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Why is it so hard to swat a fly?

bbc.co.uk

51–60 of 80 posts

Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?

#51
Man you guys just approaching the problem the wrong way. I’ll tell you how Mike D, a technitian at Apple taught me. You simply wait for the fly to land, and then come at it from behind. The flys launch backwards when they take off, so you can open hand catch them, perform the stun, and get them out of the lab with all your open hardware.

I’ll never forget seeing Mike catch that fly.

Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?

#52
post #12

As someone who works in visual neuroscience, this article's a tough read. Lots of statements that are semi-accurate at best. 1) Eyes don't work like cameras; there's no real "exposure" phase as such (even though there's lots of thresholds). So it's misleading to talk about discrete images that we sample at some fixed frequency. Instead, it's much more helpful to think of photoreceptors and subsequent processing stage…

Great! Any idea what mechanism adrenaline activates that gives the perception of time slowing down? That is something I've always wondered about having experienced it probably half a dozen times in my life so far.

Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?

#54
I keep my hand vertical when approaching the fly and turn it only when accelerating for the swat. That way the approaching hand appears with less dramatic increase in size which allows a quick approach without warning the fly.

Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?

#55
post #20
post #5

If you want to catch a stationary fly, it's pretty easy to do so with your bare hands. The key thing to know is that they jump backward before taking flight. Aim for a spot about 1-2" behind the fly, and about 1-2" above the fly. Try to catch it there , and your success percentage will be high.

The perspective of cathing a fly that walked on crap five minutes ago disgusts me. I know they cleanse their paws more often than I do mine, but faugh.

i always found it easy catching flies, especially in air, but squishing their guyts all over my hands is what bothers me most.

an easy way to catch flies is to put rubbing alcohol in a squirt gun. even less than direct hits takes them out of the sky, and the alcohol cleans stuff in collateral damage.

Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?

#56
post #54

I keep my hand vertical when approaching the fly and turn it only when accelerating for the swat. That way the approaching hand appears with less dramatic increase in size which allows a quick approach without warning the fly.

[deleted]

Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?

#57
post #12

As someone who works in visual neuroscience, this article's a tough read. Lots of statements that are semi-accurate at best. 1) Eyes don't work like cameras; there's no real "exposure" phase as such (even though there's lots of thresholds). So it's misleading to talk about discrete images that we sample at some fixed frequency. Instead, it's much more helpful to think of photoreceptors and subsequent processing stage…

If your brain and body spanned the size of the Earth, the signals into and within the brain would as a matter of physics take much longer than with a human. It seems reasonable to suppose this is also true when you compare a tiny fly with a comparatively massive human. That said, I haven't seen specific, explicit evidence to prove this seemingly logical theory.

Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?

#58
post #57
post #12

As someone who works in visual neuroscience, this article's a tough read. Lots of statements that are semi-accurate at best. 1) Eyes don't work like cameras; there's no real "exposure" phase as such (even though there's lots of thresholds). So it's misleading to talk about discrete images that we sample at some fixed frequency. Instead, it's much more helpful to think of photoreceptors and subsequent processing stage…

If your brain and body spanned the size of the Earth, the signals into and within the brain would as a matter of physics take much longer than with a human. It seems reasonable to suppose this is also true when you compare a tiny fly with a comparatively massive human. That said, I haven't seen specific, explicit evidence to prove this seemingly logical theory.

[deleted]

Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?

#59
post #55
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perspective of cathing a fly that walked on crap five minutes ago disgusts me. I know they cleanse their paws more often than I do mine, but faugh.

i always found it easy catching flies, especially in air, but squishing their guyts all over my hands is what bothers me most. an easy way to catch flies is to put rubbing alcohol in a squirt gun. even less than direct hits takes them out of the sky, and the alcohol cleans stuff in collateral damage.

Keep it trapped and walk to the sink, turn on faucet and throw it in.

Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?

#60
post #12

As someone who works in visual neuroscience, this article's a tough read. Lots of statements that are semi-accurate at best. 1) Eyes don't work like cameras; there's no real "exposure" phase as such (even though there's lots of thresholds). So it's misleading to talk about discrete images that we sample at some fixed frequency. Instead, it's much more helpful to think of photoreceptors and subsequent processing stage…

How about an analogy to CPU clock speed, bus speed, etc.? I think that's really what the camera analogy is getting at -- the rate at which the signals are getting processed and acted upon. Clock speed / bus speed would similarly determine how high of frequency you could "hear" stuff if we were talking about ears instead of eyes. I know the computer model of the brain is way off in many respects but I find it pretty useful for stuff like this.
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