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Posts Tagged ‘Contest’

Join the Think Like a Freak Book Club — and Win an Autographed Copy!

Our new book, Think Like a Freak, has just been published and we’d like to talk about it with you. So we are forming the Think Like a Freak Book Club.

How does it work? You write in your questions/comments/complaints in the comments section below and we’ll respond to some of them in our podcast. For now, we’re planning to do three episodes of the Book Club. (But if you know us even a little bit, you know we won’t be afraid to quit after one if it doesn’t work out!) Since there are nine chapters in the book, let’s start with  questions that pertain to Chapter 1, 2, and 3 of Think. Those are: “What Does It Mean to Think Like a Freak?,” “The Three Hardest Words in the English Language,” and “What’s Your Problem?”

If we choose your question for the podcast, we’ll send you a signed copy of Think Like a Freak or a limited edition Think Like a Freak t-shirt. Thanks!


And the Think Like a Freak Swag Goes to …

Last week, we offered some Think Like a Freak swag to the reader who came up with the best answer to the question “What Are the Three Hardest Words to Say?” Your answers were so good (and plentiful!) that we decided to choose three winners, each of whom can have their pick of a signed copy of our new book or a Think Like a Freak t-shirt. (If you didn’t win, there’s another contest going on right now.)

Winner No. 1 is Kris Fletcher, the first (of many) to provide the same answer we provide in the book: “I don’t know.”

Winner No. 2 is Bob S., who plainly gets the spirit of the Levitt-Dubner collaboration, with “Good point, Dubner.”

And Winner No. 3 is Jake. While a lot of people answered “I was wrong,” Jake had a similar take but opted for “I’ve no excuse,” making a case for why that’s even tougher than “I was wrong”:

“I was wrong” seems to be a common phrase people are mentioning, but I think admitting you are wrong is easy if you don’t have to admit that your inner processes were wrong. All the time, you hear people say something like, “Oh, I was wrong about that, but I didn’t have the data I needed at the time.” Very rarely do you hear someone take full blame for their actions without at least assigning partial blame elsewhere. Admitting that you and you alone were in the wrong is much harder.


Think Like a Freak Is Out Today — Win a Signed Copy Here!

Today’s the day: Think Like a Freak has just been published. Levitt and I will spend a lot of the next few weeks doing interviews for various TV, radio, print, web, and other media outlets. So how about we spice things up a bit and, at the same time, give you the chance to win a signed copy? (Winners of last week’s giveaway contest will be announced later today.)

Here’s the deal: in the comments section below, enter a word or short phrase that you’d like us to slip into one of our interviews. If we use your secret phrase, you win a signed copy of Think Like a Freak (or, if you prefer, a Think t-shirt).


Win a Think Like a Freak T-Shirt or Signed Copy: What Are the Three Hardest Words to Say?

In our forthcoming Think Like a Freak, the second chapter is called “The Three Hardest Words in the English Language.”

I’m not going to tell you here what we argue are the three hardest words to say (although you can find out pretty easily by glancing at the Table of Contents). I want to know what you think are the three hardest words for people to say, especially in public. And by “hard,” I am not talking about pronunciation, although I guess I’m not not talking about pronunciation either.

The best answer that is left in the comments — as voted by a secret quorum of Freaks — will win you a signed copy of Think Like a Freak or a new Think t-shirt, your choice.


Another $1,000 at Stake in the Gneezy-List Book Title Experiment

A couple weeks ago, Uri Gneezy and John List asked our blog readers to come up with titles for their new book.  And our readers did not disappoint!  There were over 400 suggestions, many of them brilliant.

The authors and their editors have now narrowed it down to five choices, and they once again are asking for your help in deciding on the final title.  There is no better way to solicit that input than — you guessed it — a field experiment.  To get you interested, they are putting up another $1,000 in prizes to participants.

The rules are simple: You go here and answer  two simple questions.

First, you will be asked to choose which of the five titles you think will be the most popular among all the respondents.  They don’t want to know your favorite title, they want to know the title you think other people will like best.


Here’s Your Chance to Name a (Soon-to-Be) Best-Selling Book and Win $1,000

 My close friend, colleague, and frequent co-author John List has written a popular (non-academic) book with another economist, Uri Gneezy.  John and Uri are pioneers in the area of “field experiments” which bring the power of randomized experiments into real-world settings.   In my opinion, field experiments are the future of empirical economics.  We’ve written at length in our books and on our blog about the amazing work these two have been doing. I’ve had the chance to read John and Uri’s book, and I loved it.

The thing they can’t figure out, however, is what to call the book!  If only my sister Linda – the greatest namer of things the world has ever known — were still around, she would figure out a great title for sure.  In her absence, they’ve asked if I could mobilize the collective genius of you, the Freakonomics blog readers.

Okay, so here is the deal.  Below, I’ve provided some information on the book and links to some materials that might prove useful to you in coming up with a name.  You have two days to generate great titles for the book, which you can submit as comments on this blog post.


Winners of The Knockoff Economy Photo Contest

We are excited to the announce the winner of The Knockoff Economy contest for best photo of a knockoff. In fact, we are excited to announce that we have two winners (we had a lot of great entries, but these two jumped out). And, since they kind of go together in an odd way, we decided to award them both the prize. Winners receive a signed copy of The Knockoff Economy plus a copy of the new album Just Tell Me That You Want Me, featuring covers (i.e., legal knockoffs) of Fleetwood Mac songs by artists like Karen Elson, Lykke Li, and The New Pornographers.

Our congratulations to Donna Ivanisevic for the Louis Vuitton condom (originally created and sold, ever so briefly, for World AIDS Day) and to Terry Stedman (disclosure: a former student of Kal’s) for the Louis Vuitton Virgin Mary:


A Conservative Wishtory of the United States

My friend Jack Hitt has a funny piece in The New Yorker listing misstatements about American history by conservative politicians, beginning with these doozies: 

1500s: The American Revolutionary War begins: “The reason we fought the revolution in the sixteenth century was to get away from that kind of onerous crown.”—Rick Perry

1607: First welfare state collapses: “Jamestown colony, when it was first founded as a socialist venture, dang near failed with everybody dead and dying in the snow.”—Dick Armey

1619-1808: Africans set sail for America in search of freedom: “Other than Native Americans, who were here, all of us have the same story.”—Michele Bachmann

1775: Paul Revere “warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms, by ringing those bells and making sure as he was riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.”—Sarah Palin

1775: New Hampshire starts the American Revolution: “What I love about New Hampshire… You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world.”—Michele Bachmann

[Ed. note: One of these claims seems much closer to being true: see page 1336-38 of Property in Land].

Freakonomics Nation: can we produce an analogous list of historical misstatements by liberal pols? We’ll give out some Freakonomics swag to a clear winner or two. 


Ol’ Man Levitt: The Answer to the Freakonomics Quiz

Earlier this week I posed a quiz to blog readers: what happened twice to me in the last few days that had never once happened to me in the first 45 years of my life.

Well, it turns out that the answers readers posted turned out to be a pretty interesting data for analysis.  At the time that my researcher Sara Kuse crunched the numbers, there were 280 guesses (some commenters guessed more than once, and we counted all their guesses) that fell into roughly 110 different categories. 

The most commonly made guesses were getting robbed or mugged, making a hole in one, getting recognized/asked for an autograph, winning a prize, losing something like a wallet being in a car accident, and being stung by a bee.  Over 30 percent of all the guesses were one of those items.  None of those would qualify, however, because they’ve all happened to me at least once before.  Getting robbed and a hole in one were two great guesses – both have happened to me exactly once in my life. 


Freakonomics Quiz: Twice Is Enough

Last week something that has never happened to me before in my life, occurred twice, independently, in two days.

What was it? First correct answer in the comments section gets Freakonomics swag.

Although that is a meager set of hints, I’ve found that no matter how hard the quiz, Freakonomics blog readers can answer just about any question within an hour. I’ll be curious to see what happens on this one.


Answer to Our Nudge Photo Contest

The results are in from the nudge photo contest we posted on Monday. Thirty-six out of 103 responses got it exactly right: to stop folks from urinating on the wall. Many also wrote that it was to prevent grafitti, so close but not (as I’ve been told) the exact motivation.

The first to answer correctly was, Skyjo, whose response was third overall.

Of the 36 correct answers, we randomly chose comment #63 by ann, “So that people won’t urinate on the wall as a sign of respect.”

Nudges aren’t just for humans. Here is a photo, also from Jan Chipchase, of a similar nudge with the same exact goal of reducing public urination. This time the target is dogs, not humans.


The Freakonomics Guide to Hitchhiking: A Contest

Our latest Freakonomics Radio podcast “Where Have All the Hitchhikers Gone?” has a pretty obvious premise. You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed or read the transcript here.

What may not be super obvious to everyone out there is the meaning of the graphic above. So let’s play name that reference and throw in some swag for good measure!

We haven’t forgotten that your preferred method of giveaway is “random,” and we’ve had a contest before on this blog where the prize is contingent on your comment number. So here’s how it’s going to work this time: the 42nd comment will win if it bears the correct answer. If comment 42 has the wrong answer, the winning number doubles and the 84th comment will win — but again, only if the answer is correct. The winning number will triple, quadruple, etc. until we get a winner.

So tell us, what does 42 signify and where is it from? Hint: the title of this post.


Caption Contest: The Winners!

Last Friday, our contributor and friend Justin Wolfers decided to have some end-of-the-week fun and run a caption contest for a pretty amusing picture he came across. The response was great: the post got 170 comments. As promised, we picked a winner based on the number of thumbs-up approvals given.
That lucky, and witty winner, is VB in NV, who posted the following less than 10 minutes after the post went live:

“I checked the vault Mr. President, and we’re down to a stack of twenties about this high.”
Well-loved. Like or Dislike: Thumb up 276 Thumb down 13

We’re going to give you some Freakonomics swag, VB, so watch out for an email from us. Thanks to everybody for participating!


A SuperFreakonomics Contest: Underappreciated Complements?

Iced tea and lemonade are hardly perfect complements — they can each be happily consumed individually — but more and more I see them being served together. I have always known this combo as an “Arnold Palmer”; increasingly, however, as in this ad at the New York chain drugstore Duane Reade, it is known simply as “half-iced tea, half-lemonade.”
I like an Arnold Palmer just fine, but to my taste the best combo drink of all time is a cranberry juice and Fresca. What? You’ve never tried it?! Thank me later.
This has gotten me thinking about other wonderful complements in life. Surely many of them are in the realm of food and drink. But there’s also driving a convertible in cold weather with the heat on, e.g.
What are some of your favorite — especially underappreciated — complements? Tell us in the comments section and we’ll take five of the best and vote for the favorite. Winner gets a free copy of new SuperFreakonomics paperback.


Answer to Same-City NCAA Sweet 16 Questions

Last week, we posed two questions regarding the NCAA basketball tournament: what are the odds that two teams from the same city would make the Sweet 16? And when was the last time that happened? To the first person to answer correctly, we offered some Freakonomics swag. And you responded, 147 of you to be exact.


A Freakonomics Quiz: Which Golfer Do I Look Like When I Swing?

I recently began taking golf lessons for the first time since I was 13 years old. I got to the range early, and my new teacher, Pat Goss, was finishing up a lesson with another student over on the putting green. He eventually made his way over towards me and introduced himself.


Prepare for Landing: The Friendly Skies Competition Winner

There is a dark side to the popular Freakonomics contest: the allure of Freakonomics schwag can turn otherwise rational, law-abiding people into animals willing to violate any norm of civilized behavior. As a result, there has been skullduggery in our competition in which we asked for your best (or worst) air travel stories. More in a bit.
But first, a couple of entries that are too late for prize consideration but quite amusing nevertheless.


A Freakonomics Contest: The Friendly Skies

I just flew down to LA from Seattle, and aside from a vicious battle of wills with my neighbor over possession of the armrest (ultimately won by me: a foolhardy reach for his drink was his Waterloo), I was pretty satisfied with my trip. However, for most of us, air travel represents anything but a positive experience. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, the airlines rank second-to-last in customer service out of 47 industry sectors.


A SuperFreakonomics Quiz: Name This University of Chicago Alum

I ran into someone the other day whom I had never met and who fit the following five criteria:
1. He/she attended the University of Chicago.
2. He/she is still alive.
3. He/she is a whole lot smarter than I am.
4. He/she is a whole lot more famous than I am.
5. He/she is even more controversial/notorious than I am.


What Do Ignatz Semmelweis and Robert S. McNamara Have in Common?

That was the question posed in this recent contest.
As usual, it didn’t take long for the correct answer to be posted. In this case, it came from one P. Mardel, commenter No. 3:
Both introduced low-cost interventions that had dramatic results. Both were also ostracized by the then-conventional wisdom. Ignatz Semmelweis promoted hand-washing in maternity wards, Robert S. McNamara introduced seat belts in Ford cars.


Usurping the Throne

Ever since I was a child, I’ve known my father as the King of Farts. It was a matter of great pride in the family. After all, if he was the King, that made me the Prince of Farts, of course. Who wouldn’t want to be royalty?
Only recently, however, did I discover the not-so-fragrant story as to how my father became King.


The Darwin Awards of Finance

Hedgeable.com is holding a contest to find the American investor who lost the most during the recession, reports The Economist; they want the “financial world’s equivalent of Paris Hilton” (named worst actress at this year’s Golden Raspberries).