Study finds no link between IQ and happiness

This article of course got my attention, especially this excerpt:

The study found that intelligence has both an upside ("increasing one's resources through entry to better employment, for example") and a downside ("awareness of alternative lifestyles or a striving for greater achievement"), both of which can contribute to — or undermine — happiness.

To which I respond, duh, money can't buy happiness. I've often thought that being more intelligent causes you to be less happy, especially when I was a teenager. But now, my life is happy, albeit busy.

New blog name

So it took me over a year to come up with a real blog name. A geeky parent for sure!

Technology Review: Outside the Norm

This article from Technology Review hit home. It talked about "underage" kids going to MIT, of which I was one. Here is a funny excerpt that left me ROFL:

Each year, a handful of "underage" teenagers are among MIT's incoming students. The university takes no initiative to court them, but anywhere from one to five, ranging in age from 14 to 16, join the MIT community annually. What do these wunderkinder look like, talk like, act like? Do they spend all night sweating bullets over their laptops, or do they just lounge around their dorms effortlessly completing multiple homework assignments at once? Do they play chess blindfolded? Can they go a whole night speaking only in palindromes?

First of all, I didn't realize that there were so few kids entering MIT who were young. When I started, I immediately met another 16-year-old in the first week, so I thought it was relatively common . If you are smart enough to go to college at 16, it may as well be the best, otherwise you really aren't smart enough (some kind of twisted logic there, no posers allowed). My encounter with this other 16-year-old went like this... I'm at a frat in Boston during Rush week at a party. This guy is trying to impress all the girls, saying he is 16 and he plays the piano, etc. He starts playing something lame, intermediate at best, all the while winking at the girls. He is really ticking me off the way he is trying to show off. Then I mention that I am 16 too and that I play the piano too. I'm not trying to show off or anything, but I wait for him to ask me to play. Then I play the 3rd movement of Beethoven's Appasionata Sonata and of course totally blow him out of the water. That shut him up for good. I'm not usually one to show off, but he just really ticked me off. These days I would just ignore people like that (i.e. don't have anything good up my sleeves to play).

The sad thing about these kids they interviewed in this article is that they all seem like such unhappy misfits in high school. I thought high school was a total bore, but I still had friends and had fun. I guess I was lucky to be young and "normal".

HP Calculator cult

Although I hardly use a calculator anymore, I hadn't realized how I had been immersed in the HP calculator cult until mine broke. The first time I used an RPN (reverse polish notation for those not in the know) calculator was at an exam at MIT. I forgot my calculator and I asked the student next to me if I could you theirs. I've seen these weird landscape shaped calculators before, but I had never used one. I was totally confounded by the fact that I couldn't get it to work at all!! I thought, why are these so popular when they don't even work? Plus there was a math professor that kept showing his graphing HP calculator off during lectures, which simply bored us poor folks who didn't have one. Sometime after that experience, I was explained the virtues of RPN, but wasn't convinced to get one until I worked at Dorr-Oliver (so when I was around 23). It was a cheap $50 32SII, not the 2 line 42S, or the classic 11C or 15C. It was new looking, portrait shaped, but most importantly RPN. Plus I wanted the base (hex and binary) capabilities.

So I was completely surprised when a co-worker stopped at my cube a few years ago and said, "I'll give you $50 for that calculator." I said, "What? No way!!" He said, "OK, $100." I said, "Are you crazy? This is not even a classic!" He explained to me that even my generation of calculator was worth a lot of money. Of course I loved my calculator too much to sell it. Still, I just left it lying on my desk (I would know who stole it was if it went missing) collecting dust. Unfortunately, I think the dust did it in. The + and - keys (essential!!) stopped working consistently and eventually the whole left column worked intermittently. I was devastated!! I did some looking on the web and conferred with my HP expert friend (who has no less than 20 calculators in his personal collection) and found some bad news about fixing it yourself:

http://www.hpmuseum.org/disasm.htm :
Most of the newer models including the Pioneers, the Champion/Clamshells and the 48 series are not designed to be disassembled. It's very likely that disassembling one will leave you with junk! If you feel compelled to disassemble one anyway, you generally start by carefully removing the metal keypad plate. You can use a hair dryer to warm and soften the adhesive and you must proceed slowly and carefully to avoid bending. (It's unlikely that you will be able to restore this plate to its exact original condition.) Too much heat can damage the calculator. Then carefully drill off the tops of the heat-stakes. On reassembly, you may be able to remelt some of the heat-stake remains, or use glue or tiny screws. It's essential on most models for the two halves to be held together firmly and this can be difficult to achieve.

Yikes!! Finally, I decided to send it off to these guys for repair: http://www.fixthatcalc.com/. Hopefully $43 will be worth the investment. These calculators are going around $100-$200 on eBay now. Here is more info from them:

http://www.fixthatcalc.com/history.htm :
From its inception, the units were never designed to be opened for service. They are held together with heat fused plastic rivets that are very difficult to defeat. Being repairable was not part of the design, as it was for a low cost, but rugged calculator. We specialize in the "unrepairable" ones, which includes the following models:
The Pioneers
Scientific models: 20S,22S,27S,32S,32Sii,42S

I barely considered the nasty looking HP 33s RPN replacement. What are they thinking? HP

Grocery Store Wars | Join the Organic Rebellion

This movie is a must see!! Let's all join Cuke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Cannoli, Princess Lettuce, Ham Solo, Chewbroccoli, C3 Peanuts, Tofu D2 and of course Yogurt against the dark side of the farm headed by Darth Tater!!

Continuous Computing Blog: Apple Finally Catches the Podcasting Wave

I am so psyched!! I've subscribed to all my favorite podcasts right from iTunes. Oddly enough, they include all the ones listed in Wade's blog entry, "from the raunchy and irreverent Dawn and Drew Show to the surprisingly hip and candid Catholic Insider, with Curry's own Daily Source Code." I haven't actually listened to the new firmware with bookmarking on my iPod, a must for longer podcasts like the podcast novel Earthcore. Now that I've shed my 2 hour a day commute, I don't know when I'll be listening to all these podcasts!! Plus I'm losing my Tuesday and Friday Earthcore walks with Dova. Here are the rest of my addictions: The Bitterest Pill, and of course WGBH Morning Stories.