THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CHATTER => Topic started by: Welu on 07 Sep 2017, 19:43
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What thing can you do that a lot of people can't but is mostly inconsequential?
Is there something mundane you're pretty good at doing that you might not at first think someone can be good at?
Do you have a party trick?
To start with my own examples:
1. I can swallow tablets, pill or capsule, without food or drink.
2. I can count money pretty fast. Better at paper but I can sort and count coins well too. In fairness, it's my job but it comes up outside work sometimes and gets a nice, "Huh. Neat." more often than not.
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I can read things both upside down and backwards pretty quickly.
(But can't write in that fashion)
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I can swallow dry.
I have no gag reflex.
I'm ambidextrous.
I can read upside and back to front.
I always know where the door will be when the bus, tram or train comes, even when I don't know what the bus looks like or having been in the stop before.
I can whistle in three ways, one because my teeth have a small gap at the front.
I'm pretty good at remembering stuff that I read.
I also read really fast.
Post below reminded me that I too have an iron gut.
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My super power is that I know people, some how I always run into someone I know. For instance, while house hunting we wanted to talk to the neighbors about the area and who would come walking out the backdoor but an old friend from high school.
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I can change lightbulbs in ceiling fixtures without a ladder. Even in old houses with nine-foot ceilings.
I can dead-lift the back end of my car directly out of a parking space when someone parks too close to drive it out.
I am uncommonly resistant to cold, and can participate in ocean swimming without a wetsuit for much of the year (at 38' north latitude).
I'm pretty smart, really good at math and abstract stuff, and able to concentrate for hours without a problem.
My wife and I love each other (Yes, this counts as a superpower. It beats everything above by miles.)
I am a caffeine addict.
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I have a very robust digestive system that's insensitive to most varieties of spicy food, fat food, sugary food, and metabolises alcohol pretty well too. Foods of questionable degrees of spoilage will merely cause minor perturbations: my stomach will basically tell me, hey, I'm gonna digest this, but I ain't happy about it. Be more careful next time.
Also, I am oddly immune to respiratory distress. I once had a collapsed lung while alone at the lab, which was painful but didn't impair me very much, and I was able to bike the short distance to the emergency room without needing to quicken my breathing. Subsequent x-ray check-ups at the local health center occasionally send me to the ER, and when the doctor on call sees the x-ray, they come looking for the person with shortness of breath. Finding me in the waiting room just reading a book confuses them very much.
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Being alive after having fallen out of a moving car onto my head, having an appendix abscess and peritonitis, having TB, having cancer, and having a heart attack.
(with acknowledgements to the NHS and the invention of antibiotics around the time I was born)
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I can change lightbulbs in ceiling fixtures without a ladder. Even in old houses with nine-foot ceilings.
I can dead-lift the back end of my car directly out of a parking space when someone parks too close to drive it out.
I am uncommonly resistant to cold, and can participate in ocean swimming without a wetsuit for much of the year (at 38' north latitude).
I'm pretty smart, really good at math and abstract stuff, and able to concentrate for hours without a problem.
My wife and I love each other (Yes, this counts as a superpower. It beats everything above by miles.)
I am a caffeine addict.
You are "The Beast" and I claim my $5 !
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/HenryMcCoy-Beast.jpg/250px-HenryMcCoy-Beast.jpg)
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i think the first three of those anyway are just a consequence of being huge.
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I've died twice, OD'd three times, and been hit by a car twice. I might be immortal. Also I have a ridiculously uncanny ability to read people.
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Benign superpowers: Hyperfocus (https://www.additudemag.com/understanding-adhd-hyperfocus/), lateral thinking (sometimes called 'associative loosening').
Benign super-weaknesses: Hyperfocus perseverance, lateral thinking distractibility/weak executive function.
In other words: classic ADHD-PI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_attention_deficit_hyperactivity_disorder)
And who can't dry-swallow pills?
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A majority of people I know can't, at least those who've talked about it. They at least need a gulp of liquid. My dad can barely take pills with food or drink and always has to chew them, which he's not supposed to do with his medications.
I can also handle cold seemingly better than average but not to the extent of Morituri. However I have the mild superweakness of not handling warmth as well as most people.
Another mild superpower of mine is getting lost dogs returned home.
I tend to have a good memory for return directions and can identify personal landmarks. Especially when walking similar looking streets, I can pick out and remember, for example, the garden with the pink roses and use it to navigate.
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Benign superpower No.3: I can touch the tip of my nose with the tip of my tongue.
Benign superpower No.4: I can trick an entire room full of people into making idiots of themselves trying to touch the tips of their noses with the tips of their tongues ...
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Benign superpower No.3: I can touch the tip of my nose with the tip of my tongue.
Benign superpower No.4: I can trick an entire room full of people into making idiots of themselves trying to touch the tips of their noses with the tips of their tongues ...
But what if they can!?
(I can!)
Oh.. I can also whistle and hum at the same time!
(Great for doing the Dr Who Theme tune!)
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A majority of people I know can't, at least those who've talked about it. They at least need a gulp of liquid. My dad can barely take pills with food or drink and always has to chew them, which he's not supposed to do with his medications.
I can also handle cold seemingly better than average but not to the extent of Morituri. However I have the mild superweakness of not handling warmth as well as most people.
Another mild superpower of mine is getting lost dogs returned home.
I tend to have a good memory for return directions and can identify personal landmarks. Especially when walking similar looking streets, I can pick out and remember, for example, the garden with the pink roses and use it to navigate.
Oh yeah A+ sense of direction here. Can navigate towards my destination even when total out of sorts
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I can do the tongue thing, too. I have a quite long and dextrous tongue
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I can create anagrams in my head with unusual ease.
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That's an interesting one, would you mind giving a demonstration? How about for... peaches?
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That's an interesting one, would you mind giving a demonstration? How about for... peaches?
"Peas, Che?"
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I can hold a Crow Pose for over a minute. Is that a superpower?
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After looking up that pose I would definitely call that a superpower.
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I can also do one-legged crow, but not for very long.
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- Great internal clock, capable of guessing the time within 5 minutes
- Sensitive sense of smell and hearing.
- Unusually good color vision for my age (on par with someone half my age).
I used to be able to see a bit into the ultraviolet and infrared ranges, and I can usually guess the timing of things like traffic lights and toasters within 2 seconds.
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- I can fall asleep anywhere, especially if I'm travelling. I can fall asleep within five minutes of a journey beginning and wake up minutes ahead of my destination.
- I think I might have near indestructible bones. I've been in accidents and have knocks that should have broken bones. The worst I have ever suffered is a cracked jaw and a click in my thumb.
- I can find weird solutions to mundane problems and they usually work perfectly. Comes in handy with DIY projects.
- I am eerily quiet at times. Like 6 foot tall, former rugby player and I can creep up on people without sneaking.
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You tend to quietly loom?
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Less QC-style looming, more according-to-some-people-I-just-appear-behind-them. Like low-grade teleportation.
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Hmmm ...... Things that other people "might" think of as a power?
Natural stealth, unless I am wearing really crappy shoes or am talking to someone at the time, combined with unobtrusiveness and blending into the background.
This has caused occasional moments of freight/terror in both family members and coworkers - work has ensured that the door from the shop area to the office self closes and that the hinges "squeak".
Can MacGyver [1st season] almost anything if able to locate the appropriate resources - this is due in no small part being raised resource poor and latching onto to woodcraft/pioneering as a Scout.
I have a near perfect photographic memory for text which is countered by a horrible memory indexing system so I don't always remember the things I need at the time I need them.
Has the ability to say "I don't know" even though it rarely is required :clairedoge: How many people do you know that when confronted with a lack of personal knowledge will fill the air with sound? :psyduck:
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I wouldn't say I can fall asleep anywhere but I definitely find it easier than most when travelling. When I do sleep, I can sleep through mostly anything. Especially useful when sleeping with the window open during summer and people start loud garden work. Unfortunately this means I have to rotate my alarm regularly for when I do want to be woken and it doesn't always work.
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Other people use alarm clocks. For my daily getting-up-on-schedule needs, I have cats. Each morning at six, they start doing things to my toes. Each morning at about six-forty-five they get food. I never feed them earlier than that, because that would mean the alarm is set earlier for the following month.
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I can move my eyes independently of each other. Not drastically like a chameleon, but I can make one eye look straight ahead while the other looks towards my nose.
I'm really sneaky. Usually people don't notice me walking up to them and get startled when I say "hi". When in the same room, they don't even notice if I was there before them. No idea why. I guess my footsteps are light and I'm generally a quiet person? This is not on purpose, but happens almost every day.
I walk really fast. Like, really fast. Most people don't keep up and I get irrationally angry at oblivious slow walkers who don't give you enough space to pass. Google Maps estimated walking time is generally twice as long as my actual walking speed, and I never jog or run.
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Less QC-style looming, more according-to-some-people-I-just-appear-behind-them. Like low-grade teleportation.
I may be 5 inches shorter than you but I'm "pretty sneaky for a guy in a labcoat".
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I've been trying to think of anything that qualifies for this thread, and I've finally decided to steal someone else's superpower. Yes, I can sleep anywhere. Outdoors, plane, bus, random chair, you name it.
I have also successfully run a marathon in about 3h05mins. The world record is over an hour faster, so the emphasis is on "mild", but I'm still pretty happy with it.
My anti-power is the incredible ability to get lost anywhere. I am renowned for my hopelessly poor sense of direction.
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Oh god yeah. I used to think I had a sense of direction. Then I moved to someplace that has clouds.
Turns out my sense of direction doesn't work at all if I can't see the sun, or the stars, or the moon. I never even realized I was looking at them, but I have no clue which direction is which if I can't see one of them.
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I have gotten lost in my own shower.
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My touch-typing speed is in the region of 130wpm, and I've yet to get below 98% accuracy on a test (average is 99%). I can feel mistakes when I make them and at the right keyboard I might actually be faster than that. I transcribed a script for one of my lovers this week and I did 20,000 words in six hours, which I actually feel is a pretty poor time because I did the first 10,000 in two hours and was losing focus due to being very tired on a work night.
I've never in person met someone who is better at this than I am - I have a number of talents but I have met someone better than me in every single case, this is the only thing I have. There may be people on this forum that can type quicker than that, though.
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I've never in person met someone who is better at this than I am - I have a number of talents but I have met someone better than me in every single case, this is the only thing I have.
You might have to look for a bit to find one ... According to this site here (http://smallbusiness.chron.com/good-typing-speed-per-minute-71789.html), you're well upwards of "highly proficient typists" and easily blow past many secretaries. :-o
Actually, with a bit of practise, you might be approaching Guinness-book levels ...
According to RankMyTyping.com, secretaries that have taken the test rank around 74 WPM and the average 13-year-old performs around 23 WPM.
[...]
There are typists who extend far above and beyond the normal level of proficiency. According to "On the Reappraisal of Microeconomics" author Robert Ayers, a highly proficient typist can hit upwards of 120 WPM compared to the 20 to 30 WPM typing speed of a "key pecker." According to The Martin J. Whitman School of Management, Barbara Blackburn of Salem, Oregon holds the record as the fastest typist of all time. Blackburn could type at 150 WPM over a stretch of 50 minutes and peaked at bursts of 212 WPM.
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Actually, with a bit of practise, you might be approaching Guinness-book levels ...
According to RankMyTyping.com, secretaries that have taken the test rank around 74 WPM and the average 13-year-old performs around 23 WPM.
[...]
There are typists who extend far above and beyond the normal level of proficiency. According to "On the Reappraisal of Microeconomics" author Robert Ayers, a highly proficient typist can hit upwards of 120 WPM compared to the 20 to 30 WPM typing speed of a "key pecker." According to The Martin J. Whitman School of Management, Barbara Blackburn of Salem, Oregon holds the record as the fastest typist of all time. Blackburn could type at 150 WPM over a stretch of 50 minutes and peaked at bursts of 212 WPM.
GO FOR IT, THRILLHO !!!! :)
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-I'm unnaturally quiet when I walk, so much so that I have heard comments from quite a few people about how it's possible they don't hear me walk, given I'm 6'6 and about 220 lbs. Unless I have squeaky shoes, you won't hear my footsteps, even barely when running.
-I often sense things before it's widely known. Example: when I was about 10, I sensed my cousin was pregnant before anything showed and before she had told anyone. When I was about 11, I sensed my sister was having an affair with her (married) boss before anyone else found out.
-I have an unusual bone structure in my shoulders, which makes them kinda pointy. No soft shoulder to cry on alas :-(
I have yet to figure out how to make these things work for me in daily life... :roll:
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Mine are rather boring.
1. Sight and hearing. I have 20/15 vision in both eyes at 37, as well as the ability to hear sounds up to 20KHz.
2. A digestive system that can survive anything I throw at it as long as it's not eggs.
3. For someone who is 6'4" and overweight, I'm somewhat ninja-like.
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I don't have the greatest of relationship with electrostatic fields. Not only do I earth off on metal hand-rails pretty spectacularly when I am walking on heavy-duty carpets but I also have occasionally flash-drained batteries on portable 'phone handsets if I let my fingertips touch the charging contacts.
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For anyone wondering just how good my hearing is, we got our hearing tested at work this week, and I got to establish my baseline for future tests.
[img width=800 height=463]https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/fr/cp0/e15/q65/23415619_10100434489253904_5690999722783394112_o.jpg?efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&oh=e4dca1de81986309a53551a1c30eba9f&oe=5A968906[/im32.Like I said, I've got sensitive hearing.
For context, I'm 32.