Im really good at doxxing people based off the useless skill they are proud of.
I learnt to whistle by whistling inwards first, so I can constantly whistle without needing to stop for breath, aswell as maintain the correct pitch and note for when it comes to tunes between breathing in and out. Dont know if that's much of a skill, but eh, I like whistling
I can make two sounds that I haven't been able to locate in the IPA chart. They're a voiced and voiceless pair. I can only describe then as the sounds of a goose or duck.
I took inspiration from the primitive technology youtube channel and managed to make a ceramic pot by extracting clay from mud. The pot looks a bit shit, but it holds water!
Tempted to try and make a bigger one sometime.
would love to see some pictures
This is one that I started a few days ago, its still wet currently and as its winter I doubt it will dry very fast. Want to wait for it to dry a bit more before smoothing it and then leave to completely dry and at some point start a fire in the garden to finish it.
Used a slab of clay as a base and placed leaves around it so that it doesn't stick to the pot as I make it but to also give a bit of a sturdy platform I can pick up and rotate. From a previous attempt picking it up often caused the clay to flex and crack. Although that is probably also due to being pretty poor quality clay, this was done the next day with a different batch that has far better plasticity. Or it could just be that the first one needed more time for water to soak into the clay as it had been pretty much completely dry before.
Using leaves to prevent something sticking seems like it could be a useful method to mould clay against the object. Perhaps a way to make use of the lower quality clay that cracks very easily when trying to shape it normally.
Seconded! I've always wanted to try this.
I can detect whether apples are "sandy" (or whatever the actual term is for when they have that fugly apple meat that feels like eating sand) or not.
I mastered the melon slap technique to absolute perfection. I can pick the tastiest melon of the bunch, and I sometimes buy an extra melon so I can pass it along to friends who didn't master such technique.
A fellow connoiseur! I too am a master of this delicate art and I have passed this gift on to my children.
After the selection has been made it is quite entertaining to look back the aisle and watch the other shoppers cautiously tap the remaining melons, trying to make sense of what they just saw.
I think most people can. Or do you mean without biting into it?
Hah. Of course, just by the sound they make :P
I can run any piece of machinery with an hour of goof around time. Doesn't matter what it is. Let me poke around it for an hour or so and I'll have all the controls and most quirks figured out.
Sadly it's useless because employers won't give me a chance to prove it.
I can balance a soda can at a precarious looking angle. A modern soda can has two rims on the bottom, the major diameter and a minor diameter. With the right amount of soda in the can, it will balance on those two rims.
I actually found a use for this skill, it's good for teaching weight and balance in flight school.
I can sit down and calmly read an entire manual from front to back.
Lol it has to be printed, and not like, a textbook
I have been told by multiple Korean, Chinese, and Japanese immigrants that I could make a decent living as an extra eating with chopsticks in the background of their TV/ movies. I use a pair of stainless steel chopsticks with no notching, so they are totally smooth, making them "master level" difficulty to use. Apparently the fact that I'm left handed is a bonus. Oh, I'm the whitest kid you know with sandy blonde almost brown hair.
I can do a spot-on impression of the standard deep, booming monster-truck rally advertising voice.
"This FRIDAY! (Friday... Friday...) Only at the Gigantodome! Beer Swiller Productions presents MONSTER TRUCK MAYHEM! You'll pay for the entire seat but you'll only need the EDGGGGGGGGE!"
Well... of course you can't hear it, but if you could, seriously, it's dead-on.
No no, I heard it, it was good.
I'm a ridiculously good mimic - if I hear a sound I can often immediately repeat it; crow call, human voice, chickens. Anything in my limited vocal range. Not after the memory fades, but really so close right after. Once in the car one of my kids was whining and I so perfectly repeated it that all of them collapsed in laughter, whiner included.
I can pick things up with my toes. Not completely useless, maybe, but not exactly the pinnacle of tricks!
Yoooo, I have fingertoes too!
Me too! I blame it entirely on my literal childhood interpretation of someone telling me to "cross my fingers and toes" - learned how to cross all of my toes, then picking things up came naturally after that 😂
Haha me too! When I was a kid my podiatrist told me it would be good physical therapy for the growing pains I had along with flat feet. Not sure if it worked but it definitely kept me entertained!
I'm a very large person (250lb/110kg, over 6'/1.8m) and I walk almost silently, unless I'm trying to be loud. I've learned to make some kind of noise when approaching people from behind, because otherwise it almost guarantees a jump scare
I'm the opposite. Petite 5'0" lady who sounds like an entire community of elephants when I walk.
A group of elephants is called a parade.
I call it my "stealth field." I've had multiple people look directly at me, multiple times, and then jump scare when I move. I'm 6'3", and 240. The walking silently is just a bonus, though it sounds very loud to me.
Hahaha I'm the same. Totally perfected ninja walking
As someone living in a noisy appartment building, can you move in next to me please!
I can smell when it's going to snow.
Lately I've learnt that not everyone can hear snow? Smell is real though.
Sick
I thought everyone could?
I can stop a microwave on zero. Not 1. 0.
these are people you should be scared off
I can hide my tongue behind my soft palate.
I've said to my kids, "Where's my tongue?", then opened my mouth and it's not there.
I can also make a mushy pile of skin on my knee by gathering skin inside the circle of my thumb and index finger (like an ok sign). It feels gross when you push it.
I'm a fun dad.
I know the frog mating calls for all species of frogs in my area and volunteer for the local DNR to survey frog populations in my county. It's a good indicator of water quality.
I took a random amphibian research class as an elective, loved it, and still do it 20+ years later.
Tuvan throat singing. Nobody knows I can do it. I perfected it during a 3hr commute to work each day for a decade.
I can read text in any orientation, even if mirrored, as easily as if it was right side up / not mirrored. Not sure why, and almost completely useless, but was surprised to discover that supposedly not everyone can do this?
Just as easily from every angle? No slowdown at all, even for mirrored text?
That's pretty cool, even if it is mostly useless.
Yep, it's like it's automatically transformed back to normal in my mind's eye :). Mirrored and upside-down presents a little challenge, but everything else is no trouble.
I definitely can't!
Just curious, are you left-handed?
I'm not! I'm barely even right handed, honestly - I'm incredibly uncoordinated.
The only contests I ever won were an eating contest (6 large Pizzas) and one where I had to correctly identify 6 different brands of Cola in a blind test.
My other biggest strength is extreme long distance endurance. I'm not fast, but I can be "not slow" for 40 hours.Taco Bell gave me a "golden" PS4 a few years ago.
I also have ridiculous endurance. I can honestly say that an Amish crew told me that "No Englishman has ever outworked us before!" I appreciated their help, but I wanted that tree dealt with before it got any colder. Tree blew down in Hurricane Irene, and I needed it racked and ranked to start drying.
I've been "not slow" for a few decades now.
I can make my ears rumble on command.
Same here, and I also learned it trying to learn how to wiggle my ears.
Rumble? Tell me more!
I figured it out while trying to teach myself to wiggle my ears.
Yes I can do that too.
Huh. TIL I can do this also
I'm completely ambidextrous. It comes into "handy" when one hand gets tired doing a task, like writing for a long time, but no one has ever noticed and I don't think anyone would be impressed.
That sounds amazing. I'd give my left arm to be ambidextrous.
I can read and write the standard galactic alphabet from commander keen
I can hold a pencil using my forehead.
When you say hold, what do you mean?
Like furrowing your forehead and holding it in the creases? Or is it more of a balance type situation?
Do you pick it up with your forehead as well, or does this thing need finger loading?
What part/s of the pencil can be held, is it the side? Dull end? Sharp end?
Impressive
I can almost always figure out that boardgame you played that you can't remember the name of. Came in handy when I was the manager of a game store.
Ooh, fun. May I?
Each player had a single movement piece that went around the perimeter of the board. There was four short sections that went into the middle of the board, but offset, one dedicated to each player. I think there was a couple sections where you could 'slide' your piece, snakes and ladders style. If an opposing piece was on the 'slide ' you would knock them back some squares.
I can fart on command, just wait a sec...
Oh shit, there goes my streak 💩
- I can make exquisitely intricate paper snowflakes, and have them turn out exactly how I visualized them.
- I can perfectly control the browning level and inside melted-ness level when I roast marshmallows. My favorite way to do them is: warm but unmelted center surrounded by ~¼" thick melted layer, evenly medium toasted outside, with just one top corner briefly ignited and immediately extinguished for just a hint of char flavor and a bien cuit aesthetic.
I can solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 15 seconds. (I had an obsessive phase as a teenager). I don’t think I’ve ever used that skill in my adult life, but they are fun figet toys for when I’m stressed.
I couldn’t tell you how to solve them because i am more than a decade out of practice. But if i just let my fingers handle it without thinking much i can still complete it now and then.
I’m basically a drug dog but for Dr. Pepper.
When my friends and family get different dark colas in their food orders and can’t determine which is which they have me sniff it out.
Can’t quite do it for other colas but it’s a fun little hill I’ll die on for others’ benefit (I hate Dr. Pepper).
My thumbs are double jointed, so I can move the middle parts 90° backwards.
I can type really loud and pretty fast. At least, faster than anyone I know. And it's so loud that it ruins any song that's playing. Big keyboard with clicky switches and foam lining on the PCB to make it extra deep. It sounds like a foam dart mini gun and it makes me feel about eight feet tall. Totally frivolous and obnoxious, but I love it.
(Home office, I'm not a total psycho)
I wouldn't mind you in my office, I get pelted with actual nerf gun darts by my coworkers, while trying to troubleshoot customer-visible problems.
Such people are the ones who welcomed RTO.
I can talk just like Hoggle in the Labyrinth, and I learned the trick on how to roll the balls around on my hand the way David Bowie does in the movie.
And yes, I know that David Bowie was not the person who did it. And no, I can't do it as well as the person who did it did.
Not entirely useless, but I can throw something into a trash can damn near every time without missing. Even if I can't see the trash can, but know where it is
I can use right-handed scissors with my left hand, and I can knit in both directions without switching hands. I guess being ambidextrous isn’t totally useless (if I ever break my right hand, I’ll still be able to do most things), but it’s not really useful most of the time.
I can spin around and around indefinitely without getting dizzy.
Witch!!!!!
I know the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody.
I can whistle really well
I used to work with a lady who could whistle like it was a summery bird. She was one of the more pleasant people i've worked alongside in my life.
I can wiggle my little toes independently.
I can beat the original Pikmin game in 7 in-game days, which is very close to the limit to how fast the game can be beaten which is 6 days!
I can bend my fingers between the last phalanx bones
I play the drums, but not in a band or anything. It's pretty useless, but I'm glad I got good enough I could just play along with random songs and have fun at home. I didn't stick with any other instrument I've tried to learn, so I'm pretty proud of myself to still be at it after twenty years.
