If you go to your Web browser and type in www.swivel.com, all you get is a pretty little “coming soon” banner. But if you read about Swivel here on TechCrunch, it sounds like a godsend — or at least a tremendous way to waste time — for data freaks. Michael Arrington at TechCrunch says that Swivel’s founders describe the forthcoming . . .
It’s a good thing that the editorial pages of the N.Y. Times and Wall Street Journal aren’t people, and that they aren’t married to each other. Can you imagine the fights the two of them would have? One would want the housekeeper to come on Mondays and Fridays; the other would insist on Wednesdays only. One would want to keep . . .
A few weeks ago, my seatmate on an airplane was a fantastically interesting guy who’s been flying airplanes since he was a kid. He has flown Air Force cargo planes, fire-fighting planes, and is currently employed as a long-haul pilot for a West Coast cargo company. (FWIW, my oldest brother is also a former Air Force pilot; here’s what he’s . . .
With the bookselling year nearly over (though with its best few weeks yet to come), Publishers Weekly has published its list of best-selling books for 2006 to date. The top 3 hardcover novels are: 1. For One More Day, by Mitch Albom 2. Beach Road, by James Patterson 3. Cell, by Stephen King And the top 3 hardcover nonfiction books . . .
John Noble Wilford writes in the N.Y. Times about a strange contraption found in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece. It was discovered 100 years ago, and was known as “the world’s first computer,” but recent high-tech analyses have shown that the contraption was even more sophisticated than researchers first realized. The instrument, with gears and dials made of . . .
Apparently, quite a bit, at least in Detroit. The price of copper has risen 56 percent this year, probably due in large part to construction demand in China. The high price of copper has led to an increase in people breaking into construction sites and even homes to steal copper pipes. In Detroit, someone stole the copper pipes from the . . .
New Scientist magazine, in honor of its 50th anniversary, asked 70 of the world’s foremost scientists to answer that question. Here are their answers.
Several months ago, I noted that a few countries had recently elected an economist as president, and solicited suggestions for which U.S. economist might make a good president. Among the many suggestions (including Gary Becker, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell), one prominent name failed to appear: Jeffrey Sachs. But that hasn’t discouraged a group of Sachs fans. The Sachs for President . . .
If you thought the N.Y. Times business section was critical of Barry Diller’s pay package before, what happens now that he calls the Times “loony”? If you thought that African-Americans didn’t watch Seinfeld before (as we wrote in Freakonomics), what happens now that Jesse Jackson calls for a boycott? And if you thought that books were good for you, you . . .
I am not the kind of person who usually watches Stupid Pet Trick-type videos, and certainly not the kind of person who inflicts said videos on other people, but: In this case, I cannot resist. The bouncing dog in this video is named Moishe and belongs to my cousin Barbara Koltuv, who is the person on the other end of . . .
My friend James Altucher has probably never had to have a resume in his life, but if he did it would include: teen chess whiz, computer-science guy, web filmmaker for HBO, general web wunderkind, poker player, hedge fund guy, financial writer, and author. He’s just launched a new website, Stockpickr.com, that combines almost all of the above. It’s a sort . . .
The L.A. Times ran an article yesterday about the runaway popularity of economics blogs. They are so popular, in fact, that the Times chose to run the piece on Thanksgiving, when the paper is read by approximately 18 people. But here’s the weirdest thing: even in the online version of an article about blogs, there are no links to the . . .
Not long ago, a reader from Portland, Oregon, wrote to us: Hello, Mr. Levitt and Mr. Dubner… I wanted to say thank you for writing your book. It has really changed the way I think about my life and the world. You’ve also saved me money. As an African-American using Match.com and Yahoo personals, I always wondered why it was . . .
With the Summer Olympics coming to Beijing in 2008, all of China is busily buffing itself for the TV cameras and crowds of tourists. According to today’s Wall Street Journal, one element of this charm offensive surrounds the museum trade. From the article, by Mei Fong: Daishan, a fishing community three hours from [Shanghai], is building a museum devoted to . . .
Back in the old days, maybe 10 years ago, most Hollywood and pop-music stars were reluctant to do American TV ads, I guess because it was considered declasse. But everything has its price, including declasse-ness, so now American TV commercials are full of stars like Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jay-Z, even Robert DeNiro. So this website, which has been around a good . . .
Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University whose work involves public policy and philanthropy, has written a new book called Who Really Cares: America’s Charity Divide: Who Gives, Who Doesn’t, and Why It Matters. His boldface conclusion? As summarized in this interesting article, Brooks found that “religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of . . .
Last month, Levitt blogged about how his mother would be disappointed to find that Freakonomics had fallen off the N.Y. Times best-seller list. It’s true, we fell off the list after something like 77 weeks. But that wasn’t the end of the story. Now we’ve climbed back on the list. How’d this happen? Pretty simple, really. There were at least . . .
Your responses to yesterday’s quiz were, as always, vigorous and interesting. And, as with earlier contests like this one and this one, the correct answer came fast. In this case, it came within 10 minutes of my original posting. And the person with the correct answer was so confident that he/she logged on to our comments section with the very . . .
If you believe that … 1. We are in the advice-giving business (which we’re not) and that … 2. The I.R.S. takes the advice of people like us (which it probably doesn’t) … then you maybe argue that the I.R.S. has been taking our advice. For what it’s worth, here’s what we had to say on the subject. Also FWIW, . . .
For readers of this blog, there were at least three articles of interest in this Sunday’s N.Y. Times: 1. A piece by Susan Saulny about the new cradle of American winemaking: Iowa. Not kidding. Saulny writes that farmers across the midwest are eschewing corn and soybeans for grapes. It’s an interesting piece, although it just scrapes the surface as far . . .
The other night, we took our kids to dinner at their favorite restaurant: the Benihana in midtown Manhattan. The food isn’t very good but it’s great spectacle: the chef cooks at your table, the Shirley Temples come with lots of cherries and paper umbrellas, and since the tables are communal, you’re always seated next to some strangers. The people at . . .
Readers of this blog may be aware of the creative research of Emily Oster. She is a young empirical economist at the Becker Center for Chicago Price Theory, which is also Levitt’s primary research home. A good while back, we wrote about Oster’s investigation of the 100 million “missing women” of Asia, in which she argued that Hepatitis B is . . .
How about … publishing the names and addresses of people who don’t vote? Nothing like a little shaming offensive to boost voter turnout, right? Well, in this case it’s complicated by the fact that it was a black newspaper, the Tennessee Tribune, that did the outing, and most of the non-voters they outed were black. You can imagine the uproar . . .
This guy is a fee-only insurance consultant. I love how he explains himself and his business; I so deeply wish that more people, and especially companies, could achieve this level of transparency and information. Check out his Q&A, toward the bottom of the page, for a sample of what I’m talking about. Here is my favorite item: How do I . . .
Barely a week ago, I wrote about a company in Brooklyn that fixes Chinese manufacturing mistakes, and asked for similar examples. Some of you posted your stories (I loved the one about the white polymer resin that got contaminated by small black cylinders that looked like “rat turds”). The Wall Street Journal was good enough to chip in as well. . . .
Here’s a very accessible and nicely written article by Simon Baron-Cohen, the eminent autism researcher at Cambridge University, explaining his “assortive mating” theory of the condition. It doesn’t go deep into the work for which Baron-Cohen is so well regarded, but it’s a good primer. Here, from Wired, is Baron-Cohen’s Autism-Spectrum Quotient test, a 50-question self-administered “AQ” test that is . . .
According to research conducted at Sheffield Hallam University, men flash their cell phones in order to: attract women, look important, and show off to male peers. They needed research to prove this? I have always thought that looking important and/or popular was the single biggest driver of cell phone use. It’s amazing to me how often someone will use a . . .
That was the headline of a sports briefing in my copy of yesterday’s N.Y. Times. The article was about how Tiger Woods finally lost a match. It further stated that Woods’s veal chop was slightly bruised, but his chicken piccata emerged unscathed. There’s only so much that spell-check can do.
I like to stop by the National Association of Realtors’ blog now and again to see what the N.A.R. is making of the many changes in real estate. A recent posting referred to a Harris Interactive poll from July in which people were asked to rate the prestige of various occupations. Firefighters were No. 1, while nurses, teachers, and military . . .
Not long ago, we posted here about the supposedly desperate future of newspapers. Now here’s a S.F. Chronicle column by Peter Scheer saying the same thing I tried to say, but Scheer says it better: i.e., if the future of newspapers is so bleak, why are so many smart people rushing to buy them? (The list includes Jack Welch, David . . .
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