Yes declaring this "most likely a myth" when it almost worked is very silly.
First of all the defenders wouldn't have given up when they made a Roman ship only
smolder they would have used more mirrors. I would also have gone for the sails,
likely much easier to set fire to than wood.
Skepticism is good, absurd skepticism isn't. They seem to be taking the failure on
faith instead of trying seriously to duplicate this. People defending a city arn't
going to give up that easily! Expecially when they had one of the greatest inventors
of all time egging them on.
Imagine the porno.mpeg files coming back. The entire crew taking getting really bored and deciding
to see what a space orgy is like.
Personally I think we need a crew of bisexuals which are very non jealous and will happily all have
sex together. People would never get bored! Orgies are great for moral. I still give guys on the street
of nice hug even a few years after we ended up in the same orgy together. Sex is a great stress relief
expecially when your stuck in a cramped space ship.
S&M is a great way to build the sense of trust and responsibility needed for a mission to mars. If you
don't trust someone enough to bottom to them, you certainly don't trust them enough to go to mars with
them.
I kind of have the feeling that PHP is "yet another language" for no good reason. modperl + Mason
makes a great web language and gives access to many years of CPAN package development.
But I do agree Java sucks in relation to either. Only place I see Java
as useful is for cross platform client applications. But for a web page server its super heavy weight.
Apples not the underdog in the MP3 market, yet reporters act as if no other MP3 players even
exist. I complained to a local reporter about that, got back a reply that her daughter uses a
non apple MP3 player. Just once I'd like to see a reporter acknowledge that a market exists and
that its not an apple monopoly!
Don't forget Corporate America writes the laws. The way it would work out, they'd order you to do a bad
job (or lose your job), and you'd be stuck with the bill.
All this would accomplish is making lawyers rich, and programmers very few and far between. I'm a good coder,
probably up near the 97th+ percentile as far as low bug count goes. But if this goes through I'll be leaving
the field. No matter how careful you are when writting complex systems there will be bugs. Space agencies with
process up the wazoo still make bugs even after code is checked, checked and rechecked.
Complex systems come with bugs, end of story, if people can't accept that they should go back to adding
machines. Of course those come with human error, and then they can hold the rows of accountants personally
liable for adding mistakes:)
Java should really be compared to the STL in C++, not to C, or a bastardized C/C++ coding
mix. Ideally new/delete/malloc/free should only be used in small pieces of low level code
and fully encapsulated in an object.
Much of Java code can be converted almost line for line to C++. Unlike Java, the STL can
create containers of any type, including built in types, operating on them very efficiently.
const size_t size = 500000000;
std:vector<int> X(size);
for(unsigned i = 0; i < size; i++)
X[i] = random();
std::sort(X.begin(), X.end());
Compare the performance of this sort() operation to its Java equivalent. Compare the space
used. Notice that at no point did we worry about having to allocate/free memory, its taken
care of by the vector template. To be nice we presized the vector, but we didn't need to,
we could have used X.push_back(random()) with some additional overhead from automatic resizing.
Something like this matters alot in high performance application, a good example would be transforms
of large sets of vectors in 3d games.
Java is just another religion like LISP used to be, the CS purists are always chasing the holy grail of
coding purity without regards to programming realities, yet Java is hardly even pure, its already got
more evolutionary cruft than C++ and its around 1/3rd the age of the original C which has been evolved
into C++.
Rarely do I see real world Java code perform with any degree of efficiency, even when compared to Perl,
let alone C++. A Java appserver is much larger and uses much more CPU time than a similarly complex
one written in perl.
I'll second that. I've never been in a company where each employee got his own office. Maybe out in some
boring industrial park in the desert thats possible, but not in the bay area. Even our companies CTOs office
gets recycled as a meeting room fairly regularly.
I don't like cubicles, I think they make too much distance, personally I prefer a small dark room with all
the programmers sitting within easy talking distance. Alot of noise (like phones constantly ringing) is a
problem, but no energy at all like being locked in an isolated office would make me fall asleep rather than
code better:)
Schedule pressure. I've never seen a company without it. True if they constantly insist on unrealistic estimates and hold you to them its time to leave. But this isn't academia, product does
have to get shipped eventually. Often a little schedule pressure results in better code, it tends to
limit over engineering. When the code hits the real world you will find out where you really need to make
improvements which is often not where you thought you needed to optimize.
Now to add one bad sign to look for, its what I'd call 'thrashing', it always happens some, plans always
change. But when plans change so often that nothings getting done and moral starts dropping you've got
a big problem. If you come in to work everyday and your work assignment is different "Stop coding on project
A, we've got super high priority from upper management on project B" "Stop coding on B, sales urgently needs
C"... a few weeks later "You gave me a commitment to have A out the door in a week, its a month late!"
"I kept being pulled off on to other projects" "A commitments a commitment" "It wasn't really a
commitment you asked me to give you a rough estimate I said two weeks, you said 'is there any possibility of
getting it done in one' I said 'if all the stars line up right and hell freezes over'" "ITS YOUR JOB TO MAKE
THE STARS LINE UP RIGHT AND HELL FREEZE THE N-GEN DEAL JUST GOT CANCELLED BECAUSE WE DIDN'T DELIVER A!"
When you have that conversation its getting about time to send out the resume:)
Has this guy ever heard of the concept of "AS IS"? You go to an auction and buy a used
toaster its sold "AS IS". Your responsible if it burns down your house. Same goes for
GPL code, don't expect people to agree to be sued for something they gave away for free.
If GPL authors start getting sued I'll start putting out code anonymously.
Thats how I get to work. Its called light rail, its been around for 100 years, no fancy
pie in the sky technology needed, just political will, it costs $50 a month for unlimited
use in San Francisco.
Eventually as gas hits $10 a gallon we may see newer cities installing subways and
light rail.
Of course one solution is to build decent public
transit in and near major cities. It can be done,
it was being done 100 years ago.
America needs excessive amounts of oil the way a
heroin addict needs heroin. Withdrawal may not be
easy but it can be done, and the addict is better
off in the end.
Public transit is much cleaner and cheaper, than
cars. I feel sorry for those working low wage jobs
in areas that require a car, a minor car problem
can blow a weeks wages. Compare that to the $45
a month flat rate I pay for public transit in
San Francisco. No worries, and if it breaks down
not that big a deal, its only a 40 minute walk to
work, and stores are just around the corner.
What actions did they take to make this a felony?!
At worst it seems like perhaps a minor contract
violation.
What if you use a school book (paper sort) in a
manner unapproved of by the school. Like reading
a porno magazine with it as a screen, is this
'misuse' a felony?
Thats the whole purpose of virtual reality, to do
nasty things you couldn't do in real life:)
What next someone will get the chair for killing
someones pet monsters in a game?
Its kind of like heading into your friendly
neighborhood S&M dungeon, and claiming you where
raped. "Did you safe word?" "No." "Please don't
waste the time of this court, next."
Like a reputable S&M dungeon games have a way out
if you really need it. Quit the game if you can't
take the heat.
If the game was supposed to be 'nice' then they
should fix the code instead of calling the cops.
When I wrote the original TinyMUSH (wrote isn't
really the right word, it was a substantial rework
of TinyMUD). One major design goal was to make
users able to fend for themselves without calling
on a higher power for help. Don't like someone in
your space, you can eject them.
The combat version was never completed do to a
real world theft of the computer I was developing
it on. At that time 386 computers where expensive.
Speaking english is one thing, demanding perfection
is another. Communicating is part of my job, having
perfect spelling and grammar is not. So some grammar
Nazi thinks I'm stupid, let me see them program, I'll tear there code to shreds if they want some
constructive criticism.
Why do grammar Nazi's piss me off? Try having a
mix of fairly severe dyslexia, and CAPD (hearing
problem that makes it hard to hear and thus say
words exactly right). If your in a wheel chair
no one thinks its a moral fault, but god forbid
you have have a neurological disability affecting
language. You might as well have taken a piss on
the graves of all the greats in the history of
the humanities as far as the grammar Nazi's are
concerned. And the 'constructive criticism' gets
real old after a while.
This sort of message has always been a pet peeve
of mind, it reflects a double standard. Those whose natural ability is engineering are expected
to bend over backwards for the grammar Nazi's.
Yet its perfectly acceptable to be utterly clueless when it comes to scientific and technical
issues, even when your CEO of a technical company.
Over the last few years, I've noticed that a surprisingly large number of
secretaries, who are otherwise very well written, yet seem
to lack strong coding skills. Mostly, this seems to manifest itself as
varying degrees of poor syntax and logic: 'malloc(strlen(s))' instead of
'malloc(strlen(s)+1)'; 's=s+1' instead of 's++'; and I even see the keywords and subroutines
misspelled from time to time. It baffles me that a
culture so obsessed with language ability and accuracy can demonstrate
such little attention to detail when it comes to
doing anything technical, and it baffles me even more that many people become
enraged when you attempt to help them correct and learn from their mistakes.
Do CEOs and secretaries just not care about using technology effectively? Do they
not realize that a mediocre command of written C makes them appear
less intelligent? Am I missing something here?"
Re:not just another language
on
A Decade of PHP
·
· Score: 1
I've done quite a bit of web development in
perl + mason. For those not familiar with it
mason is a templating system that lets you
embed perl in html www.masonhq.com.
Autism is a genetic condition which has a mix of
assorted disabilities and often abilities as well.
Research has tended to focus on the disabilities,
But there are a number of basic tests where
autistics even "low functioning autistics" on
average score better than average. The 'hidden
figures test' being one of them.
Java will be a legacy language before C++, and.NET well before that. Thats the big problem with
commercial languages rather than open standard
languages. Some executive makes a decision and
your code is now all obsolete.
Code I wrote in C and C++ on Linux in 1992 is
still in use, and can still be compiled with
only minor tweaks.
Java is basically castrated C++, take out anything
that might be dangerous. Meaning anything which can
be used to make truly optimal code. Meanwhile not
even providing higher level programming features
like generic programming capabilities.
Electrically initiated fusion is used in the trigger
for nuclear weapons as a neutron source. Why is
100K volts from a crystal such a big deal? I can
grab a few old flyback transformers, put them in
series, charge up a lieden (sp?) jar, discharge
it into a tube with some deuterium and irradiate
myself with neutrons if I so wished.
Any old nerd can make a fusion reaction, the hard
part is making one thats self sustaining energy
wise.
This seems like a perfect use for this technic.
Create a pad tape, and encrypt the original with
it. Mail the pad by UPS to your destination, when
its delivery is confirmed, mail your encrypted tape.
For extra security, hand deliver 100 one time pads,
and then mail the data tapes by any means you wish.
They are completely useless without the pads.
Oxytocin has a few roles in the body, lactation
and giving birth in women. Its released by nipple
play, the way to a man or womans heart is through
there nipples. There is also an oxytocin mimic in
fenugreek making it a bit of an aphrodisiac. I
gave some to a friend, and he ate it all at once,
"it didn't do much" "it didn't even make you horny?"
"come to think of it I did have sex with my bed.".
Maybe we should have fenugreek and massage parties?
Perhaps you could point out some errors instead of making an unsupported blanket statement?
1) At what age did Einstein learn to speak? Hint it
wasn't anywhere near the normal age.
2) What where Einstein's hobbies as a child? Hint
they weren't playing ball with the local kids
3) Was Einstein prone to rage attacks as a child?
4) Why was Einstein ejected from high school? Hint these days we call that sort of behaviour "oppositional defiant".
5) What was Einstein's thinking style? Hint you
can find accounts of visual thought in Temple Grandins books, and from many other autistic spectrum individuals.
People want to take too much credit. The natural
course of autism for most people is toward becoming
"higher functioning" as they grow up.
On the otherhand one should not forget that there is
a biological difference which will remain. This is
a mixture of gifts and disabilities. Often
intellectual gifts, some learning disabilities,
sensory sensitivity, social difficulties even if
they are only a need to make more effort than
normal, immune problems (autoimmune and allergies), often high disease resistance, slow
skin aging (often appear 10 years younger than
they are), often very attractive eyes, larger
than usual heads, odd tastes in food.
If anyone out there is autistic or strongly
suspects they might be, give the following a try:
L-Carnosine
Fish oil
L-Carnitine
Mega B supplement
Then see how you feel after week. Can you hear
better in noisy situations? Do crowds bother
you less? Is socializing easier? Do others notice
a change in you? Did the way music sounds change
30-40 minutes after your first dose of
L-Carnosine?
I don't know or care about Bill Gates. But with the
likes of Einstein and Newton, they where not
successful inspite of autism. There abilities had
much to do with common autistic gifts. In other
words they where successful because of autism.
Please read Einstein's biography before you casually
dismiss the quite obvious fact that Einstein was
autistic. He was severely speech delayed, and showed
every other trait one would expect of an autistic
child.
Einstein wouldn't have even gotten an Asperger's
diagnosis at a young age if he was around today.
His speech delay would have branded him with
"full blown" autism.
Slashdot Mirror
Attacting ladies is easy, guys act its getting the men thats hard %-|
I guess its murphies law.
Yes declaring this "most likely a myth" when it almost worked is very silly.
First of all the defenders wouldn't have given up when they made a Roman ship only smolder they would have used more mirrors. I would also have gone for the sails, likely much easier to set fire to than wood.
Skepticism is good, absurd skepticism isn't. They seem to be taking the failure on faith instead of trying seriously to duplicate this. People defending a city arn't going to give up that easily! Expecially when they had one of the greatest inventors of all time egging them on.
Imagine the porno .mpeg files coming back. The entire crew taking getting really bored and deciding
to see what a space orgy is like.
Personally I think we need a crew of bisexuals which are very non jealous and will happily all have sex together. People would never get bored! Orgies are great for moral. I still give guys on the street of nice hug even a few years after we ended up in the same orgy together. Sex is a great stress relief expecially when your stuck in a cramped space ship.
S&M is a great way to build the sense of trust and responsibility needed for a mission to mars. If you don't trust someone enough to bottom to them, you certainly don't trust them enough to go to mars with them.
I kind of have the feeling that PHP is "yet another language" for no good reason. modperl + Mason makes a great web language and gives access to many years of CPAN package development.
But I do agree Java sucks in relation to either. Only place I see Java as useful is for cross platform client applications. But for a web page server its super heavy weight.
Apples not the underdog in the MP3 market, yet reporters act as if no other MP3 players even exist. I complained to a local reporter about that, got back a reply that her daughter uses a non apple MP3 player. Just once I'd like to see a reporter acknowledge that a market exists and that its not an apple monopoly!
Don't forget Corporate America writes the laws. The way it would work out, they'd order you to do a bad job (or lose your job), and you'd be stuck with the bill.
:)
All this would accomplish is making lawyers rich, and programmers very few and far between. I'm a good coder, probably up near the 97th+ percentile as far as low bug count goes. But if this goes through I'll be leaving the field. No matter how careful you are when writting complex systems there will be bugs. Space agencies with process up the wazoo still make bugs even after code is checked, checked and rechecked.
Complex systems come with bugs, end of story, if people can't accept that they should go back to adding machines. Of course those come with human error, and then they can hold the rows of accountants personally liable for adding mistakes
Java should really be compared to the STL in C++, not to C, or a bastardized C/C++ coding mix. Ideally new/delete/malloc/free should only be used in small pieces of low level code and fully encapsulated in an object.
Much of Java code can be converted almost line for line to C++. Unlike Java, the STL can create containers of any type, including built in types, operating on them very efficiently.
const size_t size = 500000000;
std:vector<int> X(size);
for(unsigned i = 0; i < size; i++)
X[i] = random();
std::sort(X.begin(), X.end());
Compare the performance of this sort() operation to its Java equivalent. Compare the space used. Notice that at no point did we worry about having to allocate/free memory, its taken care of by the vector template. To be nice we presized the vector, but we didn't need to, we could have used X.push_back(random()) with some additional overhead from automatic resizing. Something like this matters alot in high performance application, a good example would be transforms of large sets of vectors in 3d games.
Java is just another religion like LISP used to be, the CS purists are always chasing the holy grail of coding purity without regards to programming realities, yet Java is hardly even pure, its already got more evolutionary cruft than C++ and its around 1/3rd the age of the original C which has been evolved into C++.
Rarely do I see real world Java code perform with any degree of efficiency, even when compared to Perl, let alone C++. A Java appserver is much larger and uses much more CPU time than a similarly complex one written in perl.
I'll second that. I've never been in a company where each employee got his own office. Maybe out in some boring industrial park in the desert thats possible, but not in the bay area. Even our companies CTOs office gets recycled as a meeting room fairly regularly.
:)
... a few weeks later "You gave me a commitment to have A out the door in a week, its a month late!"
"I kept being pulled off on to other projects" "A commitments a commitment" "It wasn't really a
commitment you asked me to give you a rough estimate I said two weeks, you said 'is there any possibility of
getting it done in one' I said 'if all the stars line up right and hell freezes over'" "ITS YOUR JOB TO MAKE
THE STARS LINE UP RIGHT AND HELL FREEZE THE N-GEN DEAL JUST GOT CANCELLED BECAUSE WE DIDN'T DELIVER A!"
:)
I don't like cubicles, I think they make too much distance, personally I prefer a small dark room with all the programmers sitting within easy talking distance. Alot of noise (like phones constantly ringing) is a problem, but no energy at all like being locked in an isolated office would make me fall asleep rather than code better
Schedule pressure. I've never seen a company without it. True if they constantly insist on unrealistic estimates and hold you to them its time to leave. But this isn't academia, product does have to get shipped eventually. Often a little schedule pressure results in better code, it tends to limit over engineering. When the code hits the real world you will find out where you really need to make improvements which is often not where you thought you needed to optimize.
Now to add one bad sign to look for, its what I'd call 'thrashing', it always happens some, plans always change. But when plans change so often that nothings getting done and moral starts dropping you've got a big problem. If you come in to work everyday and your work assignment is different "Stop coding on project A, we've got super high priority from upper management on project B" "Stop coding on B, sales urgently needs C"
When you have that conversation its getting about time to send out the resume
Has this guy ever heard of the concept of "AS IS"? You go to an auction and buy a used toaster its sold "AS IS". Your responsible if it burns down your house. Same goes for GPL code, don't expect people to agree to be sued for something they gave away for free. If GPL authors start getting sued I'll start putting out code anonymously.
Thats how I get to work. Its called light rail, its been around for 100 years, no fancy pie in the sky technology needed, just political will, it costs $50 a month for unlimited use in San Francisco. Eventually as gas hits $10 a gallon we may see newer cities installing subways and light rail.
Of course one solution is to build decent public transit in and near major cities. It can be done, it was being done 100 years ago. America needs excessive amounts of oil the way a heroin addict needs heroin. Withdrawal may not be easy but it can be done, and the addict is better off in the end. Public transit is much cleaner and cheaper, than cars. I feel sorry for those working low wage jobs in areas that require a car, a minor car problem can blow a weeks wages. Compare that to the $45 a month flat rate I pay for public transit in San Francisco. No worries, and if it breaks down not that big a deal, its only a 40 minute walk to work, and stores are just around the corner.
What actions did they take to make this a felony?! At worst it seems like perhaps a minor contract violation. What if you use a school book (paper sort) in a manner unapproved of by the school. Like reading a porno magazine with it as a screen, is this 'misuse' a felony?
Thats the whole purpose of virtual reality, to do nasty things you couldn't do in real life :)
What next someone will get the chair for killing
someones pet monsters in a game?
Its kind of like heading into your friendly
neighborhood S&M dungeon, and claiming you where
raped. "Did you safe word?" "No." "Please don't
waste the time of this court, next."
Like a reputable S&M dungeon games have a way out
if you really need it. Quit the game if you can't
take the heat.
If the game was supposed to be 'nice' then they
should fix the code instead of calling the cops.
When I wrote the original TinyMUSH (wrote isn't
really the right word, it was a substantial rework
of TinyMUD). One major design goal was to make
users able to fend for themselves without calling
on a higher power for help. Don't like someone in
your space, you can eject them.
The combat version was never completed do to a
real world theft of the computer I was developing
it on. At that time 386 computers where expensive.
Speaking english is one thing, demanding perfection is another. Communicating is part of my job, having perfect spelling and grammar is not. So some grammar Nazi thinks I'm stupid, let me see them program, I'll tear there code to shreds if they want some constructive criticism.
Why do grammar Nazi's piss me off? Try having a mix of fairly severe dyslexia, and CAPD (hearing problem that makes it hard to hear and thus say words exactly right). If your in a wheel chair no one thinks its a moral fault, but god forbid you have have a neurological disability affecting language. You might as well have taken a piss on the graves of all the greats in the history of the humanities as far as the grammar Nazi's are concerned. And the 'constructive criticism' gets real old after a while.
This sort of message has always been a pet peeve of mind, it reflects a double standard. Those whose natural ability is engineering are expected to bend over backwards for the grammar Nazi's. Yet its perfectly acceptable to be utterly clueless when it comes to scientific and technical issues, even when your CEO of a technical company.
Over the last few years, I've noticed that a surprisingly large number of secretaries, who are otherwise very well written, yet seem to lack strong coding skills. Mostly, this seems to manifest itself as varying degrees of poor syntax and logic: 'malloc(strlen(s))' instead of 'malloc(strlen(s)+1)'; 's=s+1' instead of 's++'; and I even see the keywords and subroutines misspelled from time to time. It baffles me that a culture so obsessed with language ability and accuracy can demonstrate such little attention to detail when it comes to doing anything technical, and it baffles me even more that many people become enraged when you attempt to help them correct and learn from their mistakes. Do CEOs and secretaries just not care about using technology effectively? Do they not realize that a mediocre command of written C makes them appear less intelligent? Am I missing something here?"
I've done quite a bit of web development in perl + mason. For those not familiar with it mason is a templating system that lets you embed perl in html www.masonhq.com.
Autism is a genetic condition which has a mix of assorted disabilities and often abilities as well. Research has tended to focus on the disabilities, But there are a number of basic tests where autistics even "low functioning autistics" on average score better than average. The 'hidden figures test' being one of them.
The thing thats always puzzled me about php is that it seems to be yet another language for no good reason. Why would I use php instead of Perl/Mason?
Java will be a legacy language before C++, and .NET well before that. Thats the big problem with
commercial languages rather than open standard
languages. Some executive makes a decision and
your code is now all obsolete.
Code I wrote in C and C++ on Linux in 1992 is still in use, and can still be compiled with only minor tweaks.
Java is basically castrated C++, take out anything that might be dangerous. Meaning anything which can be used to make truly optimal code. Meanwhile not even providing higher level programming features like generic programming capabilities.
Electrically initiated fusion is used in the trigger for nuclear weapons as a neutron source. Why is 100K volts from a crystal such a big deal? I can grab a few old flyback transformers, put them in series, charge up a lieden (sp?) jar, discharge it into a tube with some deuterium and irradiate myself with neutrons if I so wished.
Any old nerd can make a fusion reaction, the hard part is making one thats self sustaining energy wise.
This seems like a perfect use for this technic. Create a pad tape, and encrypt the original with it. Mail the pad by UPS to your destination, when its delivery is confirmed, mail your encrypted tape. For extra security, hand deliver 100 one time pads, and then mail the data tapes by any means you wish. They are completely useless without the pads.
Oxytocin has a few roles in the body, lactation and giving birth in women. Its released by nipple play, the way to a man or womans heart is through there nipples. There is also an oxytocin mimic in fenugreek making it a bit of an aphrodisiac. I gave some to a friend, and he ate it all at once, "it didn't do much" "it didn't even make you horny?" "come to think of it I did have sex with my bed.".
Maybe we should have fenugreek and massage parties?
Perhaps you could point out some errors instead of making an unsupported blanket statement?
1) At what age did Einstein learn to speak? Hint it wasn't anywhere near the normal age.
2) What where Einstein's hobbies as a child? Hint they weren't playing ball with the local kids
3) Was Einstein prone to rage attacks as a child?
4) Why was Einstein ejected from high school? Hint these days we call that sort of behaviour "oppositional defiant".
5) What was Einstein's thinking style? Hint you can find accounts of visual thought in Temple Grandins books, and from many other autistic spectrum individuals.
People want to take too much credit. The natural course of autism for most people is toward becoming "higher functioning" as they grow up. On the otherhand one should not forget that there is a biological difference which will remain. This is a mixture of gifts and disabilities. Often intellectual gifts, some learning disabilities, sensory sensitivity, social difficulties even if they are only a need to make more effort than normal, immune problems (autoimmune and allergies), often high disease resistance, slow skin aging (often appear 10 years younger than they are), often very attractive eyes, larger than usual heads, odd tastes in food. If anyone out there is autistic or strongly suspects they might be, give the following a try: L-Carnosine Fish oil L-Carnitine Mega B supplement Then see how you feel after week. Can you hear better in noisy situations? Do crowds bother you less? Is socializing easier? Do others notice a change in you? Did the way music sounds change 30-40 minutes after your first dose of L-Carnosine?
I don't know or care about Bill Gates. But with the likes of Einstein and Newton, they where not successful inspite of autism. There abilities had much to do with common autistic gifts. In other words they where successful because of autism. Please read Einstein's biography before you casually dismiss the quite obvious fact that Einstein was autistic. He was severely speech delayed, and showed every other trait one would expect of an autistic child. Einstein wouldn't have even gotten an Asperger's diagnosis at a young age if he was around today. His speech delay would have branded him with "full blown" autism.