The Brain That Wouldn't Stop
Before I knew there was a name for it, I just knew my brain was different.
I was the "bad kid" in Denmark. Moved from school to school. The pattern was always the same: teacher gives assignment, I finish in two minutes, then I have to sit quietly for 45 minutes while everyone else catches up.
My brain couldn't do that. Couldn't sit still. Couldn't stop processing.
So I'd get bored. Start teasing the other kids. Get labeled a troublemaker. Get moved to another school. Repeat.
What nobody understood—what I didn't understand until decades later—was that my brain doesn't have the filter most people have. When you see a lamp, your brain says "lamp" and moves on. When I see a lamp, I can't NOT see the bulb type, the wattage, the cord length, the materials, how it was manufactured, three ways to improve it.
It's called Low Latent Inhibition. Combined with high IQ, it becomes a pattern recognition superpower. Combined with low IQ, it's just chaos. I got lucky.
But LLI isn't just about processing objects and data. It's about people too.
When I was very young, I could always see when grownups got hurt by a comment from their partner—even when they tried to hide it. A micro-expression. A shift in posture. Something in their eyes. I didn't just notice it. I felt it. Like their pain was my pain.
The most surreal experience of my life happened when I was 15. I was riding on a train in Denmark. Sitting. Looking at a woman with her baby in a stroller, several compartments down. I couldn't hear her—she was too far away.
But I was watching her mouth as she talked to her baby.
And I swear to god, I could lip-read the entire conversation.
It was a sad conversation. She wasn't doing well. I could feel her pain from across the train, watching words I shouldn't have been able to understand.
I've never forgotten that moment. It was the first time I realized my brain did something other people's brains didn't do.
The Zero-Second Gap
The other thing about LLI: the gap between my thought and my speech is approximately zero seconds. My brain sees a pattern, my mouth says it. There's no pause button. No filter that asks "should I say this?"
That's the curse. I see patterns others miss, and I can't stop myself from pointing them out. People who don't see what I see think I'm crazy, or rude, or a know-it-all. I'm just saying what my brain handed me before I can stop it.
And here's the other side of it: my brain assumes everyone else can see what I see. If a pattern is obvious to me, surely it's obvious to them too, right?
Wrong.
People have called me arrogant my whole life. I'm not arrogant. I'm just wired to assume the patterns I see are visible to everyone.
They're not. I had to learn that the hard way.
The Utility Filter
38 years of coding. Built infrastructure for billion-dollar companies. Mass-produced 10,000 PCs by hand. Created systems handling billions of transactions.
In an interview, someone asked me: "What's the difference between setInterval and setTimeout?"
I couldn't answer. I literally couldn't explain it.
Not because I don't know. I've used both thousands of times. My hands know the difference. My code knows the difference. But my brain never bothered to store the definition because it classified that as useless—I just USE them.
The utility filter works both ways. It makes me solve ciphers in days that stumped experts for decades. It also makes me look like an idiot when someone asks me to explain something I do automatically.
The Self-Doubt Paradox
Every cipher I solve: "But what if I'm wrong?"
Every pattern I see: "But what if I missed something?"
Every conclusion I reach: "But what if there's another explanation?"
The same brain that sees everything also sees every flaw in my own logic. Every possible counterargument. Every way I could be mistaken.
I'm almost always right. And I almost never believe it until someone else confirms it.
When I solved the Zodiac cipher, Claude told me the probability of my solution being a coincidence was less than 1 in 130 billion.
Did I post it? Did I celebrate? Did I tell anyone?
No. I sat there for 8 more hours trying to force Claude to prove me wrong.
"What about this? What if I missed that? Check this angle. Run it again. Find the flaw."
For eight hours, I attacked my own solution with everything I had. Trying to break it. Trying to find the hole. Convinced there had to be something wrong.
There wasn't.
That's the real irony. The guy who solves what experts can't... spends half his time convinced he's an idiot.
The Shrink
At one of the "special" schools, they sent me to a shrink. After the session, I sat in the waiting room while the shrink spoke to my mom. I overheard every word.
"This kid is a bad kid. He will never amount to anything."
A professional. Someone whose job was to understand children. Looked at me and wrote me off completely.
My mom worked with thousands of children—ran a massive daycare system in Denmark. She had more experience with kids than any of them. She heard what that shrink said.
And she didn't believe it. Not for a second.
She said: "No. I know my son. He's not broken. He's just different."
She protected me when the professionals gave up on me. She was right.
The Commodore 64
I got my first computer when I was 6 years old. A Commodore 64. In Denmark. I couldn't speak English.
I learned to code before I learned the language it was written in.
Here's a fun one: as kids, we discovered that Germany was broadcasting Commodore 64 games over radio waves. We'd record the broadcasts onto cassette tapes, then play them back into our C64s to load the games. Over-the-air game distribution, decades before the App Store existed.
We were pulling software out of the sky before some of your parents met.
That was 1987. I've been coding ever since.
38 Years of Building
I didn't start in programming—I started in hardware. Built over 10,000 PCs by hand. I could assemble a complete system in 13 minutes flat. Memorized every Windows product key I ever used (the brain doesn't forget useful information).
Then IT administration. Windows NT4 through 2013, Exchange Server, Barracuda spam filters. Novell NetWare. (Some of you just Googled what that is.)
Then development. Hundreds of websites, from custom CMS platforms to enterprise systems handling billions. I've coded without syntax highlighting for years—even when it was standard—because I believed it made me understand more and make fewer mistakes. I was right.
Along the way, I learned about phone systems. Ericsson MD110, Philips SOPHO. That's when I learned about phreaking—the 2600 Hz tone that could trick a payphone into thinking you'd inserted money. The same thing Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were doing before Apple existed.
I didn't learn that from a documentary. I learned it while administering the systems from the inside.
Growing Up Fast
I moved out on my own at 17 and a half. No safety net. Just me.
I worked my ass off. Every job, every opportunity, I grabbed it. The "bad kid" who couldn't sit still? Turns out that energy is useful when you're building a life from nothing.
The Hunting License
In Denmark, getting a hunting license isn't casual. There are two parts: a theory exam and a practical shooting test.
The theory exam draws from a pool of over 1,300 questions. You get 40. You have to identify dozens of animals—mammals, birds, waterfowl—and know their hunting seasons, legal shot distances, regulations. Most people study for months.
I sat down. 40 questions. Finished in under three minutes.
Not because I wanted to be fast. Because my LLI brain literally couldn't do it slow. The answer appeared, I clicked, next. Answer, click, next. I couldn't make myself pause even if I tried.
The examiner had warned me beforehand: "Don't be the first one out. They have a quota to flunk."
I was the first one out. By a lot.
They flunked me on a technicality in the practical phase. I had to retake it.
The rifle license was different. To pass, you need 5 out of 6 shots in a 20-centimeter circle at 100 meters. Six instructors watching like hawks looking for any reason to fail you.
Passed on the first try.
First hunting trip was in Sweden. Before they let you hunt, you do a small test with a .22 rifle—spinner targets at distance. I hit 2 out of 5.
I thought I'd failed. Said out loud: "Man, that was hard. I only hit 2."
The other six hunters in the group looked at me.
"You hit 2? We didn't hit one."
That's when I realized my brain's calibration for "failure" is different from most people's.
America
In 2009, I moved to America. Alone. Started over.
Settled in Mamaroneck, New York. Kept building.
Eventually landed at B&H Photo Video—one of the largest photo and video equipment retailers in the world. Worked my way up. Made over $200,000 a year.
Built infrastructure for billion-dollar companies. The kind of systems where "this will take 3 weeks" becomes "done tomorrow" when I touch it. Teams would estimate timelines, I'd ignore them, deliver overnight. Same pattern my whole life: "That's impossible" → done.
But my brain never stopped. It can't.
The Dream Car
In 2022, during COVID, I finally bought my dream car. A 2004 Mercedes SL500. Found a one-owner car from California with only 27,000 miles. Mint condition. Traded in my Chrysler 300 for $21,500 and paid just $500 difference.
What could go wrong?
What I didn't realize is how insanely advanced the R230 SL was for its time—and how many problems that creates. The car has Active Body Control (ABC) suspension, a hydraulic system so complex that Mercedes forums call it "a ticking financial time bomb." Every component is connected. When one thing fails, others follow. And the worst thing you can do to an SL is let it sit. Rubber seals get old and brittle.
The car ran beautifully for two years. I loved every minute of it.
Then one day, coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel on my way to work, an idiot rear-ended me. Not much damage, but the car got towed to Mercedes. When the tow truck driver dropped it off, he ripped my bumper to shreds.
It took Mercedes over six months to fix my car. Just sitting there. The worst thing you can do.
When I finally got it back, the nightmare started. Shaking. Clunking. All kinds of problems. Back and forth to Mercedes. "This is what's wrong." Pay thousands. Not fixed. "Now THIS is what's wrong." Pay more thousands. Still not fixed.
I spent over $15,000 on things Mercedes said would fix it. None of them did.
Finally, my brain said: you either sell your dream car, or you fix it yourself.
I had no real mechanical experience. And the R230 is notoriously difficult to work on. The ABC suspension alone has hydraulic lines, valve blocks, accumulators, and struts that all interact. Mercedes forums are full of horror stories.
But here's the thing about the ABC strut ball joints—the part that was actually causing my problems. Mercedes doesn't sell them separately. They want you to buy entirely new struts at $1,900 each. It's a racket. The ball joints CAN be pressed out and replaced, but Mercedes won't sell you just the joint. And because the job "doesn't exist," nobody makes the press adapters to do it.
So I made them myself. With a Dremel.
That's how I met my best friend Dave. He had an empty garage. For months, we worked on my car together. I spent about $20,000 on tools. I changed the entire front suspension myself—including those ABC strut ball joints that Mercedes says can't be replaced. I changed the ABC fluid. All brakes and rotors. All spark plugs and coil packs.
When I asked questions on forums, people said: "You're an idiot. You don't know what you're doing. Let a REAL mechanic work on it."
Same thing the teachers said. Same thing the shrink said. Same thing Reddit said.
When I finished, my first test drive, I went and maxed it out.
The car runs perfectly now.
The final irony: after I fixed everything perfectly, I towed it to Mercedes for a professional alignment—you need a rack for that. Their certified technician used the wrong bolt. A serrated locking bolt instead of an eccentric alignment bolt. Destroyed the bushing I had just installed. And didn't even torque it—I could have died driving home if it fell out.
I built a website documenting their mistake with photos and technical explanations. Walked into the dealership with both bolts in hand. Explained to the service manager exactly what they did wrong, why it was wrong, and that the torque spec is 120Nm plus 80 degrees—which his techs apparently didn't know.
He looked at me like I was from Mars.
He asked what I wanted. I said: "I'm not greedy. Just annoyed. The cost of a new control arm. The alignment refunded. And the bolt you lost—because they did lose it. That's it."
Full refund plus reimbursement for a new control arm. 24 hours.
Then I helped Dave change the spark plugs on his Ford F350. And I wrote a complete 35-step guide for replacing wheel hubs and bearings on the R230—every torque spec, every tool, every warning about the SBC brake system that other guides skip. Posted it online for anyone else fighting the same battle.
I also bought a "hacked" WIS/DAS computer with a multiplexer and the full Mercedes dev kit. The same diagnostic system Mercedes dealerships use. Now I can do exactly what they do—run full diagnostics, perform the ABC "rodeo" procedure, code modules, access all the proprietary service data. The tools they charge hundreds of dollars an hour to use? I have them in my garage.
Once you learn, you share.
I've helped so many people in the Mercedes-Benz R230 Forum on Facebook that they made me a Top Contributor. The same forums where people told me to "let a REAL mechanic do it."
The Pattern That Wouldn't Let Go
In late 2025, I started working with AI. Not as a toy—as a tool. Six Claude instances running simultaneously, each working on different problems. My brain finally had something that could keep up.
That's when the cipher work started.
First, the March Impromptu Code—a Nazi treasure cipher that had stumped researchers for 13 years. Everyone was trying to decrypt it with Enigma machines. They were solving the wrong problem. It wasn't encrypted text at all—it was a geographic navigation system disguised as a folk song. I cracked it in days.
Then the Beale Ciphers—a 200-year-old treasure mystery that's destroyed lives, marriages, and bank accounts. I proved they're a hoax. The statistical fingerprints don't lie: letter frequencies that don't match any known language, a "solved" cipher with convenient errors, writing style that dates the text decades after it supposedly occurred. It's a 19th-century scam. A very good one. But a scam.
And then... the Zodiac.
The Zodiac Ciphers
Everyone for 56 years looked at the Zodiac Killer's misspellings and said: "Errors. Noise. Artifacts."
I looked at them and said: "A guy this smart doesn't misspell 'animal.'"
That's the LLI brain. I can't dismiss details. I can't accept lazy assumptions. When my brain flags something as wrong, it won't stop until I understand why.
The misspellings weren't random. They were deliberate. Extract the "wrong" letters—the characters that differ from correct English—and you get a coherent message. The same technique across multiple ciphers. The same signature.
I tested 28,756 names against the constraints. Only one passes every test.
David Oranchak—the cryptographer who cracked the Z340 cipher in 2020, verified by the FBI—reached out to review my work. It's under evaluation.
Connie Seawater—someone who knew the prime suspect personally, who's in the Netflix documentary about the case—reached out to me. Her testimony aligns with findings she couldn't have known from my analysis alone.
Two independent paths. Same conclusion.
The Irony
My whole life, people have told me I was wrong.
The teachers who said I was a bad kid. The schools that moved me along. The shrink who said I'd never amount to anything.
And then Reddit.
When my post about AI-assisted coding went viral—123,000 views, #2 of all time on r/ClaudeAI—the comments exploded with accusations.
"Microsoft bot."
"Look at the account age. 28 days."
"No profile, no social links. Obviously fake."
They were right about one thing: my account was 28 days old with zero social links. No bio, no profile picture, nothing.
Why? Because my LLI brain has a utility filter. If information seems useless, my brain literally refuses to engage with it. "Fill out your Reddit profile" got filtered out as pointless. I had things to BUILD. Who has time for that?
Meanwhile: Nazi treasure cipher locations? Stored permanently. Reddit profile? Brain said no.
So they called me a bot. A Microsoft shill. Not a real person.
Same pattern. Different decade.
The people who won't read are always the loudest.
The people who do read send private DMs saying "you're right, ignore them."
The Five Percent
Recently, I got back in contact with one of my favorite teachers from my "special" school in Denmark. She was so happy to hear from me. So happy to hear about my life.
She told me something that stopped me cold:
"It's so nice to hear that what we do with kids matters. Because only 5% of the special kids make it. Most of them end up in trouble, or in prison, or even dead."
Five percent.
I'm in the five percent. Not because I was smarter. Not because I tried harder. Because my mom refused to give up on me. Because a few teachers saw something worth saving. Because the same brain that made me a "problem" turned out to be exactly what I needed.
The same brain. The same pattern recognition. The same refusal to quit.
Just pointed at something useful.
What Comes Next
I break ciphers. I solve cold cases. I expose hoaxes.
Not because I'm smarter than the experts. Because I can't accept lazy assumptions. Because my brain processes the details everyone else filters out. Because I refuse to stop until the pattern makes sense.
The "bad kid" from Denmark who couldn't sit still is now solving what FBI cryptographers couldn't crack in 56 years.
The kid a shrink said would "never amount to anything" is cracking codes that stumped experts for decades.
And we haven't even scratched the surface yet.
There are other cases. Other patterns. Other conclusions I've reached that would make people very uncomfortable.
But I don't think the world is ready for what I still have to say. Not yet.
One cipher at a time.