More on IQ

Back in the early 1990s, in reaction against Mensa I suppose, I created Densa ("There's nothing Densa than Densa"), an IQ club for the rest of us.

We'd offer like a 12-step program to Mensa members trying to kick the habit of always feeling like the smartest guys in the room (something Alex Martelli once told me about working @ Google: it actually came as a relief to not always have to be that -- not in every room anyway (and Alex is a really smart guy)).

So in founding Densa, perhaps I was anticipating (or riding the wave of) the then-emergent "for dummies" culture, with its user-friendly books about some really tough subjects, like CORBA and SQL?

Allen Taylor (author of that SQL book) is a Wanderer by the way, in addition to being ultra smart. He'll be discussing impenetrable networks at our next meeting.