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A Financial Engine Shut-off Switch

AOL Autos has a great article on new technologies that shut off your engine if you fail to make payments on your car loan. The devices, which are required by a growing number of subprime loan contracts, are the product of a revolution in telematics — the blending of telecommunications and wireless technology. The devices Read More »



Why There’s Only One Economist

With the magazine industry in bad shape, newsweeklies are trying to imitate the one freakishly successful exception: The Economist. In a Vanity Fair article, Matt Pressman outlines four reasons why they can’t, using analogies like this one to explain: “The Economist is like that exotic coffee that comes from beans that have been eaten and Read More »



Quotes Uncovered: Who Said Data Kills?

Quotes Uncovered Here are more quote authors and origins Shapiro’s tracked down recently. Who Worried About Events? Spelling, Logic, and Frenchmen Why Don’t You Go Find Your Own Quotes? Fourteen weeks ago I invited readers to submit quotations for which they wanted me to try to trace the origins, using The Yale Book of Quotations Read More »



Pirates Steal Ships, Not Songs

If you copy this post and pass it off as your own, that’s called plagiarism. If you illegally download a Freakonomics e-book for yourself, that’s downlifting (or, more traditionally, bootlegging). If you want to be a pirate, downloading a bootleg of Hook isn’t going to get you there — you’re going to have to actually Read More »