Huffman Coding

I accidently clicked on a banner ad yesterday.

What looked like a web form field actually took me to the emode.com website and I got suckered into taking their IQ test. After spending 20 minutes taking the test they, of course, would only give me the results if I supplied my e-mail address. Against all the advice I give my family and friends, I gave them an e-mail address (to my all-but-dormant Yahoo! account) so I could get my score. I declined the offer of their newsletter.

They calculated my IQ as 138, but I have a feeling the folks emode.com pad the scores to make everyone feel better. Besides engineers always ace logic tests. Amazingly enough, after only taking a short multiple choice test, they could classify me as a “Visionary Philosopher.” No ego stroking there! And wouldn’t you know, they instantly e-mailed me an offer to buy a detailed report of my results with all the correct answers for $14.95. I declined their kind offer. Perhaps I would have paid for the results had they told me I was “Mysteriously Handsome.” Just kidding.

I had no great titles in Jr. High. In eighth grade I took an occupational interest test. By process of elimination from my answers to several yes/no questions, a field of hundreds of occupations was winnowed down to a few. At the time, the perfect career for my introverted personality was: Trash Collector. Had I not chosen later in life to be a Software Engineer, I’m sure I would have been a very visionary garbageman.

The last time I took an intelligence test was for a three-month Effective Time Management course at my workplace. Of course you don’t need to know how smart you are to manage your time, but the bosses wanted to know how smart everyone was. The course was lead by “cheerleader type” and was horrible. The course advocated removing pictures of your family from the office because they are too distracting. They also suggested you file memos without reading them to save time. Almost all the participants made effective use of their time by dropping out of the course.