Quiet in here

[Rob Adams]

Well, I must say I've been away for a while, what has happened here,
seems so quiet..

I notice even the house of Bob is even worse.

Rob.

--
.sig under reconstruction

[Jim]

On Thu, 1 Jun 2023 18:09:59 +0930, Rob Adams
<usenet+s...@mmx.com.au> wrote:

>Well, I must say I've been away for a while, what has happened here,
>seems so quiet..
>
>I notice even the house of Bob is even worse.
>
>Rob.

There are postings every once in a while that may spawn a brief
conversation. My impression is that we are all getting older and
retiring or the alternative. I finally retired at 70 last month.

Jim

[The Horny Goat]

Hopefully not the alternative (though I lost my wife 14 months ago) -
I retired last year and am younger than you but not much.

[-dsr-]

On 2023-06-02, The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca> wrote:
> On Thu, 01 Jun 2023 15:44:30 -0400, Jim <J...@nowhere.invalid> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 1 Jun 2023 18:09:59 +0930, Rob Adams
>><usenet+s...@mmx.com.au> wrote:
>>
>>>Well, I must say I've been away for a while, what has happened here,
>>>seems so quiet..
>>>
>>>I notice even the house of Bob is even worse.
>>>
>>

>>There are postings every once in a while that may spawn a brief
>>conversation. My impression is that we are all getting older and
>>retiring or the alternative. I finally retired at 70 last month.
>>
>

> Hopefully not the alternative (though I lost my wife 14 months ago) -
> I retired last year and am younger than you but not much.

It will likely be twenty five years until I retire... unless someone makes
me rich. Which seems unlikely.

Over on the fezbook, the Monks of the Scary Devil Monastery group has many
familiar nyms. Traffic every day or two.

In the halls of IRC, ##sysadmin-community allows useful information, but is
mostly relaxed social chat among more or less clueful types. Yes, two
octothorpes. libera network.

Our once frequent contributor Red Drag Diva wrote a couple of books about the
evils of Bitcoin.

I'm pretty sure the now CEO of Fastmail was seen in these parts twentyish years
ago. That's not recovery, really.



-dsr- (Dan the Incongruous)

[Rob Adams]

On 4/06/2023 08:23, -dsr- wrote:
> Over on the fezbook, the Monks of the Scary Devil Monastery group has many
> familiar nyms. Traffic every day or two.

I did submit application to join said group about a month back, but so
far no joy, is there some application of chicken waving I need to produce?


--
This .sig deliberately left blank

[Andrew J. Caines]

On 6/1/23 15:44, Jim wrote:
> My impression is that we are all getting older and retiring or the
> alternative.

Who are you calling old? I may have titanium parts and have to wear
glasses to see small things up close, but... oh.

> I finally retired at 70 last month.

Congratulations. Has this helped or hindered recovery?

--
-Andrew J. Caines- Unix Systems Architect A.J.C...@halplant.com
"Machines take me by surprise with great frequency" - Alan Turing

[Jim]

On Fri, 1 Sep 2023 14:38:46 -0400, "Andrew J. Caines"
<A.J.Cain...@halplant.com> wrote:

>On 6/1/23 15:44, Jim wrote:
>> My impression is that we are all getting older and retiring or the
>> alternative.
>
>Who are you calling old? I may have titanium parts and have to wear
>glasses to see small things up close, but... oh.

Myself, if no one else. I find glasses insufficient for small print at
this point. I carry a flashlight to make it easier to read.

>> I finally retired at 70 last month.
>
>Congratulations. Has this helped or hindered recovery?

Given I no longer have to deal with systems used by others, it goes
well. Of course I am still capable of screwing things up on my own and
having to fix them.

[c...@nospam.com]

At 78 I still lurk here, there is a tad more activity in the faceplant
monastery.

--
http://www.netunix.com/

[The Horny Goat]

On Sat, 09 Sep 2023 23:26:43 -0400, Jim <J...@nowhere.invalid> wrote:

>Given I no longer have to deal with systems used by others, it goes
>well. Of course I am still capable of screwing things up on my own and
>having to fix them.

Alas that is too true. And being one year retired one has more time
for that sort of thing though temporarily very hard for me since I had
eye surgery on one eye 6 weeks ago with 4 weeks to go till eye #2.
It's as if you have a bright light constantly in one eye and not the
other and having to sit about 1/2 the distance from the keyboard (and
NOT wearing glasses).

They tell me things will be beautiful once all is done but then I seem
to recall they said the same thing 40 years ago before my
wedding.....(I tend to say "my" wedding rather than "our" since
regretably I buried my wife about 18 months ago)

[mrob...@att.net]

Jim <J...@nowhere.invalid> wrote:
> I find glasses insufficient for small print at this point.

The last time I got my eyes checked, near the end, the doctor flipped
down another mechanism and went through another round of "better/worse?"
When he got done, he wrote me a script for bifocals, which I have never
had before.

I bought a pair of bifocals, but because I am vain, I also had a set of
single-vision glasses made. I am wearing those now, but I have to
experiment with sliding them up and down my nose, or sometimes taking
them off altogether, to see things.

> I carry a flashlight to make it easier to read.

Does the extra light ever scare the goats? >_>

> Of course I am still capable of screwing things up on my own and
> having to fix them.

AOL. My lapdog randomly decided to corrupt its HRSV partition, so I
had to boot into Yvahk naq sfpx it.

On my desktop, I accidentally put a space before an asterisk, so I got
to hook up my backup drive and restore some stuff.

Matt Roberds

[The Horny Goat]

On Wed, 1 Nov 2023 06:20:56 -0000 (UTC), mrob...@att.net wrote:

>Jim <J...@nowhere.invalid> wrote:
>> I find glasses insufficient for small print at this point.
>
>The last time I got my eyes checked, near the end, the doctor flipped
>down another mechanism and went through another round of "better/worse?"
>When he got done, he wrote me a script for bifocals, which I have never
>had before.
>
>I bought a pair of bifocals, but because I am vain, I also had a set of
>single-vision glasses made. I am wearing those now, but I have to
>experiment with sliding them up and down my nose, or sometimes taking
>them off altogether, to see things.
>

Reading for me is totally bonkers right now - I had cornea replacement
surgery in one eye in July and was SUPPOSED to have the second done in
August but the doc has twice now postponed it as he didn't feel my
first eye had healed sufficiently. (I had hoped to be all done by my
birthday in September but at this rate I'll be lucky to have both done
by Christmas)

Imagine if you will what it's like to have your two eyes with
different "prescriptions" - that's me right now! In addition my left
eye (the one that was operated on) is seeing colors more intensely
which makes dressing in the morning "interesting" since the blues and
reds in particular seem more intense.

(Me healing slower is not all that shocking since I'm both diabetic
and 65+)

[Stephen Harris]

The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca> wrote:

> eye (the one that was operated on) is seeing colors more intensely
> which makes dressing in the morning "interesting" since the blues and
> reds in particular seem more intense.

Sysadmin black solves that problem.

--

rgds
Stephen

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <utb5kidcjgspm8ae1...@4ax.com>,

The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca> wrote:

>Imagine if you will what it's like to have your two eyes with
>different "prescriptions" - that's me right now!

That is basically where I am at right now, no surgery required: I just
can't seem to get a reading prescription that focuses at the same
distance in both eyes. After decades of strong myopia, the presbyopia
is much more difficult to deal with (reading for long periods with one
eye closed is v. uncomfortable) than not being able to read street
signs from a hundred yards away. I'm going to push the optometrist to
try harder at my next exam.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wol...@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

[mrob...@att.net]

Michel <ab...@rubberchicken.nl> wrote:

In article <l9h91k-p...@rubberchicken.nocrap> you wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Nov 2023 06:20:56 -0000 (UTC), mrob...@att.net wrote:

>> I bought a pair of bifocals, but because I am vain, I also had a set
>> of single-vision glasses made.
>

> Is that about the big chunky visible reading section in bifocals?

It's more about the visible (to others) line across the middle of the
lens, where it switches from one prescription to the other.

> They do make you seasick for a week or two while your brain gets used
> to them, but they work fine after that.

I did try wearing the bifocals for a while when I got them, but I
couldn't quickly get used to the procedure of having to look through
only half of them to be able to see. I put on the single-vision ones
and just kept wearing them.

Matt Roberds

[mrob...@att.net]

The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca> wrote:

> Imagine if you will what it's like to have your two eyes with
> different "prescriptions" - that's me right now!

I'm not (yet?) a cyborg like you, but as far back as I can remember, my
regular script is like that. I think it started out as maybe an 0.25
difference between left and right, and I think it's gotten bigger over
the years.

Matt Roberds

[Steve VanDevender]

The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca> writes:

> Imagine if you will what it's like to have your two eyes with
> different "prescriptions" - that's me right now!

Imagine? My eyes have always been like that since they figured out I
was nearsighted when I was about 5.

Since then, the left eye had a retinal detachment and repair which
introduced some minor visual distortion, and the thing they warned me
was a possibility after the repair surgery has also now happened, and
the lens developed a cataract from all the lasering they did as part of
the repair. So I get to have the lens replaced with an artificial lens
in about a month. When discussing what kind of correction the
artificial lens should have, he was somewhat dubious when I suggested
getting it approximately back to what I had been used to in recent years
where I used my left eye for near-to-middle distance and my right eye
for middle-to-far distance viewing, but when I explained I was already
well used to using the eyes differently he agreed this was probably a
reasonable approach, especially since the left lens of my glasses could
be adjusted to fine-tune its focus distance.

--
Steve VanDevender "I ride the big iron" http://hexadecimal.uoregon.edu/
ste...@hexadecimal.uoregon.edu PGP keyprint 4AD7AF61F0B9DE87 522902969C0A7EE8
"bash awk grep perl sed df du, du-du du-du,
vi troff su fsck rm * halt LART LART LART!" -- the Swedish BOFH

[The Horny Goat]

On Wed, 8 Nov 2023 04:38:45 -0000 (UTC), mrob...@att.net wrote:

>I did try wearing the bifocals for a while when I got them, but I
>couldn't quickly get used to the procedure of having to look through
>only half of them to be able to see. I put on the single-vision ones
>and just kept wearing them.
>

could be worse - I had cornea replacement surgery about 6 wks ago and
am waiting for the other eye. In the meantime it's like you have two
different prescriptions - a different one for each eye

[The Horny Goat]

It's a bit more than just 0.25 :)

[hymie!]

In our last episode, the evil Dr. Lacto had captured our hero,

The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca>, who said:

> could be worse - I had cornea replacement surgery about 6 wks ago and
> am waiting for the other eye. In the meantime it's like you have two
> different prescriptions - a different one for each eye

My mother does that on purpose -- she has contact lenses. Her "distance"
contact is in one eye, and her "reading" contact is in the other eye.
I don't know how long it took her to get used to it, but it works for her.

--hymie!

[The Horny Goat]

On Wed, 8 Nov 2023 09:18:15 +0100, Michel <ab...@rubberchicken.nl>
wrote:

>>> Is that about the big chunky visible reading section in bifocals?
>>
>> It's more about the visible (to others) line across the middle of the
>> lens, where it switches from one prescription to the other.
>

>Yeah that's what I meant, the visible bit.
>
I've worn the "progressives" for 15+ years with good effect. Of course
my two main functions visually are reading (both paper and this) and
driving. Pre-retirement that included serving customers (some of which
involved keeping the software that produced their invoices)

And of course I will never forget the day in March 2020 when we laid
off our entire staff for 3 months (including ourselves - my brother
and I worked without salary for 3 months just to keep the doors open.
Which was fine for him since his wife had a $200k+ job as IT director
for her company which largely involved keeping 2000+ remote agents
happy, while my hearing impaired wife stayed home which was less
strenuous after the kids left home) - now THAT was a blow but the
alternative was closing the doors for good.

[That's what happens to computer nerds who end up running a business
do in times of crisis]

[The Horny Goat]

I had hoped my "new eyes" would be my birthday present (late
September) but the doc has postponed the second surgery twice saying
the first eye hasn't yet recovered enough. Right now I'm hoping for
Christmas) Right now I'm typing this while looking at the monitor from
15-18" away. I've increased the font size on my reader but am
generally doing well.

[David Gersic]

On Wed, 8 Nov 2023 04:38:45 -0000 (UTC), mrob...@att.net <mrob...@att.net> wrote:
> Michel <ab...@rubberchicken.nl> wrote:
> In article <l9h91k-p...@rubberchicken.nocrap> you wrote:
>> On Wed, 1 Nov 2023 06:20:56 -0000 (UTC), mrob...@att.net wrote:
>>> I bought a pair of bifocals, but because I am vain, I also had a set
>>> of single-vision glasses made.
>>
>> Is that about the big chunky visible reading section in bifocals?
>
> It's more about the visible (to others) line across the middle of the
> lens, where it switches from one prescription to the other.

You may want to try the line-less ones. There isn't a hard transition from
one to the other. I've had them for some time now, but don't recall any
problems in getting used to them after decades of single prescription
lenses.

[The Horny Goat]

I would second that having had them for more than 10 years.

(And hoping that would end soon since I'm 1/2-way through cornea
replacement surgery which is primarily about eliminating threat of
cataracts though hopefully might remove use of glasses for most but
not all things)