I don't even think it's about how hard you think

Well, I kinda mean in terms of how deep a groove you dig when you pursue a train of thought -- it makes it harder (in my analogy) to jump right up and shift metaphors.

I think the part of the description that said "Only a basic understanding of math is required" threw me way off. I'm a bit of a stickler for the rulesguidelines.

Einstein quitter putz

Hee. New tag, please?

I got it in just a minute or two. I'm not sure there's a "how hard you think" thing -- I think it's more just whether you hit on the right guess.

Starting Over is a total dirty secret of TV watching.

Totally. Um, I mean, what's Starting Over?

There's some anecdote Bob points to all the time, about how someone really smart-- Feynman, maybe-- scored rather low on an IQ test, and people theorized it was because he could make even "wrong" answers work.

I don't think your intelligence is implicated if you get the answer right away, but you may be stymied for a really long time because you can come up with lots of different possible solutions.

There's a great anecdote about Bill Gates on one of the links.

Well, I kinda mean in terms of how deep a groove you dig when you pursue a train of thought -- it makes it harder (in my analogy) to jump right up and shift metaphors.

Yeah, I see what you mean.

I don't think your intelligence is implicated if you get the answer right away,

Phew. I was afraid I was borderline retarded there for a minute.

But then, I'm the person who spends a lot of energy insisting that being good at trivia doesn't make me "smart."

you may be stymied for a really long time because you can come up with lots of different possible solutions.

This is sort of why I did so horribly in the probability&stats portion of my physics education. It wasn't intelligence that worked to my disadvantage, though, more just the seriously overdeveloped case of what-if-itis. Everybody else was like oooh, use this equation while I was mentally flipping my 43rd penny or something.

I have no idea what the hell that game or whatever is talking about, but what I do know is that I'm not much inclined to try.

Dude, being good at trivia totally makes you smart. And a millionaire if you play your cards right with Alex Trebek. Quit stomping on my Jeopardy dreams, man.

There's some anecdote Bob points to all the time, about how someone really smart-- Feynman, maybe-- scored rather low on an IQ test, and people theorized it was because he could make even "wrong" answers work.

They sometimes have these banner ads at the NYT that are very much like questions to an IQ test. One they have is where there is 4 different numbers and you're supposed to pick the one that doesn't belong. I managed to make a case for each posiblilty.