Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Ranking People By Their Subway Puzzles

WHITECOLLAR REDNECK

"Whenever I see somebody doing a word search puzzle, I assume they probably have a low IQ," observed a friend. Which led to a office conversation where we ranked mass transit passengers from most intelligent to least intelligent, based solely on the type of puzzle they work on during their commute. Our list:

1) crossword
2) sudoku
3) spot the difference
tie 4) junior jumble
tie 4) maze
6) word search

Frankly, even when the word in word search is hidden diagonally backwards, it's still not that hard.

6 comments:

Phutatorius said...

7) series seven
8) bar exam

Mithridates said...

OK, who's the crossword nazi who put that ahead of sudoku? Three letters, ____ Lanka. Hmmmm. And I realize you were being kind and self-deprecating, but no way bar exam comes behind series seven. Bar exam doesn't give you too high a floor on someone's intellect, but it doesn't give a ceiling either. There's a pretty low upper bound on the intellect of someone taking their series seven . . .

Phutatorius said...

PAU!

WhiteCollar Redneck said...

You can brute-force a solution to sudoku if you have some patience. I suppose you could also brute-force a crossword, but you'd have to have Biblical amounts of patience. Hence my higher regard for people who do crosswords. It's not a personal bias - I myself read enlightening books on the subway, I have no time for games.

Mithridates said...

The question wasn't what puzzle could be solved by the dimmest brain. Then you'd go sudoku over crossword. Simply fewer possibilities to try.

But whatever, if you see someone trying to solve either by brute force, stick the brutes at the bottom of your list.

Pursuits on public transport in Chicago are a bit more elevated, I think.

Unknown said...

In Japan, apparently there is a national epidemic where male riders have been using their camera phones to take upskirt photos on the train.

http://cultofmac.com/to-prevent-upskirts-japanese-iphone-3g-always-alerts-when-taking-photos/2356

Where does this rank?

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