"Dilbert" Creator Gets Voice Back 344
Scott Adams lost his voice 18 months ago to a disorder called Spasmodic Dysphonia. One day, it returned. He is apparently the first person in history to recover from this malady. Read his account. It is inspirational. I can't find any other word for it.
ffs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ffs (Score:4, Informative)
KDawson, I just thought you'd like to know that the Enlightenment category is for the X11 Window Manager [enlightenment.org] by that name, and not "enlightening" topics. Unfortunately, Slashdot doesn't really have an "Inspirational" category. About the best you can do is "Entertainment" and "Links". Since this is the third time [slashdot.org] you've been in want of an inspirational category, you might consider talking with Taco about remedying the situation.
Re:ffs (Score:5, Informative)
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Sometimes, the nitpickers are just annoying -- just get over it and appreciate the irony dammit.
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Re:ffs (Score:5, Funny)
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Sigh...nobody ever does...
Re:ffs (Score:5, Funny)
You, my good sir, need to lay off the Monty Python. It's messing with your head.
Re:ffs (Score:5, Funny)
Talk with Taco (Score:3)
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Hmmm... which icon should it have?
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s/^\S+//;
Ahhh, much better.
Re:ffs (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Misplaced Criticism (Score:4, Funny)
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Hey, whatever gets people posting comments, I guess.
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What's the problem? Do you expect there to be a sudden rush of Enlightenment news and developments that you don't want his story to get confused with?
-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
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Enlightened (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Enlightened (Score:5, Interesting)
It's generic enough where pretty much everyone would catch on to the meaning.
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In a related note, I recently saw a documentary about the Tibetan Buddhist monks who starved themselves to death in times of famine to show people that hunger didn't have to turn you into an animal. They ate only bark high in tannins for several weeks before starving themselves so they turned into mummies when they died. Then they strapped themselv
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Luxury! When I were a lad we we luck to get water!
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No, that's stupidity and vanity. As Epicurus said, "There is also a limit in simple living, and he who fails to understand this falls into an error as great as that of the man who gives way to extravagance."
Re:Enlightened (Score:5, Funny)
Skinny-Ass-Kicking Buddhas can kill anyone they want! Skinny-Ass-Kicking Buddhas cut off heads ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. These guys are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this Skinny-Ass-Kicking Buddha who was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon the Skinny-Ass-Kicking Buddha killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a Skinny-Ass-Kicking Buddha totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.
And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you don't believe that Skinny-Ass-Kicking Buddhas have REAL Ultimate Power you better get a life right now or they will chop your head off!!! It's an easy choice, if you ask me.
Skinny-Ass-Kicking Buddhas are sooooooooooo sweet that I want to crap my pants. I can't believe it sometimes, but I feel it inside my heart. These guys are totally awesome and that's a fact. Skinny-Ass-Kicking Buddhas are fast, smooth, cool, strong, powerful, and sweet. I can't wait to start yoga next year. I love Skinny-Ass-Kicking Buddhas with all of my body (including my pee pee).
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Don't get your hopes up on anything changing though...it takes the
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That's right: they still have the Amiga category and haven't changed it to "News about Checkered Balls".... yet.
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Elaborate ruse? Maybe not... (Score:5, Informative)
It seems the great overloard Adams was in fact inflicted by the great malady. [nih.gov] Rejoice at his miraculous recovery!
PS - I was quite confused at first as to the authenticity of this until I got goog-learned [google.com]. It seems it really does exist [emedicine.com], he very well may have had it [typepad.com], and if he recovered was indeed a miracle. However, it could also be an elaborate ruse, as I would expect from a satirist of his pedigree.
Re:Elaborate ruse? Maybe not... (Score:5, Insightful)
In what way would pretending to have a rare illness and then pretending to be cured be satire? There is a difference between "lies" and "satire."
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satire - noun
1. the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
2. a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.
3. a literary genre comprising such compositions.
In what way would pretending to have a rare illness and then pretending to be cured be satire? There is a
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It is ironic that you say this, because he wrote an elaborate short essay about this topic. The first blog entry where he announced his malady was here:
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/20 05/12/the_problem_wit.html [typepad.com]
A quote:
He recovered! (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry...
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Re:He recovered! (Score:5, Funny)
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+v mode for... (Score:5, Funny)
I met a guy with that once (Score:5, Interesting)
While teaching the course his voice was like a hoarse whisper. He characterised it as having "forgotten" how to speak. But while telling the class about his voice, he said he could sing. And suddenly as singing his voice was loud and strong.
I wished he did that for the whole course.
Re:I met a guy with that once (Score:5, Informative)
There are a bunch of reasons that I've heard for this: that the words are longer so it's harder for me to mess them up, something about music and talking being in opposite hemispheres of the brain, and something about the singing voice being smoother or calmer than talking.
There was a story a while back about some girl getting a speaking aid where whatever she says is "echoed" into her ear, giving the impression that she's talking with someone else, which makes talking a lot easier. Yeah, here it is [bbc.co.uk].
Hooray to you, mr Adams. Us silent folk aren't all bad.
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Given David Brin's scientific background, I tend to consider the science behind his science fiction books to be more accurate than the science in some science books. There's a lot about the brain we don'
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Singing is also a good way to end or control stuttering. Jim Neighbors (aka "PFC Gomer Pyle") and Mel Tillis were both prominent examples of this during their careers. Jim worked his way out of stuttering altogether, while Mel continued to stutter whenever he wasn't singing.
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He was the first famous person that I am aware of that proved someone with speach problems can be funny and talented without hiding the speech problem.
Spasmodic Dysphonia (Score:5, Informative)
As the blog indicates, this is thought to be a neurological condition. When I was studying AI as an undergrad, we learned a lot about neural networks [wikipedia.org]. This seems like the sort of thing that could happen if the brain's speech area's neurons somehow became trained to stop delivering impulses for "normal" speech. In this case, it would be theoretically possible to train the network back to normal levels. Of course, it could be something completely different.
Here's wishing Scott the best.
There's a problem though (Score:3, Insightful)
Neural networks, as used in artificial intelligence, have traditionally been viewed as simplified models of neural processing in the brain, even though the relation between this model and brain biological architecture is very much debated.
Re:There's a problem though (Score:5, Informative)
There are some similarities, and it's certainly possible to model biological neurons and systems in a machine. Those models will bear some similarities to neural networks used in classifying tasks, but there are also similarities to a whole range of (other) graph problems. It's kind of like the relation between ray-tracing and triangle/Z-buffer based rendering. The latter is a way to approximate the former, sort of. They have some similarities, and programmable hardware that's good for doing the latter might be tweaked to do the former as well, but you don't get a raytracer just by cranking up the polygon count, as the whole strength of the normal rendering paradigm is based on greatly simplifying assumptions that are centered on Getting Stuff Done.
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scott adams (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice to hear you got your voice back.. now get back to drawing funny stuff!
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It works anyway.
Yes, do see for yourself. Occasionally, I get the creeps thinking about what
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Which is a shame because the TV show was funny and clever and better than most shows out there.
So, my point is, it does not work all the time.
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Whoever said it was wise, in any case. I think Adams left wisdom behind when he started to believe that affirmations could affect the outside world, however.
Singing vs. Talking (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish Scott Adams the best. He's one of the gods in the geek pantheon, and it would be sad for him to suffer so when he brings joy to so many of us.
"A cat?" "No, a bat." (Score:5, Funny)
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"Kolor".
I never thought of that... What a silly bunt!
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Has anyone else contemplated the absolutely brilliant way MP successfully got the word "cunt" past the BBC censors here?
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Re:"A cat?" "No, a bat." (Score:5, Funny)
Let's rename the condition (Score:5, Interesting)
You think this is callous? Far from it! Again we name it this way in order to honor the first person who kicked it. And I think Scott would enjoy the irony of having a neurological disease named after one of his characters. Scott Adams is all about Irony
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Strigiphilus garylarsoni Clayton, ~1989 (owl louse) "I considered this an extreme honor. Besides, I knew no one was going to write and ask to name a new species of swan after me. You have to grab these opportunities when they come along." - Gary Larson
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The kicker, though, is that "Gilbert" in Gilbert's Syndrome is pronounced like "Gheel-bear." You can imagine the trouble we would have with medical professionals calling the renamed disorder "Dheel-bear"'s Syndrome by mistake, and then nobody would know for whom it was named.
Then again, considering the nature of
It's off topic! (Score:3, Funny)
Enlightening, perhaps?
Speaking of Scott Adams... (Score:4, Interesting)
You know what this means (Score:3, Funny)
Tension Myosis Syndrome (Score:5, Interesting)
Here are two facts that align with TMS:
- it doesn't have a well-described physical mechanism -- i.e. doctor's don't understand specifically the physical mechanism of the diease
- the fact that it is a phenomena of the muscles align with other TMS diagnoses -- in this case paralysation instead of oxygen deprivation.
Now before any of you claim that the two are mutually contradictory, understand this: the doctors don't have any explanation for *why* Scott's muscles are paralysed. They just are. They have no reason or cause not to be working; they just don't. There is no diease, such as injury, bacteria, virus, or anything that would have paralysed these otherwise working muscles. They just aren't working. But, the person can sing.The fact that Scott was able to work his way out of it through self-hypnosis, visualization, and practice, seems to indicate that it was something in the mind. Sarno's course of treatment for TMS includes such activities. He also recommends psychotherapy for dealing with emotions.
In fact, in Sarno's recent book _The Divided Mind_, he recounts a story about a famous turn-of-the-century hypnotist who was able to cure a person's muteness, while they were under hypnosis.
I'm not in favor of going to herbs and drumming for medicine. But it seems to me that emotional issues causing physical problems are an unexplored and undertreated area of modern American medicine.
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Is that a meaningful qustion? "Why aren't our muscles paralyzed" seems like an equally meaningful question in an old man. Evolution only designs us to get to reproductive age. After that, we're running out of spec. Garbage-in, garbage-out mode, if you will. If age > 25, jump to random memory location and start executing...
Loud Howard? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I suffered a similar problem (Score:5, Interesting)
I had been playing basketball at the gym one evening and took a good elbow to the head down in the post that put me on the floor. Hurt, but didn't knock me out or anything. I got up and continued playing the rest of the game. I didn't think much of it at the time. I went home, grabbed a shower and headed for bed. I was single at the time so I didn't chat with anyone at home.
The next day I got up, felt fine, went to work. Someone came over to ask me a question and as I responded, the words were just a jumble. I couldn't pronounce anything. Sounded like I was just mumbling some unintelligible garbage.
My vocal cords were fine. I could make sounds. I could understand people. I could write responses on paper. I just couldn't form words. I headed to the ER.
Anyhow there was nothing they could do for me. The scans showed no dangerous swelling that needed immediate attention, but obviously something had been short circuited in my speech center. I took me a good month+ to get back to where I could speak more or less fluidly again.
For me, it wasn't a "one day I could talk again" sort of thing. I had to work at it every day. I'd practice speaking in the mirror. I could speak very very slowly if I concentrated on each sound I wanted to make.
Anyhow I just wanted to convey some sympathy towards Scott Adams' situation.
Migraine symptom (Score:3, Interesting)
I have experienced similar language problems that originated in the brain rather than the vocal cords. Occasionally I get migraines. The first symptoms are visual -- a blind spot in the center of my vision that starts to fill with light and dark zigzags. If I don't take some aspirin quickly, then it progresses to language impairment.
In the language impairment stage, I begin to have trouble speaking my thoughts. I can think of what I want to say abstractly and my vocal abilities work fine, but I have d
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My condition was not spasmodic dysphonia. It was classified as injury-induced dysarthria [wikipedia.org].
Dilbert for Halloween (Score:2)
Other neurological disorders (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
Isn't it fascinating that we still know so little? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm curious though. These days we can image individual atoms, and build things on a molecular scale. Yet in many ways medicine is still in the dark ages - there's so much we don't know or even begin to understand about the human body.
Why? Hard to say. Sure the human body is extremely complex, but it seems to me that modern medicine seems almost archaic at times.
Most common technique for fixing people? A person with a sharp blade - a method most likely pioneered by the ancient Egyptians nearly 5000 yrs ago.
Most common technique for finding out what's happening inside someone? Firing X-rays at a piece of film - a process pretty much unchanged since the late 1800's.
Most common method for curing bacterial infection? Penicillin, a drug over 50 years old.
Pain relief? Aspirin - again nearly 100 years old.
Why isn't medicine evolving as quickly as, say, computing has over the last 100 years? What's holding it back? There are so many "syndromes" and untreatable things out there - why? I can't help feeling we should know and understand far more than we do. Anyone else have any thoughts?
Re:Isn't it fascinating that we still know so litt (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
I know this is offtopic, but what the heck:
As a physician I feel qualified to respond. Care to lend parts of your body for experimentation? I can't promise you that you'll survive. I can't promise that you won't be disfigured. And I can't promise that you won't die from the consequences of some unforseen side-effect. No? I didn't think so somehow. We're bound by ethics to try things only when we're almost completely sure they will work and "do no harm".
I find it amusing how you can compare say coronary artery bypass grafting, or a laparoscopic hernia reduction, with Egyptians drilling holes in people's heads. They did it, yes. Now how many people survived the procedure?
As for the X rays and film, I believe I can introduce you to the CT scanner, a device now so affordable that most hospitals have several - even one _inside_ the ER. The film is still used for a hard copy, but it's printed by computer. Oh speaking of X-rays, I suggest you have a look at all the virtual endoscopy that's being done now, with 3-D modelling software. I can see inside your blood vessels without even touching your body. Let's not mention MRI's or PET scans shall we? No X-rays involved there at all. Quite a bit of progress since 1800. Radiology is one of the fields that is booming. Those radiologists are going to put us all out of work, I tell you.
The most common method for curing infections? Actually penicillin is hardly used nowadays, at least not at home. I invite you to look into penicillin derived synthetics such as the cephalosporins, aminopenicillins, ureidopenicillins. Then we have entire new classes of antibiotics, from macrolides to fluoroquinolones to aminoglucosides. Never heard of imipenem and meropenem? Most people haven't. How about vancomycin, or linezolid for that matter? I just named almost a dozen different families of antibiotics, each with different biochemical mechanisms.
Pain relief? Aspirin you say? What about all the non NSAID analgesics - metamizol, acetaminophen. Or all the other non-aspirin NSAIDs - diclofenac, ketoprophen, sulindac, indomethazine? Oh and for pain relief we can even talk about tramadol, or the use of anti-epileptic/anti-depressant medications like carbamazepine and floxetine. How about newer stuff, like Gaba-pentin? Then there's the opiods. We used to only have morphine. Now we have demerol, fentanyl, and a host of others....
Why isn't medicine evolving as quickly as, say, computing has over the last 100 years?
Just because you can't see the progress doesn't mean it's not there. Today we doctors must stay current more than ever. Some collegues estimate that almost everything we learn in medical school is obsolete within five years of graduation. And the pace is accelerating.
There are lots of diseases we still can't treat or cure, but now we understand why. The cure, however, is sometimes impossible due to the very nature of the disease. Many diseases are the manifestation of intracellular problems: abnormal gene expression, deficient receptors or intracellular messengers,etc. There's no way we can reach inside every single cell and fix what is wrong. So we make do with medications that block certain metabolic pathways or receptors, increase certain substances in the cells or body, or decrease others, to compensate for the defect.
Yet people still die. We run into new problems as we push back the average life expectancy. And society creates new ones. You had a far far greater chances of dying of a heart attack 50 years ago. Nowadays the survival is around 90% provided you make it to a hospital in the first hour. However people are having heart attacks at far younger ages due to the western sedenta
Re:Isn't it fascinating that we still know so litt (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Isn't it fascinating that we still know so litt (Score:4, Insightful)
Allowing the original poster to go on his life in ignorance, using talking points he's heard from those who believe in god over science, that would be harm. Our dear doctor here has merely corrected his knowledge and allowed him to understand that he doesn't know everything in life, and sometimes the things people say are biased to support their causes.
Re:Isn't it fascinating that we still know so litt (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Isn't it fascinating that we still know so litt (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably the fact that we get to make up most of the rules in computing (catapults vs. cat's paws, etc).
Whereas medicine is essentially a constant process of reverse engineering and good old fashioned trial and error.
Hey, come to think of it, maybe computing and medicine aren't that different after all :-)
What an inspirational story (Score:5, Insightful)
I really do like to be happy for people's good news, really, but listening to the way some folks say it just gives me twitches.
Brain reset (Score:4, Interesting)
The brain sure can do strange things sometimes. I hope I never have to experience what she experienced, just collapsing out of the blue. I collapsed because of too low blood presure once, and that was scary enough.
Diane Rehm has struggled for years with this (Score:4, Informative)
Therapy for anyone else?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps some doctors need to work with him and try to codify this a little and try to put it into practice. Something which nobody has ever been cured of, but which he managed to reason through and, well, remap his own damned neurons is something significant. I should think more than a few doctors would be trying to get this put into a case study.
I mean, trying to speak in foreign accents and all of the other things he did to fundamentally change the way his braing thinks about speech is amazing, both in its novelty and its apparent unique success.
Since it seems unlikely to be something completely unique to him, it definitely sounds like an avenue someone should be investigating.
(*) OK, I've been reading Dilbert for years, he's definitely a unique person.
not the first to recover speech (Score:3, Informative)
Spontaneous Recovery (Score:3, Interesting)
I got to see all kinds of similar improbabilities when I worked an NIDCD http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/ [nih.gov]
One of my favorites was bilingual people who'd had a stroke and lost one language but not the other. Completely mystifying.
Re:What does this have to do with Enlightenment? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Dilbert is a one-trick pony (Score:5, Insightful)
Its basically observational comedy - standups do it all the time, and it works. Find something that people recognise and emphasise the parts of it that are dysfunctional. I suppose we laugh about it because we'd cry otherwise
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Kitten/Pony Icon for Human Interest (Score:5, Funny)
This is a great idea, and I don't know why you were modded to zero. We need a human-interest type of category. I suggest a kitten crossed with a pony, like the skull and crossbones. I for one, welcome our new kitten/pony icon/category overlords!
OMG ..... (Score:2)
or is that
www.cuteoverload.com