Economist Steven Levitt and writer Stephen Dubner are hitting the press circuit promoting their follow-up to Freakonomics with (the unimaginatively titled) Super Frekonomics. Their last book was notable for showing how economics and logic could be applied to explain social phenomenon. It also received much attention for positing the theory that lower crime is linked to more abortions.  Morality aside, the argument seems logical -- less unwanted babies, less crime.  Nevertheless Freakonomics managed to irritate both liberals and conservatives, and became a bestseller.  Their latest aims to repeat this trend, taking on controversial topics like climate change, prostitution, and suicide bombers.
Since I have started working on a documentary on the subject, Levitt's approach to climate change caught my attention.  He sums up his critique of carbon curtailment on The Daily Show:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Steven Levitt
www.thedailyshow.com
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Maybe he's not just stirring up controversy for the sake of selling more books.  Once again, Dubner and Levitt are getting attacked from both sides.  However, I applaud his critical approach:  It's not that we should do nothing about climate change, rather, we should think harder about the cost/benefits.  The effects of curtailing carbon may not be enough to reverse the looming dangers, and are very expensive.  Though his ideas do sound a bit wacky, I think environmentalists should at least be open to the discussion instead of incorrectly dismissing the argument as anti-climate change bias.  Check out his blog for a heated discourse and response to critics.

According to Wall Street analysts:

Apple will probably drop its exclusive deal with AT&T next year and offer its iPhone to Verizon subscribers as well, a Wall Street analyst said today.

Read the full article from ComputerWorld

If this happens, I will likely break the remainder of my contract with AT&T and switch to Verizon.

Exciting news from Google. The NextWeb confirms a Business Week article about Google launching an App Store -- similar to Apple's iPhone App Store -- for Google Wave. This could be big.
Wave is a unified communication platform, weaving together instant messaging, e-mail, and real-time collaboration. There are currently dozens of similar collaboration platforms, the biggest being offerings from Microsoft's 2007 suite, but Wave has significant advantages. It's open platform and it runs entirely in the cloud, unlike the Microsoft offering that has resource heavy requirements like MS 2007 Server and Office suites installed on all clients. To see what Wave is like, check out the videos here.
Now if only I can get my hands on a beta invite to Wave.

Harmonix's Rock Band: Beatles is more than just another Guitar arcade game. You get to play a member of the Beatles as they evolve into rock legends. It's a remarkable work of art in itself, and it's quite possibly the first interactive rock documentary.

Check out some of the artwork and videos over here.

On October 15th this year, join us blogging about Climate Change and the need for immediate action. The global climate crisis has been getting a lot attention since world leaders convened two weeks ago at the UN to discuss the issue. Surrounding the event, awesome activist group The Yes men pulled a series of pranks to raise awareness. First they distributed a fake NY Post that tauted the dangers of climate change and the near term consequences.

"SPECIAL EDITION" NEW YORK POST from The Yes Men on Vimeo.

The ironic thing about this appearing in the Post is that A) the Post basically denied global warming a year ago -- if Fox News was in print, it would be the Post and B) everything in the "fake" newspaper was factually correct, based on consensus research from around the globe. Check out the full paper here in PDF. Next they planned to launch Survivor Balls up the Hudson River.


The Yes men are also doing this to spread the word of mouth of their new movie. Self interest aside, I have to tip my hat to them for getting New Yorks riled up about climate change.