Robot Diver 🌊🌬️🍃🌿🌸🌱🌱🌱Do you have a fun and simultaneously useless autism skill? I sure do. My record is 14 in one summer. They are literally neon lights to my brain.
Barefoot RamblingPattern recognition is WILD in my brain. Where's Waldo? HA! I had a teacher "accuse" me of having my mom buy the say book so I could "show off" by finding that little bugger every time in 2 seconds flat.
Now it mostly manifests as seeing every. single. continuity error in every. single. show/movie I watch.
I can't NOT see it.
LJ@barefootrambling i feel your pain!
Analog AI@barefootrambling @RobotDiver @autistics
I read of a psychology experiment that plagued neurotypicals with something like this:
They were studying how practice can move a skill from conscious to unconscious -- where it can function in the background. So they gave people things to read, with two tasks: (1) basic reading comprehension and (2) count the 'e' letters in the passage. They measured how long it took them for counting e's not to noticeably impair reading time.
And the people were left with brains that spotted e's even when they were not interested.
🍄slow learner, ❤️🔥deep feelerI went through a few summers of doing that party trick!! My oldest is finding them like this rn.
secretsloth@RobotDiver beautiful
Prof. Rachel Thorn 🍉🇺🇦🏳️⚧️🏳️@RobotDiver @autistics Mine is picking out Japanese names in movie credits. I'll be sitting through the credits of a Hollywood blockbuster, not consciously reading the names, yet the Japanese names (both given names and surnames) just jump out at me.
Erin Jonaitis@RobotDiver heee, it me too!
Alex Haist@RobotDiver @autistics I hesitate to call this a skill, but I always notice the horse, regardless of where a movie or show or scene is trying to focus my attention.
Gilgwath@alexhaist @RobotDiver @autistics I mean there's always the option of pathologizing it instead. I suggest "compulsive horsegirlitis" or "Equus-perceptive disfunction" 🙃
@gilgwath @RobotDiver @autistics ...yeah I've always viewed it more in that light if I'm being honest
Noli timere@RobotDiver @autistics It me. More than a dozen a week some weeks.
KatLS@RobotDiver @autistics 💜I haven’t found any yet but tbf January was a long year here and clover are just now coming out.
David Penfold 
Not sure it's actually fun, but my totally useless superpower is to be able to immediately tell someone the sum of the letters for e.g. their name, where A=1 and Z=26.
diana 🏳️⚧️🦋🌱My favorite is rework circuit board repair. Within seconds, I can spot a single SMD component that's missing, upside down, rotated, or missing solder.
There are not enough "select all 220 ohm resistors" memes... I live for that.
Talisyn Tailfeather@RobotDiver @autistics My useless superpower is license plates. I reflexively spot every one that has three-of-a-kind (or better), even if it's two lanes over and passing at 80mph.