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Inform, educate, entertain ... whatever, so long as its slightly relevant to Mensa the international High IQ society. Ie interesting to mensans or anyone interested in Mensa.
If you wish to become a site member and blog, contact me via this web form or email mensanblogger@gmail.com
You must be a member of Mensa (any country). Note. This blog is unaffiliated with and has no connection with Mensa. Not officially anyway!
David (Mensa Demographic…): I have only met one or tw… Buckshot (Mensa Demographic…): C’mon, be brave. Tell us… David (Intelligence and …): Occasionally it’s about M… Dusk (Intelligence and …): Nice site. This blog is n… David (Mensan Youth): I was 20 when I joined (1… Bob (Pivot 1.30 Beta 2…): And this is what a commen…
So what cerebral activities will I be participating in this weekend? Well tonight will be the pub crawl around Nottingham. So if you are in the vicinity and see a bunch of intellectual inebriates, it might just possibly be myself and others. I remember my last one, round Birmingham a year or two back. It ended up in a noisy debate with a mate who I'll call Pete (for that is his name) and I arguing over the weight of air inside a hot air balloon.
Tomorrow though is the Karaoke which I have to confess is one of my favourite activities. Sadly this clashes with the Poker tournament which is also something I enjoy though I'm not quite Doyle Brunson yet.
But fear not dear reader, Mensa does have intellectual activities as well. I'll be chairing the meeting regarding the Meson Sub B particle which Fermillab have just confirmed (as we predicted ten years ago) flips flops between being matter and anti matter 2.7 trillion times a second. After that comes the revision of the UFO encounter protocol. We think that the Govts of the world should remove the 'apply deadly force immediately to overwhelm alien life forms and secure advanced technology' as a little bit provocative or at least tone it down.
Then its the AG saturday, dinner saturday night with Gerald Ratner (as previously discussed). You cann see for yourself what we'll get up to (or at least what we admit we'll get up to!) here.
PS. One of these paragraphs may be full of porkies...
26 September 06 - 20:23Seen Any Good Articles on Intelligence
US Mensa offers an annaual prize of $1,000. This will be given annually for the best reporting in a newspaper or magazine meant for a general audience, on the topic of human intelligence, especially giftedness. Articles must have appeared during calendar year 2005.
(I assume this rolls forward!).
So if you have seen any that you thought were good or have written yourself, write to Phyllis Miller: millerp@mail.montclair.edu
The last one was in March 2006 so presumably March 2007?
I came across these today. I'm also a Director in a Personality Survey company (they're surveys not Personality Tests !) and slowly building up a website called Personality Tests though it now covers a bit more than that.
On this site you'll find an interesting selection of IQ Quizzes, Memory tests and Mind Toys.
Which reminds me, I've just bought my other half a Nintendo DS with the Big Brain Game on it. Once I've doubled my IQ or at least had a good play, I'll write a review of it.
17 September 06 - 20:47New British Mensa Website Due
If I recall correctly, the new British Mensa website is intended to go live in September 2006 at the AG. The old one has been around years and is a little creaky- not so easy to search, and it usually takes about 8 clicks to get anywhere.
One of the problems with Mensa is that it has members of all ages and technical ability. Passing an IQ test is not a guarantee that you can operate a VCR or even use the web. So moves to make Mensa wholely web based risks disenfranchising a proportion of members. As time goes on, the numbers of such luddites will dwindle. It won't happen soon but there must come a time?
13 September 06 - 10:11Mensa Games The Game of Set
Had you been in a pub on Baker Street (London), last night, you might have observed 6 mensans playing card, dice and board games. I don't think you could isolate Mensa and games playing. E.g. there is the Mensa Games in the UK and the Mensa Select weekend in the USA. And before you ask, yes I did play D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) when younger!
One of the games we played was Set. This is a pack of cards with one, two or three shapes on each card. 12 cards are turned face up and all the players have to scan them looking for sets of three with matching or not matching attributes. Think its easy- have a look on the maker's website. Link
The Mind Sports Olympiad finished a couple of weeks ago with entrants and winners from all over the world. At least an Englishman won the "Draughts English Go As You Please Championship". We may not have won the soccer World Cup but in Draughts we can hold our head up proud without too much huffing.
I see the winner of the Acquire competition was an old game playing acquaintance of mine - Michael Haytack. Well done that man!
07 September 06 - 15:57Win $1000 by answering questions.
Between July and October 2006, the International Hi IQ society is offering several cash prizes to the highest scorers. As they say on their site.
"The contest has no entry fee and is open to anyone worldwide who wishes to attempt it. The contest questions have kept advanced math and specific cultural knowledge to a minimum, and requires knowledge of only simple, universal concepts to solve.
No puzzle is immune to alternate solutions if enough avenues are exhausted, and that will certainly be the case with some of ours as well. For many of the puzzles trying to figure out what the puzzle designer is looking for is the most difficult part of the puzzle. To maintain uniformity amongst all contestants no alternate solutions will be accepted.
The contest itself is in the form of a PDF document which will allow you to print it out and work on it at your leisure. You enter your answers through our website and have until midnight October 31st New York time to submit your answers. "
Not into RSS and afraid you might miss a posting? Sign up for the email update using the box on the right just above the photos link. It takes you to a site (feedblitz.com) where the emailing is handled- you'll receive a 'coonfirm your Registration' Email with a clickable link- it's to stop people signing up others maliciously.
Then after you've clicked it, once a day all posts from Mensan.eu are sent to all subscribers. You can unsubscribe at any time.
I'd been browsing around and found a free one at Intelligencetest.com. 30 Questions. I got 26/30 without cheating and it took me about 20 minutes to get through them. It said "Your age adjusted IQ score is 136 and the average score for all test takers is 100. You scored higher than 99 % of all the people that took this test. Your Grade ** Gifted **" - Woo. The equivalent score on the Cattell scale gave me a result about 5 over the rating I got in 1979 when I joined Mensa. Ah well theres hope for me yet!
01 September 06 - 07:09Mensa Brand for Casual Games?
This is a personal thought and nothing official. I regard Mensa as a brand with potential that is being under exploited. Mensa is of course run for the benefit of its members but like any other organisation needs money. It can get this from subscriptions, which it does £40 a year gives British Mensa roughly a million pound turnover, before other revenue sources are added in.
Intelligent people like to play games. Well I do, and I know a lot of games players in Mensa, both computer and board games. Labyrinth Games is a games consultancy run by Mensan David J Bodycombe who I have had the pleasure of playing against (and outwitting- yeah! in a Sherlock Holmes board game) a couple of years ago.
In the US, the Mind Games weekend and Mensa Select is a strong connection with board games and in the UK we've seen Reiner Knitzia's Mensa Connections game. Which incidentally I shall be playing competitively at the AG weekend later this month.
There is a growing genre within the online games business. the so called Casual Games which it is now estimated is worth $2 billion a year. An example of this is games websites such as the former GameBlast.com (now called Shockwave Unlimited) are subscription based. The Mensa brand would seem a pretty good fit for this market. Many of the (usually Flash) games have significant educational value. They are not just shoot-em-ups.
So what cerebral activities will I be participating in this weekend? Well tonight will be the pub crawl around Nottingham. So if you are in the vicinity and see a bunch of intellectual inebriates, it might just possibly be myself and others. I remember my last one, round Birmingham a year or two back. It ended up in a noisy debate with a mate who I'll call Pete (for that is his name) and I arguing over the weight of air inside a hot air balloon.
Tomorrow though is the Karaoke which I have to confess is one of my favourite activities. Sadly this clashes with the Poker tournament which is also something I enjoy though I'm not quite Doyle Brunson yet.
But fear not dear reader, Mensa does have intellectual activities as well. I'll be chairing the meeting regarding the Meson Sub B particle which Fermillab have just confirmed (as we predicted ten years ago) flips flops between being matter and anti matter 2.7 trillion times a second. After that comes the revision of the UFO encounter protocol. We think that the Govts of the world should remove the 'apply deadly force immediately to overwhelm alien life forms and secure advanced technology' as a little bit provocative or at least tone it down.
Then its the AG saturday, dinner saturday night with Gerald Ratner (as previously discussed). You cann see for yourself what we'll get up to (or at least what we admit we'll get up to!) here.
PS. One of these paragraphs may be full of porkies...
26 09 06 20:23Seen Any Good Articles on Intelligence
US Mensa offers an annaual prize of $1,000. This will be given annually for the best reporting in a newspaper or magazine meant for a general audience, on the topic of human intelligence, especially giftedness. Articles must have appeared during calendar year 2005.
(I assume this rolls forward!).
So if you have seen any that you thought were good or have written yourself, write to Phyllis Miller: millerp@mail.montclair.edu
The last one was in March 2006 so presumably March 2007?
I came across these today. I'm also a Director in a Personality Survey company (they're surveys not Personality Tests !) and slowly building up a website called Personality Tests though it now covers a bit more than that.
On this site you'll find an interesting selection of IQ Quizzes, Memory tests and Mind Toys.
Which reminds me, I've just bought my other half a Nintendo DS with the Big Brain Game on it. Once I've doubled my IQ or at least had a good play, I'll write a review of it.
If I recall correctly, the new British Mensa website is intended to go live in September 2006 at the AG. The old one has been around years and is a little creaky- not so easy to search, and it usually takes about 8 clicks to get anywhere.
One of the problems with Mensa is that it has members of all ages and technical ability. Passing an IQ test is not a guarantee that you can operate a VCR or even use the web. So moves to make Mensa wholely web based risks disenfranchising a proportion of members. As time goes on, the numbers of such luddites will dwindle. It won't happen soon but there must come a time?
Had you been in a pub on Baker Street (London), last night, you might have observed 6 mensans playing card, dice and board games. I don't think you could isolate Mensa and games playing. E.g. there is the Mensa Games in the UK and the Mensa Select weekend in the USA. And before you ask, yes I did play D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) when younger!
One of the games we played was Set. This is a pack of cards with one, two or three shapes on each card. 12 cards are turned face up and all the players have to scan them looking for sets of three with matching or not matching attributes. Think its easy- have a look on the maker's website. Link
The Mind Sports Olympiad finished a couple of weeks ago with entrants and winners from all over the world. At least an Englishman won the "Draughts English Go As You Please Championship". We may not have won the soccer World Cup but in Draughts we can hold our head up proud without too much huffing.
I see the winner of the Acquire competition was an old game playing acquaintance of mine - Michael Haytack. Well done that man!
Between July and October 2006, the International Hi IQ society is offering several cash prizes to the highest scorers. As they say on their site.
"The contest has no entry fee and is open to anyone worldwide who wishes to attempt it. The contest questions have kept advanced math and specific cultural knowledge to a minimum, and requires knowledge of only simple, universal concepts to solve.
No puzzle is immune to alternate solutions if enough avenues are exhausted, and that will certainly be the case with some of ours as well. For many of the puzzles trying to figure out what the puzzle designer is looking for is the most difficult part of the puzzle. To maintain uniformity amongst all contestants no alternate solutions will be accepted.
The contest itself is in the form of a PDF document which will allow you to print it out and work on it at your leisure. You enter your answers through our website and have until midnight October 31st New York time to submit your answers. "
Not into RSS and afraid you might miss a posting? Sign up for the email update using the box on the right just above the photos link. It takes you to a site (feedblitz.com) where the emailing is handled- you'll receive a 'coonfirm your Registration' Email with a clickable link- it's to stop people signing up others maliciously.
Then after you've clicked it, once a day all posts from Mensan.eu are sent to all subscribers. You can unsubscribe at any time.
I'd been browsing around and found a free one at Intelligencetest.com. 30 Questions. I got 26/30 without cheating and it took me about 20 minutes to get through them. It said "Your age adjusted IQ score is 136 and the average score for all test takers is 100. You scored higher than 99 % of all the people that took this test. Your Grade ** Gifted **" - Woo. The equivalent score on the Cattell scale gave me a result about 5 over the rating I got in 1979 when I joined Mensa. Ah well theres hope for me yet!
This is a personal thought and nothing official. I regard Mensa as a brand with potential that is being under exploited. Mensa is of course run for the benefit of its members but like any other organisation needs money. It can get this from subscriptions, which it does £40 a year gives British Mensa roughly a million pound turnover, before other revenue sources are added in.
Intelligent people like to play games. Well I do, and I know a lot of games players in Mensa, both computer and board games. Labyrinth Games is a games consultancy run by Mensan David J Bodycombe who I have had the pleasure of playing against (and outwitting- yeah! in a Sherlock Holmes board game) a couple of years ago.
In the US, the Mind Games weekend and Mensa Select is a strong connection with board games and in the UK we've seen Reiner Knitzia's Mensa Connections game. Which incidentally I shall be playing competitively at the AG weekend later this month.
There is a growing genre within the online games business. the so called Casual Games which it is now estimated is worth $2 billion a year. An example of this is games websites such as the former GameBlast.com (now called Shockwave Unlimited) are subscription based. The Mensa brand would seem a pretty good fit for this market. Many of the (usually Flash) games have significant educational value. They are not just shoot-em-ups.
