If I start with $100 and end up with $250, did that money grow 2 1/2 times? A reporter and I are having a good-natured disagreement: He says yes, and I say no. The increase in question (I've simplified it for this example) was 150 percent. There's no arguing that; it's just math. To me, that…

Keeping Up With The Normals Alexia Tsotsis 1:55 AM PST · December 31, 2011 The holidays for most people who read this site involve answering a cornucopia of tech support questions for their relatives. Honestly, I’ve watched friends field the most frustrating 45 minute IT department-level questions…

Shut up about Brooklyn already. We all know about Brooklyn, that shining city on the hill, where everything is made only of awesome. Yes, there are beards and clunky eyeglass frames and lawyers who skateboard and grandpas with noise bands. The hipsters run-off freely now, the cheesecake is largely…

On October 16, my father and I drove north from my parents’ home in Racine to attend Game 6 of the NLCS — Brewers versus Cardinals. It was my first-ever playoff game, and I felt like an ancient wrong was being redeemed. In 1982, the Brewers appeared in their only World Series, against these same…

_In Chad Harbach's debut novel, The Art of Fielding , the tribulations of a star shortstop at a small liberal arts college take on a Herculean feel. A victim of a sudden and inexplicably wayward aim,

December 27, 2011 Although I’m not exactly a devoted reader of John Scalzi’s Whatever blog, a Twitter retweet last week drew my attention to a recent post , in which he announces that readers protesti

There is only one valid definition of a business purpose: to create a customer. Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management “Imagine an NFL coach,” writes Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, in his important new book, Fixing the Game, “holding a press…

In 2011 I learned that emotion is at the heart of every decision we make. From fashion to web forms, and spouses to site sign ups, emotion shapes our behavior by casting the tie-breaking vote when logic determines appropriate options for our consideration. We do what feels right, we go with our gut.…

The dual-mode iPhone 4S is a billed as a universal phone, but only if purchased from Apple. If you ask most cell phone users what they understand the term “unlocked phone” to mean, they will likely tell you that it is exactly what it says: that you can use the phone on any cell carrier anywhere.…

The historical and sociological reasons why the Jewish community and Chinese restaurants pair so well on Christmas Jesse Rhodes Get our newsletter! Get our newsletter! Feedloader (Clickability) The custom of Jewish families dining out at Chinese restaurants, especially on Christmas Day, has long…

Get the news Sign in FAQ Experience Experience Fill up at these gourmet gas stations Read Story Sarah Sekula Special for USA TODAY Today in the Sky Delta unveils new uniforms for 60,000 frontline workers Read Story Ben Mutzabaugh USA TODAY Destinations Advice Why airline codesharing must die Read…

Erhan Dayi/Shutterstock Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. The first rule of fact-checking is that everything you read and hear is wrong. Were you to be hired as a fact-checker, as I was in 2007, at Mother Jones—or at…

On Monday night, the Nippon Ham Fighters announced they would accept the Texas Rangers’ $51.7M bid for 25-year-old right hander Yu Darvish. The decision ended a months-long rumorfest concerning Japan’s best pitcher last season — and put on full display the oddity that is the Nippon Professional…

Dear Internet: It's No Longer OK to Not Know How Congress Works This weekend I read a post titled " Dear Congress: It Is No Longer OK To Not Know How the Internet Works ." The author, Joshua Kopstein, is right: it's not ok to not know about something before legislating or regulating it. The…

I remember fondly the days when we were all tickled pink by our elected officials’ struggle to understand how the internet works. Whether it was George W. Bush referring to “the internets” or Senator Ted Stevens describing said internets as “a series of tubes,” we would sit back and chortle at our…

Stephen Harper first became Prime Minister in 2006 and has already dramatically transformed the old Canada. But with no election due for four more years, we ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s in the nature of true believers and ideologues to believe that any means to their sacred ends are justified. This…

Christopher Hitchens outside his hotel in New York, June 7, 2010. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton Christopher Hitchens, my colleague for twenty years, was clever, hilarious, generous to his friends, combative, prodigiously energetic and fantastically productive. He could write with equal ease about Philip…

There probably isn’t much we can say about big banks that hasn’t already been said. From the major news outlets to your friends’ Facebook walls to countless cardboard signs, people are talking. Count as many banks as you can, and chances are you won’t run out of fingers. It’s also (still) likely…

My body no longer kills me when I come back from the gym. However, I had a moment of total humiliation today: theoretically my ideal body weight is 172 pounds and I weigh 153 Ibs. The woman at the gym calibrated my fat/water/meat/bone ratios, made an inward gasp and I asked her what was wrong. She…

The outpouring of grief, goodwill, and teary encomia that has attended news of Christopher Hitchens' passing would—if he was anything like the persona he presented in print—have turned his stomach. He loathed sentiment, welcomed combat, and delighted in inflicting hard truths. In that spirit, it…

(updated below) One of the most intensely propagandistic weeks in the last several decades began on June 5, 2004, the day Ronald Reagan died at the age of 93 in Bel Air, California. For the next six days, his body was transported to, and his casket displayed in, multiple venues around the nation —…

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Jim Morrison in 1968. Within an electrifying few years during the 1960s, rock ’n’ roll was transformed from a brash diversion of antsy teenagers into a serious genre that threatened to rival the traditional fine arts. Instrumental in this swift development was a Los Angeles band, the Doors, whose…

The D.C. metro models how the region would change if there were no subways or buses Officials from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority are out in the city all the time talking about the costs of the capital region’s transit system – the money it takes to run the thing, the investments…

December 13, 2011 | by | Features Even though Christi is in her twenties, her voice has a distinctly girlish quality. Her laugh is a pleasant, high-pitched hiccup, like the pop of a soap-bubble. When going into details, her voice betrays a vague, youthful discomfort. But, when discussing her…

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