Against (Discretionary) Snow Days
I awoke last week to another foot of snow adding a third blanket of winter to our city of Elms. I am reminded of the joy I felt as a child waiting to learn if school was canceled. Something has been lost in our age of instant information — who can forget huddling around the radio, holding your breath while the radio announcer lists the seemingly endless roster of closings? Today, we received the decidedly less romantic robo-calls at 5:33 in the morning. Read More »
Is Climate-Change Hysteria Bad for the Environment?
A new study called “Apocalypse Soon?” by the psychologists Matthew Feinberg and Robb Willer (summarized by the BPS Research Digest) finds that, for people who implicitly believe the world is fair, dire warnings about climate change may make them more skeptical about the concept. Read More »
Here’s the Steelers-Packers Contest Answer
We ran a contest yesterday with a simple question: what do the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers have in common? There are many correct answers, but there was one in particular I was looking for. I was worried it might be hard, and I was ready to step in and give a clue. But I was wrong to be worried. The post went up at 10:30 a.m.; the first correct answer came in at 10:31 a.m., in the very first comment. Read More »
Sumo: More of the Same
I can’t say that I am surprised by the latest sumo headline from the Associated Press. Read More »
and 
. If you haven’t seen it yet, the movie features Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and was made by a dream team of documentary directors. Paste Magazine named it one of the 