If your cornea is naturally very thin, you're ineligible for LASIK because the whole point is to ablate away part of the cornea. I had IOL surgery instead, which is like an implanted contact lens. The trouble with IOL surgery is that there's a 1% chance you'll get a cataract from the lens accidentally rubbing against your natural lens. This ended up happening to me in one eye 12 months after surgery. To their credit, the clinic where I had it done got me back in and gave me a complete lens replacement in that eye at no charge.
Now, a post-cataract-surgery eye is not as good as a normal eye. I would need glasses again were it not for the fact that my other eye is working perfectly with the IOL. So I have one 20/10 eye and one 20/80 eye, but to be honest it's not something I actually notice day to day; the visual cortex sorts it out for you. I do use reading glasses for long computer sessions.
If I had it to do again, I would still do it, because for me life with glasses and contacts was full of daily annoyances and constraints that I no longer have to put up with. Even if I develop presbyopia, my vision will never again be anywhere near as horrendous as it was before surgery. I had a diopter around -8, plus astigmatism. The convenience of life without glasses is worth the hassle of having one post-cataract eye.
Also, one option people often don't think to explore is that you can have _just your astigmatism_ corrected in an outpatient procedure. This procedure is quick and easy and it allows you to use cheaper glasses and contacts (no more "toric" contacts).
I've had success selling 40GB drives on my local Craigslist for $10 a pop. I sold eight drives and had to turn people away, so there's definitely demand.
Jordan's Furniture has an online room layout program. In theory it's designed so you lay out a room and then get advice about it from Jordan's, but that didn't prevent me from creating a 2D representation of my entire apartment, sizing furniture to match my own, and dragging things around for hours. Even though it's Web-based, you can save multiple layouts and come back to them months later.
Can anyone post a link to the actual proposal and/or public comment directions on the NIH website? I looked all over and can't find it. I get the feeling it's still filed in the pre-embargo press release section.
Yeah, it's funny - they have a diagram on their website of the way the ports are arranged on the switch. When I got the switch, I discovered that the diagram was inaccurate in one crucial way: the DVI-in plug, where the monitor plugs into the KVM, is so close to the side of the case that a normal DVI cable will not fit into it. I called Belkin and they said they were aware of the issue and would ship me a free cable to fix the problem. Which they did... after a couple months.
Belkin makes a version of their Omniview SOHO KVM switches that has DVI ports and USB - perfect for use with a Mac. Unfortunately, I've been unable to get it to work with the Apple 23" flat panel monitor using Apple's DVI-ADC adapter. When the monitor is connected to the Mac through the KVM switch, the Mac (a G5) shuts itself down immediately. I haven't yet figured out why it does this or whether there's a workaround. Belkin tech support says they've never heard of that but couldn't say whether they'd tested the switch with Apple's monitors.
It's definitely along the same lines. Two of the back jacket blurbs cite Cialdini - one of which I've reproduced below:
"Persuasion is powerful and pervasive in our lives, as this wonderful book by Bob Levine demonstrates in a most engaging style filled with wit, wisdom and plenty of street smarts on the side. It is a noble successor to Cialdini's masterpiece on Influence and my work on Influencing Attitudes and Changing Behavior. It will change the way you think and act in many realms of your life. --Philip Zimbardo, Stanford University"
Well, if you're pleasant and charismatic, you can always try selling them their very own customized alumni website, which you just happen to have right in this briefcase....
Young Sherlock Holmes is listed on IMDb as the "First feature film to have a completely CGI (computer graphics image) character: the knight coming out of the stained glass window (animated by Pixar)."
Several replies to this post have opined that disclosing one's password would not constitute self-incrimination. In fact, Findlaw's Constitutional annotations clearly show that "The privilege afforded not only extends to answers that would in themselves support a conviction... but likewise embraces those which would furnish a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute."
So you can take the fifth on disclosing your password if the following conditions are met:
It must be plausible to the judge that your answer could incriminate you.
You must take the fifth at the beginning of the line of questioning: "One must explicitly claim his privilege or he will be deemed to have waived it, and waiver may be found where the witness has answered some preliminary questions but desires to stop at a certain point."
As far as I can see, no one's mentioned Harlan Ellison, whom I believe is still alive. Although Ellison would no doubt bridle at being pigeonholed as a sci-fi or fantasy author, he is, and he writes some timeless stuff.
If this is a hoax, it's a pretty impressive one. Not the article posted to/., but the company itself. Lessee... fully developed site, contact information, white pages, press releases, links to articles in the independent press (that exist), deals with another company (Toolex, which exists), and even an SEC filing that anyone can go look up that says much of the same thing. This includes, as someone pointed out, data on subcontractors in Israel, Russia, and Ukraine. It also includes numbers for patents already filed, including one for the optical pickup for the drive. The white pages are from an actual demonstration for industry execs (I suppose they could lie about that, but it seems rather silly), which is pretty impressive for vaporware.
To me, this looks like a company that is deep in the red and desperate for cash, but which has an actual product, and is engaged in the final push to get the capital needed to bring it to market. Sure, some of the claims are a little on the PR/fantasy side, but what hardware manufacturer isn't guilty of that? The foundations of the technology appear very real.
A student news organization at my school, Claremont McKenna College, has the domain www.claremontmckenna.com, which is even more provocative than yours. They're also currently embroiled in a trademark dispute with the college, so it might be worth checking out their account of their troubles or e-mailing them to plan strategy.
Slashdot Mirror
If your cornea is naturally very thin, you're ineligible for LASIK because the whole point is to ablate away part of the cornea. I had IOL surgery instead, which is like an implanted contact lens. The trouble with IOL surgery is that there's a 1% chance you'll get a cataract from the lens accidentally rubbing against your natural lens. This ended up happening to me in one eye 12 months after surgery. To their credit, the clinic where I had it done got me back in and gave me a complete lens replacement in that eye at no charge.
Now, a post-cataract-surgery eye is not as good as a normal eye. I would need glasses again were it not for the fact that my other eye is working perfectly with the IOL. So I have one 20/10 eye and one 20/80 eye, but to be honest it's not something I actually notice day to day; the visual cortex sorts it out for you. I do use reading glasses for long computer sessions.
If I had it to do again, I would still do it, because for me life with glasses and contacts was full of daily annoyances and constraints that I no longer have to put up with. Even if I develop presbyopia, my vision will never again be anywhere near as horrendous as it was before surgery. I had a diopter around -8, plus astigmatism. The convenience of life without glasses is worth the hassle of having one post-cataract eye.
Also, one option people often don't think to explore is that you can have _just your astigmatism_ corrected in an outpatient procedure. This procedure is quick and easy and it allows you to use cheaper glasses and contacts (no more "toric" contacts).
I've had success selling 40GB drives on my local Craigslist for $10 a pop. I sold eight drives and had to turn people away, so there's definitely demand.
Jordan's Furniture has an online room layout program. In theory it's designed so you lay out a room and then get advice about it from Jordan's, but that didn't prevent me from creating a 2D representation of my entire apartment, sizing furniture to match my own, and dragging things around for hours. Even though it's Web-based, you can save multiple layouts and come back to them months later.
Can anyone post a link to the actual proposal and/or public comment directions on the NIH website? I looked all over and can't find it. I get the feeling it's still filed in the pre-embargo press release section.
Yeah, it's funny - they have a diagram on their website of the way the ports are arranged on the switch. When I got the switch, I discovered that the diagram was inaccurate in one crucial way: the DVI-in plug, where the monitor plugs into the KVM, is so close to the side of the case that a normal DVI cable will not fit into it. I called Belkin and they said they were aware of the issue and would ship me a free cable to fix the problem. Which they did... after a couple months.
Belkin makes a version of their Omniview SOHO KVM switches that has DVI ports and USB - perfect for use with a Mac. Unfortunately, I've been unable to get it to work with the Apple 23" flat panel monitor using Apple's DVI-ADC adapter. When the monitor is connected to the Mac through the KVM switch, the Mac (a G5) shuts itself down immediately. I haven't yet figured out why it does this or whether there's a workaround. Belkin tech support says they've never heard of that but couldn't say whether they'd tested the switch with Apple's monitors.
It's definitely along the same lines. Two of the back jacket blurbs cite Cialdini - one of which I've reproduced below:
"Persuasion is powerful and pervasive in our lives, as this wonderful book by Bob Levine demonstrates in a most engaging style filled with wit, wisdom and plenty of street smarts on the side. It is a noble successor to Cialdini's masterpiece on Influence and my work on Influencing Attitudes and Changing Behavior. It will change the way you think and act in many realms of your life.
--Philip Zimbardo, Stanford University"
Well, if you're pleasant and charismatic, you can always try selling them their very own customized alumni website, which you just happen to have right in this briefcase....
Young Sherlock Holmes is listed on IMDb as the "First feature film to have a completely CGI (computer graphics image) character: the knight coming out of the stained glass window (animated by Pixar)."
So you can take the fifth on disclosing your password if the following conditions are met:
Alexis
As far as I can see, no one's mentioned Harlan Ellison, whom I believe is still alive. Although Ellison would no doubt bridle at being pigeonholed as a sci-fi or fantasy author, he is, and he writes some timeless stuff.
Alexis
It's been suggested to me that a timeless representative for the subfield of technical writing would be "Clear Technical Writing" by John Brogan.
Alexis
If this is a hoax, it's a pretty impressive one. Not the article posted to /., but the company itself. Lessee... fully developed site, contact information, white pages, press releases, links to articles in the independent press (that exist), deals with another company (Toolex, which exists), and even an SEC filing that anyone can go look up that says much of the same thing. This includes, as someone pointed out, data on subcontractors in Israel, Russia, and Ukraine. It also includes numbers for patents already filed, including one for the optical pickup for the drive. The white pages are from an actual demonstration for industry execs (I suppose they could lie about that, but it seems rather silly), which is pretty impressive for vaporware.
To me, this looks like a company that is deep in the red and desperate for cash, but which has an actual product, and is engaged in the final push to get the capital needed to bring it to market. Sure, some of the claims are a little on the PR/fantasy side, but what hardware manufacturer isn't guilty of that? The foundations of the technology appear very real.
Alexis
A student news organization at my school, Claremont McKenna College, has the domain www.claremontmckenna.com, which is even more provocative than yours. They're also currently embroiled in a trademark dispute with the college, so it might be worth checking out their account of their troubles or e-mailing them to plan strategy.
Alexis