A friend writes: My girlfriend was in the Hamptons and could not get into a particular bar because she said that their strategy has gone from letting as many hot girls into the bar to letting as many guys in. It struck me as perhaps a change in thinking. Hot places in Vegas and Atlantic City still let a disproportionate . . .
Levitt discusses poverty and wage issues raised in writer-turned-New York cop Edward Conlon’s book, “Blue Blood.”
Studies show that individual CEOs and baseball managers have less of an effect on their organization’s performance than conventional wisdom assumes. So couldn’t the same logic be applied to the President?
Levitt discusses Louis Michaud, whose attempts to create tornadoes and harness their power as electricity may point us in the right direction towards creating a global warming solution.
More on Dubner and Levitt’s discussion of work v. leisure: Stitch ‘N Pitch, a group of knitters at baseball games
While VH1 debuts a reality show on picking up women, researchers gather data on the psychology of retaining your partner once she’s safely hooked.
A reader inquires why weather and infrastructure disasters are treated so differently from terrorist attacks.
Dubner weighs in on Google News’ new feature, which allows the subjects of news articles to comment on the pieces about them.
Levitt responds to the fiery criticism of his previous post, “If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?”
Watch Dubner’s “Good Morning America” appearance from Wednesday, Aug. 8, in case you missed it the first time.
“Mad Money” host Jim Cramer will submit to a reader Q&A, so bring your questions.
A roundtable discussion about panhandling featuring, among others, Arthur Brooks, Tyler Cowen, and Barbara Ehrenreich.
Levitt commends U.S. News and World Reports writer James Pethokoukis for his analysis of the faulty economics used by the Democratic Presidential candidates during their televised debate.
We hear you. And we are trying to work out a solution. There have been a lot of changes in the migration to NYTimes.com, there are a lot of details to work out, and things don’t always move fast. Thanks for your patience.
Dubner discusses an excellent article in the New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, a former illegal immigrant who is now the director of the brain-tumor stem-cell laboratory at Johns Hopkins.
After announcing our “Who will pitch home run No. 756 to Barry Bonds” contest winner, Dubner muses on whether the fateful pitch will prove good or bad for Nationals pitcher Mike Bacsik’s career.
In the wake of changes in airport security technology, Levitt lists his own ideas for a fear-maximizing terror plot, and solicits other ideas from readers as a means of bringing possible scenarios into discussion before they actually happen.
Dubner puts his foot in his mouth by accidentally insulting a stand-up comedian he met at a New Orleans conference.
For the next several hours, while this blog undergoes some rehabilitation — no, not that kind of rehabilitation; we are fine, thanks — comments will be shut down. If all goes well, this condition won’t last past nightfall (in New York)..
The 2005 Hurricane season was the most active and destructive in recorded history. The devastation from hurricanes like Katrina, Rita, and Wilma was powerful evidence that man-made global warming had triggered an onslaught of unforeseen consequences — at least, that was the way the media tended to portray it. Maybe I am wrong, but I think the current focus on . . .
We got an e-mail the other day from a certain Sara in Chicago. She had a question about the virtual world Second Life, but it could be asked of many pursuits, virtual and otherwise. (Even though I’ve never visited Second Life, I have been thinking about this issue lately since I have become a gold farmer for my own kids, . . .
If all goes as planned, I will be appearing on Good Morning America tomorrow (Wed., 8/8 — lucky in China!) at about 8:30 a.m. EDT to talk about this very blog, and to announce a fairly significant change. Hope to see you there. As one result of this change, comments on the blog will be temporarily suspended today, starting in . . .
On August 7, 1987, Lynne Cox swam the Bering Strait; no word on whether she was then asked to submit a urine test.
We recently solicited your questions about street gangs for Sudhir Venkatesh, the then-grad student we wrote about in Freakonomics who is now a professor of sociology at Columbia. His answers are, IMHO, fascinating. Your questions were really good, too; thanks. Venkatesh will publish a book, Gang Leader for a Day, in early 2008. Q: Do you think the HBO series . . .
A few months ago, I attended yet another boring Knicks game at Madison Square Garden. This time, at least something good came of it. I met a guy named Weber Hsu, one of two young Merrill Lynch employees who left finance to start a yo-yo company, Yo-Yo Nation. Weber asked if we wanted them to create a special promotional Freakonomics . . .
I grew up just a few miles from the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis. We were a family that was terrified of heights. At least once a month, my father would mention how he thought a bridge over the Mississippi was going to collapse. We would be calling him Nostradamus today, except that his doomsday prediction was about a different . . .