There is this guy who I regularly bumped into around my office building as well as the nearby bus stop.
From the way he talked and walked it appears that he has suffered from some kind of strokes and/or autism/Asperger syndromes. I regularly saw him during holidays and weekends in our office building. Often, he just sat in the corner of a conference room table without seeming to be doing anything else. I can also detect certain stale smells on him through my somehow sensitive olfactory system (a main reason that I do not eat meat). All in all, he appears to be a strange guy, even in my standard.
But my experience also told me that a seeming eccentric guy in MSR is probably famous or important or both, so the day before I chatted with him while waiting for the bus together, got his name, and looked it up online. Well, he is obviously famous enough to have a Wikipedia page, and according to that he has made fundamental theoretical contributions to cryptography. He also has an Erdos number of 1 and received several major awards.
I wonder if I will be (or already am) considered eccentric by other people around me. But honestly I do not think I care. I plan to chat with that guy more next time I bump into him.
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