The Darwin Papers

[beagle]

Now online via here.

Love the bit about the relative merits of a wife as compared to a dog.

Why do geniuses have illegible hand-writing?

[Griffin NoName]

For those wishing to avoid Beagle's blatant plugging of The Telegraph you can go directly to the target site by clicking HERE

I particularly like this. Looks like the ravings of a mad man.

Impressive.

[Aggie]

"cannot read in the Evenings"  :rofl: 

unless she's got a book.



Illegible handwriting?  Because we can't get it to paper fast enough otherwise, and don't care about having others read it.   

Oh wait... you said geniuses...  nevermind.  I'm just illegible.

[anthrobabe]

the marriage pro and con items are very funny- but entirely serious,

I think that sketch of the tree of life would make a nice tattoo--- one of those that make people go hmmmmmm? except for a few people who would recognize it and go Hey! I recognize that.

[Sibling Chatty]

Illegible handwriting?  Because we can't get it to paper fast enough otherwise, and don't care about having others read it.   

Oh wait... you said geniuses...  nevermind.  I'm just illegible.

Hmmph...

Or, maybe, like the NIH guys say, so many genius-types also have some sort of dyslexia or eye-hand coordination problems that it's endemic to the group.

Think about the handwriting of doctors.

And have any of you ever seen a secretary's notebook from a Mensa meeting? Might as well take meeting notes by sticking Bic pens in styrofoam and throwing paper at them.

Some things just rewire the brain strangely. VERY strangely.

[Aggie]

 

Me = eye-hand coordination problems.  Hell, coordination of any of the extremities is an issue. I can write neatly if I go painstakingly slow, but I have some major difficulties with spontaneously performing coordinated tasks - I need to perform physical rote work to get movements down, and cannot go from see to do. Getting me to learn to dance salsa - and we are talking about the most basic aspects of the step here - took hours at home of literally teaching each body part how to move i.e. "So what do my feet need to do?  (several minutes of frustration) Now, what are my ankles doing? (several min...) How about my knees?". Forget about the arms entirely, it's hopeless. I still can't get merenge, and that is rumoured to have been designed for dancing with leg injuries!

OTOH, I have great whole-body awareness and have caught myself often opening cupboards, doors etc. swiftly within an inch or two of my head, and can similarly move within inches of objects at a fastwalking pace (6 km/h), slip through crowds etc.  Needless to say, I'm useless at ball sports, but excel at motion and balance sports that require whole-body movements & weight shifts (skiing, biking, swimming).

[Sibling Chatty]

Continuing

Welcome to my world. I also have a bad sense of balance (inner ear) but my spatial awareness is tops. I can do the body/object thing (and can parallel park ANYTHING/fit objects into spaces) but I don't have a normal sense of balance.

[Pachyderm]

I have handwriting like a crowd of drunken spiders crawled over the page.

My spatial reasoning/awareness is dire. Given a folded out diagram, I cannot tell you what shape it is in 3D.

The only thing I am good at, requiring co-ordination, is shooting. I think this stems from my very first lesson with a shotgun. The instructor put a watermelon on a post, and shot it. Lovely messy watermelon explosion. (Day of the Jackal style). Then he turned to me, and told me the same thing would happen to a head, if I pissed around with guns. Then he took me to the stand, pointed out all the safety requirements, such as that if I kept the barrels pointed downrange, and only loaded when I was ready to shoot, there would be no problems. So we started, and I found out that I was good at it, and enjoyed it immensely.  In order to keep doing it, I needed not to screw up, and as a result, when shooting, I am always aware of where the barrels are pointed, if the gun is loaded, where everyone around me is, etc. Then the Army taught me how to move quietly through forests....

[anthrobabe]

I have moderate handwriting- I can read it but often must translate, if I go slowly then it is legible to all.

I too handle guns well-- was taught at an early age, much like you Pachy with various melons and told what happens to the human body when people 'f*** around with guns'- an unloaded gun is a gun ready to bite, rule one, each and every time no matter what prove to yourself it is not loaded before letting someone admire it, clean it, etc-- unloaded guns will kill/maime you or another. Do not climb a fence with a gun-- this also means to not hunt alone( I don't hunt and have never killed anything but was taken 'hunting' to learn about guns), hand gun to partner, climb fence, partner hands guns one at a time to you stock/butt towards you and then climbs over fence themselves(if your dogs won't mind and sit until you are ready for them to cross whatever, then leave them at home as they will trip you by accident)- do not lay gun on ground or prop against tree as the dog will manage to shoot you or another with it by bumping it, steping on it etc. Do not have a gun for protection unless you know what you are doing, it is loaded, and you can and will use it-because trying to load it in an emergency situation will get you killed, if you hesitate the bad guy will take it from you and kill you. Once a year all officers must qualify at the range, the highest you can shoot is a 500-- the one who taught me about guns always misses once just because he chooses to and shoots a 490-- he doesn't want them to feel to badly about the 70 year old cop feeding them their lunch  How do I know he chooses to miss- because he's never missed except when he says 'well I guess I best miss this one' -- ever and I've know him almost 35 years.

so that kind of coordination is alright--

I can parallel park a school bus (the long ones as well as the mini's) and a semi tractor with trailer. But can not dance (well I can hold my own in a mosh pit  ) I can also shoot a peach off a tree across the field(do not ask me how many yards that is- I don't do math people)

but I don't do spatial, math, chemistry-- now biology is fine, forensics way fine.

really smart people are most assuredly wired differently--- hence the milk department man I worked with who had a PhD diploma from MIT taped to the milk cooler door..... and acceptance letters from everywhere else taped over the window to keep the sun from burning his african violets.

[Griffin NoName]

. Then the Army taught me how to move quietly through forests....

Not many watermelons in forests.

[Griffin NoName]

I have superb spatial awareness.

I can also read a map from any angle. I always know whether I am driving north sout east west even without sun stars or moon or compass, provided I know which way I am pointing at the outset. It's like I keep a map in my head.

I believe like those who say they are good with guns, my directional awareness skills were implanted when very young. By the age of 5 or 6 I knew all my father's very peculiar short cuts right across London. What I was doing driving around with him I have no idea but I expect it was to get me out of my mother's hair. What he was doing is another matter. I know that one thing we did was spot lorries with bad smoke coming out of the exhaust and report them. We also went to strange places to pick up coal (no other form of heating). Then there were the trips to scrap metal yards. Best of all was the Lorry Driver of the Year competition - but that was in Birmingham. I had an odd childhood.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

OTOH, I have great whole-body awareness and have caught myself often opening cupboards, doors etc. swiftly within an inch or two of my head, and can similarly move within inches of objects at a fastwalking pace (6 km/h), slip through crowds etc.  Needless to say, I'm useless at ball sports, but excel at motion and balance sports that require whole-body movements & weight shifts (skiing, biking, swimming).

Same here. LOVE skiiing and roller blading. My balance is pretty good, too. My work shoes have NO traction, which is very bad on the floors, since they're frequently wet and always tile. I have yet to slip, after six months. Always manage to catch myself after an inch or two.
Sports? Pshaw. Can't and don't want to play. Terrible at most of them.

My handwriting tends to look like printing and cursive made messy babies. The only handwriting of mine you'll find is names on cups at work. IF I'm in a good mood. Though I have good fine motor skills--can carve, sew, etch or print at very small scales very well.
I get turned around in my own house when it comes to East and West. But outside, I can maintain my directions very easily.
I can also imagine images of how things are built or ought to be built, down to the direction screws or nails need to point in order to get the best support.

[pieces o nine]

My handwriting is a legible -- if stylized -- cuneiform if done slowly. If executed(!) at thinking speed, it becomes a line of undecipherable, disjointed angular loops. As noted elsewhere, I have no idea  what my legal signature says, but so far people keep accepting it...

I can draw for long periods of time with extreme precision, so have no reasonable excuse for my writing. I can sew or bead equally well with either hand. I can conduct accurate, lightening fast mental computations regarding amount of fabric, paper, or lumber needed for a project, or to calculate conversions of inches to picas and back.

But balancing books to the penny or plotting mileage? hmmmm.  The first time I moved across a state line, co-workers at new job asked how long the drive had been. Taking a stab at converting hours to mileage, I unhesitatingly replied that it was 14 thousand miles. This did not strike either me (or the artist friends asking me!) as at all implausible...

Eye-hand coordination depends entirely on the task at hand (or eye). I took an Archery/Riflery elective in high school phy-ed. Loved archery, got in touch with my inner Maid Marian. In riflery, on the other hand, I discovered a fantastic talent for shooting the clip off my target...

I construct inner maps (2D & 3D) fairly easily and quickly. But one wrong exit on the Metro Denver interstate 'system' -- in an unfamiliar area I have not yet mentally mapped -- in high traffic surrounded by Urban Assault Vehicles effectively blocking *all* signage until it is Too Late -- with the damradio breaking into a very loud and irritating set -- and my sense of direction takes a bit of a hit.

Classic advice to new residents in Denver: the mountains are on the west.
Fantastically helpful at night. Or downtown surrounded by skyscrapers. 


[edit]  Almost forgot my most important learned spatial skill: the ability to pinpoint location of cat in the dark or on the stairs without needing eyes! Prevents being tripped by furry streak suddenly darting out at a ringing phone, or ankle-rubbing-figure-eights if I'm carrying heavy objects.  [/edit]

[Griffin NoName]

I have problems with balance that began when a friend borrowed my bike and got knocked down by a lorry suffering serious head injury and permanent brain damage. Since then I have not been able to ride a bike or skate. Probably be an interesting case for brain research as presumably the wrong spots light up in my brain due to trauma.

[Aggie]

Same here. LOVE skiiing and roller blading. My balance is pretty good, too. My work shoes have NO traction, which is very bad on the floors, since they're frequently wet and always tile. I have yet to slip, after six months. Always manage to catch myself after an inch or two.

You sound like a natural born skiboarder.  I took it up several years back (yikes! Probably nearly a decade ago, I haven't gone much since I've been in the flatlands - 1.5 hours drive is not 'close to the mountains' IMHO) and have never looked back.  In fact, the last time I was on skiis for a couple of runs I kept  catching my boots on the snow and crashing when trying to carve as hard as I do on the 'boards - I am too used to riser plates and wide planks. 


Yeah, it looks stupid, but it's FUN, especially on the steep & deeps and in the trees.  Wretched on green runs.  And kindly note that Snowblades are piss-around toys for skiers, NOT proper skiboards, and skiboards are NOT BLOODY 'SNOWBLADES'.  Really, I don't mind genericized product names, but not when it's the poorest example of the genre.