Smart People Choke, Too

I didn't really have a better main topic but an article I found about a study that found that smart people tend to choke under pressure. The study seems well designed and it makes a lot of sense. People who have a higher capacity for working memory, which this aricle's title defines as 'smart' people, have more room to worry about things in high pressure situations than other people who just take the situation as it comes without reflecting on it. Not to say that I'm a very smart person or anything, but I do get more flustered on exams where I have more pressure and I have a lot of trouble speaking when I'm on the spot as opposed to when I'm relaxed. I think part of the source of my cluttering problem is likely this anxiety. For example, in Latin class it takes me a while to translate sentences out loud, but on quizzes when I have to sight translate a passage I get like 100s (we have an hour to do these quizzes and they only take like 20-30 minutes). I hope that this will change society's opinions of standardized tests. I only got a 1310 on the SAT, but that's much below what my GPA would imply my score should've been. Anyway, it's just something to think about when you see nerds get flustered.

I might as well continue with some nerdy news. There's an interesting read here about Google's formula for success. It's based on a 70-20-10 scheme, which splits them into searching and advertising, related products, and research, respectively. it seems to have been working for them so far, and there's been quite a buzz around the web about their recent map service. Distractions among people in the workplace and among students has become rampant, but solutions are already being formed. I actually read the whole article and it has a lot of great stuff like the possibility of smart e-mail that knows when to interrupt you and for what e-mail, and also the concept of cognitive key flow to know when to take breaks. Lastly, a software engineer at Microsoft has blogged about why they haven't made any source code from Windows Forms available. Apparantly part of it is intellectual property issues and another big part is that they have to scrub the code for inappropriate comments. I'm surprised that the team leads allow lascivious comments to stay in the code; it's rather unprofessional. Oh, and the answer to yesterday's CS brain buster was to create a private constructor and make a static method that only returns one initialized object of the class. Crazy, huh? I have the test in an hour so wish me luck!

Once again, I have way too much movie news for my own good. There is now a teaser trailer available for Tom Yum Goong, the next movie from Tony Jaa. It looks pretty sweet, but I wish they had it in a higher resolution! Aishwarya Rai, the dream girl of thousands upon thousands of Indian guys, is going to be in a new American movie called The Mistress of Spices based on a novel telling the tale of an Indian woman who sells magical spices in the U.S. until she falls in love with this dude, who will be played by Dylan McDermott, who negates the power of the spices. It's supposed to be a comedy and people involved with Bend It Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice will be involved so it should be decent. Sam Eliot and Matt Long, of Jack and Bobby fame, are going to be joining Nicholas Cage in the Ghost Rider movie! For those of you who don't know, this is what Ghost Rider looks like



I used to love the comic book so I hope they don't blow this movie. Martin Scorcese and Leonardo DiCaprio are teaming up once again to make Drunken Angel. They've already done Gangs of New York and The Aviator together, and now they've begun The Departed. I think at some point he should move on to other actors, but he is a brilliant director so whatever floats his boat. It looks like a sequel to Saw is on the way and will be out in theaters by October. Given that they've just finished the script, I think that they're going to be rushing it a tad and it may not turn out all that well, especially since it wasn't really a movie where a sequel would sound very different. Bruce Willis has confirmed that a Die Hard 4 movie is now in the works so action fans can now rejoice and pray that Willis isn't too old to be an action hero again. Larry David, of Curb Your Enthusiasm (a show I keep meaning to check out), may be in Spider-man 3 so keep your eyes peeled for that if you're a fan of his show on HBO.

I just felt like I had to start another paragraph for a few more movie items. I'm now even more psyched to see Southland Tales that Kevin Smith has confirmed that it's a mind-blowing script. It's written and directed by Richard Kelly, the creator of the cult-hit Donnie Darko, and though not much is known about the movie I can't imagine Kelly not turning out an innovative movie. Those of you waiting for Mirror Mask may enjoy this interview with creative mind Neil Gaiman. I've saved the best for last: Michael Mann, Jamie Foxx, and Colin Farrell are working on a Miami Vice movie! How cool is that?!

I'll try to not go too long into today's video game news. Tecmo is cracking down on video game hackers, which is great because games take so much time that hacking really tarnishes the beauty of the product the whole process creates. Fans of World of Warcraft won't want to miss this article detailing the server overloading in the popular MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game). Blizzard is pretty well respected for quality games and this is the first time their service has come under fire, but I hope they'll resolve it soon. IGN put up a few videos of FIFA Street, and I hope the game takes the series in a positive direction.

Almost done, just a couple of random things (as if you needed more). Another "victim" of supposed sexual assailant Bill Cosby has now come forward and her story sounds kind of exaggerated. I really can't see him doing all that stuff, especially with his level of intelligence and the wealth he has accumulated. Keane won 'Best British Album' and 'Best British Breakthrough' at the Brit awards yesterday! I love Hopes and Fears and fans of melo music should check it out. My room mate's sister blogged yesterday about a common problems among guys so I thought that I'd plug it because I never see that in a girl's blog! Kudos to you Anh!

I don't feel much like doing a meme today, so instead I'll just put up today's Penny Arcade comic. I don't like to include curse words in my posts much, but this is just too funny as I remember the old days of Star Fox.