans despite overwhelming odds and obviously having lost. As a demonstration of their power, the Germans then bombed Rotterdam to smithereens, which is why the city is so modern today, and threatened to do the same to Utrecht and Amsterdam. No doubt die-hard nationalists would advocate fighting on until the last Dutch was killed, but then while the German occupation lasted for only 5 years, the loss of the old buildings of Rotterdam (including the house of Erasmus) was for eternity. A defiant gesture of resistance is hardly worth destroying your cultural heritage for.
Seen in the window of a shop: Laughing Vampire Gothic Clothing
For the first time, I've seen a non-sleeveless wedding outfit - over the traditional getup was a long-sleeved bolero.
I was wondering what was so special about the Superkroket that the place at the train station sold, so I bought one. I think so far I'd only had satekrokets, which under the thick crispy shell are about half-filled with filling having the consistency of pus and a very undistinctive taste (they taste better than they sound). Biting into the Superkroket, I found that it had very little air, and tasted very strongly of meat. It even had visible bits of meat in it. Unfortunately, the meat was beef so I was able to stomach only 2/3 of the foul-smelling kroket. The kalfsvlees krokets aren't much better either. I think I'll stick to sate.
Quotes:
[On someone advertising something] Whenever I listen to the radio, I hear the commericals. 'To find out more, visit this website. www.*babbles*'... I have no idea what the website is even though he said it twice.
[On human capital] Raw labour - People showing up without any intellectual baggage.
[On extending a model] You can breathe a sigh of relief... Finally we get to the real stuff.
This is all very interesting, but I assume you guys are only interested in one thing - next week's midterm.
[On imitation vs innovation] This is a model which a lot of countries in Southeast Asia have chosen. Instead of innovating, they've said: Let's just take the technology, and do it cheaper. It's been very successful.
[On (1 + ge)(1 + gl) - 1 ~= ge + gl] Most Economists are lazy, so they just use this.
You can see in the 70s, there was a great slowdown in productivity growth. 'The great productivity growth slowdown' - that's not the original name.
me crow was terrible (micro)
This is the only question I will not spell out. Because... I have to take some rest for the b part of the question (present the answers to in full, part b)
A mountain in the Netherlands? We have one... [Student: How hig his it? One hundred metres?] Dree honderd. [Translation: 300]
[On het/de and noun matching] It's so stupid. How are we supposed to learn? [Teacher: Use your head] It makes no sense. (memory)
[On Dutch] It's a tricky language. [Teacher: It's nice]
[On eyeballing technology] It's a dirty trick Weil uses. He looks at India and goes: Oh, they're 10 years behind the US.
Does this happen only in faraway countries? No. This is one of my favourite slides in the course. Examples of Dutch rent-seeking.
Lobbying the arts committee for a subsidy. Which is what most artists in this country do. They should be out there creating art.
[On underemployment] If you try to talk to your local cable guy and tell him they should not only open their office on Friday from 9-12, but the entrie weekend, he'll look at you like you're crazy. You tell him he's being underemployed and unproductive.
[On blocking technology] And of course the cultural arguments which the French like to throw out... If you end the subsidies the typical French farmer will no longer exist.
