Memes

In undergrad I once went back to my dorm room and eagerly showed my roommate the video of Grace Hopper illustrating how long lengths of time are (https://youtu.be/9eyFDBPk4Yw). A little while later, he was talking about this scene and how he likes the writing, because engineers are often much more excited by something seemingly mundane, such as the various lengths of wire needed for a project, than "this is my spaceship."

Anyway, I tell him, completely seriously and with no sense of irony, "yeah, but why would anyone care about lengths of wire?"

He yelled back, "You literally came in here to show me a video about lengths of wire."

Pretty sure the first dude to collect dead bugs and put them on corkboards with pins probably was on the spectrum. Also geologists. I can't think of any other reason a person would be super into rocks.

I've always loved the "lengths of wire" line. As a kid I used to check out lots of outdated library books about building a home science lab, and they consistently called a short piece of wire a "length" of wire. I don't think I ever saw that term in any other context until Futurama, so it really brought back my nerdy roots.

After reading these comments, I have concluded that everyone's grandpa is autistic.

My grandfather had similar collections. Of anything potentially useful.

I don’t believe in his case it was primarily due to neurodivergence but rather a depression-era childhood.

Could he afford a weed whacker? Yes, but he made one from an old vacuum, even in the 80s/90s. And so on.

Their lives started in poverty and they killed Nazis and we dishonour them horribly when they are barely cold. Especially America who is going to inflict both on everyone again.

I'm too lazy to keep things organized, does that get me out of autism?

Amateur. Back in the 90s i collected odds and ends because I wanted to exactly be like a Sierra online adventure game protagonist.

Also I collected coins. But I guess that was not eccentric enough to be an autistic thing?

My grandfather has a collection of construction engines models perfectly aligned on shelves in the veranda.

I'm all for ragging on the boomers for the shitstorm of cruelty, greed, and ignorance they've made.

But this is just another era's assorted cables drawer. You might need to rig something 🤷

Having not seen the subtitle, I thought at first that this was a drawer full of rods and belts and whatever else they used to beat the autism out of kids, back in the day.

Does buckets of old nails count? Which are also next to my buckets of old screws.

I do a lot of renovating and construction, some on contract but mostly for myself, and I save so much stuff from my work ... screws, nails, nuts, bolts, washers, wire, scrap wood, scarp plywood, glass, metal, roof tile, rubber products, plastic products, unique rocks, concrete block

I'm indigenous Canadian and I grew up poor in the 80s and I was raised by parents who were born in the wilderness in the 1940s. For a while I saw my grandparents who saw everything new as wondrous and special .... my grandmother saved every plastic bag that was still good and had only been used once. My grandfather collected scrap wood of anything and cobbled them together to build boxes, utensils or just build a hunting shack. I got my habits from my dad who worked every single day and just collected stuff on his way saving everything in case he needed it .... 50% of the it made sense and he did indeed use stuff he had kept around, the other 50% meant he just kept a forever pile of stuff that rusted and deteriorated in the yard.

Which is ironic considering everyone in my extended family knows damned well grandad was autistic af and he's where half the bloody family got it from.