Electrophotonic Timesinks

photo credit: Per Foreby

Yesterday at work, as I was exchanging my 20 krona note for two 10 krona coins in the changing machine, in order to buy a 17 krona ice cream from the vending machine for my sore throat, the following occurred to me.

Since I can only use the coins in the machine, they are actually more valuable to me than the note. Following this line of thought, two ten krona coins should NOT equal one twenty krona note, but instead, say, 22 kronas in note-money. It’s obvious a system like this must be implemented immediately! So what will happen? I Am Not an Economist, but I gave it some thought over a couple of beers, and here’s my take on it.

• As soon as this law is announced, people would immediately start trading in their notes to coins. Actually, no, this is silly. The extra 10% would hardly justify the weight of the coins.
• The ice cream would cost 15 kr instead of 17… though its more likely no one would bother to adjust the prices, for PROFIT and INFLATION.
• It’d be impossible to actually exchange a twenty krona note and two krona coins to two ten krona coins properly, as the total value would be OVER 22kr (the two coins being worth more). OH MAN SO CONFUSING.
• Essentially, we’d get two separate currencies with exchange rates between them. Prices still have to be given in totals of course, and if kronas on coins start being more valuable than their paper counterparts, we’d have to have two different currencies to pay for stuff over 20 kr. We could call the currencies KOCs (kronas on coins) and KOPs (kronas on paper), ‘cuz, you know, it sounds funny. Lets say the price of more expensive stuff would be given in KOPs. You’d then pay up to near that amount in KOPs, then divide the rest by 1,1 and pay that in KOCs. Meanwhile, prices for stuff cheaper than what we now call 20kr would only have to be given in KOCs.
• Some smartass would put out an iPhone app that made it a lot easier to pay with a mixture of the two currencies, and he’d get super rich.

Finally, when people tire of this stupid system we’d either abolish coins or abolish physical currency altogether.

OR they could just put note slots on all the vending machines.

Hello! Welcome to my brand new Wordpress blog. I created this not only as a blog per se, but also as a public archive for my writings, so please excuse the mad diversity of the subject matter. You can find me at LJ too, but all public posts there will be posted here first, so don’t bother!

I’m an aerospace engineering student at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, in Stockholm, Sweden, but this subject is, unfortunately for my studies, not what’s on my mind most of the time.

Instead, the main topics of this blog, at least of the time of writing, are

• Music – I’m a huge fan of old school electronic music and the sound of analog synthesizers, so there will be articles about the hardware as well as the old legends in the genre. I will also post about cool new songs and bands I find.
• Photography – Here too, I find the grittyness and unpredictability of analog more interesting than digital. Cross-processed shots, reviews of toy cameras, and tips & tricks will be posted here.

The corny name of the blog says it all, doesn’t it? However, as I’m a man of way too many hobbies and interests, expect regular updates in the following categories as well.

• Linux and free software – Installing Arch Linux and getting to grips with the command line in the summer of 2008 was the beginning of a downward spiral of geekyness. Tutorials, reviews and everything else relating to this goes here.
• Gaming - I’ve had loads of consoles through the years, but I’m a PC gamer at heart, and a nostalgic one at that. Here I might highlight new and old games that have caught my interest. Board games go here as well, just don’t expect tired old Monopoly.
• Hardware – Whether it’s obsessing over a new phone OS or performing a dirty hardware hack on an old computer, this is a pretty bad timesink for me. Of course I’m going to write about it!

And last but certainly not least

• The Pirate Movement -  Thoughts and ideas about copyright, personal integrity go into this category, as well as stuff relating to my activities in the Swedish Pirate Party.

There will also be personal updates, mostly in English but sometimes in Swedish, tagged accordingly.

I still need to work a bit on the layout and such, but hopefully I’ll have more content up in just a couple of days. First up are some way too long raves on electronic music I wrote back in the winter of 07/08 for my LJ. Boy can I get obsessed about certain subjects…

Oh, and the background image rotates every hour. See if you can catch them all (and give me page views!!).