From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Mensa's National Testing Day
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 22:25:57 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 9:04 PM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Mensa's National Testing Day

> Thanks for the offer.  I was wondering why you had disappeared from
> the tentative Capclave program.
>
> If I understand you correctly, we can skip a large chunk of our annual
> convention, and pay your organization $30 (the equivalent of three
> years of WSFA dues), and if we are able to score well on your test,
> you'll allow us to pay your organization even more money?  I'm afraid
> I'm going to have to decline.
>
> Here's a quick one-question IQ test you can take for free:
>
> Posts containing lots of random equal signs and hexadecimal numbers
> look better than posts without them:
>
> True  [  ]
> False [X]

As you can see, I took your test....

I gather Chuck is using a Strange email client -- not too smart, eh?

My experience with Mensa was long ago and Somewhere Else (circa 1960, in
New York City).   A friend of mine was in Mensa and he urged my first wife,
Sylvia, and me to apply.   We took a British IQ test.  Sylvia placed in the
top 1 percentile, and I was right behind her in the top 2 percentile.  In
those days, Mensa accepted only the top 1 percentile; they have since
lowered their standards.   I attended as Sylvia's guest.  Meetings took
place in the apartment of Peter Sturgeon -- who was conspicuously
jealous/envious of his brother Theodore, and apparently compensated by
proudly parading his Mensa membership.  (I told Ted about it a few years
later.  He laughed.)  I found Mensa significantly less interesting than
fandom (as it existed then), and so did Sylvia.  We gave up attending
meetings after about six months.

Fandom was for us then a tremendous creative outlet.  Both Sylvia and I put
out highly-regarded fanzines, and one of her paintings was an early
Worldcon Art Show winner.  Mensa offered nothing comparable.

--Ted White