The winner of food writer Michael Ruhlman’s “BLT from Scratch Challenge,” Jared Dunnohew, harvested his own salt from sea water (25 liters for one kilo of salt), smoked his own bacon (with wood gathered from local parks), and made his own mustard and vinegar for homemade mayonnaise.
The institute is offering cash prizes to the high-school and post-secondary students who provide the best answer (in video format) to the question “What is the appropriate role of government in the economy?”
So in my continual (and seemingly fruitless) attempt to stump the readers of this blog, I offer what may be the most difficult Freakonomics quiz ever:
What magazine was the first to use the phrase “King of Farts” in reference to my father’s research?
I blogged last week about how progress in lowering the world record in the 100-meter dash has been extremely slow, even with the improvements in track surfaces, training techniques, steroids, etc. The world record has been lowered at an average of 0.1 percent per year over the last 40 years.
This is in spite of the fact that there have surely been technological advances in tracks and shoes, as well as expanding knowledge of weight training and fitness. The world’s population has increased substantially, as have nutrition levels, especially in developing countries.
The biggest puzzle to me is not how remarkable Usain Bolt is, but rather why it’s been so hard to get people to sprint faster.
We’ve discussed before what suburbia might look like in the future. Dwell and Inhabitat.com asked designers, planners, and engineers to submit their ideas for a suburban re-do (ReBurbia), and invited readers to vote on the top 20 finalists.
The mother of all deadlines fast approaches: our new book, SuperFreakonomics, is due to be published on October 20. In the meantime, how about a little contest?
Think of it as a guess-the-number-of-jelly-beans-in-a-jar contest except in this case the jar is infinitely expandable, and the jelly beans don’t yet exist.
It was an extremely close race, but t paciello, come on up and thank the academy. The readers voted your ode to the horrors of the Cross Bronx Expressway as the best description of the worst in American transportation. For your victory, you will receive a piece of Freakonomics schwag.
It wasn’t easy picking the finalists for our “Worst Roads in America” competition, but our intrepid judges Genevieve Giuliano and Mohja Rhoads, top transportation scholars at the University of Southern California, made their decisions and selected the posts below. Now it’s up to you to vote for the winner in the comments section.
Last week I posed a question: what five cities are home to the greatest number of my Harvard classmates?
Without a doubt, this was the hardest quiz ever on this blog. Over 1,000 guesses were made; the first 851 of these guesses were wrong. (Actually, blog reader Len sort of had the right answer earlier, but it is totally obvious, if you’ve ever seen the red book that is my data source, that he cheated.)
Not until John F. came along with comment number 821 did someone end the misery by getting all five cities correct (with number of my classmates in parentheses):
I could find nine people from my class who are famous/semi-famous/infamous. Interestingly, not one of them sent in an entry to be published in the book. Overall, about 40 percent of the people in the class sent in updates. What was most surprising about the famous people not writing in is that many of them are famous because they are writers.
The other thing that struck me as interesting and somewhat surprising was the geographic distribution of my former classmates. Let’s see whether the distribution is surprising to the blog readers by running a contest.
What he hadn’t written yet, however, was a Freakonomics theme song. That’s the request Mann decided to fulfill. It came from a reader named Spencer, who’ll get his choice of Freakonomics schwag for winning the contest.
So here it is, the theme song we never knew we needed but now wouldn’t want to live without. Thanks to all for participating, and especially to Jonathan Mann for lending his talents to our cause:
Welcome to the Freakonomics “Paved With Good Intentions” contest, in which we pay loving tribute to the most abysmal roads in America.
Here’s how it works. Write a brief homage (no more than 150 words) to the worst stretch of road you know of. You have broad latitude in your definition of “worst.” It may be the most congested, the most poorly maintained, the ugliest, the most dangerous, the most confusing, the worst integrated with adjacent land uses, or any combination of the above. You may also devise a standard of your own. Tell us why your road is the best example of the worst in American transportation, toss in a bit of wit and literary flash, and post your entry in the comments section.
Last week, I offered up a quiz asking what Gary Becker thought the only purpose of economics was. His answer was so surprising to me, that just to make sure I had it right, I asked him again after I made the post.
He confirmed his answer, and said that it is the same answer he would have given 50 years ago when he started studying economics.
The Smile Train is one of my favorite charities. Combining insightful business-oriented thinking with an unquenchable thirst for helping children born with clefts, in just ten years the Smile Train has completely transformed the lives of over 500,000 people via a simple 45 minute operation.
The Smile Train has a “problem.” It’s a long story, but here is the abbreviated version. Bacardi, the makers of Bombay Sapphire Gin, got together with crystal maker Baccarat, Garrard the jeweler, and designer Karim Rashid, to produce five “priceless” handmade crystal decanters.
We recently posted a noisy song, “The Final Day,” by an unnamed artist, and ran a contest asking you to identify the performer. It sounded like it might be the latest in our series of recession songs, or maybe an outright apocalyptic number: Click Below to Listen The singer was me. Yeah, it was a song from my old band, . . .
We recently asked you to consider renaming “digital piracy” in light of recent actual piracy. The question appears to have some resonance, as it was picked up by The Guardian, The Washington Post, and others. For my money, the best suggestion by far comes from a reader named Derek: Downlifting. Download + shoplifting. Pretty accurate description that doesn’t imply violence. . . .
I told you this was an easy one. A few days back, I asked why the park near my house was cleaner than ever before. It took only three comments (congratulations to Donny, the winner) to get the right answer: the International Olympic Committee was coming to Chicago. I happen to live about six blocks from Washington Park, which will . . .
Photo: wili_hybrid It’s been a while since we did a Freakonomics quiz. Here is an easy one. The first correct comment wins Freakonomics schwag: Today, the park near my house was cleaner than I have ever seen it. Why?
| Every weekday in March, a judge at The Morning News has pitted against each other two novels published last year, with one emerging as the winner and going up against the next book. The winning book of the championship match will be announced tomorrow — and its author, per the website, will receive a live rooster. [%comments]
You submitted your mottoes, more than 300 strong. You voted on the six finalists. So you, dear blog readers, are solely responsible for having chosen the United States’ new six-word motto. The finalists were: 1. Consumption’s the Cure That Ails Us. (Submitted by Quin.) 2. We Will Get It Right, Eventually. (Herb) 3. We Are Too Big to Fail. (Jonathan) . . .
We recently ran our second annual six-word motto contest for the U.S. The six finalists have been chosen and voted upon; we will announce the winner tomorrow. In the meantime, take a listen early tomorrow morning to The Takeaway, where I’ll be discussing the contest. Even better, The Takeaway is planning to interview some of the finalists, so that should . . .
We recently solicited your suggestions for a new six-word motto for the U.S. (Yes, this is a reprise of last year’s contest.) As always, you came through brilliantly, with more than 300 submissions. Here are our choices for the six finalists: 1. Consumption’s the Cure That Ails Us. (Submitted by Quin.) 2. We Will Get It Right, Eventually. (Herb) 3. . . .
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is offering three $5,000 prizes for the best new ideas that “nudge” people towards better health.
One year ago, we ran a simple contest on this blog: come up with a new six-word motto for the U.S. There were more than 1,000 submissions, a heated runoff between the finalists, and eventually a winner: “Our worst critics prefer to stay.” The year that followed has been dramatic to say the least: the historic presidential election, a train . . .
We’ve invited a special guest to judge our Bernie Madoff limerick contest: Chris J. Strolin, founder and editor-in-chief of The OEDILF, The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form. The OEDILF is an international online dictionary-writing project, the goal of which is to write at least one limerick for every definition of every word in the English language. Not quite five . . .
If you believe what you read, then the answer to that question is that they are both examples of one of economics’ most illusive objects: Giffen goods. But don’t always believe what you read.
A Giffen good is a product or service for which demand rises with price. In other words, if you hold everything else constant, but the good gets more expensive, the quantity consumed will increase.
Who will buy the movie rights for this charming article about a 73-year-old college basketball player, and when, and for how much, and what will the eventual movie be titled? A piece of Freakonomics schwag goes to the person whose guess is most entertaining or, failing that, most accurate. Photo: Shawn Poynter for The New York Times
Yesterday, President Bush invited the most recent round of Nobel laureates to the White House to accept his congratulations. And yes, this included his trenchant critic and economics prize-winner, Paul Krugman. Photo from Economist.com This photo posted on Economist.com (from Agence France-Presse) makes me wish I were better at reading body language. I’m going to shamelessly rip off The New . . .