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Eh they're not so bad. I've been wearing glasses since I was 8. Never once did I consider contacts. I still have a phobia about poking myself in the eye.

Although there are several school photo day shots of me wearing giant Aviator-style specs. Hey, it was the late 80s, early 90s, I was only 20 years out of style.

I ended up with bifocals at 10, due to my right eye.

Mind you, my left eye is fine.

I'm fine with this situation, it allows me to enjoy the MacBook Pro Retina to the fullest.

(Although that damn thing... threads appear to have stripped out in the chassis. Not impressed with that, will be calling up the local authorized service provider to see what can be done.)

derFunkenstein wrote:

Although there are several school photo day shots of me wearing giant Aviator-style specs. Hey, it was the late 80s, early 90s, I was only 20 years out of style.

Been there, done that. Except I think I kept wearing them into the mid-90s...

After using these all morning to read my computer screens, taking them off is extremely disorienting. I think I'm unlearning squinting.

edit: if anyone was interested, here's the pair I bought, made from Adidas:
http://www.silhouette.com/us/en/eyewear ... /7792/6050

bhtooefr wrote:

(Although that damn thing... threads appear to have stripped out in the chassis. Not impressed with that, will be calling up the local authorized service provider to see what can be done.)

Well, you're supposed to own it for a few minutes before you try to take it apart.

steelcity_ballin wrote:

After using these all morning to read my computer screens, taking them off is extremely disorienting. I think I'm unlearning squinting.

You'll get used to them and never want to be without them. I feel naked without my contacts or glasses.

just brew it! wrote:

Been there, done that. Except I think I kept wearing them into the mid-90s...

90's? Took the wife until '05 or so to get me out of those. After all, I only ever wore them at home once I'd popped out the contacts so I really didn't care how they looked.

DancinJack wrote:

You'll get used to them and never want to be without them. I feel naked without my contacts or glasses.

Whereas the current combination of my myopia and the age-related loss of close focus means that I'm most comfortable reading a book without any corrective lenses whatsoever. I'm sure that'll fade in a few years as the age-related stuff continues to get worse.

just brew it! wrote:

derFunkenstein wrote:

Although there are several school photo day shots of me wearing giant Aviator-style specs. Hey, it was the late 80s, early 90s, I was only 20 years out of style.

Been there, done that. Except I think I kept wearing them into the mid-90s...

At least you lived in a time when they were popular during your life.

I work for a company that has done work with TLC Lasik so there a substantial discount for corrective laser available if I would want it. My buddy in IT got it and regrets nothing. 5 minutes and when he was done he could see again. Science.

steelcity_ballin wrote:

I work for a company that has done work with TLC Lasik so there a substantial discount for corrective laser available if I would want it. My buddy in IT got it and regrets nothing. 5 minutes and when he was done he could see again. Science.

I have a buddy that works in the OR on a daily basis that got Lasik. He loves the results and recommends it to everyone.

DancinJack wrote:

steelcity_ballin wrote:

I work for a company that has done work with TLC Lasik so there a substantial discount for corrective laser available if I would want it. My buddy in IT got it and regrets nothing. 5 minutes and when he was done he could see again. Science.

I have a buddy that works in the OR on a daily basis that got Lasik. He loves the results and recommends it to everyone.

Sorry, never going there. I know the failure rate is low but in my case failure means I lose my job because if I can't drive I can't do my job. I'll gladly stick with contacts and glasses.

Also, LASIK still doesn't fix the age-related swelling and hardening of the eye's own lens, so I'd still need readers/computer glasses for about 12 hours each day.

Not an option for me either. I'm legally blind (from birth - so are my siblings), which is only one of the defects of my eyes.

Considering this is a forum populated mainly by computer techies and various nerds from peripheral fields, it might be a shorter list to figure out who isn't wearing glasses.

I'm nearsighted as a bat with a hint of astigmatism besides. Thankfully, there's a pretty good selection of fashionable frames and ultralight optical plastics these days. When I was in elementary school the glasses I had to wear were both hideous and heavy.

I've been lucky. 26 and I haven't needed them yet. Although the majority of my immediate and extended family wear them.

Captain Ned wrote:

bhtooefr wrote:

(Although that damn thing... threads appear to have stripped out in the chassis. Not impressed with that, will be calling up the local authorized service provider to see what can be done.)

Well, you're supposed to own it for a few minutes before you try to take it apart.

Hey now, the screws started backing out before anyone outside of China ever laid a screwdriver on it. (And then an Apple Store tech in KC tried to tighten them, but that didn't last.)

DancinJack wrote:

steelcity_ballin wrote:

I work for a company that has done work with TLC Lasik so there a substantial discount for corrective laser available if I would want it. My buddy in IT got it and regrets nothing. 5 minutes and when he was done he could see again. Science.

I have a buddy that works in the OR on a daily basis that got Lasik. He loves the results and recommends it to everyone.

I've seen people who had various issues after Lasik (poor night vision, eye "floaters", etc.)... Personally I'd rather wait for Sarif Industries to come up with better eye augmentations

Found yet another half-assed DIY home improvement job courtesy of the previous owner of our house.

We're re-doing the 1st floor half bath. Went to remove the toilet tank so we could scrape off the wallpaper behind the toilet. Bolts were rusted on solid because the tank bolts/washers were improperly installed, resulting in just enough seepage to completely corrode the bolts (but not enough to make a puddle). Looks like they "fixed" it by putting multiple layers of plumber's putty over the bolt heads inside the tank until the leak (mostly) stopped.

I had to drill the bolts out from inside the tank.

yeah, we're having our bathroom redone after finding multiple things like that when we started looking at doing it ourselves.

The outgoing drain from the sink? There's about 4 foot of rubber hose going to what I hope is actual plumbing. It starts about 3" behind the wall, and is held on to both ends by what look like zip ties.

The toilet had no wax sealing ring--significant water damage on the floor around it.

The electrical faucet is somehow wired into the light switch--the light has to be on to use something plugged into it.

The vent isn't. There's what looks like a vent, but it isn't hooked up to any pipes or anything.

The old toilet's bolts had corroded (similar to what JBI experienced).

The medicine cabinet is too un-level to use; the stuff falls out as soon as you open the door.

Uuuh, there's other stuff I just can't remember it. They're going to strip it down to studs and rebuild. 9200 frigging dollars. *puke*

paulWTAMU wrote:

They're going to strip it down to studs and rebuild. 9200 frigging dollars. *puke*

Speaking as someone who has contributed to a couple bathroom renovations and seen contractor quotes for a another, (a) that sounds about right and (b) pay it and flee -- that much crap in one room means they will surely find some other things you haven't even thought of yet. Wouldn't be surprised if some of the old copper water lines have to be cut out and replaced as well, once they actually get the drywall out and can inspect the works.

As for your wiring problem in particular, it never ceases to amaze me what the amateurs will do when nobody is looking, such as:

1) Friends' rental for two years: the two light sockets in the restroom fixture were evidently wired in series rather than parallel. Probably excellent for doing something romantic in the shower. Terrible for anything else.

2) Another friend's recent purchase: old restroom had a GFI outlet retrofit. A downstream lighting chain in two other rooms was wired from the slave terminals, and the GFI's box ground was improperly connected.

3) Still another friends' house: they decided to remove a non-loadbearing wall that was separating a very small dining room from a living room. That required pulling out a section of cabinets installed by the previous owner, upon which they found an electrical box from the original construction that both had no coverplate and was sealed up by the cabinets. The previous owner had then wired a series of slave receptacles just above the splash guard by simply cutting out some sort of cat's cradle pattern in the drywall that was covered by the cabinets, and stapling the cable to the surface of the exposed studs. When we got into the attic to install fresh junction boxes and wire drops to the reconfigured dining room light and receptacle circuits, we found the 60s-vintage aluminum feeder tied to a copper drop without a j-box or the Noalox-impregnated wire nuts, buried in the cellulose.

It's lucky that the previous owner in case (3) had abandoned the house by dying, because if he hadn't, I would have been sorely tempted to track him down and force-feed him an entire spool of Romex.

Bah... Just finished a long-ass conversation on one of the Wikipedia article's "Talk" pages only to yet again realize how utterly and irreversibly bureaucratic people there can be. Oh well, I'm done with that place, my last edit will be a {{retired}} template addition to my user page.

ludi wrote:

2) Another friend's recent purchase: old restroom had a GFI outlet retrofit. A downstream lighting chain in two other rooms was wired from the slave terminals, and the GFI's box ground was improperly connected.

The GFI outlet wiring in this house is a twisty little maze of wires running all over the place. All I can figure is that GFI outlets used to be really expensive, so they wanted to use the bare minimum number of them possible. E.g., all of the bathrooms are wired through the GFI outlet in the master bath, and all of the outdoor outlets are wired through the GFI outlet in the garage.

I really hate it when the wind blows in a way that the charcoal grill lighting-off smoke (chimney only, no Girl Scout Water) is captured by the fan in my office window. It's too stinking hot to set it to blow instead of suck, but it is what I must do.

Grilled Perfectly Normal Beast will come along in 30-45 minutes, though I do not hold myself out as a Sandwich Maker and Old Thrashbarg is full of it.

EDIT: Now, how to grab hold of Ford's unlimited Dine-O-Charge card.

I understood every word and yet have no idea what that post actually meant. Is it Vermont slang/colloquialisms?

The last two lines are Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy references.

bhtooefr wrote:

The last two lines are Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy references.

Specifically the Quintessential Phase, and there was some incipient PUI involved as well.

So a followup to my PITA trunk lock story from way back on page 676... my duct tape "fix" failed (actually I suspect the cable release failed, rendering the fix ineffective), so I got to take apart the rear deck and crawl into the trunk from the back seat again, this time to replace the lock cylinder.

(Which also means we now have what amounts to an inverse valet key, i.e. a key that only opens the trunk. )

I can do an honest pull up again! Time to start doing them (one each) between the other lifts, and then finish up with band assisted ones. It took forever but hey A pull up (particularly at 240) isn't bad.

Heh... I don't think I've even tried to do a pullup since I was in college. At this point I'm just yer basic middle-aged, out-of-shape geek. (And a homebrewer and beer judge too, which doesn't help... )

I have never dealt with Steam support before this week. Actually, I still haven't. Their response times are more than atrocious. I can't believe their support isn't top notch.