A few months ago Netflix offered a million dollar prize to anyone who could improve their prediction algorithm 10%. Judging from the progress made so far (a 5% improvement and 743 different teams submitting bids so far), this is likely to be one of the best $1 million Netflix ever spent.
In the last quiz we had on the blog, we offered a signed copy of Freakonomics to the first person to correctly identify the person who was identified at a charity event as the “the most trusted man in America.” It turned out to be way too easy (Walter Cronkite), generating a lot of complaints from blog readers. So here . . .
A while back we wrote a New York Times column on organ donation: why there is so little of it, and why we don’t pay people for organs. One of the central themes in that column was Harvard economist Al Roth‘s idea that repugnance constrains markets. For those of you with a slightly more academic bent, Roth has just released . . .
My wife and I spent a night last week learning about Smile Train, a non-profit that provides free cleft surgery to poor children throughout the world. We’ve made donations to them in the past (including this one), but we never really knew much about them. All we knew was that a $250 donation could pay for an operation that would . . .
I think I will have disappointed many blog readers. The question about who was the most trusted man in America was not meant to be a trick one. I was just struck at the charity event, in the 10 seconds between when they said they had a clip from the most trusted man in America and when the clip started, . . .
From today’s Chicago Tribune: COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. – One of the nation’s most influential evangelical leaders admitted Friday that he visited a male prostitute for a massage and bought methamphetamine for personal use – though he said he threw the drugs away without using them. The Rev. Ted Haggard denied the prostitute’s allegation that the two men met for sex . . .
I was at a charity event the other night (more on that event when I have the time to do it justice). The charity group had a clip from someone they touted as “the most trusted man in America.” Who do you think they were referring to? I tried to think of who it might be before they showed the . . .
Here’s a nice article on my friend and colleague at University of Chicago Kevin Murphy. He doesn’t look the part, but he is the smartest human I have ever met. You can also see my past blogs on him when he won the MacArthur Genius award and when he got some other nice magazine profiles.
Where I was a kid, there was some expectation that (a) you would wear a costume when trick-or-treating, and (b) if you were old enough to drive, then you would not go trick-or-treating. When did that change and why?
Everybody and their brother is sending me links to Steven Landsburg’s most recent Slate column that reports on studies by economists that suggest internet porn reduces rape and the release of blockbuster violent movies reduces violence. While the idea might strike non-economists as crazy, the theory makes sense. When you lower the price of a good that is a substitute . . .
The U.S. Congress recently passed a law cracking down on internet gambling. I have no doubt that time will demonstrate how incredibly stupid this law is. Tens of millions of Americans gamble recreationally. Past experience tells us that attempts to ban activities that most people consider harmless always fail. By missing the opportunity to legalize internet gambling and allow American-owned . . .
There is no Nobel Prize in criminology, so two years ago criminologists decided to do the next best thing — create a Stockholm Prize in Criminology. I was delighted to see that two friends have won this year’s award: Alfred Blumstein and Terrie Moffitt. Al Blumstein has done pathbreaking work for decades, including a lot of work on the link . . .
The Rockford Registar Star has a “Big Fish” feature: The Rockford Register Star launched the Big Fish list in 1982. Any person who catches a fish in freshwater on a hook and line – no nets – in the Register Star’s readership area can report the fish to the Register Star and receive a Big Fish button. Local residents who . . .
My mother has a weekly ritual that involves getting the Sunday New York Times and seeing where our book is in the rankings. She will be disappointed this week. No Freakonomics on the list for the first time since the book came out.
An article in Slate yesterday argued that TV watching causes autism. The Slate article is based on research done by Cornell economists Michael Waldman, Sean Nicholson, and Nodir Adilov. You can download the academic working paper here. The paper gives some theories why TV and autism might be linked, but the more interesting part of the paper is the data . . .
When my sister Linda came up with the idea to make Freakonomics t-shirts, the idea was to get Lindsay Lohan and Pam Anderson to wear them. So far this is the closest a Freakonomics t-shirt has gotten to a celebrity.
A few weeks back I blogged about possible convergence in the viewing habits of blacks and whites. Blog reader Devin Reams has done some further research. Devin writes: I saw the entry on Nielsen’s black and white households and viewers habits. I decided to do some “research” of my own. And by research I mean jumped on Facebook. If you . . .
Netflix is offering a $1 million prize. This sounds like something that a Freakonomics blog reader should try to win: Netflix is all about connecting people to the movies they love. To help customers find those movies, we’ve developed our world-class movie recommendation system: CinematchSM. Its job is to predict whether someone will enjoy a movie based on how much . . .
I’m often asked who thought up the name “Freakonomics.” The answer is my sister Linda. As soon as we set out to write a book, I knew she would be the one to name it. She is the most creative person I’ve ever met. When she isn’t thinking up book titles, her day job is running www.yarnzilla.com, an online and . . .
This is old news in the poker world (see here and here), but so curious that it seems worthy of mention. At this year’s main event of the World Series of Poker, there were 2 million dollars more in chips at the end of the tournament than there were at the start of the tournament. Where they came from is . . .
If you are as old as me and a sports fan, you will remember the “Rainbow Man.” In the 1980’s, you almost couldn’t watch a televised sporting event without seeing him. He wore a rainbow wig and held up a sign with a biblical reference, most often “John 3:16.” A friend of mine wants to pull off the Freakonomics version . . .
We mention in passing in Freakonomics that blacks and whites in the United States have very different TV viewing habits (see page 182 of the book). Monday Night Football is the only TV show that historically has been among the top ten in viewership for both blacks and whites. Seinfeld, one of the most popular white shows ever, was never . . .
I was in Las Vegas yesterday celebrating my 10 year anniversary with my wife Jeannette, who loves me but not nearly as much as she loves poker. So even though this blog is about my anniversary and about commitment, it is not about the sort of commitment you might suspect. Rather it is about what economists call a “commitment device,” . . .
I get a lot of interesting letters in the mail. (To those of you who send me things, I apologize that I so rarely respond. If you want to hear from me, your odds are better — but still not great — on email.) I got a package recently, however, that really stood out. It came from a Texas woman . . .
A few days ago I wrote a blog post in which I asked why there is so much fear about medical privacy. There were many comments on the post, but they mostly missed my point. So let me try again. Many people wrote about public humiliation. I understand why people wouldn’t want the size and location of their hemorrhoids published . . .
Some time ago Pete Rose signed a bunch of baseballs with the inscription “I’m sorry I bet on baseball.” According to media reports, he gave these balls to friends and never intended them to be sold for profit. But the estate of one of the collectors who received the ball decided to put 30 of them up for auction. There . . .
I think I am the only person in the world who genuinely loves Sky Mall — the catalog you find in the pouch in the seat in front of you when you fly on airplanes. I cannot go through Sky Mall without finding a dozen things I want. I once did an entire season of Christmas shopping from Sky Mall. . . .
I was talking with a doctor the other day and he raised an interesting question: why is there so much attention given to the privacy of hospital records? The laws about medical privacy place very strong restrictions and prohibitions on those data. On those occasions where someone loses a laptop with such information, everyone goes nuts. This doctor said that . . .
If you do a search for the words “game theory” on amazon.com , you find books by eminent economists like Roger Myerson, Fudenberg and Tirole, and our recent critic Ariel Rubinstein. But at the top of the list is a new album by the Philadelphia hip-hop band known as “The Roots”. Do The Roots have a soft spot in their . . .
I blogged a few months back about how ridiculous the rules are regarding the use of electronic equipment on airplanes. I often leave my iPod on, and sometimes (gasp!) my laptop, which I leave secretly running inside my briefcase. I am happy to report no problems so far. A flight attendant did something on my flight a few days ago . . .
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