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“Made Me Feel Like My Brain Was Spaghetti”: 65 People Share The Creepiest Displays Of Intelligence They’ve Seen In Others
Many of us like to think that we’re fairly smart. But it can be a very humbling experience when you’re in the presence of someone who actually has a vast intelligence and knows how to use it. And aside from feeling humbled, you might also feel slightly weirded out.
Folks took to an intriguing AskReddit thread to share the times that they’ve seen geniuses use their IQ in quite creepy ways. Their stories make for a fascinating read, and we’ve collected the best ones to share with you. Scroll down to check them out.
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#1
Had a genetics professor as a freshman in undergrad. Class was 100 kids on the first day and ended with 40. She would take attendance in her head—students moved seats every day—and she would also measure how many times each student looked at their phone during every class; she did this while teaching inordinately complex information without a single note. One day, late in the semester me and a friend went to her office hours. She asked him why he had looked out of the window so many times during a class from over a month before, and she knew the date. I never once saw her stumble on a question no matter how out of scope it was. Also, this was not in her first language.
Paul C. 1 week ago
I delivered some parcels to my old Secondary school about thirty years after I had left. The school secretary was still there and I said I used to come here for school, she said yes I remember you Paul and used my surname. I was stunned, there must have been hundreds of kids gone through that school. I definitely wasn't remarkable enough to be remembered, or so I thought.
TiNaBoNiNa 1 week ago
Maybe you were just especially kind or thoughtful. It's not always the bad kids that leave an impression.
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Liam Walsh 1 week ago
Quite likely has Hyperthymesia, also known as hyperthymestic syndrome or highly superior autobiographical memory. It's very rare - but people are able to remember an abnormally large number of their life experiences in vivid detail.
Lady Eowyn 1 week ago
Going into the public library one day, in my 30s, a woman coming out and says she recognizes me. She worked in a store called Tots to Teens where my mom used to buy a lot of my clothes. I hadn't been there since I was about 13.
B Hobbs 1 week ago
Most people's memories are mush today, including mine, probably because we write stuff down instead of memorizing. During the Middle Ages, most folk were illiterate. Merchants kept their accounts in their heads. Farmers recalled weather conditions and harvests from 20 years ago. Families remembered that your great-great-great-great-uncle k****d their great-great-great-grandfather because GGGGF stole a cow from GGGGU, therefore you must d i e. The good old days.
fly on the wall 1 week ago
When I worked at a major grocery store a long time ago, I had a manager who would greet every customer by name, and remember a fact or circumstance that he could remark on. We had a customer count in the very high hundreds or more.
KatSaidThat 1 week ago
Whereas ours couldn't click a link to activate our patient software login several times, then cried to the boss when they were having a meeting and she was still not active. Waited until he was done telling me off for it then showed him SEVEN times I had sent her that link and that this was on her. No apology, mind.
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#2
I sat next to a Russian exchange student in a college course. She would regularly take notes with both hands at once, in separate notebooks, one in Russian and the other in English, sometimes German too. She would also doodle incredible drawings with one hand while she took notes with the other. She could do all of this with either hand, interchangeably. She often seemed bored.
Firefly 1 week ago (edited)
My dad said that in high school he had a teacher that could put a piece of chalk in each hand and write an entire sentence at once in cursive. The left had would start at the beginning, and the right hand would write from the end "going backwards". The sentence would come together in the middle and be correct.
Catmom 1 week ago
I came here to say this! Decades ago, I worked with a graphic designer who used to do the same thing. It was a trip to watch.
Load More Replies... SCP 4666 1 week ago
US president Andrew Garfield allegedly could do something similar. writing greek with one hand and latin with the other
B Hobbs 1 week ago
Zaphod Beeblebrox? -- Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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Souljacker 1 week ago
I shared an apartment with a friend in college who took Intensive Spanish and Intensive French at the same time while tutoring fellow students in both classes. Blew my mind.
Rich Black 1 week ago
this is what "sonny" did in the film "I robot". perhaps the left and right hemispheres of her brain were surgically separated?
Crystalwitch60 6 days ago
She’s ambidextrous, my grandfather was ,tho not quite to that extent , that’s amazing ,
#3
I used to run a bar that was a little hole in the wall. This guy would come in every couple of weeks and down near a bottle of Jim Beam by himself and stumble home. Never really talked. I always just thought he was a drunk. He looked dirty and unshowered. Old ratty clothes and just a hunched over posture most of the time. Rarely ever spoke to me. One day it was slow so I tried doing a sudoku puzzle in a book I had gotten. I got maybe halfway through one and the bar had a few people walk in so I put it down to take care of them. While I am taking care of them the guy walks in and sits at the bar. It must have been maybe 30 minutes after I had gotten him his drink I go over to ask him if he needed a top off. Low and behold he finished the puzzles. Everyone single one in a brand new book. Must have been a 50 or 60 page book front and back. I was blown away. He says he just kinda sees numbers. That's when I learned his job was balancing nuclear reactors with harmonics. Never judge a book by its cover. He told me so many other stories, that man lived a wild life.
nine4t4 1 week ago (edited)
At my local the bartender would have the daily crossword and do it during slow periods. I grabbed it one day and she tore me a new one (rightfully so). After that I started doing it in my head without a pen or pencil. And put it back. "Did you do my crossword?". I replied yes, but that I didn't fill it in. She didn't believe me and proceeded to quiz me with the clues. While she held it in her hand I have the answers with the occasional, "which means that the answer to Xdown is..." Extremely effective memory is a double-edged sword. You also remember things you wish you you could forget.
Lotekguy 1 week ago
I remember lots of things I wish I could forget. Usually, when I'm trying to fall asleep.
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ChickyChicky 1 week ago
There was a kid like this in high school. Would come to school drunk or high often. Often didn't come at all. Somehow still had the highest GPA and was valedictorian .
Krd 1 week ago (edited)
That would have been me if I ever did homework. I managed to graduate with good grades despite not once doing homework. I also slept through every class, did essays last minute (with no multiple drafts, I('d) edit as I wrote it), and never did projects if it required work outside school hours. I would just ace all the tests/exams and class work. Every year, teachers would think I didn't know the stuff, and would wake me up to give me "tough" questions, I'd quickly answer the question correctly, and go right back to sleep. They eventually would give up, and just accept my unusual learning "techniques". I found school easy, but annoying. I refused to do homework on the principal I was in school for 9+ hours a day, no way was I going to do even more work after school.
Load More Replies... Cuppa tea? 1 week ago
A guy's job was to make sure nuclear reactor was safe and drank bottle of bourbon in one sitting? Not sure if that's best combination.
Midoribird Aoi 1 week ago
That is probably he needed the booze. Very high-pressure job, even for someone gifted with numbers.
Rich Black 1 week ago
this is scary. like those chess grand masters who are discovered to be borderline schizophrenic or racial supremacists.
While it’s difficult to settle on a single definition of a genius, it’s often a person who is incredibly intelligent, creative, original, and has the ability to think in novel ways.
According to WebMD, there is likely a genetic component that affects your level of intelligence. “Certain types of genes influence how much intellectual power you have. Your child’s genetic influences affect their motivation, confidence, and other traits. They greatly impact how well they perform in school or on tests that measure intellect.”
Furthermore, geniuses tend to have more gray matter. This is the part of your brain that’s responsible for computing and processing information, directing your attention, memory, language, perception, and interpretations.
#4
I once knew someone who could predict how group arguments would unfold with uncomfortable accuracy. Not just who would get mad, but the exact phrasing people would use once they felt cornered. They explained it as pattern recognition from years of watching small social tells stack up. Nothing supernatural about it, but seeing it play out in real time felt eerie. It was like watching probability applied to people instead of numbers.
Chich the witch 1 week ago
I've suspected that intelligence is nothing but pattern recognition for a long time now.
Svenne O'Lotta 1 week ago
Intelligence isn't a passive skill. If you're really good at recognizing patterns but can't do anything with the knowledge because you're not capable of combining different data sets for instance, that's not necessarily intelligence.
Load More Replies... Catmom 1 week ago
How did the observer give predictions without affecting the course of the conversation? If I was aware of someone watching and commenting on what we were saying, I would be unable to make normal conversation. (Admittedly, I can't do normal simple tasks if someone is watching me.)
Charlotte Ingle 1 week ago
You might not realize how much attention people at the next table or bus row is paying, especially if your conversation is intense
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Zombie Andrew 1 week ago
I have this same ability, to somewhat "instantly" recognize behavioral patterns, alas, with ADD, I LACK the ability to REACT to said stimuli, so I can rarely TELL anyone before it happens
Lila Allen 1 week ago
We excel at pattern recognition because we spent most of our lives with incomplete and missing instructions because of our lack of focus control... weird and somewhat cool ADHD super power.
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Lee Gilliland 1 week ago
I can tell you what certain people will do in certain situations, it's a combination of psychology and patterning.
Kenneth Smith 1 week ago
Some people make it easy. I'm an EPERT on pattern recognition. I went to the doctor and he gave me a Pattern recognition test and I ACED it!!! Doctor said he's never SEEN in all his years someone who could recognize patterns like you. People everywhere stop and tell me, "My God, how do you do that? How can you recognize patterns so good." Sleepy Joe Biden couldn't recognize patterns and he and the Democrats are coming to take your GUNS because they are evil, horrible people. You know, nobody gives me credit for all the patterns I recognize. They all want to whine and complain, but only I can recognize the best patterns.
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WalterWhiteSavannah 1 week ago
Sounds like mentalism. Could have a whole career. Woody Harrelson in now you see me style.
Hollerfloozy 1 week ago
I can only see this workin in certain situations and circumstances. Think mental illness and such. Would make the patterns to random to predict. Ex. i have a whole slew of mental illnesses, on a good day, you wouldnt notice at all. Im calm, even keeled. When I have a bad day ( I'm poor and can't always afford my meds on time, so sometimes i have to go a few days without).. There is no predicting anything. I scare me.
Rich Black 1 week ago
predicting who will get mad is the stock in trade of being a politician in america. and exploiting it.
#5
I once worked with a guy who could tell exactly who was walking down the hallway just by the rhythm and weight of their footsteps.
One afternoon, we were in a windowless office and he stopped mid-sentence, looked at the door, and said, "The boss is coming, and he's pissed." Three seconds later, the boss swung the door open looking for someone to yell at.
When I asked him how he knew, he didn't just say he recognized the sound. He broke down the specific "heel-strike" frequency of different coworkers and explained that the boss’s stride was 0.5 inches shorter than usual, which indicated he was walking with "aggressive intent." It wasn't just a lucky guess; he had subconsciously cataloged the walking patterns of thirty different people. It was impressive, but it also made me realize he probably knew exactly where I was in the building at all times just by listening.
Ali 1 week ago
I don't think this is at all strange. A few years ago I was talking to a new teacher and stopped to tell him I could hear a certain child coming down the corridor. Teacher scoffed, like you can tell just from the walk? He brought it up a year later, said he had thought I was full of it at the time, but within a few months he to could tell exactly who was coming and noticed which child in a crowd was missing as well as get a fair idea of any issues. It is a common skill for anyone who needs to know this.
meeeeeeeeeeee 1 week ago
Doesn't everyone do this as a kid? Everyone always knew who was walking down stairs etc in my house
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 week ago
I could do this at a very young age, but for me, it was because I had an ábusive parent and I had to be on guard if she was on a rampage and was heading towards me (which I could tell from the speed and force of her steps.)
Load More Replies... Hollerfloozy 1 week ago
Nah. Not weird at all. An example out in the wild would be that most parents can tell which of their kids are comin towards the door with enough time and accuracy to be able to A) put their clothes back on ;) or B)hide the good snacks before they eat them all in one go.
Stardust she/her 1 week ago
I think this is fairly easy to do, you can even hear the way they’re walking and assume their mood as well so that you’re not caught unprepared
Nadine Debard 1 week ago
I had this superpower a couple years ago. Could tell exactly who was walking and their mood. Moved from my former office, the acoustic isn't the same, so I can't guess anymore.
Calane E. Vanya 1 week ago
Reading this, I thought, "Recognizing people by their footsteps isn't unusual." I'd assume most people are also able to guess the mood of someone they know well based on their steps. - But probably a minority analyze it so consciously and are able to describe the details.
#6
I was coming back from a high school JROTC competition and we stopped at a Denny's for breakfast. We had 56 students, 2 teacher chaperones, plus the bus driver.
The waiter took down everyone's order, their drinks, etc. with 100% accuracy. Thia included customizations. For those that ordered coffee he asked what flavor creamer pod and how many. He got all those right too.
Guy made more in tips than the manager's salary by a long shot. He said sometimes people would insist he write down their order. He showed us the notepad he would use. Nothing but random doodles and scribbles.
Chich the witch 1 week ago
And here I am, regularly wandering into the kitchen and having no clue why.
Lotekguy 1 week ago
It could be worse. The same thing might occur when you enter the bathroom.
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Robert T 1 week ago
Reminds me of the lady that ran a guesthouse we used to stay at. Everyone ate together in a communal dining room, with up to about 30 guests. She would take breakfast orders when she brought supper into the lounge the night before. She would go round the room in whatever random order we were sitting in and LISTEN to everyone's orders. And the orders ranged in complextity from "a boiled egg" to "the works without fried bread". She got it right every single day. She may well have written it down when she got back to the kitchen, but she remembered it all correctly.
Brian Droste 1 week ago
The company I worked for that I retired from, I think it was the second year I worked for the owner/president came at the end of the year. He bought everyone Jimmy John's food. He went around to each individual and asked what everyone wanted. He didn't write anything down. Did everything by memory. I was impressed.
Earthquake903 6 days ago
I used to manage a Cracker Barrel. One morning shortly before opening at 6 am two houses of college athletes showed up. I think it was 62 total, unannounced, no heads up. The cook was a no show so I had to cook for 62 people with just 2 servers and a hostess. They made it "easy" by ordering 1 of 2 of the biggest meals we offered. French toast or pancakes with 2 eggs, some meat, some biscuits, some gravy, some hashbrowns, and drinks. I was like, thanks, that's so much easier. We knocked it out and got thru it with only 1 mistake, but I do not miss it. Large groups descending on restaurants with no notice can go eat,dirt. It's so rude and entitled.
Rich Black 1 week ago
i went to a diner in Durham north carolina where the waitress notepads had pictures like chicken, cow, and pig. they would make tic marks to show which orders for the table. a pre-literate society?
Hobby Hopper 1 week ago
I have personally experienced this on a smaller scale. There were probably 8 of us or so, and our waitress didn't write anything down. My brother in law was being a bit of a jerk and purposely trying to trip her up, making things complicated. Not a single thing was forgotten or out of place.
TiNaBoNiNa 1 week ago
I think it has more to do with short-term vs long-term memory. We store things we don't need to keep, like a food order, in short-term memory. Some people just have better short-term memory than others.
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What’s more, geniuses and gifted individuals also tend to have more active white matter, which is responsible for the communication between different parts of your brain. This helps with quick and complex thinking.
Moreover, in some cases, they can also experience so-called ‘superstimulability,’ which is increased sensory sensitivity and emotional processing. In other words, they’re more sensitive to other people’s emotions, which can be overwhelming.
#7
My son has never taken a sculpting, molding, or art class. However he makes/molds perfect 3d models of any and everything at scale down to miniatures with a picture and medium (usually clay). It takes him minutes. Has done this since he was about 5.
None of us know how but it’s amazing work and we have hundreds around the house and they are so very good.
Stephanie Did It 1 week ago
That is probably the first of many talents this little guy will develop!
primeline31 1 week ago
If, in the future, he has difficulty with complex concepts like high math, but does well otherwise, then he most likely is a visual thinker rather than a verbal thinker. Our educational system emphasizes verbal thinking over visual thinking. Art, such as this, requires an enormous amount of mentally visual problem solving in order to achieve such beautiful creations.
Seadog 1 week ago
You're right. I'm one of those people. In all my years in school, I only had one teacher that realized I knew the information, just ask. But put a written test in front of me and I'd b**b every time. In time that school would tell me to find another school because I was ruining their GPA.
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#8
Idk if this counts as “creepy” but my 6 year old randomly spouting the exact note of the clink of a bottle took us by complete surprise. After testing him with a tuner, we found out he has perfect pitch. It blows my mind. I’ve tried asking him how he knows and he just shrugs like it’s nothing and says he can just picture where the key is on a piano and just knows how they sound. It will never not be cool to me.
UnclePanda 1 week ago (edited)
I had perfect pitch as a child. There were nights where I couldn't sleep and every once in a while, I'd whistle up middle C, go tap on the piano keyboard to check it, and eventually fall asleep. I said that at Christmas a few years ago and my mom suddenly gasped, "OMG! I thought that piano was haunted!" Because she'd hear middle C in the middle of the night, run out to see, and there was nobody there.
Lee Gilliland 1 week ago
What's really cool as a perfect pitch is you cam sing them a song they know in a different key and it's a brand new song to them.
detective miller's hat 6 days ago
The first time I took a music theory class, I was kind of blown away by how much I already knew/understood even though I didn't know all the words and phrases that went with it. Definitely runs in the family too, out of 6 kids, 4 of us are musicians.
Stephen Gross 1 week ago
Very interesting. I also have perfect pitch. Strictly speaking, it's the ability to *recognize* a tone; the ability to *produce* a tone is a vocal skill that is typically separately learned.
Marnie 1 week ago
I though perfect pitch meant, someone could tell you to sing a specific note and you can do it, and also can recognize which note is being played. Sounds like this 6 year old can basically sing in tune, which is what the vast majority if people can do. He just happens to sing the note he hears in the clink of a bottle. Maybe makes him creative, but kids often look at things differently.
#9
I would get so mad at my dad for reading further in a book (in his head) than we were reading out loud. He would be reading me chapter 5 of a Harry Potter book but when I would look at the page he was “reading” he would be almost to chapter 6 reading in his head while speaking out loud the chapter we were on but not actually looking at it. He never forgot a single word and had voices for each of the characters that he used for the whole series! When I asked him why he did that he said “sometimes I like to read ahead a little”.
BeesEelsAndPups 1 week ago
I do this with my kids. Not a full chapter ahead. That's insane. Just a page or so. It's so I know who's saying what line of dialog, so I know which voice to do. Especially useful with books that have a lot of characters.
Nilsen 1 week ago
Me too. And it's only a few years ago that I realised not all readers do that.
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CP 1 week ago (edited)
I do that too. I have to get prepared for the voices that are coming up. It isn't always clear who is talking when dialogue starts. I can't speak for this dad, but for me it is more of a scan. I know what is going on, but skip the little details until I actually read them to the kids.
Hobby Hopper 1 week ago
Meanwhile, my cognition is a full page behind what I'm "reading", and I have to back up and re-read.
As per WebMD, some signs that your child might (potentially) be a genius include things like:
- Need for mental stimulation and engagement
- Ability to quickly learn new topics and process new and complex information
- Desire to explore scientific topics in-depth
- Insatiable curiosity and constant questioning
- Emotional depth and sensitivity
- Learning quickly and tackling educational material ahead of the current grade
- Excitement about unique topics or interests
- A mature or unique sense of humor
- Imaginative and creative solutions to problems
#10
My Commander (when he was a Captain) a weather guy could predict accurate weather down to the minute. It was scary. Like biblically scary.
One time we were deployed and he forecast a sandstorm 7 days out down to a 5 minute window on arrival and departure. He had this calmness about himself.
For context, his accuracy was at 98% for everything, cloud heights, rain start and stop, dust storms, hail, tornadoes and snowstorms/blizzards. The average accuracy ranged from 70 to 85%.
Funny thing was, he wasnt a typical meteorologist. His bachelor's was in Engineering. He just read all the books on forecasting and atmospheric physics and got good.
I think he is retired now. He was a great dude too for context. He was always trying to teach us and make us smarter and see the world how he saw it.
CP 1 week ago (edited)
I had a friend who was a meteorologist in college, make accurate weather predictions like that all the time. I asked him why they don't tell everyone that accurate of weather. Long story short, the combination of him gauging the immediate weather around us while knowing the forecast helped him to say things like, "it will stop raining in about 5 minutes" and be totally correct.
Harper 6 days ago
The best meteorologists work for companies for weather related stock trading (highest salary). TV is for the B level meteorologists.
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Michael Largey 1 week ago (edited)
"Tonight it will be dark. Darkness will continue, combined with low visibility, until morning."
KatSaidThat 1 week ago
I could tell when a thunderstorm was going to hit and what velocity and length it would be in my mother's house. When I did this in front of my father one day, he was sceptic. My mother said wait and watch. Never doubted me again after that. It came down to the smell and the static I for some reason got that they didn't.
685f4zpk6r 1 week ago
The meteorologists where I live are seldom correct. Time for the weather network to hire engineers, I guess. Mostly cloudy and partly sunny are the same d**n thing. Do better guys lol
Lee Gilliland 1 week ago
I'm not a meteorologist but I can tell you within five minutes when the rains gonna stop.
#11
My dad told me about the calculus graduate teaching assistant he had in college. Last day of class he asked the class to give him random problems from the text book and he’d solve them in his head, he solved the hardest problem just with a few seconds of thought. The display of brain power stuck in my dad’s head for years. He even remembered his name…Ted Kaczynsky.
Stephanie Did It 1 week ago
Kaczynski was a math prodigy but in his second year in college he was the subject of a psychological experiment that apparently had such a negative effect on him that it altered him permanently. Thanks, Harvard.
JB 1 week ago
Not sure why someone downvoted this, it's well established fact.
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Pferdchen 1 week ago (edited)
"Industrial Society and Its Future lays very detailed blame on technology in and of itself for eroding individual freedom and autonomy, destroying human-scale communities, and leading to widespread psychological and physical suffering." Was he wrong or prescient?
2WheelTravlr 1 week ago
So wrong. Look back at the pre-industrial age societies, even the best would be considered brutal and unlivable to modern society. "Individual freedom" wasn't even considered an option in many societies (including the US through the start of the industrial age).
Load More Replies... Rich Black 1 week ago
his gift eventually made him violently insane. or possibly he's rasputin re-incarnated. he looks like it.
#12
Had a physics teacher who was so smart, he broke down how you could predict collisions in space using complex math. Every lecture I would walk out with a headache trying to keep up with him and his breakdown of things. He was a no kidding genius and saw the world totally different than anyone I met. He was also banned from a ton of casinos for counting cards.
Nadine Debard 1 week ago
Had a physics teacher in HS who was so smart she couldn't explain simply, because it looked so basic to her. I bet she was frustrated, but she was a very kind woman. She even proposed free evening classes. Had to learn from a book, though.
🇳🇬 Asi Bassey 🇳🇬 6 days ago
I am of the opinion that if you fully understand a concept you can explain it to a toddler. There’s a show on YouTube by WIRED that demonstrates this - mathematician explains in 5 levels of difficulty
Load More Replies... Svenne O'Lotta 1 week ago
It's kinda crazy that casinos will ban you for being too good at their games 😆 they sure don't like it when you take away their inherent advantage and even the odds a little bit. Card counting isn't cheating, it's just paying attention to your surroundings and doing calculations in your head.
Lila Allen 1 week ago
Yeah but their business model is kinda predicated on the laws of probability and card counting to the extent you would need to be able to be effective in Vegas is significantly outside probability. They typically merge between 5-8 decks so if you can count and calculate to that level, you're not exactly normal.
Load More Replies... detective miller's hat 6 days ago
I had a math prof in college who taught us probability by basically teaching us how to count cards. It remains the only maths I understood immediately and can do in my head.
wobbly jelly 1 week ago
we had a few teachers like that a maths teacher who would solve complex problems in a couple of steps - which all made sense, but would take us pages to solve. A physics teacher who would do examples and work out to 4 or 5 decimals in his head, but the example would be odd angles like 22 and random lengths, we'd be betting how many decimal points would be correct. He could then quote large swathes of Shakespeare if the mood took him.
In the meantime, some of the signs of genius in adults may include things like having an excellent memory, valuing alone time, preferring to work late hours, living in slightly cluttered living areas and workspaces, and being fluent in swearwords.
WebMD notes that there are also overlaps between extreme intelligence and being on the autism spectrum.
That being said, “every brain and each person are different. Genius is not a standardized measure.”
#13
In my first job in Australia, there was a guy named William.
The first odd thing I noticed was that he liked to program this old PDP-11 computer we had there, by toggling in machine instructions one at a time on the front panel. He had memorized the whole instruction set, in binary.
Later, I found he knew where every postcode in Australia was located. He had a train hobby, and apparently the postcodes followed the train lines.
Then he moved on to buses. He memorized all the bus routes in our major cities. He had a source for getting periodic updates.
We could ask him how to get from A to B in Australia, and he'd tell you the best train + bus route, down to the street in the bus routes, kinda like we can see in Google Maps today, but this was 1982.
Last I heard , he'd done similar for ISD phone prefixes globally. He claimed to have figured out the Pope's phone number on the basis of this.
Svenne O'Lotta 1 week ago
There's a reason so many autistic people have a hyper focus on trains.
Ace 1 week ago (edited)
Yeah and I remember having to manually press the buttons on the panel in a particular order to initialise the boot-up sequence which ran from a paper punch tape. Or was that on a PDP-8?
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UnclePanda 1 week ago
A lab I worked in had a PDP-11/60 that I had to duck walk through to replace the board controller. The previous method took a week, two hydraulic jacks, and three big guys. Little old me just held the board up through a crack, they'd pass the new one in, and I duck walk backwards through all of those wide daisy chained cables. Took about 20 minutes.
#14
I went to college with a guy who would be given a coding assignment and after a few moments thought would type out the whole thing with zero bugs. He’d be done in 15 minutes, the rest of us spent hours troubleshooting. He was the most frighteningly intelligent person I ever met.
Kathy Pearlman 1 week ago
My husband when we were first married, worked at a computer programming job. They'd give him a project and tell him he had two weeks to get it done. He'd finish it in a few hours and do whatever he wanted the rest of the time. He was afraid that he would be held to the shorter time if he needed the longer one, so he kept his mouth shut about it.
Pittsburgh rare 1 week ago
And THAT's another sign of intelligence. Knowing he'd be held to his timing rather than theirs
Load More Replies... Rich Black 1 week ago
people like this are going to appear at the top of any AI "k**l list" once they come to power.
Paddy McCarthy 1 week ago
Back in the seventies, before personal computers; time actually using the computer was limited - I had a few tens of minutes per week. You got used to creating, running and debugging your code - as much as possible, in your head.
#15
When we were kids, our friend Dan was hit by a car and suffered a major brain injury. Afterwards, he could multiply large numbers in his head.
We would do “calculator battles” where we’d try to come up with the answer using a calculator and he’d usually beat us. So something like 1576 x 78 and he was usually faster than the kid trying to punch it in. This was 6th grade.
Dax Darkly 1 week ago
They did a study on one of these "human calculator" types and found that, where normal brains do math stuff in the area of the brain that handles abstractions, this guy's brain did math in the part of the brain that typically handles automatic response stuff (like pulling your hand away from a hot stove)
Carol Culhane 1 week ago
I understand what you mean but pulling your hand from a hot stove is a reflex that doesn't reach the brain. It a reflex that comes from the spinal cord. You pull your hand away before the brain registers that there's pain involved. Just find it interesting how this works.
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Who are the smartest people that you personally know, dear Pandas? What’s the coolest or creepiest intelligence-related thing that they’ve ever done?
If you were to be objective, how smart would you say that you think you are, compared to ‘regular’ individuals? What areas and activities do you excel at, and where do you struggle? Tell us all about it in the comments at the very bottom of this post.
#16
A very good friend of mine is a profiler. The level of accuracy is astonishing. He can pick up information within a nano sencond on your education level, where you where educated (city, county side) your salary range, what you do for work, your positives and negatives skillsets, what your intentions are what your hiding and your injuries to name a few.
BeesEelsAndPups 1 week ago
Me too. I'll even give him two, no three, nanoseconds. Hell, I'm feeling generous, he can have a whole microsecond.
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LillieMean 1 week ago
One way to determine a person's background and income level is the person's speech style, sentence structure, and how they use vocabulary and how extensively. It may be possible to determine, for example, what the person does for work and indications of their intelligence. However, it does not tell everything when taking into account the dialect of the place where they live, which may obscure the idea of even the person's educational background. Here too, it is not so much about intelligence as about recognizing patterns, the nuances of human behavior and statistics.
Seadog 1 week ago
I've worked in banks and I've worked in a mirror factory, while also working retail. I'd be interested in seeing anyone figure out what I do for a living by my speech patterns/style.
Load More Replies... Krd 1 week ago
Those mentalist type people don't work on everyone. I imagine sociopaths, autistics, schizophrenics, and other people who's brains don't work "normally" would be hard to analyze. They rely on subtle things, like eye movement when thinking about something particular set of numbers (like your phone number), and use those involuntarily reactions to know exactly what you are thinking.
Ghostchaplain16 1 week ago
I've played poker only once with my wife present; it was with a circle of family friends, while our wives chatted away nearby. One time that night I had a terrific hand, and my wife, from across the room said in a loud whisper that "hubby must have a whopper of a hand because he s***s in his breath and raises his shoulders when something good happens." Fold. Fold. Fold. Fold. And she's right. I do it every time. I stick to solitaire these days.
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Norfolk and good 1 week ago (edited)
This is how "psychics" and "mediums" work. In England, and I'm sure in other countries but I can only speak about England, a person's accent can tell you a lot about their background. It can tell you where they're from (obviously), whether they were brought up rich, what sort of job their parents did, if they vote Labour or Tory, if they shop at Waitrose or Aldi. For example, if they speak with an RP English accent then they probably went to public school, if they went to public school, then they probably went to Oxbridge, if they attended Oxbridge, then they probably work in a high earning job. Someone with a North East England accent means there is a good chance that they come from a mining background. Someone with a Scouse accent probably has Irish ancestry. I'm just using these as examples, but you get the drift. Our accents are quite important to us and a big part of our identity.
Laszlo Larthlanc 1 week ago
On the D**k Cavett show many years ago there was a linguist who claimed that there were almost 50k regional accents in North America, and that by listening to you speak he could tell you, within about 5 miles, where you lived. He demonstrated this with members of the audience, and was right every time. His name was Walter "Raven" McDavid Jr., and he published the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada.
Laserleader 1 week ago
This is a skill based on meeting large diversity of people and cultures. Its actually quite easy to notice how people dress, move, speak, etc, and no one is unique, just a different mix of the same life settings.
CP 1 week ago
"Profilers" have a notoriously poor rate when it comes to criminal investigations from what I have read.
Lila Allen 1 week ago
I don't think and 80% success rate on average is considered poor. I mean the cops barely click over 50% for homicides and they have forensics and other things to guide them.
Load More Replies... #17
I knew a man who we all thought was a know it all, because of how he lacked a filter, and would spew out “facts” he knew about something randomly to those around him. He also had an interesting life, was eccentric, and idolized Einstein, somewhat having a similar look. He said he loves space and sees numbers in various color because growing up etc etc.
I bought a great course on space, out of interest, and we watched it together. I don’t recall the specifics of the question, but it asked along the lines of “how long would the sun burn if it were made completely out of coal?”
I paused the video, and mockingly asked him “alright Heinstein, cuz his last name was Heine, and that was his nickname, “how long?” He got this look on his face, looked to the sky while doing some finger movements, and 8 seconds later blurts out an answer. I unpause the dvd and the lecturer says the exact same answer.
He had no access to the video previous, and long story short he doesn’t surf the web, well not very well, because of various life problems like recovering from a traumatic brain injury, and working and raising kids, not enough time to learn, etc. and he said he didn’t already know the answer. It took knowing all of this for me to believe him, and after that I never doubted the random facts he would blurt out, wasn’t bothered by his abrasive personality, and would try and learn to learn for myself.
Stardust she/her 1 week ago
I also have synaesthesia, it allows me to see colours when reading, doing maths or repeating sequences in order. It also allows me to see colours when listening to someone’s voice or any random sound. I can also associate sound with visuals which can allow me to “hear” gifs or sometimes even hear static images. I find it easy to memorize things as I just have to remember certain colour or sound sequences associated with what I’m trying to remember
Kelly Scott 1 week ago
I have just regular synesthesia. I see numbers, letters, and words in color and I have a number line and I can "see" the alphabet when I look at it in my head. But what I enjoy the most is seeing songs in color. My favorite is the theme from ST:TNG. Right at the end, you can see the explosion, like a firework going off and then fizzling down. It's very eye catching.
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Rich Black 1 week ago
the sun is expanding. eventually the earth will be roasting inside the solar corona. guess how long this will take.
#18
My calculus and advanced linear algebra professor probably fits the bill. The guy could solve two completely different problems on the board at the same time with his two hands. As in one problem with his left hand and one with his right hand AT THE SAME TIME. School told him to stop because students could barely follow one incredibly complex problem, let alone two at the same time. Really odd guy, incredibly intelligent though.
#19
I had a professor who remembered the names of about 100 students in our class after saying their names once on the first day of class.
Papa 1 week ago
And I can meet one person and can't remember his or her name three minutes later.
Michael Largey 1 week ago
I always told my students on the first day of class - "If I mispronounce your name or don't call you by the nickname you told me you prefer, don't say to yourself 'I'm nobody and nothing to him.' Instead say to yourself, 'He's old and stupid' and keep correcting me." Seemed to work.
Pittsburgh rare 1 week ago
I apologise in advance and tell them I have terrible memory for names that doesn't have anything to do with lack of interest or appreciation. It breaks the ice and sets the tone for our interactions
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Rick Murray 1 week ago
I can remember faces, and as a child was able to spot somebody in a crowded airport (LHR) after meeting them just once *and* seeing somebody passing through Basingstoke on the fast (non-stopping) train just by seeing them through the window (and freaking them out by describing the person with them and that they were reading a newspaper). But names? I have to interact with a person frequently and constantly if I am to have any hope of remembering a name.
Oskar vanZandt 1 week ago (edited)
I'm the complete opposite... Had to create seating plans in Excel spreadsheets and make notes to remember who was who in each group.
#20
My Greek teacher in high school had an endless memory. One morning I ran into him on the train and told him I couldn’t chat because I had a history oral exam (not his subject). He asked what topic it was on and then started explaining, in incredibly detailed fashion, the dynamics behind the decisions made by the rulers of that particular period.
He never prepared a lesson: he would walk into class and ask, “Where did we get to?” and from there he’d start explaining whatever came next. About anything.
Once he told me that this ability of his was also a curse, because he could feel any pain he had ever experienced in his life — including losses — as if they had just happened.
Cloud Ryn 1 week ago
Identic memory probably spelt that wrong. It's where u can remember and recall everything you witnessed or learned. Definitely a blessing and a curse
BAN CAPITAL LETTERS 6 days ago
Eidetic, if you wanted to get the spelling
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Rich Black 1 week ago
people this evolved are going to replace the rest of us. survival of the fittest.
#21
My roommate could recite every lie I’d ever told him, word for word, years later. Never used it against me.
Just liked knowing he could end me anytime he felt like it.
The silence was louder than any threat.
Michael Largey 1 week ago
Being able to recognize a lie every time is more impressive than just remembering all of them.
BK BigFish 1 week ago
I imagine it wasn't that the roommate could recognize lies in real time, but rather that with an eidetic memory he remembered everything OP said, then identified the lies. Like, "This morning you said you didn't have cereal for breakfast, but the milk carton is missing 8 ounces, and the cereal is 1oz lighter."
Load More Replies... Calane E. Vanya 1 week ago
One man I knew had an excellent memory, including for who said what, but unfortunately, he often used it against others. He provoked arguments, and they never ended for him. It didn't matter that a conflict had theoretically been resolved, the situation had changed, people had learned something, or changed their minds about something... A given "mistake" kept coming back. Perhaps if this particular man didn't have a good memory, he wouldn't have ruined so many relationships. I don't know.
#22
I'm a guy and my best friend in my teens was a girl. She was that nice, but cliché dumb blonde girl. Always extremely naive. The better I got to know her the more she acted differently, but only towards me. I could have highly intellectual discussions with her about nearly anything. But as soon as other guys were around, she acted like barbie again. I asked her why that is and she very bluntly told me "Well, guys feel threatened by intelligent woman, it is easier to play dumb to get my way around them.". And she told that in that calculated, manipulative, ice-cold manner. I was convinced I was talking to a real psychopath. She ended up with a full scholarship and studied in a prestigious university. She is now working for a very well known IT company.
Multa Nocte 1 week ago
She realised what it took to make it in a sexist world and was subsequently labelled a psychopath. That's great. 😡
Michael Largey 1 week ago
When a guy shows that he is threatened by intelligent women, that's a reason to change your companion, not your behavior.
Rick Murray 1 week ago
My mother was exactly this. She was happy to have a nerd for a child because it used to annoy her to have to talk dumb around people all the time. Not just men, sadly, as a fair number of English *women* also despise smart people, referring to it using phrases like "airs and graces" or "ideas above your place in life". It's like everybody is indoctrinated to never try to better themselves.
Faye Bosworth 1 week ago
Total crab bucket behaviour. I had it when people at work used to mock my vocabulary for being fancy, so i started mocking their lack of education.
Load More Replies... Calane E. Vanya 1 week ago
After reading something about people of different sexes interrupting each other, I decided to observe it. When I was in a larger group, I consciously noticed it (but didn't interfere). The results were sad. Men interrupted women much more often.
️Rando Panda 1 week ago
She adapted to a world that was stacked against her. And she wasn't all teary and full of feels about it. So?
Mimi M 1 week ago
I've curtailed myself, but it was never to be liked by men. I did it because I didn't want to come across as pretentious in general. I've never had an issue with men disliking intelligence. Maybe b/c I tended to seek out misfits, and they didn't care. But even in general society, I've never had an issue with men disliking intelligence. Maybe my early decision to avoid pretentiousness (or meaningless displays of intelligence) at 12 or 13 served me well later on. I still tend to avoid this. I also truly appreciate the wisdom of others. I have an intelligent relative - when she was in her mid-teens, I remarked to her - 'the smarter you are, the more intelligent other people appear'. Real intelligence includes the ability to see the depth, perceptiveness and wisdom in others.
#23
My 9 year old non-verbal son can pinpoint where a certain number is on his math square blocks (that aren’t numbered and are about the size of a large sugar cube with different colors) He lines them up in different patterns and more than 400 so it ends up being a long rectangle. One day I asked where some random number was and he immediately touched one so I counted and he was right. He’s never been wrong. I’m not a math person so maybe it’s common but I can’t look at 400 blocks and tell you where 233 is without counting every block 🤣.
Darcy Larimore 6 days ago
It is a common ASD trait. Did you miss where she said her son was non-verbal?
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Mel in Georgia 1 week ago
I was helping my 7 year old grandson with a school assignment where he had to write the number of the place in the alphabet according to a word's first letter. I explained that the word "banana" would be 2. Then, without counting he accurately called every word correctly. I mean, I'd be using my fingers with the word "orange"! He's super smart at school and loves to memorize random facts like capitals of countries. I'm looking forward to seeing where he goes with all his smarts!
🇳🇬 Asi Bassey 🇳🇬 6 days ago
It’s reassuring to know that non-verbal kids have other ways they can communicate.
Midoribird Aoi 1 week ago
Autism does sometimes let one focus on a single skill or two, to a spectacular level
#24
Mention any popular song from the 1950’s, 60’s or 70’s. My uncle knows what date it came out and what DAY OF THE WEEK IT WAS. He can also do this for almost any random event you mention. And no, he’s not just making it up because I have checked many times. He’s accurate. I have no idea how he does that. I can’t even remember what day it is today!
Michael Largey 1 week ago
If you know a date in the 20th Century, there's a simple formula that will give you the day of the week known as the Doomsday Algorithm.
Seadog 1 week ago
It's simpler than that. There are only 14 calendars. There'd only be 7 if it weren't for leap year.
Load More Replies... #25
In my first IT job I was having an argument with a colleague over password complexity.
I argued “of course people are going to write these passwords down, they’re 12 random characters including symbols, we should provide them with some kind of password management software.”
He argued that you only need to look at a password for thirty seconds to remember it.
So to settle the argument we set up a laptop with a random password, write it on a piece of paper, give it to him and set a timer for thirty seconds, then we take the paper away, agreeing that we’ll slide the laptop in front of him at a random point in the day.
We catch him in the middle of a phone call and slide it in front of him.
Without stopping his phone call he then proceeds to type the password into the laptop using his middle fingers which he then flipped up at us as it logged in.
Still argue that I was right and his demonstration meant nothing haha.
Tim Douglass 1 week ago
Those kinds of geniuses often have the attitude that they are normal and everyone is able to do the things they do. I've met quite a few musical geniuses who are that way too.
UnclePanda 1 week ago (edited)
*not a genius*! I didn't discover my color blindness until fixing color TVs in an electronics class in high school. "Why do you make everybody's faces orange?" "I don't!" "Look at everybody else's TVs." "Oh."
Load More Replies... UnclePanda 1 week ago (edited)
I had a GF who could nest conversations, like "Hang on Ted, I need to talk to Bob... Hang on Bob, I need to check with Sue..." and then back out of each conversation, picking up where she'd left off with each person. We tested this at a party one night, and she successfully entered and then exited *12 levels of nested pairs of conversations*! She was mad initially, thinking it a prank, but we were all so wowed she took to bragging about it.
otiose 1 week ago
That doesn't count and is not like real life - he knew he had a point to prove. What would be really impressive was for him to do that with 30 odd accounts that he is tested on over the course of a couple of years at random! Much more realistic than one password, one day.
BK BigFish 1 week ago
... and don't forget to change them all every three months!
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Rich Black 1 week ago
quantum computers are predicted to be able to solve all passwords/encryptions in seconds, once they are deployed. i don't think biometric logins are going to solve this problem
Mel in Georgia 1 week ago
There are people who train themselves to be able to quickly repeat long strings of numbers they've just seen. I'm amazed at this skill!
Norm Gilmore 1 week ago
The comedian Nick Mohammed is very good at this. On the comedy show 8 out of 10 Cats does Countdown (in character as Mr Swallow) he brought his 6 and a half year old on to learn a set of animal cards and then repeat the order, but BACKWARDS!! Link attached should you wish to view.
Load More Replies... #26
My brothers are both crazy good at math. One time we were at a restaurant with a group of my older brother's friends (seven of us in all), and after our meal my brothers started debating the best way to split the check. Not only were they able to calculate how to split the whole check seven ways, but they could also calculate other splits, like the three of us paying together while the other four paid seperately. And then they could calculate AN %18 TIP for every sum they came up with in these theoretical check splits. They did this in their heads and very fast.
Stardust she/her 1 week ago
I’m currently preparing for a national engineering exam and preparing for it eventually forces you to be quick at mental arithmetic. I was anyways good at it before but now I’ve gotten much faster
KatSaidThat 1 week ago
I prefer doing calculations in my head to keep my brain sharp in this world where we are ever reliant on machines to do it for us. I will check myself on a calculator after for bigger splits or if faced with sceptics but am right about 95% of the time.
Lady Eowyn 1 week ago
I have dyscalculia. Anything with numbers is a mystery to me. But I can eyeball a 1/4" seam (standard in quilting) with no problem, or look at a horse and give you his/her height in hands.
Zombie Andrew 1 week ago
My son, aged 7, LOVED to "impress" his grandparents when they went out for dinner by asking what everyone ordered, calculated the cost of the entire meal and tip, before they'd even ordered..98% every time (the 2% was from his sisters screwing him up by ordering desert after the fact)
Pheebs 1 week ago
Not very impressive, but I used to be able to do rapid fractional math in my head. Really came from years of always doing math in my head + a love of woodworking (yes, imperial rulers). Shocked the heck out of a college professor when he asked the PhD turned photographer to do the mental math, and the “quiet kid” answered instead.
Carol Boshears 1 week ago
Most of my family are math whizzes. They are either engineers or math teachers. It flew over my head though. It extended all the way to my gr. niece. She happens to be an electrician. No one knew but me, that my dad was a whiz too.
#27
Wasn’t creepy really but I did a group coding assignment with a guy who was as logical as a computer. He could just know where a mistake was and fix the error in an algorithm. Made me feel like my brain was spaghetti.
M M 1 week ago
I did it once in my IT class in high school, Im still pretty proud of myself even though there were no further accomplishments in the topic for me 😅
Seadog 1 week ago
You have to be careful with things like that. A friend was a Johnson/Evinrude mechanic back in the day. He went to school to renew his certification one year and they give each tech a motor to fix. His happened to be one with some really weird/rare problem that he just happened to have run into the same issue a few months earlier where he spent days finding the issue. Since this motor had the same symptoms, he just grabbed the part that fixed the other one and had it running in no time. Big mistake. Instructor then gave him a motor that he couldn't get running before the class was over. The point is, don't let them know you fixed it too soon.
Load More Replies... Rich Black 1 week ago
he is in the right class. others will be working for him after graduation.
#28
I had a friend who picked up languages easily. He wasn't fluent in every language he knew, but he could hold lengthy conversations or help people if he could.
It was the way he would switch languages. He would get a blank face, no blinking and suddenly back to normal speaking in the different language.
Most people like blink or move their eyes a certain way because they're thinking of the translation. Not him. It was like every language was a first language for him.
Michael Largey 1 week ago
Harry Flashman said that the quickest way to learn a language was in bed with an imaginative partner.
Scott Rackley 1 week ago
That's how it is for me, I have to shift gears to think in another language
Colleen Glim 6 days ago
My daughters can do this because they were raised bilingual. Think in French and speak in English or think in English and speak in French. It never fails to fascinate me
Pittsburgh rare 1 week ago
I don't find it particularly impressive because I do the same. Switch mid sentence as well, but I think it's because I've been doing it for a long time
Ellie Ahmed 1 week ago (edited)
That’s insane. It amazes me enough watching my husband (who is simultaneously bilingual, ie. speaks two languages natively because he was raised speaking both) switch between English and Arabic without missing a beat. But he can’t do that with other languages or just insanely pick them up
Ellie Ahmed 1 week ago
As a side note, I always knew that kids were good at learning languages but it’s amazed me since having my ownHOW good they are. I tried to learn a little Arabic as an adult and I’ve only managed to learn bits and pieces after great effort. My kids go to one family event and after we get home they’re suddenly rattling off full phrases that they’ve picked up just from listening into conversations
Load More Replies... #29
Those people who can look at like a twig on the ground in someone’s video and somehow pinpoint their exact location.
UnclePanda 1 week ago (edited)
For me, it came down to tiny shadows. Generally considered to have a strong sense of direction, when I got the equator, where your shadow is directly under you and there were no tiny shadow clues, I found I was worse than clueless because I still thought I could navigate.
Sarah Kathrin Matsoukis 1 week ago
I feel you. 35 years and I still get lost here.
Load More Replies... #30
I had a kindergarten student who told me exactly when a 7 minute timer was going to go off on my phone. I had forgot that I even set it and out of nowhere she said 3,2,1 and it went off. The wall clock was out of order. There were no computers in the room and she didn’t have a phone or watch.
I’m pretty good at this as an adult, like I can set the microwave on three minutes walk out of the room and return just as it goes off… but I’m over 40. How could she do that at 5 years old? She is still my student years later and I know that she can tell when I’m lying. It will be like little things, to avoid hurting someones feelings. I think I’m a pretty good liar but she will call me out on it.
Rick Murray 1 week ago
That would have been me when I was seven or eight. How was I so good at it (and can keep track of time pretty well in my head)? Simple. When I was given a five minute time-out (which was frequently), I would watch the clock. After a while I didn't need to watch the clock any more. So I can attribute my time accuracy to teachers not wanting to deal with a hyperactive child smashed out of his mind on E110/Sunset Yellow. 😂
Sam Trudeau 1 week ago
When I was that age I could recognize any car brand by looking at it. Another case of "impressive not because of the skill, but the age when you have it"
StrangeOne 1 week ago (edited)
I'm not genius, but I once guessed the temperature of the day with exact accuracy, one time, in Grade 1. I just went with a number that flashed in my head that felt right. We were just learning temperature, so that might have had something to do with it. This girl was probably taught blind time recognition at home. Just like how kids are taught to recognize amounts in a group without counting.
Nik Odongray 1 week ago
I had a cat who could do this. There were times I’d forget to set an alarm and she would somehow wake me up right on time. And I didn’t have a regular 9-5 type job. I’d have to get up at different times every day. There was no routine to it. D**n I miss that cat. She and her sister were the best.
highwaycrossingfrog 1 week ago
My friends' kid, by the time he was maybe 6 or 7, could identify all the countries in the world's flags. He was also mad about horse racing, and knew all the stats on horses, trainers, jockeys. If you wanted to know where to place a bet on race day, ask Teddy.
#31
If you've ever seen the mentalist with the character Patrick Jane, I knew somebody who was just like that. He was extremely good at reading people from their body language and words. He made a full time living from playing poker.
Scary guy cos I'm sure he always knew what everyone was thinking.
Nik Odongray 1 week ago
People like that can play poker without ever looking at their cards. I’ve seen a few pros do it.
#32
My autistic son (low needs) learned sign language at 7-9 mos old. His math skills were outrageous by 2nd grade. It was then I started envisioning taking him to Vegas, like Rainman. He could look at math problems and just know the answer. Eventually, they became too easy and he lost interest, started acting out so my Vegas dream was shattered.
Today, he is the head of a MECA tronics program at an engineering program. So much for my quick million!
Stephanie Did It 1 week ago (edited)
Good to know that OP didn't get to exploit their child after all (which was of course what Raymond did to his autistic brother). It wasn't a how-to video!
#33
"Creepy" isn't the right word, but over the Christmas break my dad reminded me about one of his uncles.
My family owned a wholesale grocery store, and used to get deliveries of big hoops of cheese. The hoops had random weights, which was stamped on them: "24 7/8 pounds", "19 1/4 pounds", "22 5/6 pounds", etc.
As the hoops came off the rail car via a conveyor belt, the uncle could have a full-on conversation with you - not just "uh-huh, yeah, yeah", but an actual conversation - all the while adding up all the weight. At the end, he'd be like "OK, so that's 1,280 and 3/8 pounds, is that what the invoice says?" and he'd be right every single time.
I would have to write all those numbers down, convert them to decimal, and use a calculator to add them all up... Uncle James just did it all in his head.
Adam Zad 1 week ago
My uncle was a fairly well known big band style jazz trombone player and he could sight-read music. He went into the New York Symphony Orchestra and asked them for a job. "Do you know the score?" they asked. "Do you have the sheet music?" They handed him the music, he opened up his case, pulled out his horn, and played perfectly. They hired him on the spot, he played for them for a while, and made a small fortune.
#34
Not sure if creepy, but my best friend in high school had STEM classes like he had the answers hard coded in his head. Would drive teachers crazy because he HATED showing his work. He could solve calculus problems in 1/5 the amount of chicken scratching a normal human would need. He got an electrical engineering degree, masters in bio-chemical engineering… would skip class because the teacher “was an idiot”, read the book and get a perfect score on the tests.
Could not act, dance, play music, but anything that needed computational power… he just has it. Being brilliant in certain ways meant he couldn’t release his particular types of analysis thinking that makes life pretty hard: relationships, work, parenting- things that are anti-pattern to computation.
Lee Gilliland 1 week ago (edited)
That always bugged me. If I got the right answer on a consistent basis, why does it matter how I did it? Math can be an art as well as a science.
Scott Rackley 1 week ago
I hated showing my work as well, because I would skip obvious steps and combine them. My calc teacher didn't like it until I showed her I can solve any problem with more writing and that I'm wasting her time and mine.
Load More Replies... Rich Black 1 week ago
i hate showing the IRS my work when I'm deciding how much to pay in taxes. I feel they should trust me by now.
Adam Zad 1 week ago
My 7th grade algebra teacher wanted me to show my work on the quadratic formula homework. Didn't believe I did the math in my head. "You can't do quadratic equations in your head! Nobody can!" were her words. I challenged her to give me an equation. Ten seconds later, I gave her the correct answer. She gave me another one. Same result. Her next words were "If I hadn't seen that with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it." Never asked me to show my work again. I was 13 at the time.
#35
In real life up close, my husband. He’s a genius and sometimes he makes a call months in advance if something happening. It’s so unnerving. We watch the news and see a report he clocked months ago.
BeesEelsAndPups 1 week ago
That's pattern recognition and basic psychology. Particularly with large world events, this is pretty easy. Russia invading Ukraine, the outcome of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, how the pandemic would play out in different countries, the outcomes of presidential elections, these are all pretty easy to know well ahead of time. I'm no genius, far from it. And Trump is about the most predictable person alive. I'm convinced news reporters are willfully ignorant when it comes to his motivations. He's a mob boss with a private army. Just follow the money
Rick Murray 1 week ago
BeesEelsAndPups: This is why I had a load of face masks and handwash gel at the *start* of the pandemic when everybody was freaking out. I had been following the story of the new virus in China and it sounded bad (unlike SARS, MERS, etc that just sort of fizzle out), and since us meatsacks go all over the place in tiny metal tubes that recycle the air, it wouldn't be long before it turned up all around the place. So I went to the pharmacy and bought a bunch of things. Later on, the woman at the pharmacy was "how did you know? do you work for the government or something?". Nope, I just watch/read the news from various different places and I join the dots.
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Peter Bear 1 week ago
Much to my dismay, I've predicted a lot of the current disaster facing the US, years in advance. The thing I've gotten most wrong is the timetable; I knew exactly what was going to go wrong, and how, but I underestimated how quickly it would happen. For the record, Trump is going to dissolve the United States on July 4 2026, for the symbolism of the 250th anniversary, and declare himself emperor (or some other equivalent dictatorial title). Calling it here and now.
Bewitched One 1 week ago (edited)
I’ve been telling my fiance he is NOT going to leave the White House except in a body bag. He keeps telling me nah. And i want to be VERY clear, I’ve lived as an adult for almost just as long as I did a child and I don’t follow politics much, I don’t get unnerved when the president does stupid s**t or makes dumb choices, until now. I’m following now, and I’m genuinely worried about the future of this country, mostly for my kids’ sakes. One of which will be abs adult in five years. But I think you might be very close, if not correct all the way around.
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shg stewart 1 week ago
I predicted that Bush the Younger was going to invade Iraq on 9/11 at about 2:30 in the afternoon. Somewhere on a hard drive I have the email I sent to a whole bunch of my friends predicting it, too. I do have predictive abilities that can seem creepy too, though.
#36
My kid, at the age of like 5...
We're from the midwest but would often travel all over the world, and took public transport.
No matter how many twists and turns it was to get on a subway car or how many curves and twists and turns and etc the actual subway route was, ...
while we were still underground, he'd be able to tell me exactly which way we would be facing when we got up the stairs to top side---
Not just north, South, east, West but he would actually say Northeast Southwest and be right.
Lee Gilliland 1 week ago
Lots of people can always tell North. A great many animals do it too, especially birds and reptiles.
Seadog 1 week ago
Internal compass, we all have it, it's just that some are very acute and others simply keep the person erect. When I was younger, I had an excellent sense of direction, regardless where I was. Now I do find myself getting turned around in a strange place.
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LuckyL 1 week ago
it's not remembering - it's "he's is a foreign place and knows which way he's facing"
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#37
Guy gets a perfect score on the LSAT, but something *glitches* in his mind and he goes home to notify the test creators (College Board back then), that one of their questions on the test is incorrect.
They respond to his email and were astonished he was correct then asked him to work there.
shg stewart 1 week ago
I went to a job interview for a legal editing job (which is a complex, specialized form of editing) and found a mistake on the test. They said I got the highest score they'd ever seen. I still didn't get the job.
Renay T 6 days ago
I did this with a high-school SAT for literature. We had to read and analyze a passage from I, Robot by Asimov. I had read that book at least two dozen times by then. A paragraph was totally invented. I analyzed it and explained, but also told the teachers giving the tests that they included incorrect text from that book and it has nothing to do with the story being told. It was a paragraph from a different short story in the same book. Totally unrelated stories, other than both having robots.
Seadog 1 week ago
Place I worked had safety tests we all had to take. I spotted an incorrect answer on one of them and they refused to understand why it was wrong, or change it. So, year after year, they instructed everyone the correct answer was one that will actually get you k****d. The correct answer still isn't one of the provided answers.
#38
Had a medical school professor have dozens of 6 feet tall stacks of magazines and articles.
we would see a patient, and (pediatric neurology) he would tell me about rare cases, and while speaking, he would pause, and direct me to the 3rd stack to my left, about half way down, and find the article of the same case we were speaking about. he would do that for each stack as my rotation went along.
Michael Largey 1 week ago
Now he can just Google it, and that article will come right up - behind a paywall.
Pheebs 1 week ago
I miss being more like this. Worked in a bookstore when I was late teens/early 20s. Rarely had to use the computer to look up books, or when I did I just needed to see a cover. Could tell you where in the store it was, down to almost the exact number of books in from left or right on the shelf. I would walk the store frequently to fix books (people shoving stuff on top instead of putting them back), dusting, etc. Had most of the store memorized just by glancing at things. Could also remember if a we had a discounted version of a book on one of the dozens of tales around the store (which had dozens upon dozens of books on them), even if the sale book had a different cover than the the version looked up on the computer. If I can visualize, I can remember.
Rich Black 1 week ago
this the sub-plot of every perry mason episode. he starts talking about an obscure law, or court decision, or article in a legal journal. and is invariably correct. yet he cannot get a date.
#39
I know a couple people who have numerical intelligence beyond my understanding. my friend's ex, who was an engineering student who did his homework at the gym- took one look at the problem he had to solve, worked on it in his head while doing his set, then wrote the answer when he was done. correct every time. then my aunt who is now the head of her math department at the university she works at, I've watched her not just solve huge complex equations in less than a minute but run through ten or so at a time as a fun hobby. She's a great teacher, too, and the only reason I passed my college calculus classes, which to me is one of the best signs of intelligence there is.
#40
I dated a girl in the 90s that could remember huge number sequences at a glance.
She mentioned this when we first met, and I assumed she was full of it so wrote my number down and briefly flashed it to her.
I didn't think any more about it until she called me the following day.
PandaGoPanda 1 week ago
Shared office space with some military guys many years back and was beside one when he called his mom (by saying the number out loud to the operator). A week later he said he was going to call her again and I recited the number. He was unreasonably shocked by this relatively minor feat of memory and remained convinced for some time that I must be a Russian spy.
Rich Black 1 week ago
nice pickup technique - assuming a girl is "full of it" and trying to trick her.
wobbly jelly 1 week ago
A friend worked in an office and was ordering something over the phone and gave his credit card no - a colleague told him what it was the next day - said I just remember numbers!
#41
Give a time and date from ww2 and my brother will tell you what happened. He’s autistic and special interest is, you guessed it, ww2.
I’m also autistic, but my special interest is in the animal world, especially behaviour. If you have en unruly dog, I just need to meet it once and I can tell what’s wrong. Took over my mom’s dog, because he pulled so much that both her and her husband had been pulled to the ground. I’ve survived a stroke so my grip is weak nowadays, so that was a no go. Couple months later I could have the leash on a finger with no pulling and he is way happier. Problem was stress. He needed more time to sniff and look and to just take his time exploring instead of just go go go. He’s mine now.
Sam Trudeau 1 week ago
My "autism interest" is just random stuff. But I will never turn down an opportunity to pet a cat
Brian Droste 1 week ago
As far as I know I am not austic but I will not turn down to pet a cat myself. Or play with one if the time is right.
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Smeghead Tribble Down Under 5 days ago
I have about 23 serious interests, extremely varied. I must be hugely ''autistic''. JFC does EVERYTHING have to come back to ''autism''? I'll be ecstatic when this ''autism'' trend finally dies.
#42
My son was 6 months old. He was on a blanket. I was trying to encourage him to crawl. I put a toy he liked on the other side of the blanket to encourage him to crawl toward it.
He stared at that toy. He didn't crawl. He grabbed the blanket and very deliberately, hand over hand, pulled the blanket toward him until the toy was within reach.
BeesEelsAndPups 1 week ago
No, the whole point is that places are coming to him.
Load More Replies... Bewitched One 1 week ago
My youngest did the same thing lmao about the same age. All of my kids may have tbh
Colleen Glim 5 days ago
My youngest was figuring out how to climb over baby gates at 14 months. Chairs, garbage cans, boxes, didn’t matter she was over and out
#43
Not really creepy, but I found it impressive. My 16yo nephew is one of those kids that can solve a Rubiks cube super fast, which I understand is pretty common by just memorizing a sequence of movements once certain patterns are established.... but the other day, he kind of blew me away with how his mind works.
I brought over a slot car track set to test out before I set it up as a fun activity at an event coming up later in January. The set has 4 or five different styles of track pieces, and several copies of each piece to arrange. Like, curved surface loop segments, flat straightaway segments, squiggly segments, turn segments, criss-cross lanes (its a 2-lane track set) etc.
We did the set up featured on the packaging, then started talking about what if we made it into kind of a banked track set up, or had a segment run vertical up a wall. Each time, we broke down the pieces and he would just rattle off the order for the different segments bits to piece together to get the array we just talked about -not as we were assembling, but before hand. Like, he mapped it out in his head and broke down how to get the shape, the loops, the vertical or banked segments by combining the different style pieces in order without actually laying it out. This included twists, loops, turns, banked areas created by repurposing the loop pieces, and changes in elevation. And he did this quickly and repeatedly for each array or concept we talked about. Then, he recommended buying another identical set to make an even more complicated track and told me exactly how to piece it together (it was a fairly cheap set, so I actually did order a 2nd one).
Maybe this is something lots of people can do, but I was impressed, because I know I can't do it unless I have the actual parts in hand and am actually assembling them, or if I have written and drawn out plans ahead of time. He could just envision the components and mix and arrange them spatially in his head, the rattle off the order in which to attach one to the next to the next in order to make the circuit.
Calyx Teren 5 days ago
Yes, but many people wouldn’t be as quick and accurate about picturing complex 3D relationships.
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#44
We know a guy who could tell you the day of the week for any date going back in time. Which is neat, but I guess there’s a system to it.
He could also tell you what he was doing that day and what he ate.
Which is bonkers to me that he remembers having a turkey sandwich for lunch and spaghetti for dinner 20 years ago on a specific date. Where he was and what he was doing that day.
If the cops asked me where I was last week and questions about time, I got nothing.
Lady Eowyn 1 week ago
I am incredibly grateful I don't remember everything that's happened in my life. The bits I do remember are bad enough.
Lee Gilliland 1 week ago
Marilyn Retten can do it too. Apparently we all have this ability, just not the ability to reach this ability.
CloPotato 1 week ago
Ah so that's where I was wrong, I was looking not for the ability, but for the ability to have it! Seriously, I set down my book and immediately forget where it is, I could use a bit more mundane memory.
Load More Replies... Jaya 1 week ago (edited)
Did you check whether it's true though? It's very easy to say with great confidence "I ate broccoli and steak on January 2nd, 1998", without having a clue about what I actually ate that day. Also, he himself may not even realize that 99% of them are wrong, he only knows that he feels/thinks he remembers it, he may not know whether he remembered them all wrong.
Stardust she/her 1 week ago
Is it a sign of genius to remember everything that’s happened throughout your life? I can remember everything that’s ever happened to me starting from when I was 4-6 months old, including trains of thought I’ve been having long before I knew enough language to articulate said thoughts to myself
#45
My husband’s brain and body.
My husband’s ability to read a room and tell me exactly what people are saying and thinking. He can memorize maps, and knows where he is at all times without one. He has a photographic memory and can explain every detail of something with just a glance. He reads voraciously and can put complex solutions together to something he has never done before. When he makes a mistake he knows exactly why and what mistake was made. He sits with his back to the wall everywhere we go and maps rooms, buildings, and exits at all times. In a crowd or on a crowded road he is able to find space to move that wasn’t there a split second before, it’s like he can read people’s minds. He has performed simple surgeries on himself to remove things from his body, then closes it up.
Like WTH? He’s very well educated, traveled a lot, comes from a well educated “old-line”family and I swear they were bred different. He dislikes people, doesn’t trust, until he trusts you. Then watch out! His loyalty is STRONG! He’s the person other people call, at all hours of the day or night. He’s the greatest man I’ve ever met.
It’s really difficult to be married to someone like him. ☺️😉😘 I LOVE it!
Michael Largey 1 week ago
I can walk right into a room and immediately know what every person there is thinking. Unfortunately, it's always "Oh, him again."
otiose 1 week ago
"He has performed simple surgeries on himself to remove things from his body, then closes it up." What the? Has anyone else had situations they needed to do this? Am I abnormal? Cause never once have I felt the need, let alone actually needed to do surgery on myself!
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 week ago
I've occasionally cut myself to remove thorns, splinters, bits of broken glass, other foreign materials that have become "embedded" in my skin because I may not have noticed when they first got stuck in there and then some skin grew over them/inflammation happened so I can't easily extricate the object. I've used a sterilized disposable scalpel in these cases, and the incisions are tiny and don't need to be "closed up" other than being bandaged. I don't know if that's the kind of thing OP means or if OP is completely woo-woo. OP's other Reddit posts are a bit.. concerning, so I'm not certain.
Load More Replies... Bewitched One 1 week ago
My guess is she’s not married at all. But who knows.
Load More Replies... #46
Not creepy, but my intellectually disabled son remembers everyone’s bdays, the year they were born and how old they would be in any given year. Not just people we know but watching tv and he’ll be like ‘oh that actor is 76 next month.’ And I always check and he’s always right.
2WheelTravlr 1 week ago
I can't even remember my own age unless it ends in a zero or a five, then I can usually dredge it out of my brain.
Mark Alexander 6 days ago
Same. I can remember the year I was born so I always need to do the math. It requires a calculator at this point.
Load More Replies... Colleen Glim 5 days ago
If somebody asks me how old I am, I have to do the mental math to figure it out
#47
I had a lady in my team who could calculate complex thermodynamic equations including the relationship between natural gas and steam using calorific values and enthalpy in her head quicker than I could with a calculator. We’re talking at least 5-10 variables being used in the right order and she was always within a few % points. Very clever lady.
Mark Alexander 6 days ago
"Hidden Figures." Sorry, but in all lower case it almost didn't register as the title of an incredible movie.
Load More Replies... Mark Alexander 6 days ago
Dude. You listed, like, 19 elements of the problem Then you say it takes 5-10 variables as inputs? My brain's already melted.
BrunoVI 1 week ago
Mathematic approximations are rather like a Rubic's Cube. You simply have a trick ready for any circumstance. 47 x 8 x 63? 47 is close to half of 100. 8 is what you get when you double three times. So only double twice, and then add a pair of zeroes (63 * 8 *50 = 63 * 2 * 2 * 100 * 1/2 = 25,200). 47 is 6% less than 50. So now knock 6% off (5% of 25,200 would be about 1,260, so 6% would be another 150.) So 6% is a little more than 1400. 1400 from 25200 is a little under 23800. The correct answer is 23,688. I actually would have expected to be about 100 closer. I can't solve a Rubic's Cube, but I can do that in my head.
Rebecca A. Corvello 1 week ago
That is more work and harder than just thinking it out in your head and doing it the long way in your head.
Load More Replies... #48
I have a friend who is insanely accurate at predicting human behaviour. Including people she has never met.
I was telling her about a guy telling me he’s not interested in me.
She predicted the EXACT day he would get back, and the exact sentiment he would express.
I almost felt like cheating in life having discussions with her. She isn’t very manipulative, but she can predict perfectly how to get what you want from people.
She is happily married by the way. Her husband treats her perfectly. Ironically, the husband’s ex wife says he treated her like [trash]. My friend has just trained him on every aspects she finds important.
Stardust she/her 1 week ago
It’s easy to tell how people are tbh, you just need to observe their body language and facial expressions for a minute and then you can tell how they are. I’ve been wrong only once and I felt bad for assuming the person was not nice until she helped me. I didn’t say anything to her or anyone else about my assumptions but I felt really bad. Weirdly enough I can use this assesing people talent in chemistry to tell the behaviours of certain compounds but my error rate is just a bit higher
highwaycrossingfrog 1 week ago
Sounds like you might be one of those people who think their unusually high-level talents are shared by the population in general when in fact most people do not find behavioural analysis of either people or chemical compounds easy!
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CloPotato 1 week ago
My boyfriend has had a hard time accepting I just can do this. He felt like it was deeply unfair and that I was implying he's an idiot (I wasn't, he isn't, I love him) and somehow bragging (no). It took him a bit of adjustment but after noticing I've never failed any "prediction" for him so far he challenges them yet most of the time accepts them. Tbh typing that I realize I should have started betting money on it haha.
#49
I worked with a guy that had a mental profile build up around everyone we worked with. “Gary is late every other Thursday. Also did you see he changed his license plate? I wonder if he will eat ham or turkey today.” He did this with everyone, I feel like he could probably still recall my specs after 20 years.
#50
In college I had a friend who was always right. She was lovely and I am not saying it in a bad way. She was just always correct. We once walked up to a bank of 20 or so doors to the student union. We (a group) were walking towards one, and she said "nope" and opened another. It was the only one not locked. I have no idea. She was just always right. It was pretty awesome.
Julia H 1 week ago
Heck. I got yelled at for always being right. When I realized that I just really wanted to be the smartest person in the room, I stopped. Didn't want to step on another's toes for my vanity
Michael Largey 1 week ago
An eye for detail can help. She could have noticed someone using that door while the group was still at a distance. Or she could have remembered which door has always been open at that time of day in the past.
#51
I heard the lawnmower stop so I jumped off the couch and started pretending to sweep since we were splitting chores. Bf walks in the living room and asked if I was about done and I said just finishing. He told me the condensation would have evaporated off the power button on the remote by now and my Snuggie was still decompressing.
StrangeOne 1 week ago
My mom is like this. She would come into the room and know if I was lying, or just knew what I was doing, without a pause or hesitation. She barge in and bellow my name, then start lecturing me.
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Ann Tiques 1 week ago
Dated a woman who could recite what I’d done in her apartment before she got home by what had been moved. Both impressive and a little creepy.
#52
My mom quite literally never forgot a face. One time when I was little, we were at a Sam's Club and she was looking at the cashier. Then she just randomly asked him "Did you work at a Burger King? Eight years ago?" And he did. He was obviously shocked and asked her how she knew that.
She was aware that this hidden talent of hers could creep people out, but she thought it was funny. And we didn't even go to Burger King regularly, we were a McDonald's family, so it's not like she would have seen him often. She just remembered everybody's faces, including strangers.
Lady Eowyn 1 week ago
Since a concussion a few years ago I am pretty much face blind, I see people but don't remember their faces, or which face goes with which name, unless I see them a lot.
#53
My wife can tell me what I'm thinking and feeling without asking me, and we have whole conversations without me saying anything. Blows my mind every time.
#54
Old friend of mine that I haven’t spoke with in over a decade was the smartest person I’ve ever met- full rides at his undergrad and eventually Yale Medical school, where he became a neurologist for several years until he taught himself how to code and founded a rather prominent website/company.
In HS he took all the most advanced placement courses that were offered- ones that made almost all the smartest students in the high school [complain] about workload, acing them all without hardly even opening his books. How do I know that? Because he was always out partying with us, so I know he never studied for a single exam.
There are some truly, scary, exceptional people in the world.
#55
I realise these are explainable and maybe might seem easy to people but these are creepy to me because they make me realise how little my brain can do compared to others:
A friend that can always tell were the north is, even underground or inside.
Seeing my bf practice piano without a piano. He's practicing Scriabin in his head, like how??
The quickness with which my bf and sister can do complex math. Ask me what 8x3 is and I'll give you an answer the next business day.
Michael Largey 1 week ago
But if you're looking for the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything else, you're doing it backwards.
Load More Replies... #56
My office friend has predicted 3 resignation from our team months before they happened based on only observation. No data, rumours... That's impressive.
#57
I remember seeing a kid walk past a random rubik's cube that was just sitting on a table in Australia... he picked it up... paused to look at... solved it and set it back down.. might have been 5 or 6 seconds.. and then he just walked off like it was nothing.
Surreal to witness it in-person and completely out of context/without warning etc.
FoxThatHasFennecaphobia 1 week ago
The author is definitely exaggerating on the 5 or 6 seconds thing, the world record is 3.08 seconds, and thats still with 15 seconds to look at the cube beforehand.
Andy Frobig 1 week ago
How is slower than the world record "definitely exaggerating?" The number of people in the world who are sure something is a lie just because they haven't experienced it boggles my mind
Load More Replies... #58
I knew a guy who could tell what type of car was driving by simply by hearing it's tires and engine drive by outside. He did not sit near any windows, but there was a window by the water cooler and people in the office would test him often. It got to the point where if someone getting water started to say his name he'd just rattle off a make and model for them and smirk when they confirmed he was right. I still to this day am not sure how his brain did it.
Manos 1 week ago
I used to work next to a helipad so I do it with helicopters.
Load More Replies... Seadog 1 week ago
I call BS on this one. Tires? As there are hundreds of tires available and in multiple sizes, identifying a car by it's tires is impossible. That c**p you see on CSI where they determine a make and model by a tire print is exactly that, c**p. It's not like only one make and model used that tire. Not to mention the fact, most people do not put the OEM tire back on their car as most cars come with the cheapest, lowest quality, lowest performing tire available. Then there are the people who put another brand engine in their car. Prime example, a friend of mine installed the 5.0 form a '94 Mustang GT in a Mercedes 380Sl because the Merc owner was fed up with the maintenance nightmare of the German machine.
#59
The most incomprehensible human ability to me is salesmanship. I worked at a bank for several months and witnessed how my senior manager could fulfill a month's plan in a single week. He didn't do anything that the average person couldn't, but his charisma, well-placed speech, and ease of communication gave him an edge.
Some people are born with a talent for sales, and I believe in it. You probably have a market in your city, and there are bound to be two people there selling the same thing, but their results will be completely different. I don't know how to explain it.
Mimi M 1 week ago
The best salesperson I ever met (a frumpy, overweight, middle-aged guy in a big computer store) didn't focus on selling at all. He focused on explaining and educating, and trying to figure out the customer's needs, whether they bought anything or not. I would only go to him, and was told later that he was the top salesperson, and customers routintely asked for him by name.
Sly Schlang 1 week ago
He didn't do anything the average person couldn't... This sentence just proves OPs lack of the skill set or Technoquest that the guy used. So he couldn't recognize it. It is kind of like the dunning kruger effect.
Seadog 1 week ago
I worked with a guy at a boat dealership that could sell accessories at 150% retail and people thought they were getting the best deal in the world while other sales staff were selling them at cost and the customers felt like they were being ripped off. 10 yeas later, that miracle salesman had lost his ability to sell anything.
#60
I have a friend who points out the most obvious stuff about people and they always get really freaked out by it as if it's like some kind of fortune teller stuff. sometimes they joke about her being "the seer." she's just really good at pattern recognition, and also articulating it.
#61
I was briefly an entomology major at an ivy league university (before I flunked out) and I had a TA who could identify the three different weevil species he specialized in by taste.
Miss Ann Thrope 1 week ago
What's the last thing that goes through a bug's mind when it hits a windshield? His a*s.
Load More Replies... Stephanie Did It 1 week ago
All I know is that you should never never never accidentally eat a lady bug!
#63
The amount of frat guys using manipulative psychological tactics in order to sleep with women during frat parties is too high and very concerning to say the least.
Michael Largey 1 week ago
The amount who use them to get elected to office is even more concerning.
#64
The most dengerous inteligence is the one that makes u think the decision was yours when it never was.
#65
I worked a year as a supermarket casheer and this co-worker once told me how he took money home.
It was a local supermarket but owened by a rich guy so it was pretty big and had all the usual security you would expect.
Supervisors had a card to cancel ítems and purchases. Turns out the card was actually just a bar code so he took a picture of it, printed it and everytime there was a small cash purchase he would cancel it and pocket the money during the day.
He got brave enough to cancel bigger purchases and besides one time the people came back asking for their receipt he was never even closed to be caught.
He would easily get around $2000 in a month or so.
He eventually quit but I was impressed how well his system worked.
Michael Largey 1 week ago
Whether something represents intelligence does not depend on the morality of its use.
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Drop Bear from Hell 1 week ago
so, impressed by a thief? I can think of more deserving things to find remarkable!
Chris Merillo 6 days ago (edited)
The Nortons ad on these BP pages is REALLY pissing me off. If I am on any article for more than 5 minutes, a full page Nortons Ad takes over the browser and I can only get rid of it by closing the browser. It's only happening on this site so it has to be BP. Is anyone else getting this?
What do you think ?
Roy 1 week ago
I knew a guy who was basically an alcoholic but could make intricate patterns with paint and a striping brush. After you furnished him with a fifth of bourbon he would drink and do pinstripe on your car(big in the 50s)! He could duplicate right and left fenders and front and back in great beautiful detail and then pass out! Amazing!
Sharkfin6 1 week ago
I'm not saying all, but a lot of these can be attributed to trauma responses from a difficult childhood or experiences- especially when these people were "different". Recognizing someone by the way they walk, predicting someone's mood before they interact, knowing how an argument will turn out, being able to tell what someone else's reaction will be to a situation, knowing what triggers people just by seeing them for a short time, etc.
Mari 6 days ago
This. When I was a kid I had a trauma and I had fear to be rejected again. I became very good at mirroring people; I immedialtely adopted their language and dialect, I learned quickly new skills and hobbies. And I learned how to "read" people (= reactions, emotions, thougts, movements, mimicks ...)
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SCP 4666 1 week ago
There once was a german gentleman called Emil Krebs who spoke about 70 languages - like...fluently. Link below
Bewitched One 1 week ago
I didn’t even realize there were that many languages. Interesting
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The Starsong Princess 1 week ago
Years ago, I worked in a store with a guy who could pinch a stack of twenties and tell you exactly how many there were in a stack. He was incredibly intelligent but only in patches as he fired his brain on acid in the early 70s.
Seadog 1 week ago
Knew a guy that tracked a telemarketer to his exact location while he was talking to him. TM was rude to him and friend told him he knew who he was and where he was and he'd be in his office with his boss when he came to work the next day. This of course got several a*****e replies from the TM. Friend had the money too so he hopped a plane that evening to California and was in fact standing in the jerks office the next morning, with the jerks boss. He said the look on that guys face was priceless. I've known other people who could track your presence on the internet all around the world, showing a map of every node, switch and server you hit along the way.
Seadog 1 week ago
I work retail. I've done so for 55 years. I can talk on 2 phones and use 2 computers at once. I'm not as good at it as I was 20 years ago but still do it often enough that it still drives my coworkers nuts. I was doing it once at AutoZone while also assisting the person standing in front of me. The manager walked by and said, "you need to pick up the pace" to me. I though the customer in front of me was going to go kick his a$$, since he was clearly doing nothing. That manager didn't last long.
Load More Replies... Rich Black 1 week ago
Albert Einstein came up with the theory of relativity while watching streetcars in Switzerland.
Laserleader 1 week ago
I can recall any building layout that I have ever seen in person. Like I know exactly what every house I have ever been in looked like, even the one I was in only for the first 6 months of my life. Over time places change, but I can still draw an overhead map of their interiors, even if I have only been there once.
Roy 1 week ago
I knew a guy who was basically an alcoholic but could make intricate patterns with paint and a striping brush. After you furnished him with a fifth of bourbon he would drink and do pinstripe on your car(big in the 50s)! He could duplicate right and left fenders and front and back in great beautiful detail and then pass out! Amazing!
Sharkfin6 1 week ago
I'm not saying all, but a lot of these can be attributed to trauma responses from a difficult childhood or experiences- especially when these people were "different". Recognizing someone by the way they walk, predicting someone's mood before they interact, knowing how an argument will turn out, being able to tell what someone else's reaction will be to a situation, knowing what triggers people just by seeing them for a short time, etc.
Mari 6 days ago
This. When I was a kid I had a trauma and I had fear to be rejected again. I became very good at mirroring people; I immedialtely adopted their language and dialect, I learned quickly new skills and hobbies. And I learned how to "read" people (= reactions, emotions, thougts, movements, mimicks ...)
Load More Replies... SCP 4666 1 week ago
There once was a german gentleman called Emil Krebs who spoke about 70 languages - like...fluently. Link below
Bewitched One 1 week ago
I didn’t even realize there were that many languages. Interesting
Load More Replies... The Starsong Princess 1 week ago
Years ago, I worked in a store with a guy who could pinch a stack of twenties and tell you exactly how many there were in a stack. He was incredibly intelligent but only in patches as he fired his brain on acid in the early 70s.
Seadog 1 week ago
Knew a guy that tracked a telemarketer to his exact location while he was talking to him. TM was rude to him and friend told him he knew who he was and where he was and he'd be in his office with his boss when he came to work the next day. This of course got several a*****e replies from the TM. Friend had the money too so he hopped a plane that evening to California and was in fact standing in the jerks office the next morning, with the jerks boss. He said the look on that guys face was priceless. I've known other people who could track your presence on the internet all around the world, showing a map of every node, switch and server you hit along the way.
Seadog 1 week ago
I work retail. I've done so for 55 years. I can talk on 2 phones and use 2 computers at once. I'm not as good at it as I was 20 years ago but still do it often enough that it still drives my coworkers nuts. I was doing it once at AutoZone while also assisting the person standing in front of me. The manager walked by and said, "you need to pick up the pace" to me. I though the customer in front of me was going to go kick his a$$, since he was clearly doing nothing. That manager didn't last long.
Load More Replies... Rich Black 1 week ago
Albert Einstein came up with the theory of relativity while watching streetcars in Switzerland.
Laserleader 1 week ago
I can recall any building layout that I have ever seen in person. Like I know exactly what every house I have ever been in looked like, even the one I was in only for the first 6 months of my life. Over time places change, but I can still draw an overhead map of their interiors, even if I have only been there once.
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