From the transcript:

Stephen Dubner is interviewing Scott Lilienfeld, a professor of psychology at Emory University.

DUBNER: And the last one weâ€ll do right now is “steep learning curve.”

LILIENFELD: A lot of people will say, “Oh, I started on a new job where I was having to do something new. And this job has a really steep learning curve.” In fact theyâ€re getting it backward. A steep learning curve is easy. Because a steep learning curve means —

DUBNER: You learn a lot in a hurry, right?

LILIENFELD: Not slowly.

DUBNER: When I read that in your paper I thought, “Oh my goodness, thatâ€s really interesting that weâ€ve all got it backwards.” But then I quickly rationalized and said, “Well, I guess what I always assumed was that the steepness was on the axis referring to difficulty somehow,” right? And that if a task is particularly difficult, then thatâ€s the steepness, and thatâ€s the curve Iâ€m on. So really, when we encounter something thatâ€s really difficult, and weâ€re having a hard time mastering it, we should say weâ€re on a very shallow —

LILIENFELD: A very shallow learning curve, thatâ€s right. I think when people say, “This task has a steep learning curve,” what they mean is, “Man, I feel like Iâ€m going up like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill and going up a very steep mountain!” But in fact if something has a steep learning curve, that means that itâ€s acquired very quickly.

Listen to the episode here.

Another interesting statistic from this website, is that 80% of drowning victims in the United States are male.

But recently, I discovered that terrestrial or over the air broadcasters only paid the song writers and publishers for playing recorded music. The ones performing the song don’t get anything when their record is played. A loophole the broadcasters have consistently lobbied for.

For instance:
“When you hear Counting Crows†recording of ‘Big Yellow Taxi†on the radio in the US, Joni Mitchell – the composer of ‘Big Yellow Taxi†– is compensated through BMI. But Counting Crows receive nothing for this performance.”

More can be found in this article:
Public Performance Right for Sound Recordings

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/111031-population-7-billion-earth-world-un-seven/

NPR Money Blog

The term “skid row” takes its name from the run-down saloons and boarding houses near the skid roads of western logging camps.

Source – Modern Marvels Episode: Logging Tech

A skid road was a corduroy road made of logs, used to skid or drag felled trees through the woods or bog to the saw mill.

In 1957, an enterprising marketing researcher named James Vicary announced to a breathless world that he had conducted an experiment in a movie theater in Fort Lee, New Jersey during screenings of the William Holden picture, Picnic. Vicary claimed that what he had done was to flash subliminal inducements during the screening of the film telling people to drink Coca Cola or to eat popcorn. His claim was that those subliminal flashes had actually increased sales of those items at the concession stand in the theater by some 38 percent.

This announcement took the country by [LAUGHING] storm. People basically freaked out over it. The networks swore they would never engage in practices like this. The New York State Senate passed a law against this kind of thing. Aldous Huxley appeared on The Mike Wallace Show [LAUGHS] and referred to it as something far worse than anything he’d imagined in Brave New World. It was quite a to do.

And the irony is that it turned out that Vicary had made the whole thing up.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love