People ALWAYS exaggerate.

[klr]

I am intoxicated by the exuberance of my own verbosity.

[tattuchu]

People always exaggerate! I know, right?! I must have said the same thing like a million times! [actually I've never said it] I tell all my friends this! [I actually don't have any friends] I, uh...what was I saying? I lost track. I've got so many thoughts running round in my head, I fucking lose track of which one I was concentrating on! [actually my brain can only hold one thought at a time, and barely that] Fuck, I need to get shit-faced tonight! [honestly, after two beers I just fall asleep]

[Tero]

Did Jimmy Saville abuse hundreds of kids? Or just fiddle with a few slightly underage slags?

3 dozen, plus two who were 15.

[rasetsu]

People always exaggerate! I know, right?! I must have said the same thing like a million times! [actually I've never said it] I tell all my friends this! [I actually don't have any friends] I, uh...what was I saying? I lost track. I've got so many thoughts running round in my head, I fucking lose track of which one I was concentrating on! [actually my brain can only hold one thought at a time, and barely that] Fuck, I need to get shit-faced tonight! [honestly, after two beers I just fall asleep]

Not to detract from your landmark contribution to this thread, but according to a video I recently watched, we truly only do have one thing in mind at a time. Accordingly, while many of us may think we are multitasking, attending to multiple tasks simultaneously, we are actually attending to individual tasks singly, switching from one to the other serially. So if we are, say, driving and talking on the phone at the same time, we aren't actually attending to both, but rather, talking, while we ignore the road, and then switching to watching the road, while not attending to listening, and back and forth, but quickly enough that we have the illusion we are attending to both continuously. As a result, our performance at both tasks degrades because we are actually unaware of what we are doing with regard to one task or the other a hefty percentage of the time while being responsible for both 100% of that time. So, if we are, say, doing 4 things at once, all four things are likely experiencing close to 75% inattention. Testing of people who believe themselves to be "natural multitaskers" bears out this conclusion. (It occurs to me that there are other ways of conceptualizing what is occurring in the brain, but the end result is pretty much the same, thus qualifying rather than negating the result.)

[klr]

I would go along with that. If simultaneous tasks are very simple and/or repetitive, then it's manageable, but don't try and mix in something complex. If I do that, I have to keep switching my attention between tasks - I don't try and too several things at once.

[mistermack]

Not to detract from your landmark contribution to this thread, but according to a video I recently watched, we truly only do have one thing in mind at a time. Accordingly, while many of us may think we are multitasking, attending to multiple tasks simultaneously, we are actually attending to individual tasks singly, switching from one to the other serially. So if we are, say, driving and talking on the phone at the same time, we aren't actually attending to both, but rather, talking, while we ignore the road, and then switching to watching the road, while not attending to listening, and back and forth, but quickly enough that we have the illusion we are attending to both continuously. As a result, our performance at both tasks degrades because we are actually unaware of what we are doing with regard to one task or the other a hefty percentage of the time while being responsible for both 100% of that time. So, if we are, say, doing 4 things at once, all four things are likely experiencing close to 75% inattention. Testing of people who believe themselves to be "natural multitaskers" bears out this conclusion. (It occurs to me that there are other ways of conceptualizing what is occurring in the brain, but the end result is pretty much the same, thus qualifying rather than negating the result.)

That's not really giving a true picture of what happens in real time though.
I fill the kettle, and switch it on.
Then I put some bread in the toaster. I'm multi-tasking, even if my mind is only on one thing.
I'm also watching a lot on ebay. I'm also adding to my assets, and paying my taxes.
I'm doing all that, and loads besides, even if I'm not thinking about it right now. I set it going, and monitor it now and then.

Multi tasking doesn't equal thinking of many things simultaneously.

[mistermack]

Did Jimmy Saville abuse hundreds of kids? Or just fiddle with a few slightly underage slags?

3 dozen, plus two who were 15.

Yeh but, people ALWAYS exaggerate.

[Coito ergo sum]

I am intoxicated by the exuberance of my own verbosity.

Now you're just bloviating.

[rainbow]

I would never in a million years.

[Tyrannical]

I thought we had found some Cro-Magnon skeletons around 6 foot 7 ?
That's pretty damn big if they weren't just tall and lanky like basketball players. And that height could only be an average, we don't have enough full grown adult males to know. We've certainly had a lot of non-human giant species made extinct in the last 50K years, and that is within the time of modern humans spreading globally. Maybe earlier humans only assumed that large humans must live along large beasts, or perhaps giant was just a relative term.

Many giant legends were a result of fossils that regularly turned up.
The cyclopse legend in Greece is thought to be due to mammoth bones turning up regularly.

Oh I'm sure that fossils are responsible for a great many legends. But gigantic mammals were out and about after modern humans left Africa, and extinct from the fossil record does not mean that a few examples could not have survived a few thousand extra years. The impressive Gobekli Tepe in Turkey dates back to 11,000 BP, which makes encounters with humans capable of recording of these encounters in legend is possible.

[mistermack]

There's nothing worse than people who exaggerate.

[rainbow]

There's nothing worse than people who exaggerate.

...except for paper cuts. There is nothing worse than paper cuts.