Puzzling

A friend (you know who you are, Steve) points us to the Wonderlic 12-minute IQ test given to athletes to see if they’re smart enough to fall down instead of up. The site gives a 5-minute version and sample scores for various professions.

As with all such tests, I turn out to be a freaking genius … but only if given enough time. (Steven Wright: Everything is within walking distance … if you have enough time.)

So, who’s smarter, a brainiac who scores high on an IQ test sitting in a sealed room or a normal person who scores higher on the test in the same amount of time but with access to the Internet … and a way-smart buddy list?

An engineer I know likes to “stress test” prospective employees by asking them to come up, on the spot, with the algorithm for determing the angle between the hour and minute hand of a clock at any given time.

My attempt to distract him by reciting the theme song to “The Fllintstones” in the voice of Barbara Walters did not work.

There’s an entertaining article in this week’s New Yorker about Henry Hook and other puzzlemaniacs. One of them famously took on another puzzler in a timed test to fill in a crossword puzzle written for the occasion. The first guy won handily … even though the second guy was the author of the puzzle.

Categories: Uncategorized dw