2 euros 75

Just an other irreverent economics student blog. A French blogging in English or an English writing in French, it is not decided yet.

Interesting persons have interesting blogs

I'm wondering if blogging is for everybody. I mean, blogging and having a readership.

Having an interesting content is not allow to everyone. Journalists, researchers have informations very few people have, or they have informations before everyone else. As a consequence, they can easily be famous bloggers. The fact is that they bring something new to the readers. This is the only way to attrack and keep the readership.

On the other hand, we have the random guy. But the problems come quickly:
1. who the hell cares about what is he writing? His friends, his family but it is never going to reach a large audience.
2. his interesting stuffs are just cribbed from somewhere else. This somewhere else has more precise informations, more specialized informations because it is the source.

The relieving point is that one person never has the best sources. The blogger always know something more than the reader. But how long can the blogger hides its readership his sources?

Discriminative intuitions -2-

Making explicite the pros and the cons of being racist.

Trame :
Vous vous appelez L., vous vivez tranquillement dans un univers parfait. Votre but dans la vie, c'est de réussir votre vie. Pour y parvenir, il vous faut tisser une toile sociale afin de multiplier vos opportunités de réussite.

Elément perturbateur :
X cherche à vous assassiner pour une raison inconnue ; le but étant de ne pas se faire avoir tout réussissant votre vie le mieux possible.

Entire article here.

Why are we seeking for more traffic?

The other day I was adding my blog to different search engines, and abruptly stopped:

Why the hell am I trying so pitifully to promote my blog?

When I was 14, I enjoyed fiddling with HTML, FrontPage, Dreamweaver, Flash. With a friend we built up our webpage and our first thought was to promote it. I do not remember very well why, perhaps we were proud of it and wanted everyone to aknowledge our webdesigner skill. Once again, it was not a target we were really conscious about.

In 2001, same refrain. I had an online art portfolio and promote it without really knowing why. I think it was because I wanted people to confirm me that I was a good draughtman.

Few days ago, the same whim. I am not trying to earn money thanks to my blog, I am not looking for fame to be famous...

Question: Is there really a reason to spend our time promoting for our blog if not for fame or money?

Looking for debates? forums are more appropriates; to show-off my skill? There are easier ways; to meet people? There are better solutions too; and so on.

Some hypothesis:

1. To forge ourself an identity through the web
On the web we are anonymous and you need an ID. It does not explain why we want to be known by the others. IRL, we do not go to talk to everyone to tell them our name, do we? Self promotion does not seem very natural from that standpoint.

2. A glimmer -- more or less avow of hope to be one day famous -- or not to have the impression that we are speaking to a wall
Does not seem to cost a lot of time to promote for a website. Spending 5-10 minutes everyday.

3. We want our own thing
A forum belongs to everyone; if you own your own blog you are the master of puppets. You can say what you want, moderate the comments etc.

4. ?

Next post: Discriminative intuitions -2-

Discriminative intuitions -1-

In an old post I talked about 'chosifier'; with a blog I (have to) weight my words. Even if there is no one to read me there is the possibility that some wanderers land over here. This possibility, although infinitesimal, cannot be neglected. That is why when I blog I do it as though I have a readership.

When I write to post my blog I have the fear that someone might be reading me, so every word I write are questioned again. I think twice before I post it on my blog, and this is important because in life I never think twice as far as I did not notice that I am mistaken; when I noticed that I am mistaken it is often too late.

Here's a funny spillover of such a behaviour.

Few days ago, my younger brother -- who is 13 -- came back home with the face teared to shreds. He was beaten up but 3 Arabs. After mumbling about how to react? or at least how to avoid such a tragic event to happened again, I the virulent speech of Isabelle de N. Isabelle came to my mind. Isabelle de N. is an aristocrat -- a young countess. I have a very few affinity with her but that the moment at was quite in agreement with her. Here are fragments of a tirade of her.

The Arabs are thieves by culture. Set aside our courtesy and let's speak frankly. They do not have the same conception of private property as we do. No one talks about it aloud but everyone says it softly…. In their country they have no rights, if they came to France it is to do they cannot do at home… A gentleman would tell me that I am wrong; but have a look at the statistics and tell me who is wrong.

Arabian culture is more savage, they do not conceive of private property as we do. They are more tolerant about it [stealing]. They steal, they bark, they have stupid beliefs; they are not civilized at all.

Arabians are like the ivies... They are bacteria gnawing the purity of our race. Most of them are not only useless but also harmful to our society. We are just incompatible. It is impossible for us to live together. They are the gangrene of our species; we have to do something about them before it is too late.

An extrapolated interpretation would be 'they have to be put in quarantine then eliminated at a stroke.'

As a non-French, I was used to hate such kind of unjustified passionate racist speech, but I could not get rid of the terrible image of this little boy who is my brother. Little by little, I was starting to find some arguments that prove her right.

Usually, I do not classified people by species. When I was in elementary school, Dimitri C. (a kid of Martinique) or Yoni N. (a Jew) often manhandled me. I did not hate the people of Martinique nor the Jewish. I did not see Yoni as an Untermensch nor Dimitri as a nigger… As a child, you do not have prejudices solid enough have such a perception of life.

If there were no one to consider what I was thinking of, I would for sure have gone for something very close to Isabelle's speech. The first and main reason why I did not do it is because it would be a single ticket to the closure of this blog.

Translation in French here.

Next post: Why are we seeking for more traffic?

3 bad aspects of France

1/ Internet providers versus consumers
Before, there were few big Internet providers that were competiting, they were trying to eat the biggest market share. So we, consumers, often had upgrades and lots of improvements. Now, even though there are more Internet providers, they all practice the same prices and propose the same services.

2/ French versus English
France is one of the countries in Europe that speak English the worst. Indeed, try to propose a product with without an instruction translated in French and your sells will drop. What's more, commodities without instructions translated in French are prohibited since about a decade. As a result, lots of product are not available in France, you have to import and outch the wallet bites.

3/ Education
France's educational system is kinda poor. Thanks to the socialist system, the universities are not too bad, and consequently they are not very good either. The good school are extremely rare, so the places are very few. Only the best of the best of the best are admitted. It is a shame for those who would not be admitted because a lot of students desert better schools or at least schools more adapted to their level than the mediocre ones but there is just no -- places.

Things one should absolutely avoid

'One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.' – Oscar Wilde.

I'll take the example of painting.

Painting as a leisure is not the same as painting as a professional. As a pro, there are constraints. You can do all what you want, you have deadlines, you have restrictions of colours, you have a bunch of rules to respect. Moreover, if the rules are hard to respect you won't get paid better. An artist is not paid owing to the degree if satisfaction it procures the artist. As a result whether you make a picture you like or a picture you do not, it's the same tariff. There is first and foremost a problem of incentives.

Second thing is that as a pro you have to paint again, again and again. Tired or not. And like everything, if you always do the same thing day and night, day and night it will end up with annoy you.

If you want to enjoy an activity at its fullest; moderation the word you have to keep in mind.