The FREAK-est Links
Are stressed out teachers more likely to expel students? Is the mafia involved in tennis match rigging? (Earlier) Is grass the best source of ethanol? (Earlier) Is Rock, Paper, Scissors the best way to pick a president?
Are stressed out teachers more likely to expel students? Is the mafia involved in tennis match rigging? (Earlier) Is grass the best source of ethanol? (Earlier) Is Rock, Paper, Scissors the best way to pick a president?
A New York guide to holiday tipping. Researchers discover the surefire way to win at Rock, Paper, Scissors. (Earlier) An economic case for predicting no recession. Monkeys exhibit the same addition skills as college students.
Should age be measured according to “years left to live”? (Hat tip: Marginal Revolution) Study profiles the average identity thief. (Earlier) More baseball promotions: free tacos for stolen bases. (Earlier) Rock Paper Scissors goes high-tech. (Earlier)
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)
September 7 is the day in 1979 when ESPN debuted on cable TV. It only took 28 years for the network to start covering the USA Rock Paper Scissors League championship.
Ron Paul takes all? ABC’s Langer on online “poll” results. (Earlier) Get Botox today, but possible melanomas require a wait. Kasparov, despair: computers learn checkers, Scrabble, Sudoku. (Earlier) New N.A.R. sales release overly optimistic? (Earlier)
In a new Freakonomics video clip, Levitt explains his own strategies for parenting, and describes a few unique tools for teaching his kids to think creatively.
After Dubner’s questioning of libraries, Folksonomy.com interviews Greg Boesel, co-founder and CEO of Swaptree, a Netflix-esque online trading site for books, DVDs, CDs, and video games — that’s also free of charge. Via Bloomberg.com: While the athletes have been busy training for the Pan Am Games in Rio De Janeiro (July 13-29), the city’s prostitutes have also been preparing for . . .
As enduring fans of the sport, we were glad to hear that ESPN2 broadcast its first coverage of the 2007 USA Rock Paper Scissors League championship, which took place in May at the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay. The single-elimination competition was won by Jamie Langridge from Odessa, Texas, who employed a “complex adaptive” strategy to take home the Bud Light . . .
Via the Wall Street Journal: Employers are starting to experiment with using Second Life to conduct job interviews. Candidates can create avatars and set up meetings at virtual job fairs in which they “communicate with executives of prospective employers as though they were instant-messaging.” Popular Science has released its annual “Ten Worst Jobs in Science” list, topped by Hazmat Diver, . . .
Here’s a new way to improve the emergency room experience: Hospitals nationwide are starting to issue meal vouchers, movie passes and MLB tickets to emergency room patients who’ve been made to wait a long time for care. Other hospitals, meanwhile, are eliminating waits entirely by allowing patients to check in from their beds. (Hat tip David Brick.) Reader Fred Telegdy . . .
The economics of book publishing are usually not sensible, predictable, or even explicable. This New York Times article by Shira Boss is a good beginner’s guide to the subject. Not all real-estate agents are fond of the National Association of Realtors. This one calls the organization “routinely, habitually, congenitally anti-free market” as well as “a protection racket — vicious, awful, . . .
Who doesn’t love a good prediction market? The Economist does and so does Wired — and we certainly do too, as evidenced here and here. Here is a new blog about prediction markets and here is the famous Iowa Electronic Market, which will be a very busy place as the upcoming elections unfold. And who doesn’t love a good poker . . .
The main event of the World Series of Poker gets underway today at the Rio in Las Vegas. Why do I want Phil Gordon to win? It’s not just because he’s such a nice guy, or because he’s so smart, or because of his philanthropic endeavors, or even because he’s so tall. It has to do with the game of . . .
Only in Vegas can you, on one day’s notice, get 64 people to put up $500 each to compete in a Rock, Paper, Scissors contest. Phil Gordon was responsible for the tournament. Phil is a great poker player, perhaps an even better poker author, and one of the most kind and generous people I have ever met. The tournament raised . . .