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Getbig Main Boards => Gossip & Opinions => Topic started by: Bodybuilding Related on December 22, 2009, 09:41:09 AM
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TimesOnline: Kim Peek, the autistic savant who inspired the Oscar-winning film Rain Man, has died, aged 58.
Mr Peek's father Fran said that his son had suffered a major heart attack on Saturday and was pronounced dead at a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, the town where he had spent his life.
Mr Peek was probably the world's most famous savant. Described as a confounding mixture of disability and genius, his astonishing ability to retain knowledge inspired the writer Barry Morrow to write Rain Man, the 1988 movie starring Dustin Hoffman that won four Academy Awards.
Born in 1951 in Salt Lake city, Mr Peek was diagnosed as severely mentally retarded and his parents were advised to place him in an institution and forget about him. Thirty years later, he was classified as a "mega-savant," a genius in about 15 different subjects, from history and literature and geography to numbers, sports, music and dates.
By the time of his death he had committed more than 9,000 books to memory and Nasa made him the subject of MRI-based research, hoping that technology used to study the effects of space travel on the brain would help explain his mental capabilities.
He would read eight books a day, taking just ten seconds to read a page. He could read two pages simultaneously, his left eye reading the left page and his right eye reading the right page.
But throughout his life he still needed 24-hour care. Despite his great mental agility, his motor skills remained limited; he could not perform simple tasks such as dressing himself or combing his hair.
His father Fran became his sole carer after Mr Peek's parent divorced in 1975. Fran Peek said that care of his son was a 30-hour-day, 10-day-a-week job but he did it devotedly, encouraging Kim to make the most of his abilities. But Mr Peek remained deeply introverted. It was not until he met Dustin Hoffman, when the Hollywood star was researching his role in Rain Man, that he could look into another person's face. He was 37 at the time.
Dustin Hoffman advised Fran Peek not to hide his son away. Mr Peek said of that meeting: "Dustin Hoffman said to me, you have to promise me one thing about this guy, share him with the world. And pretty soon it got so that nobody was a stranger to him, they were people, and so was he".
He took Hoffman's advice, putting his son on stage in front of thousands of people for whom he answered, almost always correctly, the most obscure questions they could test him with.
He thrived on his new found fame. Mr Morrow said of him: "I love the way he's flowered, it belies the myth that people don't change, especially people with developmental disabilities."
Four years before his death, Mr Peek said: "I wasn't supposed to make it past about 14, and yet here I am at 54, a celebrity!"
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God damnit I hope they freeze his brain
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there is this savant these days that can actually talk about beign an savant, explain stuff about it etc, amazing as fuck.
too lazy to find it, he meets Kim also at one point, its all on teh tube
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single handedly won the debate against eugenics
PIP
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What was his Getbig handle?
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What was his Getbig handle?
Suckmymuscle if I'm not mistaken.
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Im more impressed with Daniel Tammet just because he can talk about it.. no savant has ever been able to explain it..
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Damn - watched a documentary about this guy not too long ago - RIP.
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Who inspired Tootsie?
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Oh well, at least we still have johnny falcon.
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Doug Billings: Either way, you gotta be super smart to count cards, buddy, okay?
Alan Garner: Oh really?
Doug Billings: It's not easy.
Alan Garner: Okay, well maybe we should tell that to Rain Man, because he practically bankrupted a casino, and he was a ruh-tard.
Stu Price: A what?
Alan Garner: He was a ruh-tard.
Doug Billings: [pauses to figure out what Alan was saying] *RE*tard.
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Doug Billings: Either way, you gotta be super smart to count cards, buddy, okay?
Alan Garner: Oh really?
Doug Billings: It's not easy.
Alan Garner: Okay, well maybe we should tell that to Rain Man, because he practically bankrupted a casino, and he was a ruh-tard.
Stu Price: A what?
Alan Garner: He was a ruh-tard.
Doug Billings: [pauses to figure out what Alan was saying] *RE*tard.
HAHAHA, the only funny part of that shitty movie.
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It was worse to lose Brittney Murphy
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It was worse to lose Brittney Murphy
How do you figure?
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How do you figure?
she was prettier.
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she was prettier.
Not prettier then....
“Gidget” the Taco Bell Dog who died this year
PIP
Cause of death: Stroke
Lived from 1994-2009
(http://www.bowlofserial.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/tacobell-dog.jpg)
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she was prettier.
Epic superficality.
At least it is spoken like a True Getbigger! :D
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He was a useless shitbag. Ugly as shit too. Nobody will miss him. I hope he shit blood out of his arse.
What a classy thing to say ::)
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Who inspired Tootsie?
Haha ;D
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what does pip mean? ???
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It's too bad.....the man was a legend.
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what does pip mean? ???
Fuck you no0b.
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396 toothpicks...yeah yeah!
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What a classy thing to say ::)
Funny...I don't remember posting that at all. Looks like I have an admirer. :-*
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Funny...I don't remember posting that at all.
Of course you didn't post it. Somebody hacked your account and they posted it.
::)
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I don't know what it is about you but I'm drawn to you and find myself thinking of you constantly.
Would you let me suck your dick??? Just close your eyes I promise you wouldn't know the difference.
No thanks.
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This savant is pretty badass as well, drawing big cities (Manhattan, Madrid, Tokyo, Rome) detailed from memory in 3 days after a helicopter tour.