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Archive for the ‘Gifted People’ Category
David Pay The Riceman
On June - 9 - 2009
Real Life Superpower: Microscopic Vision
On June - 2 - 2009
There have existed over time people with various “super” abilities. Things that really defy the norm. This article is first in an ongoing series cataloging these abilities.
Microscopic Vision; Defined as the capability to see things that are very tiny, often portrayed in comics as a “zooming in” effect like focusing a microscope or telescope. I was able to find 2 case studies of people with microscopic vision.
First is the case of A. Schiller, a convicted forger serving time in Sing Sing in the late 19th century. Schiller died in prison and when they searched his body, on his person they found seven ordinary straight pins. Six of these pins had silver heads and one was gold. On the heads of each of these pins, which were 47/1000ths of an inch or 1.17 millimeters in diameter, was written all 65 words of the Lord’s prayer.
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These words were only viewable to the layperson (read: person without microscopic vision) under a microscope with 500x magnification. These feats took Schiller 25 years, using a tool that’s so small it’s invisible to the naked eye. He supposedly went blind from the effort, meaning he probably couldn’t see anything unless it was right in front of his face and possibly very tiny. Truly amazing works of art.
The second is David Pay, the rice writer. I first saw David on an old episode of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not years ago, and was able to find this Youtube clip of that episode:
David writes on rice without any visual aids at all, no small feat. The difference between him and Schiller up there is that he doesn’t seem to have visual problems at all. No glasses or anything. While I don’t think David’s work is as tiny as Schiller’s, it’s still very amazing. He even started to work on his own version of the Lord’s prayer on a single grain of rice, and mentions that with smaller, higher quality tools, he’d be able to write even smaller.
In the latter part of the video clip in Spanish, he writes the entire alphabet on a rice grain in 25 seconds though his record is apparently 17.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Looking For Sci Fi Blog Fodder!
On May - 25 - 2009
Hey all, I’m looking for some things to write about on this blog. Seeing as how there are a HUGE amount of sci-fi and comic book movies coming out recently I figured I’d take requests on doing relevant posts.
So if you have a question about how a super power would work in real life, or a piece of sci-fi technology, or a superhero or whatever, email it to me and I’ll do my best to answer it in its own blog post here on Digital Scryer.
You can reach me at brent@digitalscryer.com
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Superhuman…
On April - 1 - 2009
If you could be superhuman, have a “power” or “gift” would you want it? For centuries there have been ways for people to advance far beyond their peers. Scientific advancements in the last 40 years have made this more doable, widespread, and easier than ever for everyone.
Anyone who knows me has no doubt heard me talk at length about our VAST untapped potential. I think the clincher is that everyone says “Sure! I’d LOVE something that helped make my life easier” but nobody wants to work for it.
Now it seems like we’re getting to the point where not only will we not have to work for it, but there will be such differences in what people choose, that I think it will lead to the creation of a caste system. Which could be better, what with everyone having their place and all, kind of like communism that actually works. This would lead to a lack of free will amongst everyone but the those in the populace who are built for thinking. Anyway, just putting it out there.
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Should Mental Enhancement Be Taught In Schools?
On February - 27 - 2009
It’s been proven time and again that like with any muscle, using your brain more makes it more powerful. Should mental techniques be taught in school from elementary to high school? I think so.
Speed reading can be quite effective, getting up to 1000-2000 words per minute with 100% comprehension. Memory tricks that anyone can learn, such as the Asian man who memorized Pi to 85,000+ places, would help students amazingly.
There are people who have mastered techniques for memorizing entire books at rapid paces and so forth; couple this with intuitive calculation and have a school full of Mentats. Not to mention hypnosis/self-hypnosis and the VAST benefits it allows for would be amazingly beneficial to kids, hell to everyone.
Emotional Freedom Techniques, EFT, can be used to remove all kinds of emotional hangups on everyone, and significantly aid in healing and removing chronic illness. These tools are all readily available to anyone with a net connection, and IMHO they should be taught in schools K-12. They could start out as imagination games and whatnot and be full on self hypnosis and EFT classes by high school.
Some FREE resources online:
http://grasshopperx.com/cyborg-101/
http://www.freewebs.com/syvak/teachings/TheBeneGesseritTrainingManual.pdf
http://www.scribd.com/doc/11959148/The-100-Brain-Course-Master-Manual
All have some useful ideas and training exercises to boost brainpower. Cyborg 101 even has sections on nootropics and smart-nutrients for the brain-booster fans among us. Check them out and see if you agree that we should make this stuff a part of schooling from the get go. Teaching effective time management also couldn’t hurt, heck Steve Pavlina used it to get 2 Bachelor’s Degrees in 3 semesters:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/do-it-now.htm
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