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Another Way to Encourage Voting

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…



The Death of a Jewish Superhero Creator

…reads like a synagogue mailing list.” Binder and Blum, Fine and Klein, Gillman and Meskin, Schuster and Siegel. Many took Anglicized bylines, the same sort of country-club names they gave…



When Bad Spelling Is Good for Business

As James Altucher reports on his daily blog watch on TheStreet.com, the sale of domain names remains a very big business. This year, Diamonds.com went for $7.5 million, Vodka.com for…



Intelligent Errors Are Totally Book

…this Web site, fulfilling bookplate requests, etc.): Dubner posted recently about intentionally misspelled domain names, such as Stockpickr.com, that aim to grab clumsy typists and/or poor spellers. The idea that…



Aptonym Alert

We’ve blogged in the past about aptonyms — names that fit the people who own them, like a magazine fact-checker named Paige Worthy — and we’ve even held an aptonym…



The Boy With Two Belly Buttons

…that he had two belly buttons until he got a baby sister. Anya had only one. Observant readers of this blog may note that Solomon and Anya are the names



Two further thoughts on the last quiz

…only one and a half econometrics classes under his belt. His econometrics professors must know what they are doing. Andy, if you read this, please post the names of your…



Susan Athey wins Clark Medal

…the top young economists, but also because I know how old the economists here are with much more precision than at other schools. So apologies to those whose names I…




Ratting Out the Rats

…of witnesses cooperating with the government. The site posts their names and mug shots, along with court documents detailing what they have agreed to do in exchange for lenient sentences.”…





Is OpenID the Solution to Online Identity Theft?

…identity on the Internet.” Still, the concept has one glaring weakness that even a non-computer science expert can figure out: reduce the number of names and passwords you use on…




Freakonomics in the Times Magazine: Up in Smoke

…And here, as compiled by the Greater Dallas Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, are an extraordinarily entertaining index of cocaine street names: For cocaine powder: Badrock, Bazooka, Beam, Berni,…



Freakonomics in the Times Magazine: Payback Time

…Dubner and Levitt have blogged regularly about real estate here, including this virtual real estate roller coaster and the question of whether street names affect property values. In their paper…







Reflections on a Visit to the White House

…that only those whose names had been put on a list by someone winning the highest civilian award could pass through the gates onto the White House grounds. There was…





How Super Will Super Tuesday Really Be?

…their names were Kennedy, O’Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas. And it was only the votes they cast while wearing their robes that mattered, not the ones they may have cast…




This Week in Aptonyms

In keeping with our aptonym tradition, a bunch of helpful readers have sent in good examples of people whose last names go well with their professions. To wit: From a…



Boy, Are We Stupid

Levitt and I missed a terrific business opportunity. If we had even an ounce of entrepreneurship between us, we would have parlayed the Freakonomics chapter on baby names into a…



To Discriminate You Need to Separate

…hair trimmer for $12.99, but in the same catalog offers the identical product, called the Trim-a-Pet, for $7.99. Dr. Leonard’s Dr. Leonard’s Other than the names on the packages and…




McAfee’s Magic Touch and AC/DC’s Revenge

…Submissions are up around 50 percent over the previous year, with the great majority of the increase accounted for by “no revisions” submissions. Some of the biggest names in the…