Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 424 posts

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#411

Post by kenbolton »

abledon wrote: post #375
kenbolton wrote: post #349

I wore glasses for a few years in high school because I had trouble seeing the blackboard from anywhere but the front row. I started hiking and kayaking every day, especially in places where I could see for many miles. I also migrated from CRT to LCD to LED screens, and more recently to e-ink devices when possible. Very fine print in a dark space is hard to read, but I can read a moving US license plate from six bloc…

do you work a regular programming 9-5 job infront of a screen...? there is the Dasung E-ink 23" monitor

I try to work seven days a week four hours a day for the last ten years. It is an attempt to avoid burnout, but I also find I solve more of the truly hard problems away from the keyboard.

My fantasy setup: waterproof 13"-15" e-ink linux device with 16GB of RAM and mobile connectivity and a Twiddler X Lendal collab on a 210cm Cadence. A rollup waterproof full-size bluetooth keyboard would be adequate. The keyboard and e-ink device would both need tether points and/or internal flotation.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#412

Post by fatnoah »

atombender wrote: post #352
Aulig wrote: post #325

Honestly, myopia is not complicated (Kepler pretty much had it right in 1604 already). There's countless studies showing that axial length (eyeball length) changes in both directions, where elongation increases myopia. How do you change it? You get defocus (blur) which makes the eye adjust in the direction to reduce the blur. Practically: use weaker (around 1.5 diopters) or no glasses during close-up work (reading, c…

Is there a single step-by-step guide that shows what to do? All I can find on that (frankly quite awful) site are ways to sign up to a course by email, lots of podcast episodes, testimonials for people that improved their eyesight, and endless photos of what I assume is the site's creator. The "Guides" page doesn't actually have any guides, just more of the same. From what I can tell, the guy really wants to sell you…

The red flag for me about how well this all works is that the only way to find out how is to pay money. As you noted, the site itself doesn't inspire confidence either.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#413

Post by cbruns »

Aulig wrote: post #407
ymolodtsov wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, it hasn't been proven on humans.

Here are 3 studies that have shown axial length change in humans: https://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2772368 https://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2126435 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourn...

I only checked your first article, and you're not wrong that axial length change was observed in humans. But it makes the opposite point of what you hope. The myopic eyes only grew longer when subjected to any type of blur.

"In addition, in myopes, calculated defocus caused longer eyes (+8.4 ± 9.0 µm, P = 0.001). Strikingly, myopic eyes became also longer with positive defocus (+9.1 ± 11.2 µm, P = 0.02)."

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#414

Post by jeffbee »

FooHentai wrote: post #406
jeffbee wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decreased myopia is very common in middle-aged people. Mine went from -2 to 0 in my 40s. I did not move to New Zealand.

I know that it's common to stabilize in middle age once you stop growing, but can't find any info about it being common to reverse. Regardless, congratulations! That's a great outcome.

As I understand it, the reversion to normal vision is not caused by changing length of the eye (as you say, nobody is growing in their 40s) but rather by a degeneration of the refractive power of the materials in the eye.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#415

Post by Aulig »

cbruns wrote: post #413
Aulig wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are 3 studies that have shown axial length change in humans: https://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2772368 https://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2126435 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourn...

I only checked your first article, and you're not wrong that axial length change was observed in humans. But it makes the opposite point of what you hope. The myopic eyes only grew longer when subjected to any type of blur. "In addition, in myopes, calculated defocus caused longer eyes (+8.4 ± 9.0 µm, P = 0.001). Strikingly, myopic eyes became also longer with positive defocus (+9.1 ± 11.2 µm, P = 0.02)."

Please check out the other articles too or read some more of that article - they point out that their findings are not the norm and speculate as to why that could be. I suspect it's because they used too much defocus (you wouldn't be able to read anything with the amount of defocus they're using, so completely impractical for real life) - that has led to axial elongation in many other studies too.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#416

Post by Aulig »

fatnoah wrote: post #412
atombender wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a single step-by-step guide that shows what to do? All I can find on that (frankly quite awful) site are ways to sign up to a course by email, lots of podcast episodes, testimonials for people that improved their eyesight, and endless photos of what I assume is the site's creator. The "Guides" page doesn't actually have any guides, just more of the same. From what I can tell, the guy really wants to sell you…

The red flag for me about how well this all works is that the only way to find out how is to pay money. As you noted, the site itself doesn't inspire confidence either.

I did not pay anything, nor do I gain anything from promoting Jake's work. I do it because it works so well and once found it the same way - from a comment on HN.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#417

Post by throwawayarnty »

Aeolun wrote: post #410
throwawayarnty wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been pretty easy on our end. We live walking distance to work and daycare. so it’s no problem to even have both of us pick the kids up, walk home to eat lunch, walk kids back to daycare, and go back to work.

You can pick your kids up in the middle of the day and then bring them back after? I can pick them up any time I want, but after that they have to stay home :P

In some countries, eg France, it’s common for kids to go home for lunch and then come back.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#418

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

watwut wrote: post #143
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only Americans are afraid of wisdom teeth. 90 percent of the rest of the world keep them with no problems whatsoever. (Something something medical cartel...)

Where you got that from? They are surgically removed outside of USA regularly when they grow bad and cause infections.

> when they grow bad

Yes, exactly. Which actually happens not so often and usually around the time the rest of your teeth go bad and you start to need surgery anyways.

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#419

Post by memsom »

JoBrad wrote: post #243
memsom wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is really not true.

True. It’s at least 5 times a year.

The sarcastic self deprecating English in me wanted to say “well at least 4 days”, but we’ve had a pretty good run this year. We are up to at least 6 (lol, still can’t make myself say you are wrong..)

Re: Shortsightedness has become an epidemic

#420

Post by shadowtree »

kenbolton wrote: post #349

I wore glasses for a few years in high school because I had trouble seeing the blackboard from anywhere but the front row. I started hiking and kayaking every day, especially in places where I could see for many miles. I also migrated from CRT to LCD to LED screens, and more recently to e-ink devices when possible. Very fine print in a dark space is hard to read, but I can read a moving US license plate from six bloc…

You're getting far-sighted as you're getting older.
Post reply on HN