Ask Lemmy

Machines speak to me.

Not literally of course. In my youth I discovered that I could hear changes in the sound machines make a LOT earlier than anyone else. Even people who spend hours every day with said machine and that was the first time I had been around it.

I can do it even to this day. I have worked in IT for the past 30 years and the number of hard drives I've predicted to fail and then they went on to fail is well into the thousands. All because I walked past the rack in the data center and heard something "off". For those that work in data centers you know just how f'ing loud they are.

My wife's last car was a 2003 Camry that I almost never drove. She was backing out going to work and she saw me give her car a weird look. She stopped, drove back into the garage and told me to look. At that time we had been together almost 10 years so she's seen my ability numerous times. I looked under her car and sure enough the flexible connection between the exhaust manifold and exhaust system had a small hole. It wasn't enough to be loud, it was just enough to change the note the car made. Even being told what to listen for, my wife could not pick out what was wrong.

For the record, while I've never been diagnosed it's a given that I'm neurodivergent.

I have an internal CAD. It's very useful when building something like a deck for my home. Technically, I show no one this. They only see the end result.

I can perform oral sex basically indefinitely. I'm just happy to be there. It's like my favourite place.

Edit: I guess I show it quite a bit. Just not to most people

I can do a pretty decent Smeagol impression, complete with moving about on all fours. There really isn't a time and place for that to emerge, sadly.

I can be happy, depressed and horny all at the same time.

I’m ADHD. I’ll find a new one by next week.

I can calculate IPv4 subnets in my head with ease. Usually when I set up a network I use 26, 22 or 20 bit masks and it drives my co-workers nuts.

Never had a problem falling asleep. Bed, couch, chair, floor. Indoors, outdoors, as long as it's not sweltering hot or freezing cold I'm out in under 10 min.

I'm a super smeller, and I've trained it well and made myself some party tricks. For example, I can identify a coffee down to the grow region and altitude based on the scent of a fresh cup.

Also I can roll myself up into a little ball and be very compact. I used to date someone with a thing for contortion, I don't think I've really shown it off since.

I suck a mean dick. 😤

I can fold my lips out over themselves to make a perfect "giant plastic clown lips" look.

Its usually not well received.

Alpha bravo charlie delta Echo foxtrot Golf Hotel India Juliet kilo lima Mike November Oscar papa Quebec Romeo Sierra Tango uniform Victor whiskey x-ray Yankee Zulu

All in one breath, transcribed via voice to text. I die a little inside whenever I hear someome say "A as in Apple"

I can tie a knot in a spaghetti while it's in my mouth.

Tuvan throat singing

I can write entire sentences with my toes very easily. It’s a bit sloppy, but legible. However my toes cramp up quickly and I can’t perform all day. There goes my circus career.

Edit: with a pencil to be clear

I'm good at drawing detailed gore.

I can bend my knees backwards to about 200°. It's just not that interesting + difficult to show off in normal pants + gives away that I'm secretly a horse.

Speaking Spanish. Haven't needed it in years and my actual grasp of the language is tenuous at this point but every native speaker I interact with says my pronunciation is great. Understanding the differences between English and Spanish phonetics helps a ton in that regard.

I can write upside down pretty well. This once got me a job offer after I did all the example problems so they were upright for the interviewer.

I can write on a blackboard with both hands simultaneously, my left hand mirroring the right one.

And talking of blackboards, at some point I mastered drawing doted lines with chalk in a single stroke.
Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l789l6np-qA

Edit: I can whistle painfully loud using my fingers, when I was a kid it was a rather common skill. Not so much now.

I can do a perfect cartoonish witch cackle. My friends love it lol.

I can also unhinge my left jaw like a snake. My jaw on that side is just flat on the top and bottom, so there's no actual joint. I was born like this and it's pretty painful, but seeing people get freaked out over me opening my mouth much more than it ought to is great.

I can independently move my eyes.

It's become more difficult and painful to do as I get older though

I can burp at will. When my last partner revealed that burping excites them, it became a bit of a thing.

I'm capable of sleeping at any time, anywhere, on command. I don't usually let people watch me sleep

Kinda useless but I can remember numbers for a really long time. Still remember all the plate numbers of every car I've had or my parents had from 1990 to today. All the phone numbers and addresses I or my family or friends had from the same time range. Every debit card and bank account number I've had.

I'm terrible with names but great with numbers. Trade off, I guess.

I can do metal screams pretty damn well, and have been practicing for 15 years. My car is really the only one that has ever really heard though 😅

I don't think this is actually much of a big deal, but I can tune a guitar by ear no matter how out of tune.

My uncle is a guitar afficionado, and we got into an argument when I said I could. He said you needed some kind of reference note or something like that. Wouldn't give up. So I grabbed a guitar, scrambled all the tuning and tuned it.

He bowed in awe, but I think he just never realized he's not as musically inclined as he'd like to be? Maybe it's not common, but I highly doubt it's impressively rare.....

Overtone singing. I can do Amazing Grace because the melody fits within the available notes, but I don't like that song. Usually just sing random melodies to the dogs & they give me the head tilt.

I can identify a pitch without any external reference, making it look like I have absolute pitch, but I don't. I'm just super fast at inferring pitches from memory. It was a real, useful, tangible talent/merit when I used to teach the shamisen and Western music theory, but now it just adds a little depth to when I listen to music.

I am a partial spirit level. I can be three rows away in the office and see someone has an object on screen that is 2mm out. Unfortunately I then struggle to focus.

As for house hunting it’s like curse looking about. It’s like I have to switch off all internal sensors.

Gleeking and blowing spit bubbles with my tongue. The spit bubbles float all on their own. It’s not like I’m drooling spit bubbles no, it’s a full on bubble floating. And in frozen air they’ll freeze too!