We here at No Fact Zone love it when Stephen Colbert is nominated for, well, anything. It makes us happy to see others honoring him. And we were beyond thrilled when we heard about his recent nomination for a Grammy award for the audiobook for his New York Times bestseller, “I Am America (And So Can You!)”
To celebrate Stephen’s Grammy nod, Hachette Audio has teamed with us to get the word out about the Grammy and to share some of Stephen’s latest honored work with his most diehard fans. Thanks again, Hachette Audio, for supporting the fans, and for supporting Stephen as much as you do! It’s greatly appreciated.
Act quickly – this contest ends soon!
CURRENT GIVEAWAY CONTEST:
“I Am America (And So Can You!)” Grammy Contest
TO ENTER:
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY – not that we really sell anything here. Send an e-mail with your mailing address included to:
grammycontest (at @) nofactzone.net
(Seriously, I’m not kidding, PUT YOUR MAILING ADDRESS IN THE E-MAIL. If I don’t have your address in your e-mail, I’m drawing a different name. How can I mail you your prize if you don’t give me a place to send it? In past contests, I’ve had to draw multiple times to find people who actually sent me their addresses. I want to give you cool, free stuff, I really really do. So make it easy for me. Thank you.)
One Entry Per E-mail Address – Jesus doesn’t like it when you cheat.
(Entries are accepted from Thursday, February 5, 2009 to Sunday, February 8, 2009, with the drawing held at the end of the day on Sunday, February 8, 2009)
Five (5) winners will be selected, and each winner will receive one of the five prizes below. The prizes are provided by Hachette Audio, a subsidiary of the Hachette Book Group.
- GRAND PRIZE – Five available.
- One (1) copy of “I Am America (And So Can You!)
And as always, check out the Official Rules for the contest here!
I think I’ll bow out of this one… since I have the audio book already.. and because the company I ordered it and the book from cancelled my order.. I got 3 of each… so.. uh.. yeah… *L*
good luck everybody!
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I’d do this if it was autographed by the handsome man himself :-)
Already got the audiobook.
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well I’m glad you all are not entering! I don’t own a copy of this, have only heard it once, so I actually stand to benefit if I were to win.
(I suppose the marginal utility of IAAASCY audiobooks decreases rather quickly, huh? for the first copy I would say mine is somewhat high, but it has been outweighed by the cost so far.)
so anyway, great contest! thanks NFZ and Grand Central Publishing!
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It’s great you mentioned the marginal utility of IAAASCY audiobooks. I realized from everyone’s comments what a fun example of steep diminishing marginal returns this is :)
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What do you mean by marginal utility?
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In economics, at least, utility is an abstract measure of how much pleasure a person gets out of owning or using something. To confuse the heck out of people, economists call one unit of utility a “util” which really means nothing on its own. As an example, for my $20 I can buy IAAASCY and personally get 10 utils, or buy a book by Malcom Gladwell which will give me 8 utils. Marginal utility is just the difference in utility I get from owning one thing and my next best alternative to owning that thing. In the same example, if buying the Malcom Gladwell book is my next best alternative to buying IAAASCY, then my marginal utility of purchasing IAAASCY is 2. As Tiger mentioned in the original post here, the next best alternative may be to save the $20. This is because Tiger expects to gain more pleasure (more utils) from holding on to the $20 than buying IAAASCY.
I’m so sorry if that explanation is mind-numbingly boring. I spend all day thinking about these things and have a tendency to geek-out when I see them occur in real life :)
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it is fun to get some economics going on here. I’ve only had the most basic instruction in the subject but I love to catch it in all scenarios I can!
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If you ever have any questions on the subject, I’ll be happy to try my best to answer. Perhaps sadly, economics has warped my brain…
You did bring up a really interesting point here in that when observing diminishing marginal returns it is unusual to see the next “unit” lose so much utility so quickly, especially when free (in money and time).
I’m so sorry this post has wandered off topic, DB. Thank-you for setting up the contest!
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Thanks for the explanation W&M_NU. It makes more sense now.
What does W&M_NU mean?
There we go getting off topic again. :-)
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@ TruthPower
You’re welcome for the explanation – any time.
At the risk of now being seriously off topic… W&M_NU represents where I went to get my degrees, William & Mary and Northwestern. As a happy coincidence, they also happen to be where both Jon and Stephen went for undergrad.
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Geek away! Thanks for the explanation of marginal utility. Though my dad spent many years teaching economics at the local community college, I never took it myself, and I sometimes kick myself for that.
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You’re welcome! I’m glad my explanation was understandable (I never know sometimes).
I don’t currently teach econ, but it is my job to explain economic phenomena found in everyday life. So, I love to find kindred spirits. Although, I don’t think you should kick yourself for never taking an econ class. Much of econ is more intuitive than people believe.
It’s yet another reason I’m so impressed by Stephen – his understanding of economics is dead on, despite the fact that it wasn’t his major.
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Ow thanks! Hope I win this one, because with my paycheck I will NEVER have the money to buy one of those lol
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I’m gonna be very happy if I win this, because we don’t have this in Manila. :) Not even the book, though recently I’ve seen some bookstores displaying the Teacher’s Edition of America (The Book).
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I love all the references to economics! As a high school social studies teacher, I plan on using these to aid in my own explanations. My students already know what a fan I am of Stephen & Jon as I use them as examples whenever I can and it is appropriate!!! :)
There are parts of this book I would definitely use in class, specifically my sociology class. Unfortunately, the copy I have I burned from my brother and his cd was scratched so there are some major skipping issues! [I know, "Stephen" would be upset at my "free ride"!]
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Yes. No free rides. But you are creating other it-getters. He’d like that.
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I love that you use Jon and Stephen examples in your class. What a clever way to engage your students!
After creating all of those new revenue-generating it-getters, even “Stephen” should be willing to overlook the free ride :)
ReCaptcha: “another remark” – I think it’s trying to tell me something :)
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