What's Been and What's Ben

Why is free-market capitalism so closely tied with republican lawmakers that don’t believe in evolution? Slate had a good parable about how changing time cause changing perception. Parable-enthusiasts and parable-aficionado should enjoy this story about what I consider the the heart of darkness of life: you can do everything right and still win or more simply put, life is not fair. Physics is fair. It is completely unbiased against all forms of race, religious belief, and other such factors. We are comprised on a crazy number of physical events. Life is not fair because there are so many of these tiny events that we can’t possibly know about them – much less compute what to do with that information. What does discussion of physics and metaphysics mean for macroeconomics? Almost nothing except that even with a system of cogs and widgets doing exactly what they are meant to do, the outcome is not certain. All I know is that I am a genius because I started that last sentence without knowing a place to land and it came out all profound.

…those who don’t believe in evolution are doomed to repeat it…

I came up with an intelligence test which I call the Frevert Intelligence Test (FIT) because I don’t think any of the 500 Freverts have come up with one. This test is based not on asking if you know something, but demonstrating what you can do with what you know. There is no correct answer. It is a form of a personality test, but I came up with it when I was thinking of a good way to prevent hiring an incompetent idiot. It heavily favors creative people.

The test is simply two dots on a sheet of paper with a short instruction at the top:
“Connect the dots without taking your writing implement off the table. You have twenty minutes and can’t leave early.”

Perhaps applicants will connect the dots and sit there for twenty minutes, make a drawing, fold in the corner so your pen can move there to then move to a new location (see video for explanation), fold the paper in half (connecting the two dots without ink), and connecting the dots and walking out.

You can download a PDF of the Frevert Intelligence Test.

One last video on DNA self-assembly that will blow your mind. My prediction is that this will be the new technology in 2030. I view us as being in the first of three stages of technology growth. The first stage is learning from basic principles to make things like cars, cell phones, and lasers. The second stage is really a transition where exploits in complexity can lead us to things like the self assembly in this video, but we are just patching the inherit complexity we got along with our existence. The third stage is engineering the complexity to grow cell phones. In this stage we choose where each atom goes and what it does.

I must suggest the blog about okcupid statistics, an online dating site started by some harvard math guys. It has some good statistical information that is wicked interesting. Some of the results are a bit controversial (race analysis, rape fantasies by state, and the value of life by state)

On a lighter side, Zach Galifianakis’s internet talk show Between Two Ferns is hilarious. The natalie Portman one is best. Unfortunately, the KAUST firewall blocks this site. Below are some things worth watching

Malcolm Gladwell explains pasta sauce. As a side note, ketchup is one of the few foods that has no better variant than the normal Heinz. There is no premium stuff. What a product.

George gets real at his last press conference. This is pure entertainment. I miss W.

Dennis Kucinich at the 2008 DNC telling America to WAKE UP. My favorite part is the arm gesture he gives when he is done and steps away from the podium. He ran for president to find a wife like Mr. James on Newsradio.

Prank Calls on CSPAN

At KAUST we just finished WEP (Winter Enrichment Period, or Why Even Participate) and today is the first day of the spring semester. WEP was a four week period meant to have us explore other fields of knowledge. I took a class on marine science because it was one of three classes I could get credit for. I had to write a technology review called “sediment traps: a bucket in the ocean” which is about sediment traps – buckets placed in the ocean to collect floating bits of sediment. They have some technology dealing with funnels, honeycomb baffling, and other things that escape me at the moment. It was painful to write and due the day after the superbowl – which aired at 2 am here. I spent a fair amount of time on AcademicEarth.org. They aggregate good lectures on various things. I found a good lecture on relativity with simple math (got square root?) as seen below: