The Internet's most famous anosmic

[simont]

Nearly four years ago, I wrote a FAQ about having no sense of smell, and put it up on the web.

Since then, people have occasionally happened across that web page and sent me comments on it. In four years I have received 43 such comments (it's easy to count them since they have their own mail folder), which works out to an average rate of about one comment a month or so.

Today I received thirteen comments on that page, which was unprecedented and not a little startling. One of them, helpfully, told me why: my FAQ was listed on the front page of Reddit. It was half way down the second page when I just looked, so with any luck the comment rate will now drop, but for a few hours there I was apparently the Internet's most famous anosmic. How strange.

Comments

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

See also Anosmia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anosmia) on Wikipedia, with reference to "Notable Anosmics".

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

<Cryptonomicon>I've only heard guarded descriptions of his fame... "Most notable of the anosmic programmers, and that sort of thing"</Cryptonomicon> :)

[gerald_duck]

Hmm. I've only heard of three of those, Simon included. I may or may not have heard of Robert Black; the page helpfully links to the disambiguation page rather than saying which of the many is anosmic. (It would be a scary fluke if more than one, or even all, of the notable Roberts Black were anosmic.)

I believe Simon is probably the Internet's most famous anosmic, just not famous for being anosmic.

Hmm. Another band name for him: Anosmic Tentacles

PS: I had no idea Stevie Wonder was anosmic as well as blind. Either the two conditions are related or that's really bad luck. )-8

[simont]

Either the two conditions are related or that's really bad luck.

Looks like the latter:

Blind from infancy

but

Wonder was in a serious automobile accident while on tour, when a log from a truck went through a passenger window and struck him in the head. This left him in a coma for four days and resulted in a permanent loss of his sense of smell.

Bummer, eh?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

(It would be a scary fluke if more than one, or even all, of the notable Roberts Black were anosmic.)

Very Gynan-Onix/nominative deterministic :)

Or if not, it's annoying when there's such an unhelpful link. Although I suppose it's a step up from not having a link: so long as it's there, someone will hopefully correct it before someone removes it :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

But that is indeed quite interesting. Were today's notably different in quality? Do they all fall into clear categories? (I'm guessing "You have no sense of small? You should write a FAQ about it," and "Cool! Me too. I thought I was the only one," but I don't know, someone might actually have something interesting they're rather ask someone they know through reading the website of that try to deduce from a wikipedia, such as "do potatoes and apples taste the same to you:, etc :))