make money money money

One of the many perks of studying in Denmark is that I don't really need a job. After serving almost a 3 year sentence at H&M, I finally have my freedom from the repressive world of retail. The only problem is that everything in Copenhagen is expensive and I spent too much money in Italy. So while I don't need a job it would sure be nice to have one.

Instead I have to be a little resourceful with how to make money. Since prostitutes need to pay taxes here that's out the window. Since selling my body is not an option, I will sell my dignity in its place.

I write articles on occasion for an English language newspaper in Copenhagen. The pay is decent, the articles are not required to be too long, and I occasionally get free stuff. A few weeks ago I took a friend to see an opera that was absolutely terrible. So I have that going for me.

Tomorrow I am going to some sort of economics conference. I think I may get some free food out of it and I only have to write a 500 word article. I also get extra money because this is going in the real part of the newspaper not the weekly entertainment guide I usually write for.

In another effort to earn some money last week I participated in an economic experiment. It was simple game theory. Essentially you get 20 points at the start of each round and you have a choice to invest some in the group pot or to hoard some in your private account. You get to keep whatever you put in your private account but everything in the group account has a multiplier that splits between the 5 people in your group. That means if all 5 people put 20 points in the group pot then everyone gets 40 points. If everyone keeps there own you only keep your 20, and of course you can put any varying amount that in turn reflects how much you keep and how much everyone else gains. There were different rules for each round but that was the essence of the experiment.

John Nash would have said some anti-Semitic shit if he saw this experiment. Anyone that is a near functional-retard can tell that if you put all of your points in the pot and everyone else does too then you make a lot of money. Every 5 points are worth 1kr, and 5kr is about 1 dollar. Assuming everyone played the smart way you would end up with about 45 dollars. NOPE!

I should had known there were going to be problems when it started. The experiment is suppose to last 2 hours. At the beginning of the 1st round you have to answer some basic math questions to show you understand how the experiment works. These were 4th grade level problems. And yet it took about 15 minutes for all 25 people to answer them before the experiment could begin. Then after the 1st round concluded we had to answer 10 more questions because they added two new types of rules. Another 20 minute wait. At the end of the experiment which had already run long by about 20 minutes (i.e. they accounted for how stupid people could be by making the experiment longer than necessary AND THE IDIOTS STILL TOOK TOO LONG) they asked us some more really easy math questions.

1. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
2. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
3. In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?

I am pretty sure the people that designed the experiment just copied/pasted these from the same website I just google'd it from.

I ended up earning a little less than 30 dollars. I spent that money on beer and cigarettes.

While I haven't done so yet due to a nagging cold, I am also planning on participating in a medical experiment. They take some blood, give you a vaccine for something, and then you just have to come back a few weeks later and give some more blood. It's worth 50 dollars to them which is better than what the Red Cross gives me for twice as much blood (who wants free ice cream over 50 dollars?)

Except for the money that I spend on alcohol the rest of these earnings are being saved so I can afford to travel. Just through my newspaper gig alone I've earned enough to cover the cost of airfare for my eastern European excursion. The best part is all of this is 100% better than any single day I have ever worked at H&M, Best Buy, Office Depot or Albertsons because I have not had to deal with one single fucking customer.