Become a Better Baseball/Softball Hitter: Know Your Dominant Eye

I had a hitting breakthrough last night. We were having batting practice when my teammate, Bruce, asked if I knew which was my dominant eye. He said if I knew my dominant eye, I should position my head so it was closest to the pitcher/ball.

Turns out my right eye is dominant which means, ideally, I should hit lefty (since my right eye would be closer to the ball). Well, hitting lefty isn't something I was going to do at that moment so I made a simple adjustment and rotated my head towards the left and focused on the ball MAINLY WITH MY RIGHT EYE (this is key). From that moment, I saw the ball more clearly and began hitting a steady stream of line drives (vs. fly outs).

Here's how to determine which eye is dominant:

  1. Hold your arms out in front of you.

  2. Make a circle by overlapping your hands. You should have a peep sight with the webs of your thumbs, like shown in the photo, and stare at an object in the distance.

  3. Look at an object through the hole made by your hands, preferably something round like a door knob.
  4. Focus on the object, not your hands.
  5. Now close one of your eyes. If you still see the object with your left eye open you are left eye dominant. If you still see the object with your right eye open you are right eyed dominant.

FYI, 80% of the population is right eye dominant and a very small percentage have no eye dominance at all (like my switch hitting 15-year old who can crush the ball from either side of the plate).

For more on this topic, read Science Made Simple

Happy hitting,

Mike

P.S. While we're on the topic of hitting, a pet peeve of mine is watching hitters warm up with a weighted bat. Watch this video and WAKE UP!

Is Blogging a Hobby or Business?

The following is excerpted from one of my favorite sites, kidslearntoblog.com

There are millions and millions of blogs on the net today.  They generally start as fun, but later on a few change into professional ones.

Is Blogging a Hobby or Business?

We write  posts  and play on the web.  Many think of these things as hobbies.  A hobby is something you do for fun, relaxation, and enjoyment.  It’s a change from the day-to-day grind of your job, whatever your job is.  It stretches the mind and body, actually making people  better workers for the time away from the job.

The moment you make money with your hobby, your hobby becomes a business.  As is with blogging it can be considered for both—education and earning.  When we start selling our hobby, it generally works.

Bloggers have turned from being a hobby buff.  They eagerly share their words and thoughts with others through their blogs, to businesses as their blogging changes once they put ads on their blogs.

Blogging and web publishing is a natural career move as technology developed along with skills and business.

There are bloggers who work 4 or 5 hours a day and make no money whereas business minded bloggers who work 4 or 5 hours a week and make 4 and 5 figures a month. The basic difference is focus.  If one adopts this smart move, blogging is one of the most fulfilling, easiest and most rewarding ways to make an income.

What does it take to turn blogging into a business?

It takes a whole lot of hard work, knowledge and passion about the topic you’re blogging about.  You need lots of patience and must get sophisticated and creative with your blogs.  Being in the right place at the right time sure helps!

You also need to frequently update your blog and reach out to the blogging community.  Practicing SEO tactics help a lot. You need to accustom yourself with the world of internet marketing with good strategies and sound technique.  Write what you love and then sell it.  Be professional and you will be successful!

Every moment you spend blogging and working on your blog has an hourly rate, which needs to be commensurate with what you need for income in order to survive and pay your bills, and hopefully build a better future for you and your family.

Some people turn their hobbies into multi-million dollar companies, and others turn their hobbies into simple blogs.  It’s up to you what makes you feel better, earning or just blogging.

A final note, rather than search for summer jobs for college students or jobs for teens, consider a blog and join some affiliate programs that interest you.

World War II in Photos

As reported in The Atlantic...

"World War II officially lasted from 1939 until 1945, but the causes of the conflict and its horrible aftermath echoed for decades in both directions. While feats of bravery and technological breakthroughs still inspire awe today, the majority of the war was dominated by unimaginable misery and destruction. In the late 1930s, the global population stood at approximately 2 billion. In less than a decade, the war between the nations of the Axis Powers and the Allies resulted in some 80 million deaths -- killing off about 4 percent of the whole world.

This series of entries was published weekly on TheAtlantic.com from June 19 through October 30, 2011, running every Sunday morning for 20 weeks. In this collection of 900 photos spread over 20 essays, the events of the war, the lives of the people fighting at the front and working back home, and the effects of the trauma on everyday activity is covered. These images still give us glimpses into the experiences of our parents, grandparents and great grandparents, moments that shaped the world as it is today."

This is a truly awesome collection.

via theatlantic.com

How Much Is Apple Worth?

Tech giant Apple is worth a lot of cash.

In addition to being the largest publicly traded company on the U.S. stock market, its 2011 sales were worth $128 billion — more than 160 different nations’ gross domestic products.

This Best Computer Science Degrees infographic compares Apple’s massive reach to things around it in the world.

For example, you could lay all of the 56.4 million iPads that are projected to sell in 2012 back and forth between the east and west coast and still have plenty left over. Meanwhile, nearly as many iOS devices were sold in the U.S. in 2008 as cars — 200 million compared with 213 million.

SEE ALSO: Apple Is Worth More than All the Tea in China; What Else Does It Beat?

Just how big is Apple?