Want to know what a stimulus package-sized pile of money looks like? This blog will show you. It’s pretty eye-opening. The picture above is of a pile of $100 bills: a million dollars worth. Doesn’t look like much, does it? Next time I see someone with a messenger bag I’ll wonder if they have $1m stuffed in it.
Nicola Griffith 
I < HREF="http://mordicai.livejournal.com/1658153.html" REL="nofollow">made a post<> in response to this; mostly I feel that “how much is a trillion dollars?” is a weird, meaningless bit of false context– as if “how tall a stack of dollar bills would be” is important to economics.
I think that is pretty cool. Interesting to find out about that Google software the guy used to make it too. I definitely thought a million in 100’s would be bigger than that. I’m relieved to know it will be easy for me to stick a couple mil in my carry on bag when I decide to leave the country suddenly. :)I didn’t find it meaningless <>Mordicai<>, nor did I hear/read anyone suggest it was going to change the economic climate or anything like that. I do think that a trillion dollars is an amount of money (of anything) that is hard to visualize/conceptualize. Of course it doesn’t matter how much physical space it would take up (unless you need to get a whole ‘nother < HREF="http://asknicola.blogspot.com/2008/11/bouncy-house-for-apocalypse.html" REL="nofollow">bouncy house<> to store it in after the apocalypse, but in that case, better buy some gold instead), but I do think it’s helpful to see it in relationship to the other amounts.And besides, it’s just fun.
Well, of course it’s meaningless. That’s the point. We just can’t grasp numbers like that. (Some theories reckon we can’t grasp numbers higher than six, not really.) Money is a gigantic game–with sometimes deadly serious consequences. But this post is about pure *size* nothing else.
6 bits of info isn't the same as the number of six– that is the problem with that whole thing– it has some legs to it, except I think 6 “heuristics” would be a better way to phrase it. Anyhow; yeah, of course a trillion is a lot, but this meme (Daily Show had a nice montage of all the Fox et al people talking about how tall a trillion dollars would be– & by “et al” I mean also, Republican congresspeople) being used to undermine the stimulus package with sticker shock really gets under my skin.
I don’t watch current affairs or new programmes or anything like that on TV (just drama and occasionally comedy, animated and live action) so I was unaware of the meme.I thinks news programming is destructive and depressing.I was/am fascinated by the money/size/numbers issue. Right now I find politics of any kind utterly uninteresting. The reference to the stimulus package was partly because the phrase itself has caught my attention. Who thought the words ‘stimulus’ and ‘package’ would be found in so many straight commentors’ mouths?
My friend posited a better question in response to this: What does one dollar look like?I like to pay attention to politics so I can devise a radical response to it. Note that when I say radical I don't really mean it in the “college kids in bandit masks” sort of way it sounds.Television gets a bad rap, if you ask me. It is one of the dominant art forms of this part of history– people who proudly say they don't watch television sound to me like people hating on the Globe theater because it lets the groundlings in. These days I watch BSG, Batman: The Brave & the Bold, Best Week Ever, Dollhouse, How I Met Your Mother, Solitary 3.0, Big O, America's Next Top Model, & probably some others. Having DVR really makes television WORK? I never sit down to watch something I don't want to (unless Jenny is watching something I don't want to, that is)
I pay attention to politics–I read the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and a few blogs–but I despise any kind of ‘news’, ‘business’ ‘talkshow’ or ‘reality’ TV. Too much noise, not enough signal. Your mileage may vary.And, yes, without TiVo I might not watch TV at all–I get precisely what I want, when I want it, and I can skip the commercials.Right now I’m looking forward to the 2 hr spectacular series finale of BSG. I really, really hope they don’t fuck up.
I am ancient enough that being able to watch moving pictures with sound in your own livingroom is still magic, if you still regard it as art and don’t expect meaning. However, a little goes a long way. Money is imaginary until you don’t have enough and start searching the pockets of clothes you haven’t worn for a year hoping you have forgotten a quarter or a penny.Isn’t it good to look up from working hard in your own room and see snow falling?