Ask HN: How are you taking care of you eyes? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How are you taking care of you eyes?

#121

Post by Maxburn » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

duffyjp wrote: post #109

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #55

When I told my optometrist that I was a software developer he took me into this office and showed me his computer setup. Basically, he was a huge proponent of using massive TV screens in place of smaller computer monitors as it was so much easier on the eye. I'm typing this on my machine connected to a 55" 4k TV that's about 33" away from my face. Given how inexpensive 4k TVs are compared to monitors and how well the…

I've been doing this for YEARS and can confirm it's an amazing setup. I'm on my second 43" display. The first was a 4K TV and the new one is an Aorus 4K Gaming Monitor. It's high refresh rate and has a built in KVM switch. Not being a TV it turns on and off as you would expect a monitor to. I love it. I plan to use this until OLED or equivalent new tech is burn-in proof.

I just peeked into those monitors and the built in KVM really sells it.

I'm still rocking a 32" Samsung 1080p HDTV from about 2010 at home.

Re: Ask HN: How are you taking care of you eyes?

#122

Post by Buttons840 » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

Aulig wrote: post #96

Buttons840 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With these rules I've managed to go from -5.5/-6 to -3.5/-3.75 in just these 9 months. And that's with me still spending 12h a day on my computer. Do you mean you've gotten used to a weaker pair of glasses? Can you actually see just as well, and how have you tested that? Are you around 40 (far vision improves around that age)?

I always use weaker glasses on my computer now (around 1.5 diopters less than my full correction). I just reduce that reduced correction step by step (recommended is .25 diopter reductions, .5 worked for me too though) when it feels right (aka when I can see the screen decently well even with the new weaker glasses). So I started by using -4 glasses at the computer and now I use -2. To check my current eyesight, I us…

When you go to the ophthalmologist and they do their thing, do they end up giving you weaker prescriptions? The skeptic in me wonders if you've simple gotten used to poor eyesight? I'm curious though and really want to hear more.

Also, seeing an ophthalmologist is still important, they check your eyes for potential problems, more than just issuing prescriptions. You say you worry about retinal detachment, they can see early warning signs of that and fix it sometimes.

Re: Ask HN: How are you taking care of you eyes?

#123

Post by sethammons » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

rubyskills wrote: post #25

sethammons wrote: post #19

I try the 20/20/20 thing - every 20 mins, spends 20 seconds looking at something 20ft+ away. I wear sun glasses outside when it is even moderate bright. I take lutein, "the eye vitamin." I keep pretty far from my monitor and its elevation keeps my head in a neutral position. I also have semi-regular exams at a retina specialist to monitor some thinning.

I'm not sure the sunglasses approach makes sense, unless you live near the equator. For me, I try to get as much sun light exposure into my eyes during the day (especially in the morning), to help set my circadian clock. I will sometimes use sunglasses at night towards bedtime.

Snow is bright :)

Re: Ask HN: How are you taking care of you eyes?

#124

Post by sethammons » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

mbrudd wrote: post #33

sethammons wrote: post #19

I try the 20/20/20 thing - every 20 mins, spends 20 seconds looking at something 20ft+ away. I wear sun glasses outside when it is even moderate bright. I take lutein, "the eye vitamin." I keep pretty far from my monitor and its elevation keeps my head in a neutral position. I also have semi-regular exams at a retina specialist to monitor some thinning.

Do you recommend a particular lutein supplement, or do you just rely on lutein in foods (e.g., leafy greens, fruit)? In your experience, what have been the benefits of lutein?

I pick up the store brand at trader joes

Re: Ask HN: How are you taking care of you eyes?

#125

Post by RedBeetDeadpool » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

Buttons840 wrote: post #87

Aulig wrote: post #43

Since march of this year I stopped following my eye doctor's advice ("wear your glasses as much as possible otherwise your brain gets lazy", which is proven BS) and looked into endmyopia (i think i even read about it on HN), as I was getting into the risk zone for retinal detachment (6 diopters), which can lead to blindness. To sum it up: reduce the amount of near-work you do (looking at your monitor, smartphone, boo…

> With these rules I've managed to go from -5.5/-6 to -3.5/-3.75 in just these 9 months. And that's with me still spending 12h a day on my computer. Do you mean you've gotten used to a weaker pair of glasses? Can you actually see just as well, and how have you tested that? Are you around 40 (far vision improves around that age)?

For what its worth, I've known about endmyopia for some time as well. Snellen chart is how you can verify things for yourself, you can only lie to yourself so much. I've improved my eyesight as well but nowhere near as much as Aulig has (roughly an improvement of 1.5 diopters over 3 years). I'm also much older, mid 30's, so that might be a factor in rate of improvement. I can't even see out of the glasses that I had before I started, so I know its definitely improved.

Re: Ask HN: How are you taking care of you eyes?

#126

Post by culopatin » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

I have been diagnosed with Keratoconus this year. I’ve been seeing double with each eye independently for 6 years or so and every other doctor that saw me before my current one dismissed it. Gets worse at night so when I drive I see 2 sets of street lights, one is kind of a ghost. The red overlaps with the yellow, yellow with green, and then I see a floating green circle in the air. Overall my brain can process this just fine but it gets tough to read text at night on a screen.

There is a collagen cross linking treatment that I’m considering, but I’m somewhat scared of it. It almost sounds like putting varnish on my eyes to make them harder. I’ve read of people getting hazy view after the treatment and there is nothing I would hate more.

My hobbies are racing cars and tennis, both need very good vision.

Other than that my prescription is not so bad, -1.75/-1.5 but the double vision drives me nuts.

I don’t know what I’ll do yet.

Re: Ask HN: How are you taking care of you eyes?

#127

Post by dathinab » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

kaba0 wrote: post #90

dathinab wrote: post #54

One of the main points would be to reduce eye strain during the time you use the monitor: - most important make sure the light conditions in your room are good, no light source directly shining on the monitor, no light source directly shining from behind the monitor. That can be hard or even outright impossible to setup in some rooms, most smaller companies I had been in get this wrong. Worst the perfect desk positio…

What do you mean by wayland + non-scalar scaling? Fractional scaling will indeed not map to each pixel properly, but that has nothing to do with wayland. As far as I know, only Windows try to align font rendering to the pixel grid, Macs decided on skipping the 1-2x range and providing higher density displays and only doing integer scaling — which you can easily do with Wayland as well.

You only can't do it if:

- the compositor insists of doing (with interpolation, depending on the compositor you use the results do hugely differ in quality)

- scale to "exactly" that fraction.

But if I "as a normal user" ask for a scale factor of 1.33 I do in general not mean "scale exactly to 1.33", neither "scale exactly to 4/3" but what I mean is "make it roughly 4/3 larger as 3/3 is to small and 6/3 to large".

And a lot of program can do that just fine, especially wrt. fonts.

Like e.g. a terminal which is set to font size 12 on 3/3 would just scale the font size by 4/3 and then round. Result is a crisp font roughly 4/3 larger which fulfills all requirements. Only drawback is that:

- it needs to be handled by the application, but so does any HiDPI support

- due to rounding the ratio of font sizes might be of by 1 pixel, irrelevant on a HiDPI screen

- this doesn't help with pictures or other layout, but even they can be handled better by the application then the compositor(1).

Wayland should just give applications the choice to to handle fractional scaling themself, like it does for HiDPI scaling. Any mainly text based program can support that reasonable well (terminal, editor, etc.), so can many games. Also due to HiDPI screens becoming increasingly more common (e.g. 1440p on gaming laptops) it also becomes more common that programs come with a layout/style/prictures for that, in the same way they have one for 4k.

Just to be clear a program should be able to opt-into "fractional scaling hidpi" mode based on the specific scaling. And I think it also would be fine if wayland or DEs doesn't support arbitrary fractional scaling but just a set of common scaling factors like 11/10, 5/4 (for 4k), 4/3 (for 1440p) maybe 3/2, 7/8.

(1): The compositor is in generally the place least well equipt for doing any scaling. As it only knows the final result "as image". But UI/Layout scaling is not the same as scaling an image. Which yes, doesn't work well for fractions.

Re: Ask HN: How are you taking care of you eyes?

#128

Post by Aulig » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

Buttons840 wrote: post #122

Aulig wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always use weaker glasses on my computer now (around 1.5 diopters less than my full correction). I just reduce that reduced correction step by step (recommended is .25 diopter reductions, .5 worked for me too though) when it feels right (aka when I can see the screen decently well even with the new weaker glasses). So I started by using -4 glasses at the computer and now I use -2. To check my current eyesight, I us…

When you go to the ophthalmologist and they do their thing, do they end up giving you weaker prescriptions? The skeptic in me wonders if you've simple gotten used to poor eyesight? I'm curious though and really want to hear more. Also, seeing an ophthalmologist is still important, they check your eyes for potential problems, more than just issuing prescriptions. You say you worry about retinal detachment, they can se…

Well I can see 20/20 with my new weaker glasses on the Snellen eye chart, so I don't think I just got used to worse vision.

I will be going to the eye doctor soon again and will hopefully get a similar prescription from her as from my own measurements :)

You're right about retinal detachment. I worry less about it now that my eyes are improving and it doesn't feel like I'm on an unstoppable trajectory towards worse eyes and higher risk for retinal detachment anymore. I heard it can appear quite rapidly, which worried me even when going to routine checkups.

Re: Ask HN: How are you taking care of you eyes?

#129

Post by Aulig » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

VMtest wrote: post #116

Aulig wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always use weaker glasses on my computer now (around 1.5 diopters less than my full correction). I just reduce that reduced correction step by step (recommended is .25 diopter reductions, .5 worked for me too though) when it feels right (aka when I can see the screen decently well even with the new weaker glasses). So I started by using -4 glasses at the computer and now I use -2. To check my current eyesight, I us…

I couldn't believe what I just read... What you said is basically what I read 7~8 years ago when I was in my early twenties I searched and read about this method in a Chinese forum website, zhihu, IIRC. As lazy as I was, I just couldn't be serious with any methods to cure my eyesight Now that I read your comment on HN, it is actually legit lmao

Yea, there's many similar strategies out there :)

Try it out, I'm sure you can change your habits and make it work!

Re: Ask HN: How are you taking care of you eyes?

#130

Post by Aulig » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

RedBeetDeadpool wrote: post #125

Buttons840 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With these rules I've managed to go from -5.5/-6 to -3.5/-3.75 in just these 9 months. And that's with me still spending 12h a day on my computer. Do you mean you've gotten used to a weaker pair of glasses? Can you actually see just as well, and how have you tested that? Are you around 40 (far vision improves around that age)?

For what its worth, I've known about endmyopia for some time as well. Snellen chart is how you can verify things for yourself, you can only lie to yourself so much. I've improved my eyesight as well but nowhere near as much as Aulig has (roughly an improvement of 1.5 diopters over 3 years). I'm also much older, mid 30's, so that might be a factor in rate of improvement. I can't even see out of the glasses that I had…

Congrats on the improvement! Progress will most likely slow down for me too, from what I heard it's common to have quick gains in the beginning. After that it's supposed to be .75 diopters per year, so roughly what you're getting :)