random quote

[Jonathan]

Some question whether such a glove would present a setback for the hard of hearing. For years, organizations like the National Association of the Deaf have defended deafness as a unique trait, not a deficiency. It has pushed the hearing world to embrace deaf individuals rather than forcing them to use technology like cochlear implants to accommodate the hearing world.
"Many within the medical profession continue to view deafness essentially as a disability and an abnormality and believe that deaf and hard of hearing individuals need to be 'fixed' by cochlear implants," NAD says on its website. Doctors shouldn't force parents to view deafness as a disease that needs curing, the group says.

well, yeah. cuz it is. i don't claim that being nearsighted makes me a part of a special nearsighted culture. i get that shit fixed, yo.

[Peijen]

I suppose you think been blind is a disability too, you nazi.

[Jonathan]

yep. so are have down's syndrome and being an amputee! i'm harsh.

[bob]

I hate not having super vision. My glasses don't even work as well as I'd like. See, I've got this problem where eyeglass makers just plain suck. They read the prescription, and that's all fine and good. But then they figure "oh, you must wear your glasses exactly the same way that the manufacturer intends, where you only look straight ahead and turn your head if you want to see to the side". And I told them that I don't wear them exactly like the models in the pictures, because that would block my vision in any direction other than "straight ahead", but they go ahead and do their sweet spot in the wrong place for me anyway, and so my glasses never work right. I should get laser surgery. Because, good luck replacing broken glasses once the apocalypse hits!

[Jonathan]

my problem with laser surgery is that i require a lot of correction. that means more laser cuts, which means more risk. my doctor says the risks of halos, not completely fixed vision, and poor night vision are increased for someone with my prescription. which essentially blows.

i've giving them another 5 years to improve and get some more longterm studies done on the effects and then i'll see again.

[quantus]

Soft contacts work good for me. I'm at -5 now and they still work great for me. I don't have to take off glasses and clean them 50 billion times a day. I can look in any direction I want to without necessarily turning my head in that direction. I actually have a thing called peripheral vision and it works. Anyways, I didn't want to get contacts at first and had a terrible time getting used to poking my eye to get them in, but I decided to give them a try anyway. Now I'm glad I did.

[Jonathan]

Soft contacts work good for me. I'm at -5 now and they still work great for me. I don't have to take off glasses and clean them 50 billion times a day. I can look in any direction I want to without necessarily turning my head in that direction. I actually have a thing called peripheral vision and it works. Anyways, I didn't want to get contacts at first and had a terrible time getting used to poking my eye to get them in, but I decided to give them a try anyway. Now I'm glad I did.

so i wore contacts throughout high school and brought them to college, though everyone knows i wore them very little in college. the vision provided by contacts is superior; you'll get no argument from me there. my tear film is patchy in places, meaning that my eye is dry there. this is irritating while wearing contacts. also, i had swollen eyelids from wearing contacts which forced me to stop wearing them for a time. i wouldn't rule out acquiring contacts in the future, but for now i'll deal with glasses. i might look into the wear once/throw away kind or perhaps the ultra-permeable sleep-in-them kind (and just not sleep in them).

you can get used to anything. i have grabbed my bare eyeball and attempted to pull it out by accident. now that's a repressed reflex.

[Jonathan]

oh, my prescription is -8.25 diopters.

[quantus]

oh, my prescription is -8.25 diopters.

heh, you'd be legally blind (not to be confused with legally blonde) if that was your vision after correction

[quantus]

Soft contacts work good for me. I'm at -5 now and they still work great for me. I don't have to take off glasses and clean them 50 billion times a day. I can look in any direction I want to without necessarily turning my head in that direction. I actually have a thing called peripheral vision and it works. Anyways, I didn't want to get contacts at first and had a terrible time getting used to poking my eye to get them in, but I decided to give them a try anyway. Now I'm glad I did.

so i wore contacts throughout high school and brought them to college, though everyone knows i wore them very little in college. the vision provided by contacts is superior; you'll get no argument from me there. my tear film is patchy in places, meaning that my eye is dry there. this is irritating while wearing contacts. also, i had swollen eyelids from wearing contacts which forced me to stop wearing them for a time. i wouldn't rule out acquiring contacts in the future, but for now i'll deal with glasses. i might look into the wear once/throw away kind or perhaps the ultra-permeable sleep-in-them kind (and just not sleep in them).

you can get used to anything. i have grabbed my bare eyeball and attempted to pull it out by accident. now that's a repressed reflex.

Yes, contacts hurt like a mofo if your eyes are dry. They also tend to stop sticking to your eye as well and make your vision all blury.

[Peijen]

oh, my prescription is -8.25 diopters.

heh, you'd be legally blind (not to be confused with legally blonde) if that was your vision after correction

NAZI

[VLSmooth]

oh, my prescription is -8.25 diopters.

Interesting, I thought I was the only one with about -8 (not sure about the decimal) for my right eye. My left is -7.75 iirc, but has an additional astigmatism of ~1.

Yet I still seem to notice low refresh rates much easier than most people. Sigh, talk about the worst of both worlds.

Whee!

[Jonathan]

from what i recall from trying on your glasses, the main noticeable thing was that your astigmatism distorted everything.

[VLSmooth]

When was the last time you tried on my glasses? o.o

I just recently got this astigmatism ~2 years ago.

Speaking of which, I need to take advantage of Argon's medical plan and get an eye checkup soon.

[Dave]

I just recently got this stigmatism ~2 years ago.

damnit vinny. I said im sorry. I told you to close your eyes anyways.

[Jonathan]

Kenneth Frank, a Philadelphia physician and lepidopterist, says that light-lured moths often miss their brief opportunities to mate, or succumb to light-stalking predators. Bright lights also disrupt migration routes, confining some moth populations to isolated islands of darkness. But Frank concedes that the plight of moths is unlikely to rouse public outcry. "Never argue against something on behalf of moths," he warns. "People will just laugh at you. Talk about ecosystems instead."

So true.

[Alan]

It's called astigmatism, not stigmatism.

Also, they have a point about the deafness. If you've been deaf (or blind) for a really long time the areas in your brain that handle perception of those types of stimuli will either have atrophied or been taken over by other functions, and even being able to pick up light or sound won't really enable you to hear/see again.

In other words, yes, you can "cure" blindness and deafness, but that won't necessarily help them. The methods they've developed to accomodate their disability become good enough that they don't really need whatever sense they're missing anymore, and bringing it back sometimes actually hurts a lot more than helps.

[Jonathan]

As Mikka Luttinen (the vocalist for a reasonably well-known Finnish black metal band Impaled Nazarene) put it: "In Finland, it's dark for ten months a year. You either start a band or cut your wrists".

Mmm, well-known Finnish black metal bands,

[Jonathan]

This one's a two parter.

As Business Week noted on the fourth of August, the top five brand leaders worldwide are Coca Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE [Who they? Ed] and Intel, followed closely by Nokia, Disney, McDonalds and fag brand Marlboro.

Unfortunately for Transmeta and AMD, they're not in the top 100, although the latter has done sterling branding work for example supporting slightly famous British soccer team Blackburn Rovers. It's not Manchester United, but hey, we're talking limited budgets.

[Alan]

Hehe Blackburn sucks.