A forum for reclusive people.
posted by grumblebee on Oct 31, 2009 - 41 comments

Do you have Asperger's Syndrome? Answer these questions and find out. I'm skeptical about this, but I find it fascinating. For years, I've suspected I'm an Aspie, and, as it turns out, I answered the questions exactly the way the researchers predict an Aspie would answer them. My "normal" wife answers them they way "normal" people do. I am almost incapable of understanding the "normal" answer. To me, the Aspie answer is obviously correct. Here is a great discussion about the research. Here is the original research paper (MS Word file). [more inside]
posted by grumblebee on Nov 5, 2008 - 179 comments

Evan M. O'Dorney, a 13-year-old speller from Danville, Calif., won the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee, with the final word "serrefine". Here is an interesting interview with the winner. Did you say my name wrong?
posted by exlotuseater on Jun 7, 2007 - 112 comments

AutismTown? Autism is a puzzling and disastrous disorder which has recently spread to affect 1 in 150, according to new government data; now there is a new non-profit "pixel-based" site to organize the community and fund research and services. A bit of a "who's who" in the field...
posted by oberleit on Feb 17, 2007 - 21 comments

Welcome to Urville, the city that autistic Frenchman Gilles Trehin has been designing since he was 12 years old. The drawings, in particular, are incredible.
posted by jimmythefish on Mar 28, 2006 - 27 comments

Inventor of CTRL-ALT-DEL ridicules Bill Gates. "'I may have invented CTRL-ALT-DEL, but Bill Gates made it famous". Video clip of the episode, via TUAW, who say "The funniest part is the expression, or lack thereof, on the face of Bill."
posted by nthdegx on Jul 28, 2005 - 50 comments

Coping with Asperger's Syndrome. The New York Times sheds light on this disorder that potentially affects millions of Americans. Many of them are bullied in school. Others simply have strange obsessions. Some find their niches in college, while others have to wait until mid-life to understand what is happening. However, it was only added to the DSM ten years ago. Since then, support groups and online resources have popped up.
posted by calwatch on Apr 29, 2004 - 89 comments

Not everyone understands the excitement of plane-spotting. Certainly not the Greeks [WSJ subscription link] who have jailed a group of plane spotters as spies. Asperger's Syndrome maybe. But spies? Ask the Romanians and Poles?
posted by Geo on Nov 23, 2001 - 9 comments

1337 h4X0r or idiot savant? USA Today quotes noted animal behaviorist Temple Grandin observing that uber-hacker Kevin Mitnick exhibits many of the symptoms of Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autisim from which Grandin herself suffers. Mitnick doesn't seem to disagree, in fact he noticed it himself. Grandin, Mitnick and others speculate as to whether many "hackers" are, in fact, autistic.
posted by briank on Mar 29, 2001 - 11 comments