Getting people to Syracuse

Syracuse's population is falling off again, and people are wondering – how do we draw more people to town?

I'm thinking, though, that maybe this is starting a step ahead of where we need to start. Before we start drawing new people in, we have to figure out how to retain what we have. While new blood is great, we need people with history, background, etc., to be here as well.

For those who are already here, we know we need to start getting new blood in public office – the current crop of leaders is nearing retirement (from U.S. representatives to mayors to school boards), and who better than those of us in our 20s and 30s to kick some life into CNY? The good folks at 40 Below Civic Engagement are doing a Running For Office 101 on July 16 at OHM in Armory Square, starting at 5:30.

It seems like now is the right time to start some revitalization. If you're like me and going out of your way to try to find gas at $4.19 a gallon or less, you're one of the people who are out on the streets more – you're walking to the convenience store, you're biking to the bank. Plus, as Ellen notes, you're bumping into other people, and maybe you're even talking, having conversations. Novel concept.

Centro says they've seen an increase in public transit ridership, but they still haven't increased routes and schedules to the point where I can reasonably take the bus to work (how does an hour and 10 minutes for six miles of travel, plus showing up to work 15 minutes late, sound?).

The newspaper has appointed reporter Greg Munno to the post of Civic Engagement Editor, and with it, they're launching a new blog called CNY Speaks, which solicits opinions and blog posts from the public, as well as having Greg facilitate conversations.

One cool thing my employer is doing is user-generated video. Unlike YouTube, which is giant and requires a lot of searching, this is kind of a localized deal. The Flash transcoding is a little rough, but I think that's OK – it means that whether you take with an HD camera or with your cell phone, you'll get about the same quality. And we're finding out it's more about the content of the video than the quality of it.

Another cool thing they're doing is getting into Facebook; there's now an app with which you can subscribe to RSS feeds from within your Facebook profile.

Anyway, I hope to be back doing this more often. I had a real hard time with Andrea's passing, but Zach's return after a years-long absence is spurring me on.

Intelligence

I took an IQ test on Facebook this week.

Doing something like this is always a dangerous proposition. Do I really want to know how smart I'm not? Also, I know my score in second grade was in the low 130s – it was either 132 or 134. If I score lower than that, what would it do to my self esteem?

Anyway, I scored a 137. They figured this out by giving me 30 multiple choice questions, giving me a limit of 15 minutes (it took me 10ish), and doing something with the answers I gave.

According to Wikipedia (always questionable, but often reliable), a genius has an IQ of 140, though it's now been weighted down to 136.

Mensa, the "genius society," doesn't use numbers to determine qualification anymore, it uses percentiles. You have to be in the top two percent of scorers on qualified IQ tests.

I'm positive the Facebook IQ test is not a qualified test, but according to one site, I would easily qualify with either my Facebook score or my second grade score.

I won't be joining Mensa any time soon. I don't know if there's a local chapter; the site doesn't tell me. What the site does tell me is that if I want to join, I am more than welcome to send them $40 to take their official qualifying test, $40 to have it judged, and another $52 in annual fees should I make the grade.

I am also free to send in $18 if I want to take a practice test at home, and $40 more to have it judged.

Intelligent and gullible aren't mutually exclusive terms, I guess.

So, a test said I'm smart, and now here I am, sitting alone in a dark office building on a Saturday night waiting to cover a basketball game, which I'll be watching on TV. It's snowing outside, but at least there's decent coffee in the kitchen. If I don't feel like driving home late tonight in whatever mess has been made outside, we have a comfortable couch in the office that I could wheel into the conference room.

Fantastic.

"All geniuses are drunkards!" wrote Chales Bukowski.

Ani Difranco on genius:

Genius is in a back beat
Backseat to nothing if you're dancing
Especially something stupid
Like I.Q.
For every lie I unlearn
I learn something new

When you see me creak out onto the tennis court tomorrow afternoon, dragging from my Saturday afternoon match and a late night at the office, be sure to yell "genius" as sarcastically as possible.

But make sure you mean it.