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Amazon vs. Apple: What Should E-Book Prices Be?
How much would you pay for an e-book? Amazon, Apple want to know.
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...With Functioning Kidneys for All
Surely we can find enough kidney donors for those who need transplants. But doing so will require creativity, boldness, and a sense of urgency—and experimenting with controversial ideas like donor chains and financial incentives.
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The Gift-Card Economy
For some people, spending just doesn’t come naturally—especially in a recession. Behavioral economists have a solution
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Left: Shaun Heasley/Reuters/Corbis; Right: Adam Hunger/Reuters/Corbis Macroegonomics
Economic policy makers thought they had tamed the business cycle. Not quite. Let’s hope their hubris doesn’t get in the way of our economic recovery
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Defending “My Drug Problem”
Virginia Postrel’s March article on the availability of cancer drugs sparked enormous reader response, much more than the print magazine’s Letters to the Editor section could accommodate. Here she responds to some common criticisms from those letters.
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Mark Hooper My Drug Problem
The cancer drug Herceptin saved the author’s life. It also cost $60,000. Would health-care reform put it, and other expensive new drugs, out of reach?
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TED roundup: production values
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TED roundup: random notes
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TED roundup: if growth is an anti-poverty program, then depression...
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TED roundup: saving the oceans
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Christopher Stevenson/Getty Images Pop Psychology
Why asset bubbles are a part of the human condition that regulation can’t cure
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The Case for Debt
Public anxiety over “excessive” consumer debt has a long, and misguided, history. By Virginia Postrel
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The Politics of the Retouched Headshot
"In an image-savvy culture, we’re increasingly forced to consider just what constitutes a valid portrait"
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Inconspicuous Consumption
A new theory of the leisure class
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The Peril of Obama
The glamour of Obama may be hard to resist, but could it get the country into trouble if he wins the presidency?
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The Art of Healing
How better aesthetics in hospitals can make for happier—and healthier—patients
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What's in a Font?
Virginia Postrel talks with Gary Hustwit—director of Helvetica—about filmmaking, creativity, and the expressive implications of one of the world's most popular typefaces
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Playing to Type
A revolution in typeface design has led to everything from more-legible newspapers and cell-phone displays to extra-tacky wedding invitations.
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Rightsize Me
Why sending a man to the moon is easier than finding jeans that fit
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A Tale of Two Town Houses
Real estate may be as important as religion in explaining the infamous gap between red and blue states.
