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Tyler Cowen wants to know Should high schools compute class rank? In a word, no. For the same reason I don’t think you can accurately rank universities, football teams and a plethora of other disparate groups, teams and individuals. In addition to not being able to accurately and objectively capture the true understanding a student has on a subject matter, I think it stresses the wrong thing (grades vs. concepts). As Señor Einstein once opined: “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”

Last week the world ended, or so readers of Slashdot thought. Reportedly, some up-to-no-good technocrats in China supposedly created their own DNS system. Nope, turns out that the story was misinterpreted somehow.

Quite the botching, wouldn’t you say?

Purchase one of these old school Apple shirts.

Oh and speaking of odd things, enjoy this Doonesbury cartoon on ID and truthiness.

You may have heard cries from pundits, that youngin’s are no longer inventing neat-o contraptions.

A car that runs on bio-diesel, looks like an Italian sports car, does zero to 60 in 4 seconds and gets 50 mpg was designed and built by some inner-city highschool student. Whodathunkit? This is not the first time such a feat has been accomplished (see the “Flying Car” from an MIT grad student as well as the highschool students that beat MIT in a underwater craft competition).

And speaking of inventions from MIT, Wired recently ran an article called Super Battery which details some nifty new nanotech that has been integrated to boost the power of the lithium-ion battery cell… enormously. Can’t wait to use one in my flashlight.

The Universe was created by a committee. I suppose Douglas Adams is smiling somewhere as well (note: the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was terrible).

So you thought you were done adapting to the environment, right? Nope. In a recent NY Times story, Still Evolving, Human Genes Tell New Story we find that sexual selection continues to transfer various traits, highlighting some and pushing others down the drain… or something like that.

On that note, be sure to check out this video overview of Will Wright’s upcoming gaming opus: Spore. This game is going to put more people on welfare than any other before it.

If nothing else, we will hopefully never revert back to walking on all fours.

Not only that, but older people (aka “seniors”) have begun to pick up certain types of memory enhancing games to help stimulate their minds. Brought to you by your friends at Nintendo: Maker of Super Mario, Pokemon scores again with brain-training game