::scr The Geek Syndrome

[Earle Martin]

On Fri, Dec 07, 2001 at 03:11:59PM +0000, Chris Ball wrote:
> > The whole Asperger's/Dyspraxia/Dyslexia-with-respect-to-hackers thing is
> > something I've been mulling about for a few years...
> 
> I have a friend with diagnosed Asperger's at Uni.  We joke about it a
> lot; I'm quite definitely more withdrawn and socially inept than
> himself.  He says he's happy to think that he's been 'diagnosed Geek'. 

Don't forget the other corner of the Geek Syndrome Square, ADD. It has been
noted that caffeine binds to some of the same receptors in the brain as
Ritalin does, which has led some to believe that the geek propensity for
caffeine is actually a form of self-medication. I have ADD myself, and I can
testify that caffeine helps me a lot.

Googling brings these related documents:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2001-03-29-hacker.htm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rre/message/1163
http://www.attrition.org/errata/www/art.0076.html

And of course
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/Weaknesses-of-the-Hacker-Personality.html
 
> I think I've been diagnosed with Dyspraxia myself.

I didn't know what dyspraxia actually meant until I just looked it up:
http://www.emmbrook.demon.co.uk/dysprax/what.htm

Good grief - I'm dyspraxic! I had no idea! There were always a few things I
thought were because of the ADD - my clumsiness, short term problems,
abysmal sense of direction, difficulty in making my mouth produce what I'm
thinking about - for a long time I've thought my mouth was "slower than my
brain" but have never known why. "Sensitive to touch" - that's fascinating.
I've always been ultra-ticklish, and now I know why.   
 
> I /think/ I'm fine with Algebra, being half way through a Computation
> degree, but.. *shrug*.  I keep wondering when there's going to be
> something that I can't handle at all.  I'm sure it'll happen eventually.

I've always had a problem with long division. I thought that it was because
it was never explained to me properly at school, but now I'm not so sure.
 
> > It does seem to me that geeks/nerds/techies [DELETE as appropriate] do
> > tend to exhibit some or all of the symptons of these syndromes.

Ben, the perl coder who sits next to me, is numerically dyslexic.

> > other trends such as almost universally bad handwriting (even
> > before extended contact with computers precluded writing stuff by hand.
> 
> Yep, certainly was in my case.  I remember being the only person in my
> class in primary school who had to stay writing in pencil when everyone
> else was given a pen.  :-)

I had to do endless extra handwriting practice lessons at primary school...
my handwriting, whilst now much more controlled, is still IMO childish. I'm
still pretty slow at writing, although I can go fairly fast if I scribble
and take less care.
 
> > Is this something other people have noticed? I'm mildly dyslexic - I
> > have problems 'seeing' word endings especially if I wrote them and will
> > often write "th end" and such. Are other people dyslexic?

That's interesting; I do that quite a lot, or skip out letters without
meaning to. Plus sometimes when I write numbers they come out as letters.

> I'm not at all dyslexic.  I've certainly found many dyslexics who are
> far better programmers than myself, though.

I went to secondary school with a kid called Tom Leake who was dyslexic as
they come but a brilliant programmer. I recall him once writing the rudiments
of a kernel in assembly language as a hobby project.



-- 
Tumbling down the rabbit hole