The Boy Genius of Ulan Bator 163
An anonymous reader writes "A lot of us grew up tinkering with electronics and cherishing the one or two reference books we could find that explained exactly what we wanted to know. Nowadays, with internet access widely available and online educational materials coming into their own, we're going to see a lot more kindred spirits coming out of places all over the globe. The NY Times has a story about one such, a lad from Mongolia who hacked together complex sensors at the age of 16 and was one of the 0.2% of students to get a perfect score on MIT's first Massive Open Online Course. From the article: 'Battushig, playing the role of the car, moved into the sensor's path to show me how it worked, but it was clear he was not entirely satisfied with his design. "The use of the long wires is very inconvenient for my users," he said, almost apologetically, clasping his hands together in emphasis. He realized that contractors would be reluctant to install the siren in other buildings if they had to deal with cumbersome wiring, so he was developing a wireless version. ... Battushig has the round cheeks of a young boy, but he is not your typical teenager. He hasn't read Harry Potter ("What will I learn from that?") and doesn't like listening to music (when a friend saw him wearing headphones, he couldn't believe it; it turned out Battushig was preparing for the SAT). His projects are what make him happy. "In electrical engineering, there is no limit," he said.'"
limits (Score:5, Funny)
"In electrical engineering, there is no limit,"
In real life, there is.
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Generally only because other people put them there. Nice to see this boys parents aren't forcing him to listen to Justin Beiber to fit in with the other kids.
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Oh my, the genius boy who doesn't like music. :)
Therefore, if you listen to music, you're dumb
(doesn't matter which music...)
Re:limits (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly what does Justin Beiber have to do with music? I refer to him as an example of pop culture. Yes, I realize he is marketed as having something to do with music, but that's quite questionable.
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TFS says "doesn't like listening to music" - which implies he doesn't like listening to ANY music. That sounds like the guy's missing a lot in life.
justin bieber is not music - so he might even listen to justin bieber and still hold TFS true... - but I digress.
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He seems singularly focused, very into one area at the expense of others. It is likely he is mildly autistic, or Asperger's. Functional, he just doesn't seem to like things outside of facts. No music, apparently isn't a casual reader.
While he is undoubtedly missing out, perhaps a mind uncluttered by fanciful notions and devoted to rooting out more facts is what we need.
So sad to see all of the people here saying he is missing out on parts of life and wanting to "fix" him. He is clearly different, and fi
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Oh, I don't want to "fix" anyone, i just dislike it when these "particularities" are presented in such a way that they become "a model to follow".
Something like "see, kids, what you can accomplish if you don't listen to music?"
It's the difference between Stephen Hawking presented as a genius despite the fact he can't walk, and Stephen Hawking presented as a genius because he can't walk.
TFS says "he's not your typical teenager" - DOH. No genius teenager is typical - simply because the typical teenager is not
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Scienrology helps people okay? It helps peopel and if you're attacking it that means you must be afraid that people are going to get betetr! It's simple!
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Of course someone put them there.
Limits were put in place by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz in the 17th century. Every calculus student knows this.
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Kids in Mongolia don't do that, they prefer to gather in huge hordes and prepare to invade the fuck out of the rest of the planet.
Must we call him a genius? (Score:5, Funny)
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When we could simply call him "Master"?
OK. "Master, you are a genius."
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Re:Must we call him a genius? (Score:4, Interesting)
We'll be calling him burnout or a shrink in 5 years sadly. No music, no recreation at all?
You are confusing earplugs with listening to music and/or recreation. You never see me listening to recorded music, either. Particularly not while I am working. Or driving a car. Or doing anything else requiring concentration. Or, realistically speaking, ever. Listening to music requires attention for me. Because music makes sense. If I need to space out between concentration, I practice music. That's ok. It accomplishes something. Listening to music, in contrast, just burns attention for nothing.
And it's badly paced, too: I could never listen to an audio book: I'd go crazy with impatience. Reading books, in contrast, is fine. When I practice and/or play music, the pacing is mine. It may even be slower than music I listen to, but if it is, it is so for a reason.
There are places for eating dinner who play music. Mostly I can deal with that fine. But not if there's things like baroque music or so. Either I focus on the music or on the food. Not listening to the music is similar to throwing the food on the floor. It just does not make sense.
People confuse music with background noise and get uncomfortable when there is silence. That's really sick, and of course it lends a heavy advantage to braindead music.
Sorry for the rant, but I'm annoyed at people who think the right way to consume music is to treat it like white noise.
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For background noise, just leave a fan on.
Re:Must we call him a genius? (Score:4, Interesting)
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The vast majority of people can actively enjoy music in the background *and* pay attention to what they're doing -- it doesn't become "white noise" just because we're not focusing all of our attention on it. Music also actually helps us enter the 'zen' state that results in markedly improved performance; at that point, we'll be focused on the task, but fall right back out of the zen state if someone shuts the music off. That's why music is commonly found playing in situations that require a great deal of co
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The vast majority of people can actively enjoy music in the background *and* pay attention to what they're doing -- it doesn't become "white noise" just because we're not focusing all of our attention on it. Music also actually helps us enter the 'zen' state that results in markedly improved performance; at that point, we'll be focused on the task, but fall right back out of the zen state if someone shuts the music off. That's why music is commonly found playing in situations that require a great deal of concentration: performing surgery, playing a tough video game, writing fiction, etc.
For me it is the exact opposite, and I'm coming to accept I'm in the minority. If I need to concentrate (e.g. soldering, writing code, or doing math), I need silence. Even when I worked as a bike mechanic, I had to exact compromise on the radio volume from my coworkers*.
*The only way I could explain it was that it "grabs my brain" or "pushes things out of my brain". Say I'm working on a bike: I notice something I must check next, after I'm done what I'm doing. Then I notice something else that must be c
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When walking, just walk.
When sitting, just sit.
Above all, don't wobble.
--Old Zen
"People confuse music with background noise and get uncomfortable when there is silence." That, or flip the TV on automatically when entering a room, not to watch, but for the whatever. It's as though they can't stand to be alone with themselves. I find that a bit scary. I'm not so pure, though; I'll sometimes put on a side while doing stuff around the pad.
I'm rooting for the kid. Just make sure he's getting in the daily do
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Another Genghis Khan in the making? The kid's in puberty. Wait until he's in male menopause. That should slow him down a bit.
Re:Must we call him a genius? (Score:5, Informative)
TFA mentions his interest in photography, tennis and billiards, so it is unfair to say he does not have any time for recreation. As for music, not everyone is interested in music so much that they would bother to actively seek out opportunities for listening music. I am also an electronics guy and I don't listen to music either (instead, I have a passion for movies).
Re:Must we call him a genius? (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty much. You look at the geniuses that are identified and lauded at that age and few of them are still doing well 20 years later.
The brain does decline somewhat with age, but not to that extent. At some point you hit a wall you can't figure out and if you haven't developed other interests, then you can spend 50 years banging your head up against it without noticing the door on the other end of the room.
But, more than that, this kind of focused genius isn't particularly resilient in the long term. The brain needs to have various stimuli in order to function best. Sometimes the answers you need are only accessible with mental flexibility.
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A lot of people make this exact point as a result of insecurity. No one really enjoys knowing that there's someone out there who's beating the pants off you and they haven't even gone to college yet. At some point,
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Insecurity has nothing to do with it. I've got an IQ that measures in the 140s despite learning disorders, a head injury and significantly less working memory than average. I've literally never met anybody that's brain functions on the level mine does.
And I still take note of the fact that these prodigies rarely ever maintain that lead for long. Having a high IQ and talents like this is hardly the only factor. The people who wind up leading their fields are typically much broader in their abilities. Sure, t
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And the fact that you're commenting on it makes you sound like your jealous. I don't give a shit what you think of me, but the fact of the matter is that the GGGP has a point, these kids tend to burn themselves out before they've had a chance for their brain to peak.
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I'm his one friend you insensitive clod!
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Stress and pressure do horrible things to the brain. Not to mention that the choices these kids are pressured into making so they don't waste their gift tend not to be particularly good for the hypothalamus either.
I don't personally care, by the time I was 8 I was already smarter than most of the adults I came into contact with. And at 32 I'm smarter than I've ever been. Mostly because I wasn't identified and single out. Sure, I haven't been able to make the most of what I have because I lack access to the
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I don't personally care, by the time I was 8 I was already smarter than most of the adults I came into contact with.
With all due respect, I doubt you are as smart as you believe you are if you honestly believe this to be true.
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The candle that burns twice as bright burns twice as fast, truth is truth.
Ironically by doing everything in moderation I'd say I'm doing better now creatively than i was 20 years ago, at least as far as my music is concerned. Part of that has to be finding a damned good guitarist/singer/songwriter to work with and a nice tight drummer and sticking with the 3 piece format which makes me have to really bust my ass to make the band sound full with so few instruments, but I'd also say knowing when to step away and clear my head REALLY helps.
But look at it from this perspective. In a few years there will be cars that drive themselves everywhere. A complex action that seemed so out of reach of automation will be reduced to the execution of an algorithm working well in day to day situations. So it isn't farfetched to imagine that learning itself may be reduced to the execution of an algorithm and people everywhere, let alone machines, can become practically overnight experts if they just follow the steps of the algorithm.
So the hand wringing over
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When we could simply call him "Master"?
Master of Ulan Bator? Only if he's "hands on" ;-)
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Don't worry, when the Horde comes we will have more than enough opportunities to call him Master, ROFL
Hero of this story is the high-school principal (Score:5, Interesting)
The answer has to do with Battushig's extraordinary abilities, of course, but also with the ambitions of his high-school principal. Enkhmunkh Zurgaanjin, the principal of the Sant School, was the first Mongolian to graduate from M.I.T., in 2009, and he has tried since then to bring science and technology labs to his students. "My vision," he told me, "is to have more skilled engineers to develop Mongolia. To do that, everything has to start from the beginning."
Here is a man who graduated from M.I.T. but rather than entering the private sector to cash in on his hard work he instead went back to his home country to bootstrap his fellow countrymen. Kuods to this man.
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Kuods to this man
Is that the local currency?
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What a vapid comment.
Western arrogance at it's worst.
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Western arrogance at it's worst.
Western spelling at its best.
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Born in Germany, worked several years in the US, currently live in Canada. International enough for you?
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And you are very cynical.
Nothing ever comes of these "child geniuses" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nothing ever comes of these "child geniuses" (Score:4, Insightful)
You're absolutely right. I was a childhood genius and now look at me. I'm posting on /.
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This is completely off-topic, but try to re-read your post imagining you were reading someone else's. You are boiling over with frustration, and I'm not convinced it's all other people's fault like you say. People are inconceivably diverse not just genetically but behaviorally, emotionally, in the way they think about and perceive the world and other people in it, as well as in how they communicate. Since most people do not have any traits (like being a genius) that stand significantly out from the rest, th
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Agreed. They all probably burn out quickly and settle into something mundane. Same goes for all these breakthroughs that are written about. How long have we been hearing about 3 dimensional data storage?
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You can only store data in 3 dimensions in quartz like materials. The problem is writing and reading and I just don't think the technical level is just there yet. They are now testing 5 dimensional storage. I am not sure how stable that is (due to quantum factors that is impossible to predict for) in the short and long run.
I am sure they are going to work out the issues in the end. It might take 30 to 100 years until they do so. I am not up to speed on how the progress has been going in this research.
Inform
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Presumably you mean 4 dimensions. We store data in 3 dimensions all of the time.
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Data stored on hard drives are just in the physical form of the universe they are in. While our environment is in 3-D that might not apply on quantum level. I am not sure yet, since I currently do not study in this field of science. I am just interested in it as is.
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Re:Nothing ever comes of these "child geniuses" (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that it's impossible to track the lives of all these individuals how do you know how they turn out later in life? Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean they're not doing significant work.
The problem with you, and most people for that matter, is that they've been educated by Hollywood to expect that everything important must be immersed in fanfare and drama. Most of it goes unnoticed until one day; holy shit, we're all driving cars, or browsing the internet or buried in our smartphones. The vast majority of human progress has been a very deliberate and iterative process.
But you unfortunately, in your mind this kid will be a failure because he'll never live up to your Iron Man-fueled fantasies.
Re:Nothing ever comes of these "child geniuses" (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not at all impossible to track the lives of these people. And you're right that they very well might be going on to do great work that never see's the light of day for most people. Which is exactly what everyone else does. I think his point is that there are lots of smart people doing really great things out there, but the media has an over-fascination with these extreme cases where the kid ultimately ends up like everyone else.
You see it in the high school sports world as well. There will be some article about a 7 foot tall 9th grader who's tearing up the competition and is destined for the NBA and then... nothing. You actually can find out what happened with a little research, and it usually ends up being something like they weren't nearly as good in practice as they were on paper, at the higher levels of the sport. So they go on with life and maybe even play some college basketball, but eventually settle into something completely unrelated, but more realistic.
Re:Nothing ever comes of these "child geniuses" (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say you missed the point then. You accuse dryriver of needing Hollywood-fueled fanfare and drama, when in fact dryriver was questioning the need to play the "child genius" card every time a young person does something exceptional. That means nothing without some sort of followup so the second half of the story is told, hopefully involving living up to the early promise.
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I pretty much ignore these kinds of articles. I think they're more about "feel-good journalism" than anything else.
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Some kill themselves.
Like Aaron Schwarz
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Other things we don't ever see:
Practical flying cars
Huge (10x or more) advances in battery technology (charge time, power density, energy density)
Practical and scalable renewable energy
Practical fusion power
Decent low-power lighting (that's why they had to mandate it)
Diesels that don't smoke.
Novel cures for diseases, put into practice.
Technological progress is going slow. It's all been hidden by the semiconductor revolution, but everything else is grinding to a halt.
Suspicious (Score:4, Funny)
He hasn't read Harry Potter ("What will I learn from that?")
Confirmed for replicant.
and no music? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not only has mathematical ability been correlated with music, people who don't enjoy music scare me a little. Someone once said that liking at least one song by Nina Simone was a prerequisite for humanity. Shakespeare regularly had his antagonists show an indifference to music. I think he might have been on to something.
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Not only has mathematical ability been correlated with music, people who don't enjoy music scare me a little. Someone once said that liking at least one song by Nina Simone was a prerequisite for humanity. Shakespeare regularly had his antagonists show an indifference to music. I think he might have been on to something.
I don't listen to music very much, and it always annoys me when people ask "what kind of music do you like", as if it were some basic human need like eating. People like different things, and I sometimes resist the urge to ask "what programming language you prefer" or "which is better, Xilinx or Altera?" in return. Now, I actually enjoy music a lot, but I enjoy a bazillion other things too, and I don't want to spend a considerable part of my time consuming some product someone else made.
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No. They ask it because you are literally a freak if you don't like any kind of music. There are people who don't feel, but it is common to ask someone how they are feeling. The reason is - what for it - if they don't have any feelings then they are a freak.
I am of course excluding deaf people. I once heard someone ask a deaf person what kind of
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i know deaf people that like music. I'll ask them what sort they like.
Being deaf doesn't mean that you can't identify vibration, notice a beat or fail to see a performance.
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No. They ask it because you are literally a freak if you don't like any kind of music. There are people who don't feel, but it is common to ask someone how they are feeling. The reason is - what for it - if they don't have any feelings then they are a freak.
Hmm, actually, the really annoying question is "what kind of music do you listen to", as if everyone had a hobby of actively listening to music. Of course, most people are exposed to a lot of music, and they can form opinions without an active interest.
On another note, I think my relationship with music is rather complex, and I don't like giving a brief answer consisting of this or that popular genre.
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You don't need to have it as a hobby. Most people listen by having enjoyable music playing while doing something else, just as friends might hang out bantering while having lunch together, aware of (and taking pleasure from) both how the food tastes *and* what their friends are saying/doing. A few minutes ago, for example, I was rewriting a comment while also enjoying a particular song off Songza and remembering how much fun I had seeing the band at a small benefit concert a few years ago.
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You don't need to have it as a hobby. Most people listen by having enjoyable music playing while doing something else
I guess at this point I should mention a lifelong interest in making music, which includes composing and producing new material. It might explain why listening to music is kind of a problem - if it's somewhere in the background, it's either too interesting or too annoying, either way it takes a lot of my attention. I also like to avoid too much listening simply to keep my own musical ideas as intact as possible. It's really a double-edged sword, I enjoy music on a lot of levels, but I also get easily annoy
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No. They ask it because you are literally a freak if you don't like any kind of music.
I suppose it is probably unusual, but there's absolutely nothing objectively wrong with not liking any sort of music.
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That would be true if the word had anything to do with minorities, but it doesn't. The reason you shouldn't use the word to describe them is because it makes you sound under-educated, or to use another word that people don't understand, ignorant
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I don't listen to music very much, and it always annoys me when people ask "what kind of music do you like", as if it were some basic human need like eating.
I don't listen to music very much either, and have trouble answering that question myself. When my entire office was exploding with the twerking news and asked me if what I thought about Miley Cyrus's performance my answer was, "back up. Who's Miley Cyrus, and what performance?"
That said, music is a basic human need like eating. If you've never listened to any song that emotionally moved you, even though you had no idea what song it was or who was playing it, you've missed out on a basic human experience
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Life is less pleasant without music
That depends on the person.
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Xilinx.
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Perhaps he listens to music he creates himself in his head.
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Love your sig, by the way. I'd also add "buggy", in that it frequently doesn't behave as intended.
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Harry Potter? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, it really says something about the mentality of the reporter..."you're young therefore you read Harry Potter." WTF? These are not universal values, they are just YOUR values from inside the bubble.
Hurrah for his response, by the way. Stick it to 'em.
ignorant and arrogant (Score:5, Interesting)
He hasn't read Harry Potter ("What will I learn from that?") this is both an ignorant and arrogant statement. an intelligent individual would read the books and then say there was nothing to learn from them, yet this kid assumes there is nothing to learn from it. the fact of the matter is that one can learn something from anything, it's merely dependent on perspective. he could learn things like loyalty, courage, conviction, friendship....many life lessons that he won't learn unless he pushes himself outside of his comfort zone of academic achievement. just like he needed help from others to make his reality a possibility.
"I want to make good things for humans."
how can he do good things for humans if he doesn't understand humans or have perspective? but the kid isn't smart enough to figure that out. some genius.
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Re:ignorant and arrogant (Score:5, Insightful)
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Harry Potter is crap, man. I don't know why you would defend that.
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Or maybe he reached his conclusion via a logical argument, instead of an assumption like you're assuming. For instance, the fact that non-fiction books collectively contain more knowledge than fiction books, leads to the inevitable conclusion that i
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I used to think this way too until I stumbled into literature in my 30s...people who think fiction is not important probably don't understand it and I say that as someone who used to say "why read a story some guy made up when I could read a history book of real stuff", boy i sure looked like an idiot saying that but I thought I was so smart at the time.
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This sounds similar to, "You'll understand when you're older." Guess what? It's just as idiotic.
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He hasn't read Harry Potter ("What will I learn from that?") this is both an ignorant and arrogant statement. an intelligent individual would read the books and then say there was nothing to learn from them, yet this kid assumes there is nothing to learn from it.
Uhm...what about English? Great stuff for the adolescent foreigner with a good dictionary.
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Really bad choice of article quote (Score:4, Insightful)
From the article: 'Battushig, playing the role of the car
Huh? What car?
moved into the sensor's path to show me how it worked
How what worked?
"The use of the long wires is very inconvenient for my users,"
Well, obviously.
He realized that contractors would be reluctant to install the siren in other buildings
What siren?
TL;DR: Next time, pick a paragraph from the article that makes sense in isolation.
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I hear he's starting a company in his garage.
Stop linking to fucking NYT articles (Score:1)
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Get the name right (Score:4, Informative)
Ulan Bator is based on a misunderstanding. The correct spelling is Ulaanbaatar.
It means 'Red Hero' and, surprisingly, predates Communism despite its reference to the color red. The city is named for a historical character whose real name, deeds etc have been forgotten. All that it is remembered is that they were a woman.
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its not exactly 'in English', its a transliteration and transliterations can be improved.
A Supergenius? (Score:3)
How can one be proud of a lack of interest ? (Score:2)
IMHO, a true genius never dismiss things. Not reading Harry Potter is OK if the reason is "yeah, I may take a look later, but I have to finish this..." but saying "what will I learn from that ?" as a rhetorical question is a bit close minded.
After all, there *must* be something to learn from a book that made its author a billionaire, even if it is not evident at first.
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He'll find the limits soon enough when he finally grows up. He'll still be playing with LEDs and wires at 40
...on board of a spacecraft to Mars... :)
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