Someone said (in public) I was in the top 10 Wordle players in the world. The person is knowledgeable of normal skills and my skills, but there isn’t a way to know the top 10, or whatever players.
But, I don’t know how you could determine who is better between random people. And the fact that I spend more time than most people, part of that isn’t “skill”.
Once upon a time I could play through the entire Super Mario game on Nintendo, which would put me in the top 1 percent. But, I couldn’t today.
Ah, you’ve reminded me of another. Many years ago I was a supermarket cashier. This was back before they had scanning, so all prices had to be tapped into the register manually.
I took to this like a squirrel to a nut. And it wasn’t just prices, either; we had to enter the department as well ($1.49 on dairy, for example). There were also shortcuts called “look-ups”, where common items had a code that required a bit of fingernistic gymnastics to enter, and I could fly through those as well.
More than a few regulars confided that they always came into my lane because the line moved the fastest. I also regularly encountered suspicious/disbelieving folks who would give me the side-eye or a comment when they saw my digits all ablur.
I distinctly remember one old man saying to me, “are you sure you’re punching the right levers?”
Here’s the fun part: I hated, hated, hated that job.
The problem with being both a farmer and on a planning board is that nearly everything I can think of is in some way work related. I mean, for instance, that I’m pretty sure that as chair I can get a contentious meeting to end on time while still making sure all viewpoints get heard better than 99 random people; but that doesn’t count as it’s related to both those forms of work.
I think I’m going to pick getting a very shy cat to come out from a hiding place and willingly allow me to pat them. You’ll have to allow me quite a lot of time, though, as that’s part of the trick. And I suspect there are at least a couple of Dopers, and know there are a couple of my friends, who are equally good at it. You’d have to run the test giving each of us a different cat, in any case; making it essentially untestable.
Getting high score on the 1980s arcade video game staple “Galaga”. I played this game for the first time in at least a quarter century recently and found I had retained much of my magic from back in the day. I typically got high score on whatever machine I was playing 40+ years ago, but I feel significantly more confident about besting 99 random people now, as opposed to back then when the game was still very popular.
Mine would be doing math in my head. I’m not a savant who can multiply into the billions without error, but i can do a lot of math quickly in my head. Multiplying two two-digit numbers, detailed percentages (e.g, 12% of 850), that sort of thing…
Partly it seems to innate, partly it’s because I was a math teacher.
I would have to say planning and executing jobs. Construction jobs, putting in production lines, just about any assignment I get. I spend a lot of time planning so it appears that the jobs go very quickly. Also doing math in my head. Probably Sudoku puzzles as well. I moved up to the extreme puzzles about 6 weeks ago and slowly advanced every day until the present, where I am in the top 95% of Sudoku players who play the extreme. Had my best time last night at 3 min 55 sec. I also score very high on the type of tests often used by employers. On a mechanics test for the city, I was told I scored the highest out of 2000 previous tests given.
That’s a lot of water! It’s also potentially fatal if you consume too much, causing a condition called hyponatremia, where your sodium levels become too dilute. You get headaches, may vomit, get confused, and could even die. A few years ago, some DJs had a contest in-studio where they had contestants drink water throughout their morning show. If you had to go pee, you were out. One contestant ended up dying from hyponatremia - she reportedly drank about two gallons over three hours - and the radio station was held liable for her death.
I was a Galaga master back in the day too! I remember on one Galaga game at college, this other guy and I had a bit of a competition where we took turns posting high scores, which were far higher than anybody else. Our playing styles were different-- he played to get the maximum points out of each level, which left him more vulnerable to his ship getting blown up so he didn’t get as far in the game levels as I did. Whereas I played to stay alive as long as possible, so he’d watch me playing and say, “there’s a new level I haven’t seen yet”.
I would love to try my hand at Galaga today, see if I still got it, but I haven’t seen a Galaga game around in many years.
Torquing any bolt to within 1 ft-lb of spec completely by feel. I do not know where/how I picked up this skill other than just muscle memory from years of working on my own motorcycles/boat, but it is uncanny, and it’s been tested.
If this is 99 random people from the entire world, then I would have a decent shot at these:-
Skiing (I’m far from an expert but surely the vast majority of people have never even been on a pair of skis, let alone become half decent at skiing). The earlier poster who said downhill skiing sounded pretty serious so hopefully I’d avoid them!
James Bond trivia. This is the one I’d feel more confident on, despite presumably a far higher proportion of the world having seen at least one Bond film than having skiied. I am a Bond nerd.
Huh, I’ve always used my hands to mix dough, maybe that’s where I’m going wrong…
Mine would probably be hula-hoop. I can keep going until I get bored, on waist or knees, and do a decent range of tricks. Bit rusty, but I reckon I’d still be fine against 99 randoms.
That or plant ID, if I can restrict it to species which grow in the UK- native or in gardens.
A few more for me. Skiing. I’m a professional ski instructor. Within that cohort, I’m ok. Not the best, and probably closer to the worst among certified pros, but considering we’re talking about randos, I’m probably better than 99 of them.
I can also probably adjust the valves on an air-cooled 4-cylinder boxer (Porsche or VW) engine faster than 99 randos. I haven’t had to do it in quite a while, but I used to adjust the valves on my VW Bug about every 3000 miles or so, and I could do it by feel. The only reason I needed a light was to see the marks on the crankshaft pulley.
Per Wikipedia, there are about 100,000 judo practitioners of all ages in the United States. That’s not very many, compared to the total US population of 340 million. I’ve been practicing for 55 years. The odds are pretty good that of 99 randos, none of them will have any judo experience. I’d own them on the mat.
You want bird calls? No prob. You want the soundtrack to Jaws? Hah, piece o’cake. Mimic Roger Whittaker? I’ll need to buy a new turntable and dust off the LPs but, no sweat will be broken. I used to get compliments in — of all places — junior high school; students and teachers. Pucker up. And lose.
While I got you on the line, the prize is a thousand bux? Where’s the remaining $9000?