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I've acquired a new superpower

danielwirtz.com

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Re: I've acquired a new superpower

#431

Post by floydnoel »

wruza wrote: post #117
robotguy wrote: post #61

When auto stereograms were all the rage in the late 80's I had a program on my Mac Plus that let me make/edit them and I used to edit for hours WHILE looking at them in 3D. Then one time I was walking down a hallway with a repetitive wallpaper pattern, my eyes did the thing, the entire hallway appeared to shift in front of me, and I stumbled and fell. Still to this day my eyes will sometimes automatically snap into '…

This happens to me easily inside cars with these dotted-breathing roof interior patterns. (Edit: g “perforated vinyl fabric”) Well, worse than easily - sometimes I cannot get back to normal and am not sure how far it actually is, because the nature of the pattern allows to re-lock at every few cm. I just don’t know where I’m really looking at unless there’s an irregular object nearby.

I don’t share a lot of comments from HN with my spouse, but this made me crack up so much that I just had to. Thanks for the story!

Re: I've acquired a new superpower

#432

Post by rahimnathwani »

smusamashah wrote: post #246

For anyone who wants to learn this, try this way using your finger as a helper. Put the images in front of your eyes. Bring your finger between your face and the image at almost middle of the distance. Now look at your finger. Move your finger back and forth and notice the background (where your picture is) While doing this, notice that at a particular distance, the images in background will perfectly overlap each ot…

I've always been able to merge pictures by focusing into the distance, and I thought that's how everyone did it. So I found confusing all the talk of crossing eyes. I tried your instructions and, within 30 seconds, was able to see the cat image by crossing my eyes.

The cross eyed method seems more amenable to different image sizes. With my regular method, I can't merge images if they're too large (unless I step back).

Re: I've acquired a new superpower

#434

Post by dclowd9901 »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #187

We got a magic eye book when I was maybe 6 - some time early elementary school. After learning how to do it, and also trying it by crossing my eyes to see an "inverted" image, I started doing it whenever I saw some repeating pattern IRL. It was most interesting when it was slightly uneven, for example a fence with sloppily applied vertical planks. Doing the magic eye would make it seem like some of them are closer to…

Yep, this is exactly what came to mind with this "newly unlocked superpower".

I wonder if OP is aware they made a joke about the inability to use this superpower to identify a sailboat in a 90s indie movie.

Re: I've acquired a new superpower

#435

Post by phist_mcgee »

dlgeek wrote: post #403
abotsis wrote: post #334

I have strabismus and have always been good at these games. I wonder if it helps me for similar reasons? The examples on his page were pretty easy for me, though the universe one took maybe 45 seconds.

Funny. I also have strabismus and I've never, ever been able to see those hidden picture games or these things even once. I never developed stereoscopic depth perception, which I assume is related.

Same here, i've always wondered what other people see. An optometrist once said that I see everything as if viewing a tv screen through my eyes, but having no point of reference it looks normal to me. I am pretty bad at parallel parking though, perhaps that's my lack of 'native' depth perception.

Re: I've acquired a new superpower

#436

Post by gcanyon »

I am so remarkably one-eye dominant (my left) that the first image just looks like the right cat to me about 98% of the time. Every once in a bit I'll see the flicker, but even then it's faint and hard to notice.

Re: I've acquired a new superpower

#437

Post by gcanyon »

the__alchemist wrote: post #33

If you've done Magic Eyes, this is straightforward. Was able to get all 3 of the test images quickly. This is with focusing beyond the screen. Focusing in front of the screen is something I am unable to do, and not for want of effort. Also, your eyes might accidentally do this if looking at tiled patterns, e.g. wallpaper. Relative image size (e.g. view distance) is important.

I can do magic eyes, but this technique doesn't work for me. My left eye is dominant enough that the whole image just looks like what my left eye is seeing.

Re: I've acquired a new superpower

#438

Post by krick »

satvikpendem wrote: post #4

Note that there is a difference between crossview and parallel view. See this image [0] and try to overlap them. Depending on what you see in the foreground, that is the type of view you're able to see. Basically, it determines whether the 3D view you're seeing from the stereoscopic pair is convex (pops out of the page) or concave (goes into the page). It is of course possible to learn both views but most people natu…

Cannot figure out what is the difference. I can focus on both seemingly without changing anything, even though they aren't both in focus at the same time. But I don't know what I'm doing differently, I just move my eyes up or down, adjust a bit, and that's it.

Re: I've acquired a new superpower

#439

Post by anigbrowl »

warner25 wrote: post #348
duxup wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Probably my peak fame right there. My son and I always make jokes about everyone's 5 minutes of fame. Some random person on the jumbotron at a sporting event "Yup, there's his moment, it's over now." At least yours got you something ;)

Totally indulging in this side discussion: I remember thinking in high school and college that fame was the end-all of life, telling people that my goal was to have my own Wikipedia page. I saw it as something like the combination of being a "cool kid" (but for, you know, the whole of society instead of just one's school) and a sort of immortality. Anyway, over the last couple of decades as an adult, besides realizin…

Except that if you become curious about, say, Benjamin Harrison you can go look up his Wikipedia page and I presume find one or more books about him. The person who is just listed somewhere such as a genealogy database is just a name, unless you choose to do an elaborate and expensive research project on them to figure out who they were and what they did.

Re: I've acquired a new superpower

#440

Post by brightball »

klondike_klive wrote: post #219
duxup wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Probably my peak fame right there. My son and I always make jokes about everyone's 5 minutes of fame. Some random person on the jumbotron at a sporting event "Yup, there's his moment, it's over now." At least yours got you something ;)

One of my dad's sayings when somebody in a film delivered a line and then disappeared was "6 months rehearsal for that."

The swordsman in Indiana Jones comes to mind.

The guy famously trained for months for the fight scene and a tired Harrison Ford just pulled out the gun and shot him. Everybody thought it was hilarious and that became the scene.

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