Because the FFT in python is almost certainly implemented in C, and probably more cleverly done than a naive FFT that I/you/someone would whip up as part of a C program.
I don't know of human games that do this (except for practice), but this is done in computer games. See the Thoresen Chess Engine Competition (TCEC) where the first 8 moves for both sides are played by the book and then the engines take over. This is good as it ensures the engines are tested over a wide variety of positions.
As a senior at Yale right now, and seeing what most of my fellow students are going into next year, the Ivy League is great at pumping out over paid worker bees. See here http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2012/02/13/finance-continues-t... for the numbers going into finance (~20%) and just anecdotally I would guess there are only slightly less going into consulting. Finally, there are a not insignificant number (maybe 10%) doing some sort of engineering.
It can be if you want to use tools not designed for linux. I use keepass (http://keepass.info/) on linux and android and find it to be equivalent to 1 Password on Mac. It is in the Fedora repos (and I assume most others) and so easy to install.