<story><title>This App Trains You to See Farther</title><url>http://www.popularmechanics.com/_mobile/science/health/med-tech/this-app-trains-you-to-see-farther-16506910</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>cjensen</author><text>You would lose the bet :-)&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that the ball is coming straight on, and the batter must discern trajectory (rising, falling) and spin (which affects how the ball curves) and velocity quickly enough that you still have time to move the bat.&lt;p&gt;For example, a fastball and a changeup both drop at the same rate and spin at the same rate. One is coming at 100mph, the other at 75. Since the ball is heading straight for you, you must perceive speed by measuring how quickly the ball is moving through your eye focus.&lt;p&gt;Worse, you are expected to bat in an intentional direction. Meaning that you have to hit the ball on an precise spot in the sphere with an intentional amount of force. It&amp;#x27;s not enough to just swing hard. I&amp;#x27;d guess the bat has to be in the right location with a time accuracy of less than a millisecond.&lt;p&gt;The good batters make good money for a reason.</text></item><item><author>staunch</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;When a major league baseball pitcher throws a 95-mph fastball, only about 400 milliseconds—the duration of a blink—pass before the ball rockets over the plate. And a batter gets less than half that time to decide whether to swing, and where. Baseball&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bah! That&amp;#x27;s not a knife. This is a knife: twitch FPS gaming. Quake Live at 250 FPS, refreshed at 144hz, with &amp;lt; 5ms RTT latency. Reaction times can be compared in almost individual milliseconds. I&amp;#x27;ll put the reaction times of the best Quake Live player (rapha&amp;#x2F;cypher&amp;#x2F;evil, whoever) against the best baseball player &lt;i&gt;any day&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, my vision is extremely good. I&amp;#x27;ve often surprised people with how far I can see clearly. So screw this app: learn how to play a twitch FPS well: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.quakelive.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quakelive.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>babs474</author><text>I have heard, and this article makes the case that reaction time for people is relatively constant, but that the pros are better at anticipating pitches. They read body and shoulder movements leading up to the ball release.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/news/20130724/the-sports-gene-excerpt/#all&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sportsillustrated.cnn.com&amp;#x2F;more&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;20130724&amp;#x2F;the-spor...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>This App Trains You to See Farther</title><url>http://www.popularmechanics.com/_mobile/science/health/med-tech/this-app-trains-you-to-see-farther-16506910</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>cjensen</author><text>You would lose the bet :-)&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind that the ball is coming straight on, and the batter must discern trajectory (rising, falling) and spin (which affects how the ball curves) and velocity quickly enough that you still have time to move the bat.&lt;p&gt;For example, a fastball and a changeup both drop at the same rate and spin at the same rate. One is coming at 100mph, the other at 75. Since the ball is heading straight for you, you must perceive speed by measuring how quickly the ball is moving through your eye focus.&lt;p&gt;Worse, you are expected to bat in an intentional direction. Meaning that you have to hit the ball on an precise spot in the sphere with an intentional amount of force. It&amp;#x27;s not enough to just swing hard. I&amp;#x27;d guess the bat has to be in the right location with a time accuracy of less than a millisecond.&lt;p&gt;The good batters make good money for a reason.</text></item><item><author>staunch</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;When a major league baseball pitcher throws a 95-mph fastball, only about 400 milliseconds—the duration of a blink—pass before the ball rockets over the plate. And a batter gets less than half that time to decide whether to swing, and where. Baseball&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bah! That&amp;#x27;s not a knife. This is a knife: twitch FPS gaming. Quake Live at 250 FPS, refreshed at 144hz, with &amp;lt; 5ms RTT latency. Reaction times can be compared in almost individual milliseconds. I&amp;#x27;ll put the reaction times of the best Quake Live player (rapha&amp;#x2F;cypher&amp;#x2F;evil, whoever) against the best baseball player &lt;i&gt;any day&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, my vision is extremely good. I&amp;#x27;ve often surprised people with how far I can see clearly. So screw this app: learn how to play a twitch FPS well: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.quakelive.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quakelive.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rschmitty</author><text>A ball that is going to a predetermined area while you stand still...&lt;p&gt;Hitting a headshot of another player that can go in any direction &amp;#x2F; velocity while you yourself are traveling in any direction velocity all _before_ that player kills you can be very challenging and depend on very high skill and reaction times&lt;p&gt;The amount of money a player makes compared to someone in another sport has no bearing.</text></comment>