What's the most useless skill you've mastered, and how did you end up getting so good at it?

posted 4 months ago

raiun@lemmy.world

asklemmy@lemmy.world

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I’ve mastered the ability to take any idea or thought and transform it into anxiety. Jitters McGee

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radicalautonomy@lemmy.world

43 points

4 months ago

I can read UPC, UPC-8, ISBN, and EAN bar codes. Tear the numbers off the bottom of the bar code, hand me the lines, and I will tell you the numbers you tore off.

I used to work the midnight shift at a call center back in the late 90s. It was incredibly boring because we weren’t allowed to browse the internet when no calls were coming in (which was most of the time, got maybe five calls total per night). So I picked up a copy of Yahoo! Internet Life, a now-defunct technology-centered magazine. This issue had a how-to section for wacky shit like that, so I committed it to memory because wtf else was there to do?

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Mcdolan@lemmy.world

1 point

4 months ago

Well that’s cool. Can you write in scan-able barcode?

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radicalautonomy@lemmy.world

3 points

4 months ago

No, there is too much precision required.

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Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com

1 point

4 months ago

If you got graphpaper?

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radicalautonomy@lemmy.world

1 point

4 months ago

I suppose that might work, it never occurred to me to do so.

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