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MSN Sponsors Mensa
crankyspice writes "Fresh on the heels of Google courting members via GLAT advertisements in the Bulletin, Microsoft's MSN is now sponsoring American Mensa events, featuring Mensa questions on the MSN homepage, and Mensa will put MSN's search on their new homepage."
Look, I'm no shill for MS - I think their OS sucks dead bunnies through short straws, but frankly, who cares ? MS want to associate themselves with an organisation that likes to consider itself better than average, by their own definition. And the news is... what ?
I have no respect for Mensa, they like to position themselves as the "society of the intelligent", and yet most of the people I've interviewed who have claimed Mensa membership on their resume are less than attractive as candidates. It's almost a badge of dishonour... They don't fail on intelligence (but that's not normally where people I interview fail anyway), they fail on people skills - being able to recognise that someone else may know more about X than you do, and coping with that knowledge well.
Oh, I've not much respect for MS either (at least technically - I think their marketing is excellent), but that ought to be obvious from my tagline...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Mensa will put MSN's search on their new homepage.
That's not very smart.
my pet machine
If there was ever a group of self-important dweebs who deserved each other more, I can't imagine it.
To sum up everyone's responses to this:
1. No one respects Mensa since they base their membership on tests of dubious veracity and not on real world accomplishments.
2. And signing up with a deal with MSN kind of just drives the point home, doesn't it?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
featuring Mensa questions on the MSN homepage, and Mensa will put MSN's search on their new homepage.
Whatever, that's fine with me.
It's just really too bad they keep spelling it "Msna".
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Here's a quick link to the wikipedia entry on Karma Whore. Karma Whore Some info on what Karma Whore's goals are. Karma Whore has three stated purposes: to post information about a topic that everyone already knows; to link to wikipedia, because wikipedia pwns; and most importantly, to sell his/her brain to slashdot in order to whore karma. (from my cortex)
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
You know what, I didn't. I've never felt the need.
Frankly, I'm not the "worrier" type who needs the justification of a test to prove (s)he's as good as (s)he thinks (s)he is. I've done it and I'm proud of what I've done.
I'm a clever guy - I've excelled in every academic test I've ever taken. (14 'O' levels, 6 'A' levels, 2 'S' levels, a Physics degree from IC, London, and a PhD at KCL). I have more qualifications (in spades) than 99% of people I've met. I don't see the need to be an arrogant SOB because of that. I've set up, run for a few years and successfully sold a company at an excellent profit. I've pretty much done it all - I'm now working in a dream job for a cool company in California and enjoying every minute of it.
And, in case you were thinking along the lines of privileged education etc., my mother is an estate agent, my father a docker, and I was the first in my family to ever go to University. Everyone has, since.
I *do* value intelligence (hell, I require it of interviewees). I just don't value Mensa tests. They're about as useful a measure of basic intelligence as the colour of the sky is of tomorrow's weather. "Red sky at night" will get you so far, but it's only a weighted average. Point made, I think.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
It makes sense. A mensa membership carries about the same degree of prestige as an MSCE cert.
(Read: none at all)
I plan on using a variation of these bullet points for my presentation. If any of you slashdotters happen to be at MensAGumbo, please come and cheer me on, say hi, etc.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
That was for an older version of the SAT. The SAT no longer measures IQ, apparently. Also, on that version, I would guess that a 1300 was around the 98th percentile, because they let the top 2% of people in. ALSO, it should be noted that Mensa is a high IQ society, not a high intelligence society (Though some people suggest defining intelligence as what IQ measures...) ALSO ALSO, sometimes I think about trying to join Mensa, mostly just so I could meet more people. And to rub in my friends faces.
> Among many options, one only needs 1300 (out of 1600) on SAT. These days, MANY people easily get 1300.
You don't get a qualifying Mensa reading comprehension score with this statement. You need a >1300 if you took test before 9/30/74, back when it was hard. They clearly state that they haven't considered the SAT to correlate with IQ for over ten years now; 1994 was the last year they accepted those scores.
from a Google search result
The implicit assumption is that the vast majority of humanity is incapable of civil discourse and intelligent discussion (at least on the level that they would like), but I see no reason why this should be the case. And I see plenty. Including slashdot posts.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
Microsoft's MSN is now sponsoring American Mensa events, featuring Mensa questions on the MSN homepage, and Mensa will put MSN's search on their new homepage in exchange for allowing Microsoft founder and CEO Bill Gates into their organization.
When asked of this peculiar action, Mr. Gates told reporters: "I tried the tests and the puzzles and stuff, but I couldn't really figure them out. Then I realized that I was the richest man in the world and I didn't have to deal with this crap."
Gates also spoke of creating a new organization tangential to Mensa, the Pecunia Society. "It has only one requirement -- just have more money than 99.998% of the world's population!"
"!"
Mensa's goals are (paraphrased): "To foster human intelligence, to research human intelligence, and provide a social forum for it's members" By and large, it's mainly only this last one that ever happens. By far and away the most popular regular Mensa meeting in London, England is the pub crawl.
Mensa is a Social Club. Members often have very little in common, but a common ability to think. While there is a qualification of a top 2% IQ score for entry, only a tiny percentage actually apply.
For the record, I'm not entirely comfortable with corporate sponsorship of Mensa. The fact that it's Microsoft is something I really don't like. But it's just my opinion - by policy, Mensa has no opinions
(disclaimer: the author is a member of British Mensa, and sits on the London organising committee (LocSec forum)(
... and today's pet project has
Almost every Mensa member I've met is an arrogent bastard who thinks they are better than other people; having spent a few years at Microsoft, I know they'll fit right in.
This isn't envy, when I took an IQ test I was literally off the scale. The highest standardised test score in the history of my school district was 176, I scored 212. I was disqualified from an 'intellectual' competition because I scored 98, when the second highest of over 100 others was 76, and I completed the quiz in 15 minutes of the alloted hour; they believed I must have cheated somehow.
But I'm smart enough to know that the value of a person has nothing to do with standard test scores.
While working at MS I treated the janitors with the same respect as my managers, because I knew that without eighter of them, the job wouldn't get done. One amusing moment was when the local grocery store clerk said she liked people like me, unlike those stuck up people who work at Microsoft, which was where I was working at the time.
I may be able to craft an exceptional peice of software, recall what portion of a page in a novel a sentance appeared on, and instantly remember 10 digit numbers backwards; but I can't draw worth a damn, can't sing, or play a musical instrument, am a terrible speller, and can't parellel park.
Everyone has different abilities, and just because someone is Rich, Smart, or Pretty; dosn't make them a good person.
The tests for IQ have been changing a lot over the last few decades. Groups like Mensa pretend there's only one score and admit based on that value. If you were to get a proper psychological work-up the doctors would actually conduct several different IQ tests (to measure verbal, performance and average IQ) and then list specific IQ values for each portion of each test. They can then compare, say, your "math IQ" to your "logic IQ" to make determinations about your personality and actual skills. In particular, they look at the variances to determine where a person is gifted and where they are developmentally delayed. You could have a verbal IQ of 140 and a performance IQ of 60 and a traditional test would say you were "normal" (your IQ was 100) when you're actually autistic....
The other thing that has changed about the IQ tests is the method and rating scale. Older IQ tests (even from the 80's) were biased in favour of a bell-curve result so that two people of similar near-average intelligence would be significantly contrasted while the difference between the "bright" and the "super genius" was compacted. Anyone who scores more than about 140 on a general IQ test should get re-tested using a more modern (more linear and usually open-ended scale) test designed to measure accurately at higher levels.
At first glance I thought I read:
MSN Sponsors Menses
And I'm thinking: gee, what a NOVEL way attract female readership!
I'm gonna go visit my eye doctor tomorrow
--- fyredragon
Eh? I'm not a Mensa member, but I am a member of a social sports club and an amateur astronomical society. They're called extra-curricular activities, and they're a very good way to meet interesting people with common interests and attitudes.
Both of my groups are full of people with whom I share common interests, and both are full of great contacts for other things in life if I ever want help. How is that different from Mensa, and how does that make any of these like an "old boy network"?
Just as my and many other people's interests happen to be in a certain area shouldn't mean that someone else's interests shouldn't be allowed to be in the realm of puzzle solving and so on, and whatever else Mensan's engage in.
http://encarta.msn.com/list_famousmensamembers/Fa
That's "the low self-esteem society' isn't it?
That was classic intercourse!
Being gifted is a terrible weight to carry for a child, because it shows and constantly expose you to jealous behaviors and sarcasms from other kids, their parents, not to speak of teachers. You spend years in schools trying to offer the smallest surface of yourself to the view of others - unsuccessfully, in general.
Being gifted is not a curse - failing to develop socially is. I know plenty of really smart people who were popular - mainly because being smart did not define them. They played sports, were into music, one did pyrotechnics effects for plays - all things that *were* of interest to others. They're all nice, well rounded people who happen to be smart - and are fun to be around because discussions center on things besides IQ and tests.
Yea, nobody wanted to be around the kid that bragged about a 100 on a test - and the really smart ones figured it out and developed other interests as well.
You think that it'll get better in college ? Nope, wrong. In adulthood ? Nope. Wherever you go, you are surrounded by the same poisoned atmosphere when people realize you think faster than they do. When you're that bright, you soon understand what it was to be suspect of witchcraft.
I don't know about your experiences, but my college experiences didn't involve poisoned atmospheres for bright people. My roommate, for example, was brilliant - nearly a 4.0 in Mech Eng / Nuke Eng, aced tests by simply reading 100 pages of a textbook the night before an exam, yet he was very well liked and respected member of my fraternity. Why? Because his intelligence did not define him. He had great social skills, and if you needed help in a course he'd take the time to explain things until you understood them.
Look at this thread : full of hatred against those folks, because they dare claim they're smart. Would they have claimed any other talent such as music or painting, there would be applauses of joy, but logical intelligence must be hidden.
No, the "hatred" is toward folks who seem to think intelligence is somehow valuable or makes someone better than another. IQ isn't a skill, nor is it particularly valuable - what is worth recognition is what you do with it.
We've all met bright people that exude the impression that because you're "not as bright" or didn't get as high a test score that you're not in their league. Any wonder people treat them like they're an ass?
You could replace Mensa with "people who think that living in a high rent zip code form closed social club" and you'd get many of the same responses. And you know what - many of the people who would meet that criteria are nice people who are well liked, and a few are pompous asses who think they're disliked because of where they live; never realizing that they would be pompous assess and treated as such no matter where they are.
Being gifted is a curse most of the time.
No, the curse is thinking being gifted is something you think others really care about.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.