The First Flickr Family
The Obamas have a Flickr account. Its photos are labeled “United States Government Work” — definitely not Creative Commons material — and most of them look like standard PR material….
The Obamas have a Flickr account. Its photos are labeled “United States Government Work” — definitely not Creative Commons material — and most of them look like standard PR material….
Steve Hilton was the man behind David Cameron’s push to remake British politics. Things didn’t work out so well there. Now he’s trying to launch a new political revolution —…
squacco Thanks to Flickr’s Creative Commons (made possible, in part, by Lawrence Lessig), where Flickr users make their photography available for public use, we often use Flickr images to spruce…
The discovery of phosphorus, 50 years after this statue was erected, involved a lot of urine. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) Hennig Brand was an alchemist on a mission: transmute urine into…
The endless pursuit of G.D.P., argues the economist Kate Raworth, shortchanges too many people and also trashes the planet. Economic theory, she says, “needs to be rewritten” — and Raworth…
…(e.g., Smith, Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Marshall, and John Commons) who have been claimed as ancestors by modern economists. It is instead what developed in the post-World War II stabilization…
…the impact that open source software license B.S.D. used for Linux is having, or the copyleft (institution) used by Wikipedia, or the creative commons licensing regimes, or the global process…
…plaza. (Photo: Chris Wood via Wikimedia Commons) The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), in defiance of the Massachusetts Constitution, is trying to turn Long Wharf Park into a late-night restaurant and…
Stephen Dubner’s conversation with David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, one of the most storied private-equity firms in history. We spoke with Rubenstein for the Freakonomics Radio series “The…
The economist Kate Raworth says the aggressive pursuit of G.D.P. is trashing the planet and shortchanging too many people. She has proposed an alternative — and the city of Amsterdam…
…launched the non-profit organization Creative Commons, which lets people make their work freely — and legally — available for public consumption (allowing us, for instance, to use Flickr images on…
On the Internet, people say all kinds of things they’d never say aloud — about sex and race, about their true wants and fears. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz has spent years parsing…
…As usual, a picture is worth at least a thousand words. Here’s a Trader Joe’s: (Photo: Anthony92931 via Wikimedia Commons) And here’s Hallatt’s Pirate Joe’s store: (Photo: Mike Hallatt) (Photo:…
…and those interests it is our duty to follow. Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, Speech in House of Commons, Mar. 1, 1848 In most human affairs, the idea is to…
(Photo: NASA on The Commons) In a paper to be published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, researchers say they have found that “Tau Ceti, one of the closest and most Sun-like…
(Photo: Vernon Fowler) A student appears to have enclosed the commons: for the last two weeks, he has camped in a small public area in the vestibule of a suite…
Boris Johnson — mayor of London, biographer of Churchill, cheese-box painter and tennis-racket collector — answers our FREAK-quently Asked Questions.
When it comes to investing, people fail to notice the obvious shadow behind potential big gains. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) Ready for a thought experiment? You have to pick between four…
Congress just passed the biggest aid package in modern history. We ask six former White House economic advisors and one U.S. Senator: Will it actually work? What are its best…
…sales. The picture in Africa could not be more different. Approximately two-thirds of Africa’s population labors on small, dusty farms, frequently failing to produce enough food to feed their families….
Also: Do we overestimate or underestimate our significance in other people’s lives?…
In this special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire, Steve Levitt speaks with the palliative physician B.J. Miller about modern medicine’s goal of “protecting a pulse at all costs.” Is…
…problems (bearing on all forms of life), thereby sparking an intense political response that continues to this day. The environmental movement thus began with a bang: a general environmental problem…
How much does the President of the United States really matter? And: where did all the hitchhikers go? A pair of “attribution errors.” This is a “mashupdate” of “How Much…
Stephen Dubner’s conversation with the former longtime C.E.O. of General Electric, recorded for the Freakonomics Radio series “The Secret Life of a C.E.O.”…
Also: do we overestimate or underestimate our significance in other people’s lives?…
The Berlin dance mecca Berghain is known for its eight-hour line and inscrutable door policy. PJ Vogt, host of the podcast Search Engine, joins us to crack the code. It…
Stephen Dubner, live on stage, mixes it up with outbound mayor London Breed, and asks economists whether A.I. can be “human-centered” and if Tang is a gateway drug….
Also: What’s a food you love that seems disgusting to everyone else?…
