Kim Peek died (not a joke)

[Caliga]

Yeah... this is definitely, definitely sad.  Kim Peek, Peek Kim.  555-4369. 

Kim Peek, The Real 'Rain Man,' Has Died
8:02 am
December 22, 2009
By Mark Memmott

Kim Peek has died.

You may not recognize his name, but there's a good chance you remember Rain Man, the 1988 movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise.

Hoffman's character, a mega-savant, was based on Peek.

As NPR's Howard Berkes reports from Salt Lake City, where the 58-year-old Peek lived:

He "had severe mental handicaps but reportedly remembered everything he read and heard. Peek had difficulty with simple things like turning on lights or dressing himself, but his memory was legendary. Give him a date and he'd describe its events. Name a place and he'd name the zip code. He reportedly memorized every word in 9,000 books."

Howard adds that Rain Man "made Peek so famous he traveled the globe, displaying his talents as the real 'Rain Man.' NASA studied him because his memory got better as he aged. And in the end, his memory was sharp but his heart gave out. Kim Peek's father says his son died this weekend of a massive heart attack at his suburban Salt Lake City home."

The Salt Lake Tribune says Peek passed away Saturday.

"He had a depth and breadth of knowledge and a memory that was just unbelievable," Daniel Christensen, a professor with the University of Utah's Neuropsychiatric Institute, told the Tribune. "He was unique. I don't know if there will ever be another person quite like Kim."

P.S. He will neither go back to Walbrook, NOR stay with Charlie Babbitt now. 

P.P.S.  HOT WATER BURN BABY

[MadImmortalMan]

I saw a TV show about him not long ago. Remarkable guy.

[Caliga]

IIRC the theory is that his brain had a completely different physical structure from, like, everybody.  Like it was not hemispherical but rather nearly all of his grey matter was devoted to storing data.

If it was a PC, it'd have a 25 Tb hard drive and an Intel 486 CPU.

[lustindarkness]

[Monoriu]

Did he have any offspring?  Tis probably unlikely but I think he deserves to pass his genes on.

[merithyn]

Did he have any offspring?  Tis probably unlikely but I think he deserves to pass his genes on.

He "had severe mental handicaps but reportedly remembered everything he read and heard. Peek had difficulty with simple things like turning on lights or dressing himself, but his memory was legendary.

I'm going with no on this.

[Monoriu]

Sometimes I think that the environmental nutjobs who champion "bio-diversity" should put their words into action

[Caliga]

Did he have any offspring?  Tis probably unlikely but I think he deserves to pass his genes on.

No.  My guess is that he had no "interest" in women (or men, for that matter).  I saw a video of him taking some sort of intelligence test once, and it was being proctored by a female psychiatrist.  Between answers he would say odd shit like "You're a super lady" and "You're of great value to society" but it was with very flat affect like virtually everything the guy said.

[Monoriu]

I hope they saved part of him for further study.

[The Brain]

I'm an excellent poster.

[Caliga]

I'm an excellent poster.

Yeah, counting threads.  Definitely counting threads.

[KRonn]

Interesting, the real Rain Man.

Sad day though.