Whitehall is the civil service, which is the unelected bureaucrats rather than the elected oligarchs.
Today I Learned #4: Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
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Did I just read you imply that people don't need to know about Astérix?
Grendeldef
Trancerelic & coffeeholic
Asterix should be mandatory reading in every school. In French starting at high school level at latest as one is expected to know them by heart at that point. Minor lapses accepted concerning albums published after Goscinny died.
You mean asterisk? (*)
EgonSpengler
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Knew: Ferrets, weasels, minks, martens, stoats, sables, and polecats are all related. Mustelids, they're called.
Didn't know: Stoats and ermines are the same thing.
Knew: Badgers and wolverines are related to each other.
Didn't know: Badgers and wolverines are mustelids.
Didn't know: Otters are also mustelids.
Didn't know: Mongooses are not mustelids. Mongooses and mustelids are an example of "convergent evolution."
Didn't know: Meerkats are a type of mongoose.
Never heard of: Grisons and tayras, mustelids that live in Central & South America.
Didn't know: Stoats and ermines are the same thing.
Knew: Badgers and wolverines are related to each other.
Didn't know: Badgers and wolverines are mustelids.
Didn't know: Otters are also mustelids.
Didn't know: Mongooses are not mustelids. Mongooses and mustelids are an example of "convergent evolution."
Didn't know: Meerkats are a type of mongoose.
Never heard of: Grisons and tayras, mustelids that live in Central & South America.
Grendeldef
Trancerelic & coffeeholic
I've read a couple. I might actually have one, but I don't remember how I got it.
Grendeldef
Trancerelic & coffeeholic
Back in first or second grade in school I was put in a small, special group to help those having more issues than average with reading and/or writing. Among the learning material was an Asterix album - I think it was Asterix and the Roman Agent (*) but I'm not absolutely sure - which I started reading right away on my own. I was aware of them and read all that we had at home but I'm not sure if my father's collection was comprehensive at the time.
Somehow the dedicated teacher of that group came to suspect that my potential problems were more motivational than in reading comprehension in nature. I never returned to that group. Happy times.
(*) In Finnish the album is called 'Riidankylväjä' which literally means 'one who plants the seeds of conflict' and the Roman agent in question is called 'Tullius Intrigius'. Generally I think the Finnish translations are superior to the English ones but I can see why the English are more widely read.
There're also few albums published in local dialects but I think I've only read one of them which is a clear black hole in my cultural endeavours needing a quick remedy I admit.
Somehow the dedicated teacher of that group came to suspect that my potential problems were more motivational than in reading comprehension in nature. I never returned to that group. Happy times.
(*) In Finnish the album is called 'Riidankylväjä' which literally means 'one who plants the seeds of conflict' and the Roman agent in question is called 'Tullius Intrigius'. Generally I think the Finnish translations are superior to the English ones but I can see why the English are more widely read.
There're also few albums published in local dialects but I think I've only read one of them which is a clear black hole in my cultural endeavours needing a quick remedy I admit.
He was "Sullius Salacavalus" in Estonian, I believe
Grendeldef
Trancerelic & coffeeholic
That's brilliant and would obviously work in Finnish, too. I think I need to get my hands on some Estonian version, too. Understanding it would be on level of more or less educated guessing but the names alone would be worth the time & effort.
Grendeldef
Trancerelic & coffeeholic
Gender equality is just around the corner according to the fresh from oven World Economic Forum's yearly report. Well, not quite - 130 odd years away so there's still time to do something meanwhile.
The top five of countries isn't a least bit surprising but then it gets more interesting - Go Namibia & Rwanda.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gender-equality-by-country
The top five of countries isn't a least bit surprising but then it gets more interesting - Go Namibia & Rwanda.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gender-equality-by-country
very interesting.
TIL that between 1961 and 1984 the Soviet Venera program landed 10 probes on the surface of Venus
More than reading glasses — new options for ‘old’ eyes
The good news is that there are many ways to manage presbyopia
The restaurant had tablecloths, low lighting and large, leather-bound menus with a fanciful script describing the fare. But these otherwise appealing features forced me to hold the oversize menu above the table at arm’s length to make out my choices. My table mates chuckled as they reached for their reading glasses.Doctors call it presbyopia, a term rooted in Greek and meaning “old eye,” and it happens to everyone at some point. Some people notice their near vision starting to blur in their 40s, many of us experience this in our 50s and practically everyone deals with it after age 60. “Your odds are 100 percent,” says Peter McDonnell, an ophthalmologist and the director of the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
The good news is that there are many ways to manage presbyopia. But first, let’s see what’s happening in the eye to cause the blurriness.
Loss of elasticity
The lens of your eye sits right behind the colored iris. In young people, the lens is soft and flexible and able to change shape to switch one’s focus from far to near. As people age, however, “the internal lens loses its elasticity,” says ophthalmologist Brian Boxer Wachler, the founder of the Boxer Wachler Vision Institute in Beverly Hills, Calif. The change happens gradually, McDonnell says, and the process begins when you are still a young adult. People don’t notice until they’re in middle age because “we have accommodative reserve,” he says.That means we start life with internal lenses so flexible that people can manage focus changes even after the stiffening begins. The age when people first experience vision changes varies a great deal and might be influenced by a person’s activities. For instance, people whose work requires close vision might notice their deficit sooner than those who don’t face such demands. “We can compensate with things like long arms and large fonts,” says Karolinne Rocha, ophthalmologist at the Medical University of South Carolina’s Storm Eye Institute in Charleston. Rocha recently reviewed various treatments for presbyopia. Working or reading in brighter light can help, too. “It’s giving more light to the retina at the back of the eye,” Boxer Wachler says. Bright light also causes the pupil to contract, fostering a pinhole effect, which reduces distortion by limiting your eyes to the straightest and most focused light rays.
A grab bag of other lifestyle and environmental considerations: High contrast between text and page (or screen) aids reading as compared with yellowed pages or restaurant lighting. Fatigue plays a role; people may find it harder to focus first thing in the morning or when they’re sick. Distance matters, naturally, which means you might need those reading glasses when reading a novel but not when working at the computer.
What ‘cheaters’ do
There is a host of technological and medical fixes, too. Reading glasses, of course, also called “readers” or “cheaters,” are the first choice for many. They’re cheap, available at drugstores and come in a range of strengths. The ratings of +1, +1.25, +1.5 are in units of diopter strength. (Diopter refers to the focal length of a lens.)McDonnell recommends trying on a few different-strength glasses and reading something — perhaps on your phone or in a magazine. Choose the lowest reading power that allows you to focus while reading, Boxer Wachler says.
Presbyopia, Rocha says, “can be the first sign of aging for people with perfect vision.” Farsighted people might notice a need for reading glasses, while nearsighted people typically take off their regular glasses to read.
If you already wear corrective lenses of some sort — glasses or contacts — you might consider bifocals or progressive lenses. These are lenses with distance correction at the top and reading correction on the bottom, allowing people to change their focus by adjusting the part of the lens they peer through. Another option is the monovision approach. That means correcting one eye for distance (typically the dominant eye) and correcting the other eye for reading. It can take a little getting used to as the eyes and brain adapt to giving each eye a distinct job.
“In 90 percent of people that we test in the office, they adapt very well,” Boxer Wachler says. “In the other 10 percent, it doesn’t work.”
The eye drop alternative
An alternative to reading glasses or corrective contact lenses is prescription eye drops, sold under the brand name Vuity and approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2021 for use. The drops, meant to be used once a day, contain a drug called pilocarpine that contracts the pupil to create the pinhole effect, limiting extraneous light rays from entering the eye with their extraneous information.In studies, the drops were shown to improve near vision without affecting far vision for about six hours. Some people reported headaches as a side effect. But the benefits were limited, Boxer Wachler says. Of those who used the drops daily for one month, 30 percent were able to read three additional lines of letters on a near-vision assessment chart.
“That means that 70 percent of people saw either no improvement or less than three lines improvement,” he says. This modest effect might be most useful for people in the early stages of presbyopia, who don’t need much corrective help.
A second eye drop treatment, still under investigation, is purported to soften the lens itself. Ophthalmologists might offer surgical procedures to fix presbyopia, such as corneal inlays, LASIK, photorefractive keratectomy and lens implants.
If you experience changes in your vision, you can buy a pair of reading glasses. But McDonnell says it might be worth a visit to an eye doctor. “When you start to reach the age of wisdom,” he says, meaning one’s 60s, it’s worth getting checked for other age-related eye conditions such as cataracts, macular degeneration and glaucoma. Eye doctors can help advise you about the many options for presbyopia.
It’s a universal problem that affects quality of life — a subject McDonnell studied some years ago. But with all the options out there, you should be able to customize a fix that works for you.
Grendeldef
Trancerelic & coffeeholic
It might but I'm not at all convinced that it's the best solution to speed up things.
Hopefully the old lady in question was spared from venereal diseases by these uncalled probes.
Regarding which of climate catastrophe and women's empowerment? The former? The latter? Both?
TIL how we make building codes in this country:
In many parts of the UK, homes that face each other at the rear are required to be built 21 metres apart. This large distance means that instead of clustering buildings together around cool courtyards or shady streets, as is common in hotter climates, many homes in new neighbourhoods are directly exposed to the sun.
The 21-metre rule is, according to the Stirling prize-winning architect Annalie Riches, a bizarre hangover from 1902, originally intended to protect the modesty of Edwardian women. The urban designers Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker walked apart in a field until they could no longer see each other’s nipples through their shirts. The two men measured the distance between them to be 70ft (21 metres), and this became the distance that is still used today, 120 years later, to dictate how far apart many British homes should be built.
The 21-metre rule is, according to the Stirling prize-winning architect Annalie Riches, a bizarre hangover from 1902, originally intended to protect the modesty of Edwardian women. The urban designers Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker walked apart in a field until they could no longer see each other’s nipples through their shirts. The two men measured the distance between them to be 70ft (21 metres), and this became the distance that is still used today, 120 years later, to dictate how far apart many British homes should be built.
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