My friend Dave Kansas has a new job
I went to high school with a guy named Dave Kansas. We were good friends even after I beat him out for the honor of being the worst starting point…
What’s the best way to carry out random acts of kindness? What’s wrong with making an “Irish exit”? And why is Mike secretly buying lottery tickets?…
I went to high school with a guy named Dave Kansas. We were good friends even after I beat him out for the honor of being the worst starting point…
…see the launch date for the 17 previous launches in which no O-ring failure had occurred. Examining all of the data shows a clear connection between temperature and O-ring failure,…
…from dawn until dusk on lonely homesteads to build a better life for themselves and their children. The distance between survival and total failure was small, and families behaved accordingly…
…as the failure of men themselves and men as a social construct. While, on the other hand, a systemic failure of women is seen as a failure of the social…
The U.S. is an outlier when it comes to policing, as evidenced by more than 1,000 fatal shootings by police each year. But we’re an outlier in other ways too:…
Here is another guest post on failure from author and Financial Times columnist Tim Harford, from his new book Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure. In his first post,…
…In his new book A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of 2008 and the Descent into Depression, Richard Posner provides a definitive primer on the subject suitable for experts and…
Why do so many promising solutions — in education, medicine, criminal justice, etc. — fail to scale up into great policy? And can a new breed of “implementation scientists” crack…
Why do so many promising solutions — in education, medicine, criminal justice, etc. — fail to scale up into great policy? And can a new breed of “implementation scientists” crack…
What does social media do to our self-esteem? How is envy affecting our politics? And should you go to your high school reunion? Take the Seven Deadly Sins survey: freakonomics.com/nsq-sins/…
No. But now is a good time to sort out the potential from the hype. Whether you’re bullish, bearish, or just confused, we’re here to explain what the blockchain can…
…he is plainly not our friend.) Gelman-Fung present this “friend and colleague” idea as an argument that we favor or feature the work of certain scholars because we happen to…
The legendary venture capitalist believes the same intuition that led him to bet early on Google can help us reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. But Steve wonders why his…
The African-born economist has written four bestselling books, including Dead Aid, which Bill Gates described as “promoting evil.” In her new book about corporate boards, Dambisa uses her experience with…
Public bathrooms are noisy, poorly designed, and often nonexistent. What to do?
Are there downsides to “personality plagiarism”? Why did no one buy the Crayola Crayon Carver? And should Stephen feel bad for copying Angela’s email signature?…
…Space — the microphone is turned toward him. His Freakonomics friend and co-author Stephen Dubner checks in on the wisdom Levitt has extracted from his interviews, finds out why Levitt…
When Stephen Dubner learned that Dallas–Fort Worth will soon overtake Chicago as the third-biggest metro area in the U.S., he got on a plane to find out why. Despite getting…
At 27 — and without a college degree — she was named chief technology officer of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Today, Marina Nitze is trying to reform the foster…
The more successful an artist is, the more likely their work will later be resold at auction for a huge markup — and they receive nothing. Should that change? Also:…
From recording some of the first rap hits to revitalizing Johnny Cash’s career, the legendary producer has had an extraordinary creative life. In this episode he talks about his new…
If you’re frustrated with your family, should you cut ties with them? Who’s more likely to break with relatives over politics, liberals or conservatives? And what would it take for…
Does instinct trump expertise? Can playing poker improve your intuition? And why did Angela jump off of a moving trolley car?…
Do economic sanctions work? Are big democracies any good at spreading democracy? What is the root cause of terrorism? It turns out that data analysis can help answer all these…
Former professional poker player Annie Duke has a new book on Steve’s favorite subject: quitting. They talk about why quitting is so hard, how to do it sooner, and why…
If two parents can run a family, why shouldn’t two executives run a company? We dig into the research and hear firsthand stories of both triumph and disaster. Also: lessons…
The gist: the Nobel selection process is famously secretive (and conducted in Swedish!) but we pry the lid off, at least a little bit.
Why are humans so eager for magic-bullet solutions? Can you explain how a pen works? And how does Angela feel about being forever branded “the grit lady”?…
Is it better to be an egocentric navigator or an allocentric navigator? Was the New York City Department of Education wrong to ban ChatGPT? And did Mike get ripped off…
