Thoroughly Entertaining Example of Insane Skill & Accuracy

    Posted In: Blog Discussion

        • Keymaster
          Mike Young on November 7, 2008 at 4:59 pm #15014

          Some of the recent posts on the the forum have examined skill acquisition, movement accuracy and other motor learning concepts. With this in mind, I thought I’d take the liberty to make the leap to this insane video of some insane skill levels in some otherwise ridiculous and meaningless tasks. Check it out. You’ll be amazed.

          Continue reading…

          ELITETRACK Founder

        • Participant
          Daniel Andrews on November 7, 2008 at 5:11 pm #74082

          freaky, of course it could have been special effects and video manipulation

        • Keymaster
          Mike Young on November 7, 2008 at 5:19 pm #74085

          Yeah…I thought that too. Especially for the one with the wok. It could be as simple as some dude outside of the camera site operating a clapper. Clap on. Clap off. Clap on. Clap off. THE CLAPPER!

          ELITETRACK Founder

        • Participant
          Chad Williams on November 8, 2008 at 1:55 am #74091

          Yeah, I honestly don’t think a ping pong ball can move a light switch. Maybe if you threw it at point blank range as hard as you could, but otherwise it won’t happen.

        • Member
          riseabove on November 8, 2008 at 2:12 am #74092

          Yeah, I honestly don’t think a ping pong ball can move a light switch. Maybe if you threw it at point blank range as hard as you could, but otherwise it won’t happen.

          If you look the lights aren’t normal light switches- they are the “see-saw” type that just move in and out, depending upon if they are on or off.

        • Participant
          coachformerlyknownas on November 8, 2008 at 2:13 am #74093

          2nd generation wanna-be’s

          Coach was a “Pong” savant 35 years ago…

        • Participant
          Chad Williams on November 8, 2008 at 2:28 am #74094

          [quote author="Chad Williams" date="1226089535"]Yeah, I honestly don’t think a ping pong ball can move a light switch. Maybe if you threw it at point blank range as hard as you could, but otherwise it won’t happen.

          If you look the lights aren’t normal light switches- they are the “see-saw” type that just move in and out, depending upon if they are on or off.
          [/quote]

          To expand. The “see-saw” light switch still takes a considerable amount of force and doesn’t just move with a tap. The weight of a ping-pong ball is a few grams. Once you move a considerable distance away or bounce the ball, it will lose speed quickly. If you don’t believe, go home and try it for yourself. You will find that some of the tricks they do are pretty much impossible.

          A normal light switch would be next to impossible to move in a normal circumstance with a ping pong ball. Anything but straight up or straight down would result in failure.

        • Member
          riseabove on November 8, 2008 at 2:57 am #74095

          Hmm… i’ll go home at lunch and try, i think we have a switch or two like this. I know playing a game called “FireBall” a pingpong ball can knock over a beer can that still has some beer in it, so I don’t see why it couldn’t bump the light off.

          Update to follow around 1:15pm

        • Keymaster
          Mike Young on November 8, 2008 at 3:04 am #74096

          The light switch issue was one of the first things that made me skeptical but then I realized they were the flat switches and possibly even the touch sensitive (rather than the rocker kind pictured above). The touch sensitive kind have a pad that takes up about the entire surface of the wall mount which would mean for a much bigger target.

          ELITETRACK Founder

        • Participant
          Chad Williams on November 8, 2008 at 3:19 am #74097

          The light switch issue was one of the first things that made me skeptical but then I realized they were the flat switches and possibly even the touch sensitive (rather than the rocker kind pictured above). The touch sensitive kind have a pad that takes up about the entire surface of the wall mount which would mean for a much bigger target.

          Touch sensitive would require some static electricity which would not be generated by the ping pong ball. Try using your ipod or your touch lamp with a ping pong ball, it doesn’t work.

        • Keymaster
          Mike Young on November 8, 2008 at 4:02 am #74098

          No there are different kinds of these light switches…kinda like mouse pads on non-mac laptops. Those are pressure sensitive. iPods and the new Mac laptops rquire an electrical charge.

          ELITETRACK Founder

        • Participant
          Chad Williams on November 8, 2008 at 4:31 am #74104

          I stand corrected on the touch pads . . .

          I am going to write Mythbusters and see Jaime and Adam put these light switches to the test.

        • Member
          riseabove on November 8, 2008 at 7:42 am #74118

          yeah- didn’t have enough time… but if i remember over the weekend I will def. give it a go! Touch sensitive ones could be the ticket also… it’s hard to tell from the camera.

        • Participant
          Daniel Andrews on November 8, 2008 at 7:50 am #74119

          I think they have a picture of a ball they took from a blue or green background, then took the picture from the first bounce and used the clapper. While they edited out the real ball.

        • Member
          aivala on November 9, 2008 at 9:36 am #74155

          If you want to see extreme skill and accuracy check this out:

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D-Bqo10oF4

          He was about 82 years old in that video.

        • Keymaster
          Mike Young on November 9, 2008 at 12:47 pm #74157

          That’s nothing. I could do that easily 😉

          ELITETRACK Founder

        • Keymaster
          Mike Young on November 10, 2008 at 5:06 pm #74179

          Let the piano man try this!!!!

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNnY1lkZOJU

          ELITETRACK Founder

        • Participant
          dwahl on November 12, 2008 at 3:46 pm #74250

          Not that the video wasn’t cool, but, one of my athletes is a videographer. His reply to the video;

          “Okay, the big give-away is the faked hand-held style. You can tell that all the shots are stable, or ‘lock-downs’ (thus allowing for easier compositing of the ball into the video frame) and the shakey hand-held effect is key-framed in later. Compositing a simple object like a pingpong ball is pretty easy for someone with some time. I have to say, this video is very convincing though. Great sound design and very believeable acting.”

          Not sure what “lock-downs’ are, but, I trust that he knows far more about editing than I or most people.

        • Keymaster
          Mike Young on November 12, 2008 at 4:17 pm #74251

          Not that the video wasn’t cool, but, one of my athletes is a videographer. His reply to the video;

          “Okay, the big give-away is the faked hand-held style. You can tell that all the shots are stable, or ‘lock-downs’ (thus allowing for easier compositing of the ball into the video frame) and the shakey hand-held effect is key-framed in later. Compositing a simple object like a pingpong ball is pretty easy for someone with some time. I have to say, this video is very convincing though. Great sound design and very believeable acting.”

          Not sure what “lock-downs’ are, but, I trust that he knows far more about editing than I or most people.

          Cool. Welcome to the boards and thanks for the insight. I do quite a lot of science grade video work but very little editing other than deinterlacing, cropping, anti-alias, file type conversion, etc. I’ll take his word for it. The acting was very believable.

          ELITETRACK Founder

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