Now reading books about Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein

The Virgin And Child With Saint Anne And Saint John The Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci, 1499.

I don't only play old video games from time to time. I read old video game magazines too. I recently finished reading the April 1999 issue of the Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. It took more than a year for me to get through it because I read it slowly. This issue features an article about Final Fantasy VIII, which got released in Japan before it got released in North America, and about some RPGs that got released for the PlayStation in 1998 and 1999. It's stated in the article that Final Fantasy VII played a very big role in popularizing role-playing video games, especially in North America. Another article is about the PocketStation. Although I have no interest in the PocketStation, the article was still an interesting read for me. And there are dozens of reviews of games for the PlayStation in the issue too. What surprised me a little is that Silent Hill (1999) received a rating of 4 out of 5 stars from the magazine. Silent Hill is now considered to be a classic and one of the greatest video games of all time. I played it a few years ago for the first time on my Anbernic RG350m, and I can say that it's easily one of the best PlayStation games that I've played. In fact, it's one of the most memorable video games that I've played. Xenogears (1999), which is another PlayStation classic, also got 4 out of 5 stars from the magazine. I played Xenogears on my PlayStation Vita several years ago. Since Silent Hill is a great video game, this makes me wonder if any of the people that were involved in making this game were autistics. It's because so many of the greatest video game designers, like so many of the greatest and most original people in any other creative field, are autistics. I can, of course, try to find out, but this would take time. Autistics create what neurotypicals (normal people) admire and try to imitate. Anyway, this issue of PlayStation Magazine also features a Silent Hill guide with maps and walkthroughs. Overall, this issue isn't bad because it got me interested in some PlayStation games that I didn't know about before. Most of the pleasure for me came from the fact that I was reading a magazine that got released at a time when many great video games were being made. It was a time when, for example, Square still made good RPGs. If anyone is wondering if I played The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom (2023) yet, I have to say no. I don't own a Nintendo Switch, and I don't plan on buying a Switch. But Tears Of The Kingdom is available only on the Switch. I already pointed out in an earlier post that I stopped buying anything that's made by Nintendo after I found out that Nintendo has been shutting down ROM websites and suing the owners of these websites and of emulation websites. And Nintendo is continuing this endeavor. Therefore, I won't be buying Tears Of The Kingdom or anything else made by Nintendo. It's possible that I won't buy anything by Nintendo ever again. Although I must admit that Nintendo has managed to make several very good video games since the release of the Switch in 2017, none of them, except for The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, have been on my mind for long. I haven't been losing sleep from the fact that I haven't played any of the newer Nintendo games because I own plenty of other games on other consoles. I'm not a child anymore, and, therefore, owning the latest stuff, like the latest video games or consoles, isn't important to me. For example, I finished playing Silent Hill 3 (2003) for the PlayStation 2 at the end of 2023, although I used the PCSX2 emulator to play it on my laptop. Playing Silent Hill 3 did bring enjoyment to me, and I like this game almost as much as I like Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2. Although the story and the characters aren't as good as the ones in the first two games, Silent Hill 3 still features a gripping story and plenty of creepy, superb locations. These areas, like the areas in Silent Hill 2, are sixth-generation console graphics at their best and most memorable. These graphics may not be as detailed as the graphics in later video games, but their design and use of light make them better than a lot of what came later. Among the influences on Silent Hill 3 are the film Jacob's Ladder (1990) and the works of horror novelist Stephen King. Other than Silent Hill 3 and Halo 4, I haven't yet finished playing the other few video games that I've been slowly playing in the last several months. So, even seeing the films Rich Evans: An American Saga and The Stoklasa Paradox didn't bring me as much fun as playing Silent Hill 3 last year.

Another thing that I can claim is that I finished reading Caroline Finkel's book 'Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire 1300-1923' (2005) a few months ago. This is one of the books that Andrei Fursov recommended on his webpage. It took several years for me to finish reading Osman's Dream because I was reading it slowly. The book is thick (about 1,000 pages), and, therefore, finishing to read it felt like quite an accomplishment for me. It's simply a standard history of the Ottoman Empire. There's nothing offensive about this book. Since Osman's Dream is a modern book, the author's writing is nothing special. In fact, I can even say that the author's writing style is kind of dull, but that's to be expected from modern books. So, overall, Osman's Dream was a fine read for me, and I can definitely recommend it because I did get some new information from it. But I was somewhat familiar with the history of the Ottoman Empire even before I began reading Finkel's book. Since I got an urge to find out more about Leonardo da Vinci and his works several months ago, one of the books that I bought is 'Leonardo da Vinci' (1975) by Maurice Rowdon. This book is old and well-written, but it's not thick and it features many photographs and all of the paintings by Leonardo in color, which is the big reason why I bought it. I haven't yet finished reading the book, but the author described Leonardo as follows. "Just as Florence was all that was modern in fifteenth-century Europe. It was what we in our day call a 'democracy', namely a society controlled by money-interests rather than military dukes like Milan or an aristocracy whose names were in a Golden Book like Venice or by the Church like Rome (with its satellite towns all over the Romagna) or by hereditary princes like Naples and the Two Sicilies or by clever, often cruel, usurpers like most of the other towns in Italy. The Medici were, in Leonardo's time, the top political family, with a network of banks all over Europe, the chief function of which was to lend money to other political families. Edward IV of England won his wars, and laid the basis of the English state, on Medici loans. The Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian, borrowed plentifully, as his wife Margaret did too (between them they broke the Medici bank at Bruges). Yet in Florence the Medici were simply private citizens. He began to intrigue and puzzle the Milanese, and it was no doubt curiosity as much as need that made Ludovico summon him to Court one day. It is said that he received Leonardo standing up (he was, after all, a year younger than Leonardo, apart from being a usurper). And it is also said that of the two Leonardo was the less nervous. That was typical of him. He loved luxury but lived simply; he believed in princes but felt superior to them. But then he felt superior to almost everyone in the matter of intelligence. He was prepared to demean himself for his ideas, but in his style of life never. He had few ardent moral concerns, as Michelangelo had. He was never much worried about whether the Church reformed itself or not. His mind went on working as if society did not exist, but, more than that, as if people did not exist either. Yet he delighted in people. He delighted in his young servant boy whom he picked up in Milan at the age of ten and called 'Salai' or 'little devil'. But it was a strangely uninvolved delight. Ludovico was frightened of the conspirator's dagger. And Leonardo was safer at the Court of a frightened man than at a settled Court with its fixed intrigues which could cold-shoulder an enigma, as he himself was. He took long walks, of which the reclusive (and enigmatic) landscape of rocks and water in the second Virgin of the Rocks was the result. He went on dissecting at night in Milan's hospital. In one sense at least he was an ideal friend for a prince - for his extreme reserve was never coldness, his understanding of princely problems was without familiarity, his love of processions and balls and fireworks and melodramas (as the musical plays fashionable at courts came to be called) never tipped over into licence. Solitude always claimed him back. It revealed the future. He predicted the least predictable aspects of the modern world - air travel, space travel ('many creatures of the earth shall mount up among the stars'), the telephone ('men from the most remote countries shall speak to one another and shall reply'), nuclear physics. He had no interest in wealth, though he preferred to be surrounded by it. Probably he could have amassed a fortune out of his commissions had he tried. He never bothered so much as to prove himself reliable - and patrons like to know if the work they finance is going to get finished. His delays, especially in Milan, during his most fertile period, were due to an over-full mind: he simply could not prevent ideas rushing pell-mell into it - for scythe-armed chariots, airburst shells, brothels with three entrances to secure anonymity for visitors. The friars of the Immaculate Conception would find him gazing at the half-finished picture from a chair, or walking in the fields, or poring over a book, or drawing something fantastic." Another book that I've been reading slowly is 'Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science' (1979) by Carl Sagan. Although I began reading it only recently, and so far I've finished reading only 14% of this book, I'm still mentioning it now because Sagan's brief overview of Albert Einstein's life in the book struck me a little. Although famous autistics (at least those with Asperger syndrome) are very common, Einstein is usually one of the autistics that are mentioned on internet lists about autism, though I think that these lists, at least the ones that are easy to find, are terrible because they list only several people at most. In this way, such lists give one the impression that famous autistics are rare and that they're not all around us, which is not true. Einstein is also mentioned in the book 'Genius Genes: How Asperger Talents Changed the World' (2007) by Michael Fitzgerald. This is another book that I'm slowly reading now. The other autistics mentioned in Fitzgerald's book are Thomas Jefferson, Stonewall Jackson, Archimedes, Charles Babbage, Paul Erdos, Norbert Wiener, David Hilbert, Kurt Godel, Bernard Montgomery, Charles de Gaulle, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Nikola Tesla, Henry Cavendish, Gregor Mendel, Gerard Manley Hopkins, H. G. Wells, Charles Lindbergh, John Broadus Watson, and Alfred Kinsey. When it comes to my own observations as of late, I think that the actress Jennifer Jones, the chemist Fritz Haber, the physicist Philip Morrison, the actress Elizabeth Taylor, the physician Avicenna, the actress Greta Garbo, the patron saint Joan of Arc, the musician Kurt Cobain, the film director Alfred Hitchcock, the physicist Marie Curie, the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the industrialist Henry Ford, the engineer Robert H. Goddard, the inventor Thomas Edison, the rocket engineer Sergei Korolev, and the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan are famous people that are no longer alive that had autism. The animator Hayao Miyazaki isn't dead, but I will still mention that he is autistic because he's easily one of my favorite directors and manga artists. Anyway, Sagan's description of Einstein impacted me because it revealed that Einstein was very similar to me. Of course, since Einstein also had autism, I expected to have some similarities with this famous theoretical physicist, but I didn't expect for him to be so similar to me. It turns out that his thoughts, views, opinions, behavior, and actions were very similar to mine. But I can be considered a moderate in comparison to him because his autistic disobedience and his actions were more extreme than mine. I had no interest in Einstein until recently, and, in order to find out more about him, I recently bought the book 'Einstein: The Life and Times' (1971) by Ronald William Clark in paperback form when I was at a used book store. When it comes to the issue of whether or not there are more autistic males than autistic females, I think that there is no issue here. I think that there are just as many autistic females as autistic males. When I attended high school, I came across at least a few autistic female students and at least a few autistic male students. A high school is the best place for determining the percentage of autistics in society because it's the only place where almost every person in society has to go. When it comes to autistic males in my grade, there was me, there was a student from Iran, and there was a Canadian student. It's possible that there were a few others, like a Chinese-Canadian male student, but I'm not entirely sure about the others. So, there were at least three male students with autism, myself included. When it comes to autistic females, there was a Chinese-Canadian student, there was a student from Iraq, and there was a student from Indonesia. It's possible that there were a few other autistic female students, but I'm not sure about them. The Chinese-Canadian female with autism was somewhat short and somewhat chubby. She was quiet and she kind of dressed like a boy. She wore the same clothes every day, which consisted of a black cap, a black jacket, a shirt, and black pants. She also wore glasses. It wasn't easy to speak to her because she spoke quietly, she spoke rarely, and she had trouble engaging in conversations. The girl from Iraq was kind of skinny and of medium height. Many autistic girls have an eating disorder when they're teenagers. She dressed normally, though she always wore pants or jeans, and she was considerably more sociable than the Chinese-Canadian girl. Still, she was the quiet type of autistic girl. Autistic girls can be quiet or they can be loud. The ones that are loud and that talk a lot often sound like they're talking nonsense because engaging in socially acceptable conversations isn't something that comes naturally to them. They can also often be mean and rude. The girl from Iraq usually had her head bent slightly downward. She had an autistic brother who was a year or two older than her and who attended the same school. This brother of hers had plenty of autistic aggression and he was impolite. This girl from Iraq had good manners, but she could be blunt at times, and she actually approached me and tried to form a friendship with me. So, I got to speak to her on several occasions. The autistic girl from Indonesia also tried to form a friendship with me. She too had good manners, she wore glasses, and she was kind of skinny. Perhaps it is true that autistics are attracted to one another, though I must say that normal (neurotypical) girls approached me too. Maybe some girls just find me attractive. There were also two twin girls from Japan in my grade. One was named Satoko and the other was named Ayako. They were both short and skinny, though Ayako was very skinny, almost skin and bones. They were both quiet, and they tried to do well academically. Although I didn't get to speak to them, I think that they were autistics. Ayako was bullied in gym class. Many autistic girls, like many autistic boys, get bullied and ostracized at school. When it comes to the Chinese-Canadian girl with autism, I actually saw her getting bullied in class once. I can add that at least five of my teachers in high school had autism. So, as it turns out, there were at least several autistics in my grade, and I think that there were more autistic girls than autistic boys. When it comes to society as a whole, it's possible that a few percent are people with Asperger syndrome, and there are probably just as many autistic women as autistic men.