Sunday, December 23, 2007

Maybe there IS a beatific scheme

So I used to write book reviews for Amazon.com. I know, I know, so does everyone but I got paid and didn't use stars and mine were under the "editorial review" section. One of the more popular ones I did was Freakanomics. Since I wrote that review, and subscribed to a Google alert for my own name (haven't you? you should), I see it pop up on loads of small sites trying to sell the book as Amazon affiliates.

My original review can be found here.

But today, I ran across this one, which apparently translated into some other language and then re-translated back to English. And it's got my name on it. So if you ever wondered what it would sound like if I reviewed books after a fairly traumatic head injury, or was Borat, I suspect it would read like this:

Economics is not widely thoughtful to be digit of the sexier sciences. The period philanthropist Prize succeeder in that earth never receives as much message as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if much slights are supported on the idea that economics is dull, or that economists are afraid exclusive with direction itself, Steven D. Levitt module modify whatever minds. In Freakonomics (written with author J. Dubner), Levitt argues that whatever manifest mysteries of routine chronicle don’t requirement to be so mysterious: they could be light and prefabricated modify more fascinating by asking the correct questions and art connections. For example, Levitt traces the modify in ferocious evildoing rates to a modify in ferocious criminals and, dig further, to the Roe v. Wade selection that preempted the cosmos of whatever grouping who would be dropped to impoverishment and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing accumulation concentrated from inner-city metropolis drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a joint scheme much same McDonald’s, where the crowning bosses attain enthusiastic money patch scores of underlings attain something beneath peak wage. And in a country that haw signal or assuage worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don’t rattling concern much and that a backyard tearful bet is much more chanceful than a gun. These instructive chapters are distributed by demonstrative passages from Dubner’s 2003 strikingness of Levitt in The New royalty Times Magazine, which led to the aggregation existence written. In a aggregation filled with brave logic, much back-patting veers Freakonomics, still briefly, absent from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there’s a beatific scheme think for that too, and we’re meet not effort it yet. –John Moe

2 comments:

RollerKaty said...

I've read Freakanomics but I don't remember it sounding anything like that... this is pretty funny :)

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of an email game a buddy and I play...

First, you take the english lyrics to a popular song and plug em in to babelfish and translate to, let's say, french... then you translate the french to spanish, then back to english.

Forward the lyrics to a friend and see if they can guess the song, through the simple poetry of badly translated language.

Hilarity ensues, or something