My favorite blog, which I return to often, is inspired by the recent best-selling book Freakonomics.
The book uses economics theory to statistically analyze all sorts of things, such as: how drug-rings are like McDonalds (similar corporate structure), how sumo-wrestlers are like teachers (both cheat more often than you think), and how swimming pools are more dangerous than guns.
The blog is basically just an extension of the book, with more interactivity from the public. No topic is left untouched by the statistical analyses of the Freakonomics universe! Just recently, there were reports about how rich people tend to be happier than poor people, how rich countries tend to be happier than poor countries, and how conservatives tend to be happier than liberals.
But my favorite recent post was one asking: how accurate are local weather forecasts? There were a bunch of interesting findings, but my favorite one was this: in the locality that they tested, if you were to predict no precipitation every day of the year, you would be right 86.3% of the time. The best local forecaster, on the other hand, was right only 87% of the time! Which means that putting your trust in the precipitation forecast would have been almost identical to trusting that it was simply never ever going to rain!
The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks
This is just a site that I go to if I want to laugh hysterically for a couple of minutes with some good clean fun. The site is essentially just a compilation of continuously updated photographs from people who have found public signs in which quotation marks are completely misused. The photo is usually followed up by a witty, pithy comment upon the silliness of the situation.
Well feel free to let me know some of your own favorite blogs, and maybe I will have another Weblog edition of the Epic Ballade sometime in the future. Happy surfing!
I'm not sure I'd want to eat at a place that advertises their food as "delicious". I will have to check out that blog. It sounds "funny".
ReplyDeleteIn case you didn't know, I happen to have a "Freakonomics" page-a-day calendar that I find fairly amusing. Today's fact had to do with a guy in Brooklyn who paid $731 for a pizza -- it was the very first pizza baked by a kosher pizzeria after the Jewish Passover (where they don't eat/cook leavened bread).
ReplyDeleteI would have thought it funnier had it said Delicious Mexican "Food"
ReplyDeleteHi, elf drank "the world's best cup of coffee." sorry if i spelled that wrong. Freakonomics is funny, but i don't blog other than yours. thanks for the post.
ReplyDeleteKYLE