Can Anyone Explain Dane Cook to Me?
That’s really all I have to say. The rest is commentary — i.e., yours.
That’s really all I have to say. The rest is commentary — i.e., yours.
Courtesy of HarperCollins In 2004, Frank Warren, the owner of a medical information company in Germantown, Md., had an idea for a project. He bought 3,000 blank postcards and wrote two things on the back: his home address and an invitation to anonymously share a secret. He passed the cards out on the street, stuck them in library books, left . . .
Back in August, we blogged about allegations of match rigging at Wimbledon. According to a new report by SI.com, that may have been only the tip of the iceberg; now, 150 matches are being investigated by tennis officials. My hunch, having seen no data and only read this article, is that the number of rigged tennis matches will ultimately turn . . .
Decades of research has convinced just about everyone that a child with a single parent is, on average, more likely to have worse outcomes in life than a child with two parents. These outcomes are seen in a variety of channels: education, income, health, and crime. But what are the mechanisms that actually produce a worse outcome? Exactly how, in . . .
Public school or private school: does it matter? Test security firm Caveon sees business thrive at U.S. schools. (Earlier) Employers impose “no e-mail” days; workers rebel. Are antidepressants safe for children?
Portal? Or how about: A Confuser… the Screen … the Box … God … HAL … or how about Abra, short for “artificial brain.” These were among the many suggestions you wrote in response to our contest asking readers to rename the computer. Let me say it once again: our readership is awesomely creative, smart, and funny. Thanks for all . . .
Despite Fred Thompson‘s so-so performance in his first presidential debate, and despite his serious lag on InTrade (Giuliani, 39; Romney, 24; Thompson, 19.5), the blogger Noele Kensut is calling for Thompson to win the White House. Why? Because he has blue eyes. Eye color is one trait, Kensut writes at Mijka Samora‘s Reality Journal, that every president since Richard Nixon . . .
Seth Schiesel wrote a fascinating piece in the Times about a new collaboration between game maker Electronic Arts and the energy company BP in designing the latest version of E.A.’s SimCity computer game. In case you don’t know, SimCity “focuses on building and managing a modern metropolis.” As Schiesel tells us, “coping with environmental pollution has long been part of . . .
The key to good health? Eat more garbage. Technology meets baby naming. (HT: BoingBoing) New report says global warming kills more Europeans than car accidents. (Earlier) Which ten businesses will be extinct within the next decade?
Whenever we run a contest or quiz on this site, we offer the winner/s some kind of prize. Until now, we’ve never gotten around to showing what the prizes look like. So here, friends, is our current assortment of Freakonomics schwag. The T-shirt and yo-yo are, as they say, unavailable in any store. (So is Don King, as far as . . .
Courtesy of Craigslist Last week, you submitted lots and lots of questions for Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster, the founder and CEO, respectively, of Craigslist. They couldn’t answer every question but I think you’ll agree they’ve given us a lot of good answers, time, and ideas. I was particularly intrigued by Jim’s statement that investigative journalism has actually been damaged . . .
I recently blogged about a suboptimal customer service experience with Delta Air Lines. (As a couple of commenters pointed out — see Nos. 28, 36, and 44 — one of my assumptions was probably wrong, but that doesn’t change the thrust of the story very much.) So it’s nice to report a really good customer service experience. We recently had . . .
U.S. government cracks down on street gangs. (Earlier) Martin Feldstein discusses inflation, income disparity, and the housing market. The Ivory Coast tries a new tactic for tardy employees: be on time, win a house. Busy airports hire “sign consultants” to reduce traveler confusion.
Freakonomics makes the case that good parenting doesn’t necessarily produce good children. But what’s the effect of bad parenting — especially child abuse? Martin Amis offered some evidence on that subject in a talk at the New Yorker Festival this weekend, in the form of a “charming anecdote about Stalin.” In 1937, Stalin liquidated most of his census board for . . .
The following story is currently making the rounds on the Internet. The events probably didn’t happen exactly as described, but for my purposes it doesn’t really matter. Supposedly, a woman posted the following personal ad on Craigslist: What am I doing wrong? Okay, I’m tired of beating around the bush. I’m a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25-year-old girl. I’m articulate and . . .
I first met Liz Seymour some 20 years ago. She lived then in the same house where she now lives, in Greensboro, N.C. She was (and still is) roughly ten years older than me, a Smith grad with a bohemian streak who wrote freelance articles for national magazines and newspapers, often about the home furnishings industry that had a strong . . .
Is the U.S. “war on cancer” focusing on the wrong things? Britain studies the economic impact of higher education. Chinese-made Cub Scout badges recalled for lead. (HT: Consumerist) Identity data: the newest hot commodity for businesses. (Earlier)
Anupama Chopra knows first-hand about Bollywood, India’s burgeoning film industry. As a former film writer for India Today magazine and the wife of famed Indian writer/director Vidhu Vinod Chopra, she’s spent more than 15 years watching from the inside as the industry weathered widespread social change, rapid expansion, and economic globalization. Her new book, King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan . . .
Do people consider social concerns when making economic decisions? Found a wallet on the street? Be careful, you may be on film. Woman found liable for $222K in damages in file-sharing suit. (Earlier) Organizations for wounded soldiers offer free handbook for injured vets. (Earlier)
We have temporarily floated our tag cloud up to the top of the right-hand column of our home page so you can take a good look at it. We haven’t tagged our entire archives yet, but we’re getting there. So feel free to play around with the tags to see what’s in the vault, and know that there’s more to . . .
Crime rates have a large influence on the choices people make about where to live. The amazing declines in crime over the last fifteen years have been especially strong in big cities, a factor that helped fuel an urban renaissance. Ironically, however, some of the lowest murder rates are found in places where one might suspect just the opposite to . . .
That is the very good question posed on the British Psychological Society’s research blog. The answers, provided by leading psychologists, are even better. In many cases, it’s not that the experiments haven’t been done, but that they can’t be, often for ethical or practical reasons. But even if the proposed experiments are only thought experiments, they are well worth reading. . . .
Tamara Audi and Adam Thompson write in the Wall Street Journal about how the Las Vegas casinos helped authorities catch point-shaving football players at the University of Toledo. It is no surprise that the sportsbooks take an active role in this endeavor: when cheating happens, the sportsbook is the party from which money gets stolen. (If the bookies balanced the . . .
Terminal cancer patient Randy Pausch fulfills childhood dream of practicing with the Steelers. (Earlier) Music fans, angered by price gouging, sabotage scalpers’ auctions online. More primping before work could mean higher wages. The newest formula in boxing stats: the Tyson Index.
The dollar has taken serious hits recently, not only continuing to fall against the euro but being caught even by the Canadian loonie. From the long view, however, the dollar’s current woes are simply another step in the long and tumultuous history of paper currency in the U.S. Stephen Mihm, a professor of history at the University of Georgia and . . .
The British Medical Association calls attention to a new study in the Postgraduate Medical Journal that assesses the efficacy of individually tailored herbal medical treatments. The outcome? “There is no good evidence to suggest that individually tailored herbal medicine treatment works well,” the BMA declares. The nuances here are interesting. While studies on the efficacy of herbal medicine have grown . . .
In today’s Washington Post, George Will profiles Austan Goolsbee, a colleague of Levitt’s at the University of Chicago and an economic adviser to Barack Obama. (You can see what we’ve written in the past about Goolsbee here.) Will’s piece contains Goolsbee’s interesting take on imports from China and elsewhere, with facts that I am sure most Americans don’t know: As . . .
There is no policy economists love more than school choice. Milton Friedman was an early proponent. The idea certainly makes sense: if parents have the ability to choose the best schools for their children, outcomes should improve through both the better matching of kids to specific schools and the resulting competition that would force schools to develop their programs. The . . .
Excel expert gives away free copies of his books online. (Earlier) Mayor Bloomberg targeted by identity thieves. (Earlier) The Rubik’s Cube World Championships — the next Rock, Paper Scissors? Steve Pinker calls the modern age “the most peaceful time in our species’ existence.” (Earlier)
So this was a nice surprise: after I went on Good Morning America today to talk about The Boy With Two Belly Buttons, the book shot up to the No. 1 slot on Amazon’s list of best-sellers for ages 4-8. By the time you read this post, it may have slunk down the list, but for at least half a . . .