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Same here. I can't see, hear nor smell anything apart from what is really there.

I can 'imagine' in great detail, have a good visual/ auditory memory, but there is no real picture or sound. It is black / silent. I never forget a face just can't picture them.

I found out about this via an article posted here when I was 45 years old, now 4 years ago.

It never felt and does feel like a disability in any way.

Dreams in contrast are a full sensory experience for me, so the route back from memory to senses is there, only it is blocked when I am awake.


Reminds me of Greenspun's tenth rule of programming (also counts for Java, but this most probably predates it):

Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule


Ritchie's Revenge: And this half is still faster than Common Lisp.


Only when adding UB exploits done by optimizing compiler backends.

I am old enough to remeber the days any junior Assembly programmer could easily outperform any machine code generated by the C compilers of the day.


SBCL (the most popular Common Lisp implementation) is pretty darn fast, being comparable to Java, Go or OCaml.

https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/


But still slow compared to a non-GC'd language. Walking over all the references of your program while its stopped is slow.


> Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.

...including Common Lisp.


Unfortunately it doesn't work on mobile Chrome on Android.


Maybe they fixed it since your comment, but it worked perfectly for me on Chrome on Android.


The obligatory XKCD reference:

https://xkcd.com/2347/

BTW maybe you should add (2016) to the title.


Wow, I didn't pay attention to that!


And here is what makes it difficult.

My wife really sees 'extra' images when imagining with eyes open and closed.

I can imagine very well but don't see anything, so no visualisation.

With eyes open I see what is in front in me, and imagine (ltterlaly) what I am thinking about. This can be in high visual detail, but with no picture. With eyes closed it is strange enough harder te imagine, because the black is all consuming.

Long story short:

I think you might have aphantasia but don't know or acknowledge it yet...


I don't think only 1% or even 1% to 4% of the population has this.

Most people do not know they are supposed to 'see' something when imagining something. Same goes for hearing.

I can't do both and discovered this when I was 45.

Like many others I do dream in full colour with sound and I never forget a face.

When doing a quick round at work asking people about it, because I was amazed, I've learned two things.

1. About 50% of the persons asked, confirmed they objectively only see black when closing their eyes and imagining something.

2. Most do not care at all about this subject and are not interested to explore this further.


Asking if they see black is a wrong test, because people with imagination also see black, just they can see other things on top.

A better test is:

Ask them to imagine a ball on a table, then ask what color is the ball. So far almost everyone I asked answered with a color, no hesitation.

Aphants will hesitate, and they will need to think of a color - in their minds a ball is just an abstract concept - it doesn't have a color unless you consciously specify it.

So far, from my tests - 1 in 10 people asked is possibly an aphant.


Thanks that might work better.

I think especial the other way around.

My wife for sure has a vivid visual experience, and only sees black when asked to see black. So, I don't think people without aphantasia will be identified having it with the question. I also was very specific with all black, not black and an image.

Asking a colour might identify people who do not know they have aphantasia

Because some people I've asked who think they can visualise, say they actually don't see anything, but imagine seeing. So what they see with eyes closed, is 'black'. That's why I've used that question. But they might not know the colour when not told in advance.


Yes, exactly. Or at least this matches well with my inner experience. To be specific, I wouldn't even be able to think of a color, just the name of a color.

It's all symbolic. If you don't give details, the details very likely will not exist, and if they do, I still don't see them.


That seems way more realistic. The salaries in the original article are not common at all for software development positions in Europe as far as I know ...


I threw away a Gravis Ultrasound with the 16-bit daughter board and a Terratec EWS64 XL a few years ago when we moved. .. oops ...


Technically you can do a transaction by holding a mobile EMV payment terminal to someone's card without them knowing (this only works for physical cards, mobile phones need to be unlocked first).

The protection is the fact you just can't get a mobile payment terminal without a whole "know your customer" due diligence process, so the fraud traces directly to the ultimate beneficial owner of the company to which the payment acceptance contract of the payment terminal was provided.

This is the reason this fraud is non-existent in Europe, where tap to pay is already used for years.


Also look at leap motion. https://www.ultraleap.com/product/leap-motion-controller/ (tip: mouser has them in stock and usually the best price) with midipaw http://www.midipaw.com/ (free)

Latency is very low which is very important for this use case. Look on YouTube for demos.


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