Then he performed one final analysis: the Gross National Product of EverQuest, measured by how much wealth all the players together created in a single year inside the game. It turned out to be $2,266 per capita. By World Bank rankings, that made EverQuest richer than India, Bulgaria, or China, and nearly as wealthy as Russia.

Castronova sat back in his chair in his cramped home office, and the weird enormity of his findings dawned on him. Many economists define their careers by studying a country. He had discovered one.”

View the complete article here.

Original article located at http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2004.06-economics-game-theories/1/.

There are three conditions to owning a pub in England:

1. You have to purchase a license to sell alcohol
2. You are required to erect a stag’s head somewhere in the bar area
3. You need a cliché name

Let’s face it – when it comes to pub names in England, we’re not very creative. It only takes a 5 minute drive through any town to figure out the formula:

The < insert royal or significant title here >’s < insert a bodily part or accoutrement here >

This complicated algorithm results in a variety of choice, as shown by the random pub name below:

The

Sometimes, though, you find a pub that has referred to itself as a nonsensical combination of animals:

The and

What pair of drunken sods thought up this utter load of trollop? The question answers itself.

To end, here are a few real pubs and their locations in England:

• The Saracen’s Head, Broad Street, Bath
• Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, Brewhouse Yard, Nottingham (they claim to be England’s oldest pub)
• Bedford Arms, High Street, Bedford
• The Elephant and Castle, 12 Elgin Avenue, London
• The Queens Arms, 30 Queens Gate Mews, London
• The King’s Head Inn, The Green, Bledington, Oxfordshire

And, finally, The Rat & Parrot is actually an established pub with chains throughout England.

For some, it is a place of pain and misery, of endless struggle and excruciating agony. For others, it is a haven of self-betterment, the juice of Olympian strength from which only the most committed may drink.

It is… The Gym. Notice the capital ‘G’ – only a revered place of worship is worthy of such capitalisation.

Over time, I’ve come to notice that anyone who goes to the Gym can be categorised in to at least one of the following groups:

• The Newb

The Newb is a shy and reserved being. Not used to his new surroundings, he wanders the Gym flitting from machine to machine, but never actually gains the courage to use one lest he make a fool of himself. He will avoid all eye contact and finally retreat to the exercise bicycle where he feels most comfortable.

• The Defiant Weakling

You watch him carefully as he racks weight upon weight onto the bench press bar. You look at his physique then back at the humongous weights he’s attached and 1 + 1 does not add up to 2. You want to warn him and spare the Gym the disaster of last month’s Defiant Weakling, but decide it’s none of your business. A Narcissist (see below) then appears and explains in a arrogant manner that he ‘can’t possibly lift those weights, fool!’ Nevertheless, the Defiant Weakling remains… defiant, and fobs him off with a closed fist display. He lays himself nicely below the bar, gets comfy, and in a flurry of motion, throws his hand up to the bar, subconsciously hoping the momentum will make up for his lack of strength. The bar edges millimetres off its metal base, tilts precariously from side to side, and slowly, slowly, comes crashing down onto Defiant Weakling’s pelvic area, thus ‘delivering the blow’ to his chances of ever producing offspring. Ladies and gentleman, a Darwin Award please!

• The Cardio Nut

‘You gotta get pumped! You gotta sweat it out! You gotta move, move, move those legs, you know wh’ah’m sayin’?’ The Cardio nut will tell you before he makes an excuse to leave and jumps on the treadmill, sets the speed to 102 and zooms off. Any machines involving weights of any type will incur a snort of dismissal from the Cardio Nut. For the Cardio Nut, the treadmill is God’s gift to man, and the ONLY machine you’ll ever see him on.

• The Audiophile

Derived from Latin audire (“to hear”) and Greek philos (“loving”), the modern day gymgoing Audiophile is in love with hearing himself. Picture a quiet scene save for the occasional clinking of metal or rattling of pulleys, when all of a sudden you hear a deafening groan followed by a heavy intake of air. Activity then ceases in the Gym while all eyes turn towards the lone man in the corner, the Audiophile, who is currently busy lifting weights.

• The Narcissist

One who spends more time flexing in front of a mirror than sweating it out on a machine, the Narcissist will randomly stop in front of you, flex a bicep or two, shadily mutter something to the effect of ‘Oh, yeah…’ while nodding his head then move on to the next unsuspecting gymgoer. Their most famous pose is the constipated-face-with-upper-double-bicep-flex, but they have been known to produce a bent-knees-underarm-double-bicep-flex at times. Some Narcissists have the appearance to back up their flaunting, but most of them are victims of an inflated self-image.

• The Raging Bull

The Raging Bull is a towering, bulky figure that sees all in shades of red, and as his name suggests, launches a ferocious attack on everything around him. Ridder of Newbs, archenemy of Narcissists, and obliterator of Audiophiles, the Raging Bull can lift mountainous weights with his little pinky and break a steel bar in half without warning. Whether this is due to an indulgence in steroids or not is unknown as few are willing to confront him for fear of agitating his already crumbling humanity.

A commonly seen mutation of the Raging Bull is the Lumbering Giant, who is similar in every aspect except for the intense rage.

Of course, normal people go to the Gym too…

The problem with this method of shoving information down one’s throat is that students become immune to the examinations. An exam no longer poses a threat as it becomes so frequent, and, I’ve had this experience personally, one eventually ends up walking into the exam hall so fed up and saturated with information that he no longer cares about the outcome of the exam.

There is one advantage, though, of this system: it splits the year’s syllabus into smaller parts which the student can handle, and repeatedly exposes them to the material. That’s the theory anyway. Most Choueifatis end up studying at the last minute right up until the very last second when their Physics books have to be wrenched from their hands by the supervisor at the entrance to the exam hall.

• The Perfect Exam

This is the sort of exam that a Choueifati dreams of the night before a weekly. You’ve done your studying, you look at the paper, and can’t help but chuckle as you read it. As you skim past question after question, you realise the pen is doing all the work for you while your mind is occupied with thoughts of a calm, sunny morning, birds chirping joyfully in the trees. It’s an exam made in heaven. This type of exam usually stays in one’s dreams, however…

• The Good Exam

Good exams are just that – good. You studied relatively well, and you got the mark you deserved. Every exam taker is expected to have a good exam. How boring…

• The Borderline Exam

Probably the most common exam among Choueifat students, the borderline exam is a half-hearted attempt to gain a passing mark (which is usually 60%). A hand supports your slumped head as you stare with disinterest into your exam paper. You casually discover a few Basic Questions (these are questions given to a student beforehand which will appear as 60% of the total marks in the exam) and half-answer them, recalling only bits and pieces from the previous night. With ten minutes to go, like a scavenger collecting minuscule, barely edible morsels of food, you write down formulas and simplify answers in a pitiful attempt to gain an extra quarter of a mark here or there. The end result is a near fail or a near pass.

• The Hellish Exam

DISASTER! Last night was spent watching TV, playing video games, doing the dishes – anything to get out of studying – and now you’re paying for it. You hesitantly shuffle into the exam hall, and crash into your seat with a BOOM. As the seconds tick away, the weight of your guilt is bearing down more and more heavily upon you, making it increasingly difficult to breathe. The supervisor is saying something about your exam, but in your delirious state, you can’t quite tell where his voice is coming from. You frantically glance from one end of the hall to the other, but everything is a blur. Squinting hard, through your sweat-ridden face, you can just make out the shape of the person in front of you. As you take in your last deep breath before you faint, another BOOM sounds, throwing you back into reality. The supervisor has delivered a swift blow to the back of your head, ‘WAKE UP!’

• The Wonky Exam

Also known as the ‘Huh?’ and the ‘WTF?’ exam, the Wonky Exam is a result of the higher powers playing with you for their own cruel amusement. Spent the night cramming the information in to no avail? Certain you’re going to fail? And then comes the jaw-dropping look of dumbness on your face as the teacher hands you an outstanding mark in the class. The opposite case also applies: studying well in advance, comfortably flying through the exam, and walking to class confident and smiling until a failing mark finds itself on your table.

Don’t be fooled, though! Some students may use the Wonky Exam as an excuse. A noticeable type is one that claims to you and those around you before the exam that he ‘will fail so badly’. His mark, however, will tell a different story, but in response to the accusing looks, he’ll shrug his shoulders and claim, ‘I don’t know how it happened… I didn’t study at all.’ Classmates will scoff, knowing full well that he spent the entirety of last week studying.

First of all, I’m not Scottish – I don’t have ginger hair, I don’t speak like William Wallace, and I can assure you, I am wearing boxers under that kilt (a pair that matches my kilt in fact). And the rumours are true by the way: real Scotsmen don’t wear anything under their kilts (how I came by this piece of information I cannot say) and the ventilation provided by a kilt is very satisfying.

One day at the school I go to, I was waddling about at lunch time, when this kid comes up to me and asks, ‘Excuse me, but aren’t you the guy on hi5 wearing the skirt?’ What an entertaining question, to which I replied, ‘Yes, I am,’ smiling slightly of course. I personally couldn’t give a rat’s arse whether it looks like a woman’s skirt or not as long as it’s comfortable and I can have a laugh while wearing it. The only time you’ll catch me wearing it, though, is at Cultural Day. But who knows? New Year’s Eve is coming up…