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Permormance-Enhancing Contact Lenses

coastal984 writes "With all the allegations, criticisms, congressional hearings, and suspensions concerning performance-enchancing steroids and supplements in sports, namely Major League Baseball, Nike has now introduced performance-enhancing contact lenses. These new lenses, which give players wearing them a scary orange/amber tint to their eyes, block out useless blue tones and make colors such as red (i.e. the seams on a baseball, vital to batters) easier to see. They also block out sun rays and help ease shadows, as well as improve overall vision. There are also versions for golfers and other sports, and soon to be versions for night contests as well."

16 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Mini Blu-Blockers! by zulux · · Score: 4, Funny



    Only 19.95 + 7.99 S&H from NIKE!!!!

    Order now, and we'll throw in these set of knives!

    Operators are standing by! Order now!

    1-888-BLU-BLOK.

    --

    Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

  2. The slashdot editors by coljac · · Score: 3, Funny

    Could use some enhancement of their proofreading "permormance".

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    Everyone knows that damage is done to the soul by bad motion pictures. -Pope Pius XI
  3. Lasik is being used as well by venomkid · · Score: 4, Informative

    Apparently golf pros (Tiger Woods being one) are having their eyes recalibrated to 20/10 and better using Lasik. Some are attributing Woods' latest successes to it. Heard it on NPR.

    Personally, I can't wait for the cyborgs.

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    vk.
  4. useless blue tones by ZSpade · · Score: 5, Funny

    block out useless blue tones

    And at once a thousand tiny hi-piched screams sounded through the night, and no one ever saw a smurf, ever again.

    --
    Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
    1. Re:useless blue tones by iNetRunner · · Score: 3, Funny

      No no.. It's a ploy by Micrsoft.. These will be sold to better the Windows experience. Now ppl will never see the BSOD!

      --
      Store with salt
  5. What's wrong with making ourselves better anyway? by TheNarrator · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If there are no negative health effects, then what's the big deal? I can't understand why making ourselves better in these kinds of ways is in any way bad. . This anti-human-improvement sentiment that goes around whenever anything like this is announced reminds me of Vonnegut's Story about 2081 where everyone is finally equal.

    IMHO, I see it as a deeper cultural trend that originally started with Frankenstein. With every technological improvement, especially if it is augmenting human capability people are expecting some sort of Daedalus ironic ending. It's in a lot of sci-fi movies. Think Jurassic Park, Andromeda Strain, Terminator, The Matrix.

  6. Performance enhancing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hardly. This is not really a newsworthy piece - if sunglasses with the same tints, etc, have the same effect, you can hardly call contact lens' that do the same revolutionary in any sense.

  7. Re:prescription? by wibs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    excuse me for my ignorance... why would these sports-tweaked contacts be more useful than normal contacts for you?

    --
    If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
  8. slashdot... news for... by killa62 · · Score: 5, Funny

    NERDS. stuff that MATTERS!
    Sports? bah...

  9. Nothing So New by jfb3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    These appear to be the same as the shooting lenses, skiing goggles, driving glasses we've had around for years, just in contact form.

  10. Re:prescription? by coastal984 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Speaking from experience (yes, a slashdot reader that is also a sports buff and athlete), day games can be VERY tough. Picking up the seams of a baseball in motion is vital to determining where it's going to end up when it reaches you - it's the rotation of the ball causing the seams to catch the air and make it curve, drop, and go in other directions.

    Further, baseball diamonds are traditionally placed with the plate facing out towards between the north and east - in northern directions, the pitcher is fine, but if the plate is facing out towards the east, the setting sun to the west is right in the pitchers face - and pitchers are not allowed to wear sunglasses.

    Finally, another challenge is picking up balls in changing lights (i.e. coming out of a shadow) or when its high in a bright daytime sky (thus blocking out blue-tones). When the ball is leaving a pitchers hand in excess of 90 miles per hour and coming off the bat twice as fast or more, every little bit helps...

    When they come out with the night game lens, they will help players from losing the ball when its up in the lights, or when it blends in with the crowd, and other instances where the speeding ball is difficult to pick up.

  11. safety glasses by cahiha · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In most sports, you should be wearing safety glasses anyway, and whatever fashionable tints you want incorporate, you can incorporate there.

    I suspect people put this tint into contact lenses because you probably look kind of stupid wearing pink safety glasses.

  12. Re:What's wrong with making ourselves better anywa by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If there are no negative health effects, then what's the big deal?
    I can't understand why making ourselves better in these kinds of ways is in any way bad.


    Its fine in real life. But in sports, you have to make a decision - do you want to see competition based on the hard work of the athlete or the hard work of his doctors and technicians? If you want to see the later, then no problem.

    If you want to see human atheletic competition than artifical body modifications - chemical, mechanical or otherwise, need to be kept out and a clear and up to date definition needs to accompany that ban.

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  13. Re:I though human eyes saw blue the best by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 3, Informative



    I though human eyes saw blue the best

    Actually, the human eye has peak sensitivity for yellow light.

    So why would you want to block it out??

    Because the blue wavelengths of light are the ones most scattered by nitrogen. Since nitrogen accounts for 78% of our atmosphere, blue light gets scattered quite a bit, which is why the sky is blue. Since blue light scatters so much, it tends to blur vision. Screening these wavelengths out leads to an overall sharper picture.

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    ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

  14. Re:What's wrong with making ourselves better anywa by TopShelf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How is this anything other than an improved version of sunglasses? It's not like these lenses link into a laser-calibrated swing mechanism that helps the guy hit better. Personally, I think this is a great step forward.

    Thinking back to when I played, I wonder if it helps outfielders pick up fly balls better - even with sunglasses, sometimes the glare of the sun can make a ball uncatchable.

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    Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
  15. Artifical is the new natural by Julian+Morrison · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We are a species that, naked, dies from cold or sun. Our clothes are our skin. So are contact lenses our eyes, and cars our feet?

    If anything this and similar are gradually working to deconstruct the idea of the natural born human as a standalone unit. Rather, all humans are necessarily "cyborgs". Creating and integrating with tools to extend the self is the true species specialty.