not trying to be that guy, but I swat the fly dead 9/10 times. Mr Miyagi did also train me, but I don't use the chopsticks like my moderated compardre above.
Why is it so hard to swat a fly?
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Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?
#72If 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.
You have to learn the kind of fly though. Take-off differs between species :)
I love HN.
Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?
#73As 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…
Yes this was my first thought after reading the article: no apparent evidence that these animals experience the passage of time at different rates.
I'm really surprised at the resistance to this idea. Granted that we can never know another person's conscious experience, never mind another species', what reason could there be to think that it would be the same in this regard as ours? Seems to me the burden of proof falls more on that claim than on the claim that they're different, which I find completely plausible.
Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?
#74Check out the "bug-a-salt" salt gun. With good aim it's more effective and fun than a flyswatter. Absurdly, amazon wouldn't ship to California but you can buy from https://bugasalt.com When swatting, I've found they can only fly forward and had good success anticipating that movement. Apparently others in this thread can catch them on the fly's initial backwards jump, which I had never noticed.
Works like a charm. Cannot recommend highly enough.
Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?
#75Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?
#76I really never had a problem catching flies and I don't even think I have fast reactions. You just need to observe their flight silently for a few moments, breathe subtly and make your move suddenly, preferably from the back. They are amazing at avoiding hits from the front. Put yourself in the mindset of a deadly, stalking predator instead of irritated house resident and watch those kill counts stack up.
Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?
#77Want to kill the fly with your hands, clap above it
Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?
#78Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?
#79Re: Why is it so hard to swat a fly?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the informed opinion. I know way less about animal vision than machine vision but the statement that eyes have a "frame rate" and "send images to the brain a fixed number of times a second" smelled really bad. A maybe-dumb question about point (3) - I've noticed that when I get a blink/flinch response from something (usually some sand or a bug hitting my face when I'm on the bike), it feels like I blink ju…
> I've noticed that when I get a blink/flinch response from > something (usually some sand or a bug hitting my face when > I'm on the bike), it feels like I blink just a split second > before the thing hit me. We know very little about conscious perception or even the locus at which sensory signals are integrated to generate a conscious percept. But it's perfectly possible that delays differ across modalities and tha…
Cool, thanks for the response! I'm glad my theory doesn't sound /too/ far fetched. :)