A recent article discusses a study that found how simply believing you could become smarter actually makes you smarter. I’m sure about 5,000 experts have already disputed this, but let me (a wannabe expert) clear things up for you.

This study didn’t improve “intelligence”; it improved results. Let us pretend that the outcome of academics is 80% behavior and 20% intelligence (the ratio doesn’t matter that much here, so relax). These high-risk children that were tested were sub-par students, so in the 80% portion of their score they were probably using like 1/4 to 1/3 of their potential.

Intelligence, on the other hand is constantly being tapped at nearly full-bore. So if they were using 1/4 their “effort” and scoring a 20, and getting a 15 in intelligence, then they were ending up with a final tally of 35. Well, all this study did was remove their negative feelings about themselves and make them actually 1) care, and 2) try.

So that took their effort to like 75%, let’s say. So that’s a 60, combined with their 15 = 75. 35 before, 75 after — hence:

The majority of academic/general success is the result of effort, not aptitude. Aptitude only kicks in at the highest levels of difficulty.

My VIN number has been assigned, so somewhere in Germany my new car is being born. It looks like it’ll be here with plenty of time to spare before I return from New York. And I had them throw in window tint and the rubber floor mats as well. Bonus. So here’s the final setup:

• 2007 BMW 335i Sedan
• Sparkling Graphite Exterior, Gray Leather
• Sport Package
• Premium Package
• Comfort Access
• Rear/Side Window Shades
• Sirius Satellite Radio
• Aluminum Pedals
• Heated Seats

I seriously can’t wait to drive this thing. It’s going to be what my first car was supposed to be, plus a little more. Passing people is going to now become both trivial and extremely enjoyable, rather than the, “I guess that was o.k.” experience it was in the 325i. Yeah, can’t wait.

In my last post I spoke about how tracking incentives can lead to the answers for why the world is in such bad shape. If you take that a bit further you can see that the role of a parent, a school, or a society should be to create good incentive systems in our children.

That made me think: if there are good incentive systems, what are the bad ones? Asking that question to myself immediately yielded the worst one:

Be good or you won’t go to heaven. Don’t be bad, or you’ll go to hell.

These are horrible systems because they don’t coincide with a reality that humans interact with. They see a world where the incentive is to be evil, not good. Those who take advantage of others are rewarded, so they emulate that — very logical, really.

This is exacerbated by the fact that God is supposed to be punishing those who do these things, but he isn’t. So essentially, the only reason not to be evil and live a life of luxury is because someone invisible, all-powerful, and supremely benevolent will damn you to eternal pain and suffering if you don’t.

That’s not a good reason to be good, and we shouldn’t teach people that it is. This is the reason so many Catholic school kids become the bane of society. It’s because upon seeing the real world and leaving the influence created by the school, the main reason for them not doing evil is lifted from them, i.e. fear of God. They come to say, “Wait a minute, nobody else believes that crap — those people were crazy. I’m not going to hell for this stuff, everyone’s doing it, and damn — it sure feels good…yeehah!”

In other words, once they stop believing to any major degree, in the all-powerful, invisible, God who will punish you eternally, every single reason to not cheat and steal is removed. You aren’t taught in religious school that it’s universally wrong to hurt others. There is no “universal”. There is only God. And without God there is no morality; hence, for many, if you stop believing in the extreme, Biblical God taught in religious schools there’s no longer any reason to be moral.

This is a horrible way to teach people to be good. Unless you’re a small child, you shouldn’t need a “reason” to be good to others. Be good because it’s “right” to be good, not because something bad will happen to you if you don’t. This is harder to teach than, “You’ll burn in hell”, but it’s the only path to a truly moral society.

A recent article from Reason Magazine on why poor countries stay poor captured something priceless; here’s the best sentence in the entire article, but you should read the whole thing:

The problem is that Cameroon, like other poor countries, is a topsy-turvy place where it’s in most people’s interest to take actions that directly or indirectly damage everyone else.

This is really the key. Freakanomics taught me this lesson; tracking incentives really does show you the reason systems function they way they do. One of the primary functions of a good culture and society should be to create an incentive system that benefits the group rather than hurts it.

Follow the incentives and you’ll find the truth.

A buddy of mine was hanging out at a local gathering spot in his small, southern town on this past Election Day. Evidently Jeopardy was playing on the televisions inside and upon going outside to smoke a small group was discussing a previous question.

The question was about the name of the second planet from the Sun. My friend, of course, knew the answer (Venus), but one person, a woman in her late 30’s, decided to chime in with, “Everyone knows it’s Earth.”

My buddy, resisting the urge to pounce in her in the form of thrusting a finger at her and laughing, calmly said, “No, actually it isn’t. The second planet is Venus. Earth is the third planet.”

The woman, without missing a beat, responds happily, “Well, I never was too into astrology.”

This time my buddy couldn’t resist. “You voted Republican, didn’t you?”

The woman completely lights up, as if bonding with a stranger who shares a rare hobby, “How did you know?!!”

Last Friday I went to my first 2600 meeting. It was, of course, here in New York City — home of the original meetings. The group started small and grew to around 40, which the regulars said was a weak showing.

We pushed through the awkwardness (which wasn’t helped by our being dressed in business attire) and were able to mingle pretty easily. I got to speak with one guy who was something of a regular/leader on a range of topics, most noteworthy of which was a brief discussion of assassins-mace weapons.

The main conversation I had was with a very cool guy who does graphic design and has a background in programming. We discussed all kinds of stuff, including how we both hated those who write HTML but don’t take the time to learn how to do so correctly.

Meetings end in the final group going downtown for dinner, which we did. There it was a bit more difficult to blend in because the group was just a bunch of friends. It was pretty clear to me that they were going to raz us when we left because of how we dressed, but I think they might have a few good things to say as well.

Overall it was a really good experience. I intend to go back for the December meeting.

How can this not be pre-determined?

… (Kidding, of course, but it makes you think…)

My current spam solution combines using Google as a filter and then sending to Spamassassin. I have Spamassassin set to a threshold of four (4), and I wondered when I implemented this solution recently how much would get through Google but get caught by Spamassassin.

Well, over the last week I’ve caught thirty (30) spam messages with SA — and that requires that they make it through Google to even be seen by that filter. So that’s 30 out of approximately 1,400. Google’s doing a great job, in other words, but I like having the second filter anyway.

Hire curious people. Even if they don’t have the exact skill set you want, curious, passionate people can learn anything. — Jason Fried

It looks like the new BMW 335i that I’m getting has been seriously underrated — probably because they don’t want it to overshadow their current M3 offering. According to testing done by Automobile Magazine (not once but twice), the 335i is closer to 350 horsepower and 350lb/ft of torque than the 300 for each that’s being claimed by the official literature. It did 0-60 in 4.8 seconds, which is only a tenth of a second slower than the M3.

These dynamometer numbers are showing 384 for each at the wheels, and when you do the math (roughly 17% loss from the crankshaft) they’re looking at like 348 for both horsepower and torque. And that’s getting 28mpg on the highway. Methinks the performance debate concerning the 335i and the Infiniti G35 is officially over.

I cannot wait to drive this thing in a manual transmission. The automatic was insane enough when I drove it, and it reportedly has far more turbo lag than the manual. Coming back from New York is going to rock for so many reasons.