Love this meme.
Sunday 29 March 2009
Tuesday 24 March 2009
New eyes - well sort of!
I have poor eyesight. It began degrading when I was about 10 but has pretty much stabilised. I require a lens at about -5.5 diopters which is medium myopia. Aside from meaning that I need glasses or contact lenses it also means that I have a higher chance of pigment pigment dispersion syndrome or pigmentary glaucoma. Anyway, I wear contact lenses and have been using extended wear (the type you wear continuously without removal for a month - or much longer if you like to live dangerously).
As a guy 'with glasses' I'm often encountered with the question of whether I'd consider laser surgery. Lasik is pretty popular at the moment and seems to do a good job. I thought I'd write about why I do not consider this a good option for most people.
First Lasik surgery is commonly only performed on a small central portion of the cornea which means that during the day, when your iris is contracted it works fine. However, in low light and at night when the iris is open the bad gets in with the good and vision can be degraded. There is probably a way around this issue, such as lasing a larger area, so in the future this might not be a problem. There are, however, other reasons.
If your myopia gets worse getting a second stint of laser correction is not normally an option because they remove some of the cornea everytime and it isn't usually thick enough for more than one correction. This is a good reason not to bother.
Presbyopia - i.e. that thing that happens as you get old. As I age I'll not be able to see things that are close as well as I can now. Currently without any correction I can see stuff that is as close as 5 cm away, and with my lenses in as close as 11 cm away. [side note - it is pretty cool being able to focus on objects that are only 5cm from the eye, good for seeing fine detail and usually only babies have near vision this good. This ability is a feature of myopia. The 11 cm with the lenses in is fairly normal for a guy my age]. As I age this will get worse, to the point when 1m might be the closest distance for objects I can focus on. This is unavoidable. However, this distance of 1m is with normal eyes (aka with my lenses in or glasses on) without them this will be nowhere near as bad. Myopics are less susceptible to the effects of presbyopia. - So, by permanently correcting myopia using laser surgery, one condemns oneself to poor close up vision in later stages of life.
Also, I don't see the point or the unnecessary expense. With new contact lens technology it is like you don't have bad eyes at all. I don't even notice my normal continuous wear lenses anymore... except in dusty environments or when I go swimming or do sports or lose one. This is the rub. The problem that is avoided with laser surgery. However, there is a way around this too.
Yesterday I picked up a new set of contact lenses as part of a research study I volunteered for. These lenses are hard and work by temporarily deforming the surface of the cornea (Orthokeratology lenses). They work as normal contact lenses but you can wear them overnight and then not need any correction whatsoever during the day. Thus all the problems: going swimming or displacing a lens when doing sport or getting grit in your eye, are removed. So the benefit of being able to see without correction.
Interesting point. You can not work for the police (for example) if you had moderate or worse myopia and have had laser surgery to correct. But you can work for the police if you have moderate or worse myopia but can see unassisted as a result of the use of orthokeratological lenses.
I'll update how these cool new lenses go.
As a guy 'with glasses' I'm often encountered with the question of whether I'd consider laser surgery. Lasik is pretty popular at the moment and seems to do a good job. I thought I'd write about why I do not consider this a good option for most people.
First Lasik surgery is commonly only performed on a small central portion of the cornea which means that during the day, when your iris is contracted it works fine. However, in low light and at night when the iris is open the bad gets in with the good and vision can be degraded. There is probably a way around this issue, such as lasing a larger area, so in the future this might not be a problem. There are, however, other reasons.
If your myopia gets worse getting a second stint of laser correction is not normally an option because they remove some of the cornea everytime and it isn't usually thick enough for more than one correction. This is a good reason not to bother.
Presbyopia - i.e. that thing that happens as you get old. As I age I'll not be able to see things that are close as well as I can now. Currently without any correction I can see stuff that is as close as 5 cm away, and with my lenses in as close as 11 cm away. [side note - it is pretty cool being able to focus on objects that are only 5cm from the eye, good for seeing fine detail and usually only babies have near vision this good. This ability is a feature of myopia. The 11 cm with the lenses in is fairly normal for a guy my age]. As I age this will get worse, to the point when 1m might be the closest distance for objects I can focus on. This is unavoidable. However, this distance of 1m is with normal eyes (aka with my lenses in or glasses on) without them this will be nowhere near as bad. Myopics are less susceptible to the effects of presbyopia. - So, by permanently correcting myopia using laser surgery, one condemns oneself to poor close up vision in later stages of life.
Also, I don't see the point or the unnecessary expense. With new contact lens technology it is like you don't have bad eyes at all. I don't even notice my normal continuous wear lenses anymore... except in dusty environments or when I go swimming or do sports or lose one. This is the rub. The problem that is avoided with laser surgery. However, there is a way around this too.
Yesterday I picked up a new set of contact lenses as part of a research study I volunteered for. These lenses are hard and work by temporarily deforming the surface of the cornea (Orthokeratology lenses). They work as normal contact lenses but you can wear them overnight and then not need any correction whatsoever during the day. Thus all the problems: going swimming or displacing a lens when doing sport or getting grit in your eye, are removed. So the benefit of being able to see without correction.
Interesting point. You can not work for the police (for example) if you had moderate or worse myopia and have had laser surgery to correct. But you can work for the police if you have moderate or worse myopia but can see unassisted as a result of the use of orthokeratological lenses.
I'll update how these cool new lenses go.
Tuesday 17 March 2009
Office Live Workspace - works 50% of the time, everytime!
Working with Office Live Workspace is not going as well as I would have liked.
Jessica and I have had no problems and did a first round of editing with glee. However, things have not gone as smoothly since. Randy tried to install the applet for editing and it hasn't worked and the same happened to Bill. Bill is in the states so I can not try and solve his problem but Randy is right here. On Randy's computer is up-to-date XP and IE7 with Office 2003. The browser does not show the edit button. If he tries to open documents from within word it will let him open his documents so that part works but he can not see any documents shared with him so he can not open and edit these. I have tried to install on a clone of his system with the same problem. On another system which is the same but for it has office 2007 the applet has worked. The only problem, which it seems might simply be a design flaw is the inability to see shared documents when trying to open from within word. Interestingly, on my system, which is windows7, IE8 and office 2008 I can do everything except open live documents from within word. When I go to 'open from office live' and click on documents it just opens up my windows documents library and I can see none of my live content.
I do hope these issues are fixed. Bill is confused, says 'when I installed the Applet that allowed manuscript editing on the Live desktop it blew up my entire MSOffice package and I had to reinstall the whole thing twice!' EEk.
Tuesday 10 March 2009
Cool online document tool - Office Live Workspace
So last week I noticed a comment on my twitter from a guy interested in my USB port issue: Screwdriver. Anyway I was looking through his twits and noticed a link to a CIO blog article 'Five Great Microsoft Web Services You're Probably Not Using'. I couldn't help but look, especially as I'm a bit of a MS fanboy. It did not disappoint. Basically Microsoft have taken a set of ideas usually associated with google and done their own versions. Thing is they are ace because they so easily integrate with the common operating system and office software. I've been trying out the windows live workspace on a manuscript our group are currently working on. The word document was uploaded to the workspace and then the master document resides online and can be viewed at anytime by any invited users or editors. Click on edit and it opens it up in word on your desktop. You can edit track changes do all the normal, familiar office stuff, and click save and it saves the version online. You can make comments to discuss changes and you can even work on the document live with other users whilst they are elsewhere.
I don't mean to go on about it. Experience so far is that this tool is awesome and will become the center of the many of the papers that I work on with other people. Will update as the project evolves.
Tuesday 3 March 2009
Benjamin Button TED talk
This talk is worth a watch. It's about the special effects for Benjamin Button. Impressive stuff. Nice to see this. I've always had the view that 'you can't beat a good pupet'. For example Star wars (ieYoda old and new). Things have obviously moved forward. Movies like The Aviator and Iron man show that great effects can be made of machinery. Now, it seems, good things are happening with CG and people.
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