Thursday, October 11, 2007

Get Your Freakonomics Book Signed By the Authors (Sort of)

The logistics of mailing your book to Levitt and Dubner after the semester to be signed and then shipped back is not time- or cost-effective. So, click here to get a bookplate signed by the authors. It's basically a sticker signed by the authors that they will sign and send to you for free. Then, upon arrival, you can peel it off and stick it inside the front cover or on the title page. Or on your car. Or forehead.

In other news:
Want to ward off illness and infections? Try a crap sandwich. Slate.com argues that our food, and therefore our bodily systems, are too purified.

Radiohead Update: they reportedly sold a whopping 1.2 million copies of their new album yesterday. This morning, ABC's Good Morning America reported that people paid an average $8 for the album. So, that's a cool $9.6 million for the band's "free" album. Again, thinking freakonomically, why would people pay $8 if they can get it for free? What incentives are in play here? Will the amount paid go down over time? More on this as it develops.

Is breathing air in Europe now more dangerous than driving a car? A new study suggests that pollution caused by global warming is responsible for more deaths per year than car accidents.