Connor Harris @Connor@schelling.pt

Vision update: could get a 20/25 line and about half a 20/20 line with both eyes and with the right eye alone. (Left eye is a bit weaker, about 20/40). Blur-free visual range is 52-56 inches, suggesting nearsightedness in the range 0.70-0.77 diopters.

Can’t get this song about Putin’s secret aqua disco out of my head

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jKw3n1Gsrtw

I'm extremely pleased with the results so far; let me know if you're nearsighted and would like to try this as well so I can see if my results replicate.

Binocular vision improved to what looks like 20/25 (even got a couple letters on the 20/20 line). Monocular vision is trailing far behind for some reason, looks like 20/50. Blur-free visual range is about 43-45 inches, same as yesterday.

Evening vision (indoors, soft artificial lighting) is about 20/50, an improvement from 20/70 at beginning of experiment

Second update to reading glasses experiment (previously: https://schelling.pt/web/statuses/105589824902267696). I could read all or all but one letter of the 20/30 line on two eye charts, and got a decent portion of the 20/25 line after my eyes had a bit of time to adjust. I checked my blur-free visual range twice and got 43 and 48 inches, which would mean myopia of 0.8-0.9 D. I'll start routinely testing my vision in the nighttime (when it's typically worse) this evening.

When I'm reading or using a computer, I also try to keep my eyes just far enough back that focus is slightly difficult (though this has been a habit for a bit).

Results so far are promising. I've checked my binocular vision with a vision chart every morning in a bright room. I've gone from struggling over the 20/50 line to getting most of a 20/40 and 20/32 lines this morning. I can also look at objects a meter away without blur, suggesting my myopia is down to 1 diopter.

Update to reading glasses experiment (https://schelling.pt/@Connor/105560944173150582). For four days I've been going without my contact lenses (-1.25 diopters) and wearing +2.75 reading glasses almost constantly, including for distance vision (except for watching TV). Theoretically, this means I can't focus perfectly on anything more than 1/(1.25 D + 2.75 D) = 25 cm from my face. I also go on frequent outdoor walks where I try to focus on distant sharp-edged objects as best as I can through the reading glasses.

CNN inauguration coverage rn is revoltingly propagandistic, laying on the West Wing schmaltz so thick you could stand a flagpole up in it

Has to be proto-Slavic because the cognates show a standard sound correspondence in which vowel+liquid becomes liquid+vowel (in West and South Slavic) or vowel+liquid+duplicate vowel (in East Slavic) - see also Pol. mleko and Russian молоко "milk" (both from a Germanic borrowing), or the Russian cities with names in -град (Old Church Slavonic borrowing) or -город (native East Slavic form).

TIL the usual Slavic words for "king" (e.g. Russian король, Polish król) come from a borrowing into Proto-Slavic of the name "Karl," as in Charlemagne.

Still have not seen any cogent argument that we shouldn’t have just let people buy experimental vaccines in February

Someone please tell me that learning Russian, Chinese and Arabic simultaneously is a bad idea.

I’ve been waiting for something like this

https://mobile.twitter.com/YearCovid

I’m bewildered by the continuing prevalence of the idea that STEM people need humanities courses to be ethical, when so many of the worst decisions of the past year come from bureaucrats applying bad received ethical theories while the techbros (among others) screamed at them to stop.