Alef Arendsen

Last week I went timber rafting in Sweden. I have to admit that at first, I was a bit afraid about how this would all go. The last trips I made all included hotels and this would involve sitting on a raft all day, preparing meals on a small stove and sleeping in tents.

After a week of hard work, sitting on a raf of 6 x 6 meters I have to say that I really enjoyed it. After having built the raf on Tuesday, we left and slowly ’sailed’ towards our final destination, 70-some km Southwards with a speed of 2kmph.

Getting the raft to land is pretty hard I can say, but that’s not amazing when I tell you that it weighs about 6tons. Apart from that being 12 year-old again (climbing in trees, making huge campfires) is real fun!

All-in-all; a week of great fun with people I only see once or twice a year. Something I definitely have to repeat!

Once every now and then I drop by at the bookstore to get some books. I usually end up reading a couple of books the next two or three weeks after that and then don’t read anything anymore until I drop by at the bookstore again. It was one of those weekends…

Anyway, I recently heard about this book called Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner and accidentally stumbled upon it in the local bookstore yesterday. Somewhat more than 24 hours later I finished reading the book and I must say, it’s an excellent easy to read piece.

I have always been intrigued by economics. It’s fascinating what moves the world at a larger scale. Why do oil prices rise, what would happen to welfare in China if the government let go its one-child-only policy. This book however, sheds entire different light on things.

It’s amazing how Steven asks bizar questions and backs digs up piles of data to draw a conclusion from. After reading cause and effects statements such as ‘Crime rates in the 90s dropped because of legalized abortion’ and ‘Being a good parent doesn’t matter all that much’ you really start to realize that looking at things a bit differently is not only fun, but can prove to quite useful as well.

One comment: I was a bit dissapointed that Steven and Stephen didn’t go deeper into methodologies and techniques they used to come to their conclusions. There is a small bit on causality and correlation and another bit on regression analysis but that’s all.

But all-in-all, if, during a rainy weekend, you don’t feel like doing anything, this is definitely a good read.

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levity and Stephen J. Dubner (0-06-073132-x, William Morrow, May 1, 2005)

Next up is Good to Great by Jim Collins, subtitled ‘Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t’. I’ll update you once I’ve finished it.