The Big Apple continues its 10-year run as the city in which people say they’d most like to live, but Boston and Dallas are on the rise.

Noticeably absent from the list: Los Angeles, Miami and D.C. The Huffington Post counts them down.

Happy to put October’s freak snowstorm behind them, students took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather Tuesday to take a break between classes — and between trees. The Quad is a favorite spot for the sport of slacklining.

[portfolio_slideshow]

Decisions are ideally the result of rational and intentional reasoning, but for many, the process instead is one clouded by any number of conscious and unconscious influences.

Farnam Street has assembled a primer of sorts on decision making and curates steps to reaching the optimal decision.

Experts predict a rocky year ahead, and more to follow, as increasing population and global consumption stir poverty and unrest. The big picture is further complicated by increased severity and frequency of catastrophic weather events, which may affect grain harvests, analysts warn.

Shhhh, don’t tell the kids. Santa didn’t discover Rudolph and his red nose — a lowly copywriter at Montgomery Ward did in the 1930s.

Bowdoin Webmaster Mark Leaman is feeling a little snowed under at the moment. And he couldn’t be happier.

Leaman, who helps keep Bowdoin’s Web services up and running by day, is spending his evenings madly assembling a tabletop game he invented called Cabin Fever, which he sells as a sideline business.

The dice-based game of strategy pits players in a race to see who can “dig out” first from their snowed-in cabin. It comes in a palm-sized plastic cube, which Leaman notes is a “perfect stocking-stuffer size” and it comes with the tagline, “The Game From Maine.”

An inveterate gamer himself, Leaman said he developed the idea for the game several winters ago during a snowstorm. “I had been working on developing a game that was Maine themed and family oriented,” said Leaman. “Then the power went out. My son and I were sitting around and I said, ‘Try out this idea with me.’ He really loved it so I figured I was onto something.”

Leaman found a manufacturer to produce the game pieces: six dice, a plastic cabin, instructions and several stickers that say “I’ve Got Cabin Fever.” He assembles and markets the product from a home-based company called Merrymeeting Games.

It also retails at two Brunswick-area stores — What’s Up on Maine Street in Brunswick, and Game Box Video Games & Comics in Topsham.

The game is now in its third production run. Leaman says he hopes he can share it more widely with the community at Bowdoin’s annual arts and craft sale, Sunsplash, December 10, 2010, in Smith Union.

“The board game market is undergoing a Renaissance all over the country right now,” notes Leaman. “I think the first generation of video gamers are older now, they have kids. In a board game you can sit down with your family; it really encourages interaction.”

He thinks about those interchanges for a minute and smiles. “You know, it’s always surprising to find out who the cutthroat people are in games,” he says. “It’s never who you expect it to be. Watch out for the quiet ones …”

If you have to tell someone you were only joking, they probably didn’t get the joke. Might be best to recognize this and other passive aggressive phrases commonly in use.

The classic New York accent isn’t as prevalent as it once was, and with some seeing it as a hindrance in an era of globalization, it may become endangered as so-called “New York accent reduction specialists” find their services increasingly in demand.

By studying the cognitive illusions of master pickpocket Apollo Robbins, scientists hope to gain new perspectives on how the brain works.

Harvard University Library Director Robert Darnton makes the case for developing a national digital library, citing Thomas Jefferson’s stated vision that: “Knowledge is the common property of mankind.”

Some colleges and universities are dedicating dorm rooms — or building suites — to accommodate faculty residents. The move is seen as a way to help bring an academic atmosphere to the halls and help new students transition into the college environment.

Management of several public library systems around the country have been outsourced to a private, for-profit company sparking public debate over future of libraries and library workers.

Bright yellow, orange and red leaves are beginning to transform the Bowdoin campus. Maine’s fall display is expect to peak in mid-October. Visit the State’s daily update of fall foliage color in Maine.

An entrepreneur has developed a new casualty insurance that pays out in the event of divorce. There’s one hitch: Couples must be married a minimum of four years before becoming unhitched.

Slate correspondent Joshua Wolf Shenk explores research, literature, popular culture and history to examine how creative growth and achievement emerge from relationships.

Last year, Bowdoin’s David Israel hit the annual Eastern Apiculture Society conference as a fledgling beekeeper. Last week, the associate director of communications for new media walked away with the society’s 2010 First Prize for his ambrosial dark amber honey. “It was shock and delight,” says Israel, of Brunswick. He said he got the impetus to become an apiculturist, or beekeeper, at the urging of his father-in-law, William Fletcher ’66, who runs a small CSA farm in southern Maine.

“The agricultural yield in the area wasn’t what it should have been,” says Israel. “There weren’t enough pollinators for the crops.”

He armed himself with books on the subject, joined a local bee club, and drew inspiration from the example of his late father, Yale’s Rabbi Richard Israel, who was a lifelong beekeeper.

Two hives soon multiplied into seven, including two in his Brunswick backyard. Israel’s two young sons often help him with hive maintenance and honey bottling, replete with mini beekeeper suits and veils.

In spite of a few initial stings, Israel says he no longer wears gloves: “You learn how to handle them more gently with time.”

More challenging, he says, are the somewhat intangible aspects of beekeeping including managing their instinct to swarm, ensuring that the whole hive has proper nutrition (“If they hit a dearth you can feed them sugar syrup,” he says.), and developing plain old patience.

“The things you do to the bees sometimes take weeks or months to play themselves out,” notes Israel. “They’re not domesticated animals. It’s more of a process of applied biology.”

Israel’s patience seems to be having a big payout — not only in honey. Bill Fletcher’s cucumber crop “went berserk” this season, says Israel. “That is certainly attributable to the bees,” he boasts. “They are very important to agriculture. One third of the food you eat wouldn’t exist unless honeybees were around to pollinate.”

Israel is a member of the board of directors of the Maine State Beekeepers Association. He plans to make his honey available for sale in the future.