"i'm kinda annoyed by your insults, fletch."

Too bad, so sad. Unfortunately, I, like many people here, no longer give a rat's ass what annoys your precious, self-involved psyche. If you, in your teeny tiny reality on Looris Island, think the word "Asia" in a collective means you can post whatever offensive shit your inept capacity for discretion will allow, as long as there is an Asian in it somewhere, then maybe you would be happier posting this dross on a much larger site, where your need for hero-worship will find a greater pool of Family Guy idiot savants from which to draw. Even a dolt like Quantumushroom has his fanboys here, but that leaves real slim pickin's for you. Your condemnation of others who don't find funny what YOU find funny, even taking it so personal that you haughtily dismiss them as "sad", belies a world view that can only be described as pompous and dim.

Oh, and congrats on the gold star. One hundred is only 50 Family Guy vids away. I know you can do it.

In addition to the perfectly executed flying strike, you gotta admire Savant as a sportsman for declining to attack a helpless opponent. I love MMA but I'm sick of seeing some gorilla wail on the head of a clearly unconscious person when there's a delay in the ref's ability to separate the fighters.

god the guys a shape recognition savant!
wonder what he does for a living.

His synesthesic description of numbers as colored shapes reminded me of Richard Dawkins describing bat audio colors in this video http://www.videosift.com/video/Richard-Dawkins-TED-The-Strangeness-of-Science-22-min

Pretty interesting... this guy perceives numbers as shapes and colors. Now, I cant see through your eyes, but I have a pretty good feeling for what its like for you to perceive the color red. Those things that make red chosen for stop signs, stop lights, warnings, sports cars etc. He said there were like 25 other savants, I wonder how many perceive numbers like this, and if they all would say that David Letterman reminded them of the number 117.

Dave had no idea what his savant is, or what the heck 20,000 digits of pi represents. What an idiot. He should have done some other huge maths or something. But, yeah this guy is the ambassador of austistic savants. Amazing that he has one foot in both worlds.

baqueta and remy ... i would like to point out, that although he made it through that interview ... look where he is sitting on the chair ... basically at the farthest position away from dave.

as for his sexual orientation ... i don't find that too interesting. the savant that i worked with had a fascination with all things sexual and explored himself (with and without objects and/or other people) to the n^th degree (no pun intended )

Baqueta, you're correct, the meaning I was trying to convey was that he could fit into conversations and social interactions with very little hints that he was having any difficulty. This is in huge contrast with other savants, who require constant attention and can't survive without other people constantly looking out for them and providing care for them. That distinction alone is enormous.

What's amazing about him is that he can actually give such an interview, because he can function socially at a very high level, and is conscious of the way in which his brain works. Most savants suffer from serious social problems, but, as David Letterman points out, it's barely noticeable for Daniel.

(Shameless self-plug) For more on Daniel Tammet, check out my sift of a documentary on him.

i worked at an institution in connecticut years ago ... dustin hoffman and tom cruise came for a few days to watch the mannerisms of one of my patients. this patient had the savant ability to calculate large numbers within seconds, tell you what day of the week any date was, convert seconds to minutes (and vice versus), build massive lego creations (and subsequently tell you how many pieces of each color he used) and tell you how many seconds/minutes were left in the day at any given point. i used to follow him around with a calculator!! *giggles*

his bedroom walls were covered with calendars & clocks of every shape and size imaginable. unfortunately, there were also some unsavory characteristics that this person possessed as well ... guess you have to take the good with the bad!


~*We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.*~Sir Winston Churchill

The whole First Person series is really great. Other subjects included Temple Grandin (slaughterhouse savant) and Rick Rosner (a guy who gamed Who Wants to be a Millionaire?). The rest of the pilot story may be found at:

Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u379BQIFk1U&mode=related&search=

Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBNrPgTSrDA&mode=related&search=

Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyiV3uGIYnE&mode=related&search=

Part 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_v_P5fUGSo&mode=related&search=

Part 6 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sweavVGf1NM&mode=related&search=

here's for the scientists, inventors, savants, and enigmas', who need their own category....

*geek

....Fuller was visionary, included in the rolls of the savant, insane,dreamer.....and any other labels/limitations afforded enigmatic, messengers....Tesla, Reich,...Folks that pop in from time to time, to put things in non-linear, perspective....
http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/bucky.html

It is a disorder, for all the seeming benefits savant or autistic sufferes show they also have negative impacts on their lives specifically when it comes to social interactions and things we take for granted such as telling human emotional states from cold reading.

I feel sorry for Stephen. Though I am glad he has made the best of his life and I appluad him for that.

Still, things like this make you wonder, what other potential benefits have we not unlocked from the human mind?

Check out Stephen's gallery at http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/gallery.aspx?page=1

I studied savantism and aspergers for some time when deciding what direction to pursue graduate studies. Its was a very tempting direction, as there are amazing imaging and population studies going on around the world. However our understanding of so much of the brain is so very simplistic it makes studying savants to try to learn how to give ordinary people better memory recall seem like trying to jump the gun to me. Very unlikely that we can skip right to that without years of further research on the human brain in actual humans.

everyone loves babies and savants!