Comments on: Autism and Programmers

By: speciallyforu57

speciallyforu57 — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:33:14 +0000

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By: Smithy

Smithy — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:25:08 +0000

For the people looking for a way to block out office noise, this worked for me: using a free synth program or something like SoundForge that will generate white/brown/pink noise, record yourself a loop of said noise, one you think you can tolerate for 8 hours. Then get yourself some headphones of the in-ear rubber earbud type (they don’t need to be expensive) and listen to your loop on repeat. If you use a music player app that can have more than one instance (eg Winamp) you can play one instance of noise and another of eg a tutorial or ambient music. And beware of job ads that say “brilliant atmosphere – pool table in the office”.

By: Ilya

Ilya — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:42:46 +0000

I find this pretty interesting. In my early 20′s, I was all right brain all the time. And now for the first time in my life I am cultivating my left brain. I was always scared to cultivate it. Iv’e always thought that because I was bred out of randomness, spontaneity and creativity – doing anything left brain related would taint my out side of the box view of the world, but at the same time, iv’e always had this block where I could never implement my creative ideas. Flash for me is the most accessible language, its balanced and I am very attracted to the jack of all trades, and yin yang nature of it. I appreciated the line about the shower, thats when I’m in my right brain idea cultivating mode. I find sitting in a jacuzzi or a sauna to have the same effect for me. Thanks for a good read.

By: Rimu

Rimu — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:13:19 +0000

arrrrgh the orange burns my eyes

By: Sergio

Sergio — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:52:01 +0000

I just read a novel by Vernor Vinge, “A deepness in the sky” which sort of extrapolates the situation described above. He call it ‘Focused’. Scary stuff when it can be controlled.

You can find the first 185/700 pages of the novel here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=GUUvxumMf6kC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPP1,M1

By: hoss

hoss — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:51:58 +0000

I once bought really nice noise cancelling headphones to use during flights and while they did an excellent job of muting the noise of the engines, I was left with the noise of a load of people talking loudly in a quiet room – as they were talking over a noise I could no longer hear. A total disaster! I packed them away and treated myself to a pair of Shure SE530 buds instead and have never looked back.

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:31:12 +0000

Oh, and another book about autism you might enjoy: “Thinking in Pictures”.

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:28:49 +0000

I tried ear defenders at the office, but they don’t work as well as you might think. As an older engineer pointed out to me, they’re built for industrial situations (like flight test lines), so they mute machinery very well, but are designed to allow human voice to pass through relatively easily. Unless you work in a situation where loud industrial machinery is the major noise, they might actually make the noise distraction worse for you, because they’ll mute the A/C but your coworkers will come through even clearer.

By: Byron

Byron — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:25:58 +0000

Very interesting entry. I have talked many times to my one friend about this. He also has a strong theory and perspective on this, “Everyone is autistic… just depends on the severity and how much we allow it to be expressed.” I work with a couple autistic children on a regular basis and I am amazed how their minds think and interpret my actions as I try to teach them. I quickly try to apply my programming logic into my teachings for them and they seem to “get it” majority of the time. Their logic and pattern-oriented minds inspire me.

By: Basu

Basu — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:01:09 +0000

Geeks breeding geeks. Interesting idea. I wonder what the social and technological implications of that would be. Of course some of them would have to be socially adept (or have socially adept allies) so that they didn’t get exploited or suppressed by the corporations and politicians.