Virgil Griffith, a 25-year-old Caltech student and general computer whiz, is known for creating programs that stir up headlines. His latest two websites (which may be down due to the massive amounts of unexpected traffic) are way cool looks at the media we dig, and what that says about us. Booksthatmakeyoudumb.virgil.gr and Musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr, use aggregated Facebook data to track the favorite bands and books of students at colleges across the US, and then compares that data to SAT score average for those schools. So basically, the programs match up intelligence (take that word with some salt–everybody has a different definition of it) with music tastes.

And guess what? Beethoven fans average nearly 1400 on their SAT’s, while Bob Dylan junkies sit at the high(ish) end of the scale at a steady 1200. Lil Wayne fans average 889. Make of it what you will!

So I guess it’s good that I bought this dude as a daily reminder of mega-genius, eh?

Original source: Wall Street Journal, sent by my fabulous friend Susan Lister