My Secret Power
Everyone has a special talent, something they can do, that others can't do, or not as well. Would you like to know one of mine?
I have a talent that seems useless, even gross, and yet I have found it to have practical applications.
I can cross my eyes.
I'll wait while you finish going, "ewwwww!"
You probably know that our depth perception depends in large part on our using both eyes to see things from slightly different angles. The brain takes the image from each eye and produces the sense of depth from the differences seen by each eye. It's how those old Viewmasters work that you may have seen as a kid, with tiny little slides arranged around a disk, and when you look in the viewer you see them in 3D.
Anyway, by crossing my eyes I can merge together two similar images, and any differences between them look closer or farther away than the rest of the image. Those puzzles where you need to spot the differences between two images? Easy if you can cross your eyes.
When I used to service computers I could examine two circuit boards like that, and if one had the wrong component, the differences really popped when I used crossed eyes to spot them.
Today I encountered a sobering use of this talent. A photographer took some footage of Ground Zero and used consecutive frames to create stereo pairs you can view with crossed eyes to see Ground Zero in 3d.
So what's your secret talent?
Blog Tag: Chatter
Posted 5/10/2006 12:00:00 AM
L
On 5/10/2006 4:10 AM, 
gemmak said...
On 5/10/2006 10:05 AM, Candace said...
On 5/10/2006 2:24 PM, 
said...
On 5/11/2006 8:34 AM, Candace said...
On 5/11/2006 11:07 PM, Michelle said...
On 5/13/2006 9:50 AM, Mary said...
6 Comments:
Ummm...I'm not sure I have one...or not one I'm about to broadcast at any rate! ;o)
By placing a pencil in both hands, I can use my right hand (my non-dominant writing hand) to write in a forward direction, which will allow me to simultaneously write in a backward direction with my left hand (my dominant writing hand).
This isn't what I would call a secret power, nor would I say that the script is entirely legible.
What's interesting is that I've found that numerous left handers have this ability. Right handers --- on the other hand --- seem to have much more difficulty with this exercise.
Well, I wouldn't call this particular trait a talant because its not very usefull, its really just an irritating, involuntary quirk. I can usually identify a song within the first few notes.
By the way, Candace, that particular talant came in "handy" in high school when it came time to sign yearbooks and your left hand was in a cast!
Connie, your quirk is only mildly irritating. What's truly annoying to the lyrically-impaired (moi) is the fact that you, your sisters AND your daughter have this astounding ability to learn ALL of the words to a song after listening to it one time --- oh, excuse me, I've been told that occassionally some of you ladies might have to listen to it twice.
Meanwhile, I'm making up words as I go... that is, if I can manage to remember the tune.
Bugger-it-all!
::grin::
LOL, i'm the same as Gem, no talent i can speak of! My daughter does though. She writes right handed and plays sport with the left. Tennis, softball, etc all left handed, but she switches the racquet to the righthand to hit back handers LOL...confused?
Dave, that's really cool about being able to use crossed eyes like that.
As for me, I can't really call it a 'talent' but I have the ability to make my arms bend and twist in odd ways, so that it looks like my arms are on 'backwards', as my kids say. It's not really good for anything except freaking people out once in a while. ;)
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