People post sometimes and say "hay I wish I was as smart as you at your age", its nice when people do that. But just how smart am I?
I have a high IQ yes, but I also have a disability, I appear smart because I have at my finger tips the whole world of knowledge, with a few clicks I can reach and read knowledge someone has collected over a life time, a few more clicks and I can ask and generally get an answer to any question I dream up.
So what makes me smart?
Is it the simple act of using all this to my advantage? Or is it something else?
It's actually very simple.I am smart because people share what has taken them a life time to know, I am smart because people are willing to answer a kids question's. I am smart because I read and listen to others knowledge.
In short I am smart because others are generous enough to share what they know.
LG saying thank you

 

Hello LG,

You are always welcome to ask questions.
As I stated in my signature:
You don't have to know everything, if you know where to find it.
When you do ask questions, you may look stupid.
When you do NOT ask questions, you will STAY stupid.

Here is a link that you might like:
http://www.101science.com/index.htm

It contains a lot of linkpages to all kinds of science subjects.

Bertus

 

I have found the problem with knowing everything is that so few others are smart enough to take your word for it!

Yea I like having the internet at my fingertips as well but it drives me nuts when my wife will ask me to look something up for her while she is sitting across the room with her own laptop online and mine is in another room.

 

Thanks for the link, I save links yes, but I also go through the sites methodically as time allows, I save the pages I think I need, I write in my books the things I think important. I often ask stupid question's, but I prefer a stupid question to a stupid answer, for now I am still giving stupid answer's. Maybe time takes care of that
I have new medication, its designed to slow down my thinking, it does to some extent but it also allows me to linger longer on thoughts and take more in.
And now for the first time I can remember I can sleep 6 hours in a stretch! My record before this medication was 4 hours sleep at a time, I am starting to feel better for it, not because I felt tired before because I didnt. I feel better for it because I feel more normal

 

I imagine several of us resemble LG.

Yeah, I was born smart, but there was no Internet. The best I could do was read everything I could get my hands on. American schools were like serving a 13 year sentence for some crime I didn't understand. I was correcting my teachers when I was 7 years old. Oops! Another way likely to resemble LG.

I did what I could with what I had to work with. On the other side of town, my nephew threw his bottle against the wall and scammed another one from the little girl next door. Today I live in comfort in my paid off home and help my nephew prepare to do 18 months in State Prison.

Remember the quote about, "Genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration"?
It's about what you do with what you have to work with.

My nephew has a perfectly good mind. He has talents that I don't have. Between the two of us, we can navigate safely anywhere from a drug infested strip club to a nuclear power plant. The difference is, he learned how to manipulate people and I learned about math and physics.

People think you're smart because you do the best you can with what you have to work with. People think my nephew is stupid because he didn't.

 

People post sometimes and say "hay I wish I was as smart as you at your age", its nice when people do that. But just how smart am I?
I have a high IQ yes, but I also have a disability, I appear smart because I have at my finger tips the whole world of knowledge, with a few clicks I can reach and read knowledge someone has collected over a life time, a few more clicks and I can ask and generally get an answer to any question I dream up.
So what makes me smart?
Is it the simple act of using all this to my advantage? Or is it something else?
It's actually very simple.I am smart because people share what has taken them a life time to know, I am smart because people are willing to answer a kids question's. I am smart because I read and listen to others knowledge.
In short I am smart because others are generous enough to share what they know.
LG saying thank you

So, in other words, "You didn't build that?"

 

I think besides from the fact that information is just in a click of your fingertips, you are smart because you have an inquisitive mind and an eager ear to know the answer.

You don't ask stupid questions, and if you did, I can assure mine are more stupid.

Goodluck in your knowledge quest. You're young, probably younger than me by one or a two years. You still have many years and eureka moments ahead of you.

Goodluck!

 

So, in other words, "You didn't build that?"

Yes I copy things, thats how I learn best, I copied a fire grate a month ago and learnt to weld (sort of), did I build that grate?

 

Yes I copy things, thats how I learn best, I copied a fire grate a month ago and learnt to weld (sort of), did I build that grate?

You built it.

No matter that some of it doesn't look "professional" or some of the welds could be stronger, you built it.
The next project will be better looking when you're done because you learned to be more fluid in your movements and more patient where patience is needed. You learned which small deviations can't easily be concealed when you're done. You will be thinking ahead of your hands the next time.

One of the curiosities along the way is, which things that I do will last?
You never know.
I put up a 50 foot antenna tower for my sister. It's gone.
I built a knife rack for my kitchen. It's still there.
I designed and built a pre-amp for a Rhodes piano. Both of them are gone.
I fixed a broken guitar amplifier, and I still have it after 37 years.
I planted 3 orange trees. They all died after about 20 years.
I planted a camphor tree. It's magnificent. 25 feet tall and going strong!

You just do the best you can with what you have to work with and you will find no fault with yourself in the end.

 

after learning math and such in school, before calculators, I got interested and looked up the reason behind formulas and such. I can still do square roots in my head ( sometimes need a piece of paper and pencil to help out my fading memory) and the formulas for impedance, resistance, resonance, wavelengths and such. but it really heops to find out about those before us that worked all that out first. I am not in that class with Tesla, Henry, Maxwell, Edison, Steinmetz and such, but it is nice to learn about them and how they did what they did.

 

True. It's amazing what they did with so little to work with!