Microsoft announces pilot program to hire people with autism

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...Which does nothing whatsoever, in any way, to help those who are.

Well, yes, the thing about the savant-autistic is that they may get attention but it's not normal attention, it's more akin to the attention freakshow members get.

Also, if that stereotype was what Microsoft was thinking with their program they're wildly out of times. Savant people do well in new industries where there are no standards, and few established systems (they're usually the ones creating said standards/systems). That was programming about 30 years ago. Now the industry is well matured, there are numerous standards and systems that must be followed. A system is built to reproduce the same results regardless of who the operator is-- a savant will only produce the same results as anyone else in that scenario.

he was trolling for comp sci talent among our members, just asking what our educational level was, our occupations. he claimed to be aspie himself. if he was, he was an ace at NT emulation.

I think for the same reason why they are so obsessed about LGBT and women in IT. They are doing it only for PR.

Did he ask about any personal projects of yours?


Just another bandwagon jumper, most likely.

@XenoMind: (on minorities) Yes & no. Did Microsoft respect me on this basis when I worked there? No. Did they benefit from psychoanalyzing everybody? You bet my @$$ they did! It doesn't even matter if one is Aspie, they want just as much & then some from NTs. For us their interests focus infrastructurally, they just fired ~2000 (mostly) NTs from largely marketing because they are nothing but an infrastructure electronics company. So is Apple, like why would I ever buy a Macbook for $5000 when they're practically glued to every third person around me?

Though seriously they don't want any of their own knowledge back from me.

only insofar as they were pertinent to Microsoft. otherwise no, he just wanted to know how we could help Microsoft.


I don't think I woulda p!ssed on him even if he was on fire.

Not even if he promised to rollback your Windows 10 to Windows 8 since, well, it's an upgrade...?

mebbe if it was back to 7.

Because there's a false stereotype that people on the spectrum are good at programming. Most people on the spectrum, however, do not program.

The entire false dichotomy (I say so because 8.1 was shoddy versioning) gradually being replaced by WSL (Windows Shell for Linux) squashy filesystem bindings, starting with Ubuntu, then Fedora/CentOS starting with 10. A lot of developers have already done most of the work for backports to add all the same things in 7, except sooner or later between 7, 8.X & 10 everyone will have multiple *Nix OS bindings in the same shells provided the language & file sytem binding packs have enough disk space. Right now these things just create a bunch of ext3/4 style metadata (.lnk or whatever) bindings to Windows' user space though already any Windows machine is capable (while being clunky) of natively running anything I have here on my Linux ultrabook.

Making Windows totally obsolete because I have a 100% vanilla copy in here anyway.
@Redmond: Sorry.

I got an A+ in my college programming class.

Knowing programming isn't actually about knowing any particular language everybody, when you know what a construct DOES, that's the programming.

Apparently I never got the memo. I have a legit disability when it comes to math.

Whereas some of us require significant shoves in the right direction to ever put the math down.

We're not lecturing anyone here, only pointing out the callous disrespect on the part of technology industries wherever & whenever they fail to distinguish singular abilities from any of us as people. This doesn't just apply to math folks.

I'm kinda flattered and kinda pissed to be reading the accounts of what I've said to people about Microsoft and autism.

First, let me tell you quite plainly that I'm an Aspie. Call BS on me if I've learned how to fake NT over 33 years in the workforce. Call BS on me if I've found myself lucky enough to find gainful employment at a company that understands what neurodiversity means. Call BS on me if I was able to find a job after dropping out of college. Everyday I used to wake up and ask myself, "What the f**k is wrong with you?!" Learning that I was on the autism spectrum changed my life.

So here's the deal. We've hired a couple dozen people -- mostly engineers, but also designers, marketers, writers, among others -- who came to us specifically because they had chops but had difficulty getting and keeping a job. (I was hired by Microsoft before the program, and had the opportunity to contribute to it.) We have an interview process as part of the program that focuses on demonstrating what people can do. This is an initiative that we're seriously committed to in the U.S., and are working hard to expand it to other countries.

I'm here and available to answer any questions you have about what tech companies in general, and Microsoft in specific, are doing to hire and retain talented people on the autism spectrum.