Download or read book SuperFreakonomics Illustrated edition written by Steven D. Levitt and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-10-26 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Superfreakonomics—the smash hit follow-up to the remarkable New York Times bestselling phenomenon Freakonomics—is back in a new full-color, fully illustrated and expanded edition. The brainchild of rogue economist Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner that once again brilliantly challenges our view of the way the world really works is presented with a new, visual, superfreaky dimension added, enhancing the already provocative thinking about street prostitutes, hurricanes, heart attacks, and other seemingly mundane matters that made Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics part of the national zeitgeist.
Download or read book SuperFreakonomics LP written by Steven D. Levitt and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-11-10 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation, selling more than four million copies. Now Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with SuperFreakonomics, and fans and newcomers alike will find that this freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first. SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, with such questions as: How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa? What's the best way to catch a terrorist? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Are people hardwired for altruism or selfishness? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else, whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically.
Download or read book Think Like A Freak written by Steven D. Levitt and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-05-12 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner single-handedly showed the world that applying counter-intuitive approaches to everyday problems can bear surprising results. Think Like a Freak will take readers further inside this special thought process, revealing a new way of approaching the decisions we make, the plans we create and the morals we choose. It answers the question on the lips of everyone who’s read the previous books: How can I apply these ideas to my life? How do I make smarter, harder and better decisions? How can I truly think like a freak? With short, highly entertaining insights running the gamut from “The Upside of Quitting” to “How to Succeed with No Talent,” Think Like a Freak is poised to radically alter the way we think about all aspects of life on this planet.
Download or read book Applied Economics written by Thomas Sowell and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-12-09 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The application of economics to major contemporary real world problems -- housing, medical care, discrimination, the economic development of nations -- is the theme of this new book that tackles these and other issues head on in plain language, as distinguished from the usual jargon of economists. It examines economic policies not simply in terms of their immediate effects but also in terms of their later repercussions, which are often very different and longer lasting. The interplay of politics with economics is another theme of Applied Economics, whose examples are drawn from experiences around the world, showing how similar incentives and constraints tend to produce similar outcomes among very disparate peoples and cultures.
Download or read book Scorecasting written by Tobias Moskowitz and published by Crown. This book was released on 2012-01-17 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Scorecasting, University of Chicago behavioral economist Tobias Moskowitz teams up with veteran Sports Illustrated writer L. Jon Wertheim to overturn some of the most cherished truisms of sports, and reveal the hidden forces that shape how basketball, baseball, football, and hockey games are played, won and lost. Drawing from Moskowitz's original research, as well as studies from fellow economists such as bestselling author Richard Thaler, the authors look at: the influence home-field advantage has on the outcomes of games in all sports and why it exists; the surprising truth about the universally accepted axiom that defense wins championships; the subtle biases that umpires exhibit in calling balls and strikes in key situations; the unintended consequences of referees' tendencies in every sport to "swallow the whistle," and more. Among the insights that Scorecasting reveals: • Why Tiger Woods is prone to the same mistake in high-pressure putting situations that you and I are • Why professional teams routinely overvalue draft picks • The myth of momentum or the "hot hand" in sports, and why so many fans, coaches, and broadcasters fervently subscribe to it • Why NFL coaches rarely go for a first down on fourth-down situations--even when their reluctance to do so reduces their chances of winning. In an engaging narrative that takes us from the putting greens of Augusta to the grid iron of a small parochial high school in Arkansas, Scorecasting will forever change how you view the game, whatever your favorite sport might be.
Download or read book SuperFreakonomics written by Steven D. Levitt and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-05-24 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation. Now, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with SuperFreakonomics, and fans and newcomers alike will find that the "freakquel" is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first. SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as: How is a street prostitute like a department store Santa? Who adds more value: a pimp or a Realtor? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Did TV cause a rise in crime? Can eating kangaroo meat save the planet? Whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically, Levitt and Dubner show the world for what it really is—good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, superfreaky.
Download or read book Accountable written by Michael O'Leary and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “More than ever before, this is the book our economy needs.” – Dr. Rajiv Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation “Unwilling to settle for easy answers or superficial changes, O’Leary and Valdmanis push us all to ask more of our economic system.” – Senator Michael F. Bennet This provocative book takes us inside the fight to save capitalism from itself. Corporations are broken, reflecting no purpose deeper than profit. But the tools we are relying on to fix them—corporate social responsibility, divestment, impact investing, and government control—risk making our problems worse. With lively storytelling and careful analysis, O’Leary and Valdmanis cut through the tired dogma of current economic thinking to reveal a hopeful truth: If we can make our corporations accountable to a deeper purpose, we can make capitalism both prosperous and good. What happens when the sustainability-driven CEO of Unilever takes on the efficiency-obsessed Warren Buffett? Does Kellogg’s—a company founded to serve a healthy breakfast—have a sacred duty to sell sugary cereal if that’s what maximizes profit? For decades, government has tried to curb CEO pay but failed. Why? Can Harvard students force the university to divest from oil and gas? Does it even matter if they do? O’Leary and Valdmanis, two iconoclastic investors, take us on a fast-paced insider’s journey that will change the way we look at corporations. Likely to spark controversy among cynics and dreamers alike, this book is essential reading for anyone with a stake in reforming capitalism—which means all of us.
Download or read book Visual Pollution written by Adriana Portella and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-11 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, there has been considerable interest in the problems that public spaces face because of the design of commercial signs. The negative consequences that commercial signs can have on the visual quality of urban areas and further more, on people's quality of life, has been studied from both architectural, planning and psychological perspectives. While the issue of visual pollution, as this phenomenon is commonly described, has been widely debated, there is as yet no clear conclusion as to how best to control commercial signage and whether different urban contexts and people from different backgrounds and cultures have universal or distinct preferences. Several different commenrcial signage approaches are currently applied to different historic cities, but these initiatives are not based on principles derived from the perception and evaluation of users. Drawing on a range of comparative and contrasting empirical studies of historic city centres in the UK and Brazil, this book examines questions of commercial signage control management, the preservation of historic heritage and user preference and satisfaction. The author takes an environment behaviour approach to this research, involving theories, concepts and methodologies related to environmental psychology, architecture, planning and urban design. In doing so, it argues that there are in fact visual preferences common to the majority of people, independent of their urban context and that these common views can be useful to the development of a general theory of how to control commercial signage. In conclusion, the book suggests that the best way of controlling signage is not only to recommend general guidelines related to the operation of commercial signage, but also to recommend design principles that can create commercial streetscapes evaluated positively by different users.
Download or read book Hack the Planet written by Eli Kintisch and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2010-03-25 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inside tour of the incredible—and probably dangerous—plans to counteract the effects of climate change through experiments that range from the plausible to the fantastic David Battisti had arrived in Cambridge expecting a bloodbath. So had many of the other scientists who had joined him for an invitation-only workshop on climate science in 2007, with geoengineering at the top of the agenda. We can't take deliberately altering the atmosphere seriously, he thought, because there’s no way we'll ever know enough to control it. But by the second day, with bad climate news piling on bad climate news, he was having second thoughts. When the scientists voted in a straw poll on whether to support geoengineering research, Battisti, filled with fear about the future, voted in favor. While the pernicious effects of global warming are clear, efforts to reduce the carbon emissions that cause it have fallen far short of what’s needed. Some scientists have started exploring more direct and radical ways to cool the planet, such as: Pouring reflective pollution into the upper atmosphere Making clouds brighter Growing enormous blooms of algae in the ocean Schemes that were science fiction just a few years ago have become earnest plans being studied by alarmed scientists, determined to avoid a climate catastrophe. In Hack the Planet, Science magazine reporter Eli Kintisch looks more closely at this array of ideas and characters, asking if these risky schemes will work, and just how geoengineering is changing the world. Scientists are developing geoengineering techniques for worst-case scenarios. But what would those desperate times look like? Kintisch outlines four circumstances: collapsing ice sheets, megadroughts, a catastrophic methane release, and slowing of the global ocean conveyor belt. As incredible and outlandish as many of these plans may seem, could they soon become our only hope for avoiding calamity? Or will the plans of brilliant and well-intentioned scientists cause unforeseeable disasters as they play out in the real world? And does the advent of geoengineering mean that humanity has failed in its role as steward of the planet—or taken on a new responsibility? Kintisch lays out the possibilities and dangers of geoengineering in a time of planetary tipping points. His investigation is required reading as the debate over global warming shifts to whether humanity should Hack the Planet.
Download or read book The Boy with Two Belly Buttons written by Stephen J. Dubner and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2007-09-25 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Solomon, a little boy with two belly buttons, discovers that being different can be a good thing.
Download or read book The Data Detective written by Tim Harford and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From “one of the great (greatest?) contemporary popular writers on economics” (Tyler Cowen) comes a smart, lively, and encouraging rethinking of how to use statistics. Today we think statistics are the enemy, numbers used to mislead and confuse us. That’s a mistake, Tim Harford says in The Data Detective. We shouldn’t be suspicious of statistics—we need to understand what they mean and how they can improve our lives: they are, at heart, human behavior seen through the prism of numbers and are often “the only way of grasping much of what is going on around us.” If we can toss aside our fears and learn to approach them clearly—understanding how our own preconceptions lead us astray—statistics can point to ways we can live better and work smarter. As “perhaps the best popular economics writer in the world” (New Statesman), Tim Harford is an expert at taking complicated ideas and untangling them for millions of readers. In The Data Detective, he uses new research in science and psychology to set out ten strategies for using statistics to erase our biases and replace them with new ideas that use virtues like patience, curiosity, and good sense to better understand ourselves and the world. As a result, The Data Detective is a big-idea book about statistics and human behavior that is fresh, unexpected, and insightful.
Download or read book Extreme Food written by Bear Grylls and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of the million-copy-bestseller SAS Survival Guide, former SAS paratrooper Bear Grylls—the world’s most famous survival expert—teaches the necessary skills for eating in the wild. “There’s no getting away from it; I’ve eaten some pretty extreme things in my time—live tarantulas, raw goat testicles, elephant dung, you name it. In a situation when your life depends on it, you need to put your prejudices aside to keep your stomach filled and your strength up. Whether it’s mastering the art of foraging and cooking up a tasty feast around the campfire or learning about the more extreme end of wild food (ever tried a scorpion kebab?), there’s a lot to learn when it comes to dinner time in the wild. Extreme Food will teach you all the necessary skills and techniques to get your teeth into meals you might never have thought of as food in the first place—and, crucially, how to recognize plants and animals that might end up doing you more harm than good. In today’s world, we rarely need to venture beyond the local supermarket and we turn our noses up at the thought of snacking on bugs and grubs. But out in the wild, Mother Nature has provided us with a plentiful supply of nutritious—if not always delicious—food for the taking. And when needs must, we just have to know where to look. Some of it might take you out of your comfort zone. Some of it might turn your stomach. But it’s saved my life more than once. And one day, it might save yours . . .”—BEAR GRYLLS
Download or read book Grand Pursuit written by Sylvia Nasar and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011 with total page 555 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An instant "New York Times" bestseller, from the author of "A Beautiful Mind": a sweeping history of the invention of modern economics that takes readers from Dickens' London to modern Calcutta.
Download or read book Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google written by William Poundstone and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2012-01-04 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and thrown in a blender. The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do? If you want to work at Google, or any of America's best companies, you need to have an answer to this and other puzzling questions. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? guides readers through the surprising solutions to dozens of the most challenging interview questions. The book covers the importance of creative thinking, ways to get a leg up on the competition, what your Facebook page says about you, and much more. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? is a must-read for anyone who wants to succeed in today's job market.
Download or read book When to Rob a Bank written by Steven D. Levitt and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the landmark book Freakonomics comes this curated collection from the most readable economics blog in the universe. It’s the perfect solution for the millions of readers who love all things Freakonomics. Surprising and erudite, eloquent and witty, When to Rob a Bank demonstrates the brilliance that has made the Freakonomics guys an international sensation, with more than 7 million books sold in 40 languages, and 150 million downloads of their Freakonomics Radio podcast. When Freakonomics was first published, the authors started a blog—and they’ve kept it up. The writing is more casual, more personal, even more outlandish than in their books. In When to Rob a Bank, they ask a host of typically off-center questions: Why don’t flight attendants get tipped? If you were a terrorist, how would you attack? And why does KFC always run out of fried chicken? Over the past decade, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have published more than 8,000 blog posts on the Freakonomics website. Many of them, they freely admit, were rubbish. But now they’ve gone through and picked the best of the best. You’ll discover what people lie about, and why; the best way to cut gun deaths; why it might be time for a sex tax; and, yes, when to rob a bank. (Short answer: never; the ROI is terrible.) You’ll also learn a great deal about Levitt and Dubner’s own quirks and passions, from gambling and golf to backgammon and the abolition of the penny.
Download or read book The KunstlerCast written by Duncan Crary and published by New Society Publishers. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based off the popular podcast, this book collects one man’s conversations with an outspoken social critic on the negative effects of the suburbs. James Howard Kunstler has been described as “one of the most outrageous commentators on the American built environment.” An outspoken critic of suburban sprawl, Kunstler is often controversial and always provocative. The KunstlerCast is based on the popular weekly podcast of the same name, which features Kunstler in dialogue with author Duncan Crary, offering a personal window into Kunstler’s worldview. Presented as a long-form conversational interview, The KunstlerCast revisits and updates all the major ideas contained in Kunstler’s body of work, including: The need to rethink current sources of transportation and energy The failure of urban planning, architecture and industrial society America’s plastic, dysfunctional culture The reality of peak oil Whether sitting in the studio, strolling city streets, visiting a suburban mall or even “Happy Motoring,” the grim predictions Kunstler makes about America’s prospects are leavened by his signature sharp wit and humor. This book is rounded out by commentary, footnotes and supplemental vignettes told from the perspective of an “embedded” reporter on the Kunstler beat. Readers may or may not agree with the more dystopian of Kunstler’s visions. Regardless, The KunstlerCast is bound to inspire a great deal of thought, laughter, and hopefully, action. Praise for The KunstlerCast “A bracing dose of reality for an unreal world.” —Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics “Erudite, eloquent . . . with good humor about the hilariously grotesque North American nightmare of car-addicted suburban sprawl.” —Dmitry Orlov, author of Reinventing Collapse “Prepare to be enlightened, infuriated and amused.” —Gregory Greene, Director, The End of Suburbia “So enlightening yet casual that the reader feels like they’re eavesdropping into the den of Kunstler’s prodigious mind.” —Andrew D. Blechman, author of Leisureville
Download or read book Freefall America Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy written by Joseph E. Stiglitz and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2010-10-04 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An incisive look at the global economic crisis, our flawed response, and the implications for the world’s future prosperity. The Great Recession, as it has come to be called, has impacted more people worldwide than any crisis since the Great Depression. Flawed government policy and unscrupulous personal and corporate behavior in the United States created the current financial meltdown, which was exported across the globe with devastating consequences. The crisis has sparked an essential debate about America’s economic missteps, the soundness of this country’s economy, and even the appropriate shape of a capitalist system. Few are more qualified to comment during this turbulent time than Joseph E. Stiglitz. Winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, Stiglitz is “an insanely great economist, in ways you can’t really appreciate unless you’re deep into the field” (Paul Krugman, New York Times). In Freefall, Stiglitz traces the origins of the Great Recession, eschewing easy answers and demolishing the contention that America needs more billion-dollar bailouts and free passes to those “too big to fail,” while also outlining the alternatives and revealing that even now there are choices ahead that can make a difference. The system is broken, and we can only fix it by examining the underlying theories that have led us into this new “bubble capitalism.” Ranging across a host of topics that bear on the crisis, Stiglitz argues convincingly for a restoration of the balance between government and markets. America as a nation faces huge challenges—in health care, energy, the environment, education, and manufacturing—and Stiglitz penetratingly addresses each in light of the newly emerging global economic order. An ongoing war of ideas over the most effective type of capitalist system, as well as a rebalancing of global economic power, is shaping that order. The battle may finally give the lie to theories of a “rational” market or to the view that America’s global economic dominance is inevitable and unassailable. For anyone watching with indignation while a reckless Wall Street destroyed homes, educations, and jobs; while the government took half-steps hoping for a “just-enough” recovery; and while bankers fell all over themselves claiming not to have seen what was coming, then sought government bailouts while resisting regulation that would make future crises less likely, Freefall offers a clear accounting of why so many Americans feel disillusioned today and how we can realize a prosperous economy and a moral society for the future.
