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Learning this has also changed my life, but maybe not for the better. Now every time I see someone I know and their shoes are tied in a granny knot I have to waste a bunch of calories deciding if they'd appreciate me telling them.

I encounter this all the time, I just want to help people and pass along things I’ve learned but it’s not always received well. For sure, many adults would not want to be told how to tie their shoelaces.

My only advice is to start by approaching the problem. “Hey, do your shoelaces come untied often?”


OMG same!

It's like when you learn how to roll up headphone wires or properly clean glasses.

The temptation to do it for others (and get rejected) is way too high.


Gonna need a description of the correct way to do these things. I have a feeling I'll be one of today's lucky 10,000.

Rolling up headphone wires (or any wires) works best when you create a looped bundle and alternate between overhand and underhand. It stops it from getting twisted and tangled. When done right, you can hold one end, throw the under end, and it all unfurls neatly.

Learned this from a theatre stagehand and have been using it ever since.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=CYdu7aW_pm8


Wait, how do you properly clean glasses?

Maybe this isn't proper, but, what I do is wet them, rub them with a tiny amount of dish soap, then rinse them under the hot water tap.

Then blow the droplets off both sides and let the rest air dry. We have soft water here, so no water spots. No rubbing dry with any kind of cloth.


Tap water if chlorinated is not great for the coatings on modern glasses I've been told. YMMV if you're not in such a place.

I mix my own spray bottles from dish soap, non chlorinated water and a bit of rubbing alcohol actually. Water is softened.


The Spectacle Factory recommends, in order, (1) warm water and a microfiber cloth, (2) Zeiss lens wipes, or (3) an ultrasonic bath: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4lJ_5Tg9Ms

They recommend (v=5FUUgO95sb4) against both detergent for the sake of the lens coatings and against sprays which may cause grease to accumulate around the lens rim.


If you're the kind of person who has bought a dozen pairs of cheap Zenni's... the lens coating gets visibly damaged every time I've used hand soap on them. I now just blast them with hot water and wipe dry with a lens cloth. I don't know whether hand soap is a problem for more expensive brands, but it definitely is for Zenni's.

I don't have soft water so i blot the lenses dry with lens paper. Works amazingly and my lenses last so long since i switched to the dish soap method.

40+ year glasses wearer here who learned this perhaps only 10 years ago, I think this is the correct way. The one annoying part is the difference that the glass coating makes. The water just falls off some of my glasses with barely as much as a light tap. Others length tend to hang onto the water in beads, so I have to actually wait for it to dry (or walk around with water spots, which I also do when impatient...)

I’ve been wearing glasses for just under 30 years, and only last month I decided to actually try and clean my glasses with the tiny microfibres cloth they give you when you buy a pair of glasses rather than throwing it out because it gets annoying in your case because you just use your t-shirt… I’m not a 100% microfibre guy

Use lens paper to blot the water off.

Zeiss Lens Wipes. Apple’s Vision Pro care instructions specifies them.

Good in a pinch; better to use microfiber, as stated by Zeiss themselves: https://www.zeiss.com/vision-care/us/eye-health-and-care/hea...

Nicely done Zeiss

Use a clean microfiber cloth. ANYTHING ELSE will scratch your lenses up. (This is probably the most common no-no I see. People will clean their glasses with anything on them and smudge/scratch them instead.)

Two cloths are ideal: one for cleaning and another for polishing.

If you're using soap and water, apply a tiny amount of soap onto both sides of the lens --- less than a grain of rice --- then apply water and rub with your fingers until clean. Skip to polish step.

If using cleaner, spray cleaner onto the cloth, NOT onto the lens. Spray onto one side of the cloth so that you have a wet side and a dry side.

(You can use water instead of cleaner in a pinch.)

Three passes.

First pass: with wet side, wipe lens in lines from top of frame to bottom. NOT in circles. (You'll spread the dirt around this way, making the cleaning process take way longer and potentially introducing scratches.)

Second pass: Repeat first pass with dry side of cloth.

Repeat first and second passes until lenses look mostly clear.

Third pass, if you have a polishing cloth: Wipe polishing clothes in circles until lenses are clear.

Your lenses will last forever if cleaned this way.

The cleaner steps above also work on any glass surface, like laptop screens or car windows.


>Use a clean microfiber cloth. ANYTHING ELSE will scratch your lenses up.

No, it wont. I'm cleaning mine for decades with anything at hand (cotton shirts, napkins, etc) and not a scratch.

And of course there's the little fact that microfiber cloth is a recent synthetic thing. People used cotton and linen squares, or chamois leather ones if they felt fancy, to clean their glasses.


yes they do. it's not so much the cotton fabric that will scratch your lenses; it's the dirt on them. cotton weaves leave bigger holes for dirt to get caught in; much much bigger than microfiber, which is why it's best for the job.

but glasses were made of glass, and nowadays most are plastic.

They’re also typically covered in hard anti reflective coatings. Making them similar to glass in scratch resistance.

You can trivially get glass lenses nowadays. It's a prescription option.

In any case, no scratches on my non-glass eyewear either.


most cheap ones, yes.

if you have vision benefits in the US, you can get glasses with glass lenses for free or heavily discounted

the best optics are glass


I don't know why people say this. When I wore glasses I cleaned them with my cotton shirts for over a decade and they didn't get scratched up, at all. I don't see how cotton would scratch glass to begin with.

Usually it's not the fabric but trapped dust that scratches the coating when you wipe.

Dust is harder than hard plastic?

Good glasses are in fact glass with PVD coating, that's where the scratches show up. And yes dust particles are often very hard.

Very few people wear actual glass lenses. They are something like 1-2% of the market from what I can tell. Everyone else wears plastic lenses, which are much lighter and thus more comfortable to wear. Also slightly safer due to much reduced risk of shattering with plastic lenses. I've never even had an optometrist offer glass lenses. I think you'd have to specifically ask for them.

But yeah, dust can also definitely scratch the coatings on glass lenses, too.


Are we still talking about glasses, not contacts right? Because everyone over here (Norway) gets glass lenses in glasses on prescription. They are much better optical quality and not uncomfortable in the slightest, and can be customized to individual vision. Mine have glass from Rodenstock, a long time camera lens supplier but other vendors like Zeiss or Swarowski are common too.

You can always tell if it's glass by tint of PVD coating. Polycarbonate or acrylic lenses can't be coated. Plastic's only advantage is low manufacturing cost.


I have no idea what is common in Norway, but Rodenstock’s English website also says plastic is more common.

Today plastic lenses are considered “State of the Art” and are found in most spectacles.

https://www.rodenstock.com/journal/plastic-vs-mineral-glass

> You can always tell if it's glass by tint of PVD coating. Polycarbonate or acrylic lenses can't be coated.

This not true. Plastic can absolutely be PVD coated. You can buy cheap sunglasses with PVD mirror coatings on plastic lenses. I’m pretty sure Rodenstock’s own plastic coatings (e.g. “Rodenstock technology Solitaire® Protect Plus 2”) are also a PVD process.

> Plastic's only advantage is low manufacturing cost.

And weight. And shatter resistance. And higher refractive index options.


In USA I've been told by multiple glasses sellers (wrongly, but they believed it) that no companies sell glass lenses anymore. It's apparently rare enough that a lot of stores think it doesn't exist.

A large amount of dust is essentially powdered rock, which absolutely is harder than the plastic you would generally find in optical lenses.

They live in an imaginary world where no one ever cleaned glasses until microfiber cloths were widely available.

To clean glasses safely you basically need a soft, clean cloth. Cotton is totally fine. You could get away with a soft clean sponge, too. Or even a soft-ish piece of paper (which is what most disposable lens words are.)


There is lens-cleaning paper (I used to use this in photgraphy), and facial tissue-grade paper.

The latter does tend to scratch over time, if perhaps only slighly, but the damage can accumulate.

I'm on team soft-cotton, with a very-well-worn bandana serving as my usual cleaning material, plastic lenses, no scratches.

Another sin, for glasses, is laying them lens-down, or face-up, on surfaces when not in use. Lens-down of course grinds the lens into whatever is on the surface. Face-up, as you'd wear them, is vulnerable to flipping over (most glasses are top-heavy), so upside down is preferable. Or folded, with the earpieces down and lenses up. In a case is of course preferable to either.

Leaving glasses randomly on chairs, sofas, beds, etc., is also an invitation to catastrophe.

I've lived with people doing many of the above, and their glasses were perpetually scratched and damaged. Given the high cost of a new pair for many of them, this was ... curious.


It’s certainly possible that facial tissue is more likely to have contaminants that could scratch lenses.

A lot of facial tissue also has lotion, which means it just smears glasses anyway.


Most believe whatever marketing material or sponsored "expert" advice is presented to them for "proper care", without actually checking. At least glasses clenaning is a harmless area - people do the same for supplements, diets, and all kinds of health advice too.

Yea, this reads very meticulous to me. I clean my glasses under running hot water and the micro fibre cloth. I wash the micro fibre cloth with dish soap from time to time. In a bind I clean the glass with any clean fabric that feels soft.

The thing about many of the "proper" headphone roll-ups is they are dependent on a particular level of minimum bending radius, tension tolerance, and elastic deformation in the cords.

To put it more simply, many of them will simply ruin your headphones if they're done with reasonable frequency.

For thin earbud type cords, just coil them loosely in a small plastic bag or use a loose bundle secured with a broad velcro strap.


I bought a giant pack of velcro straps on amazon several years ago and added at least one to every single wire or cable I use.

It made a massive difference in my quality of life and I still have so many velcro straps that I find myself giving them away.


They make fantastic stocking stuffers if you celebrate Christmas.

Velcro Santa! ;)

Please explain. I want to know if I'm doing those 2 things correctly...

On the bright side, burning calories!

I've been using Ian's for the past few months since it was last posted here. It's quite good to the point I prefer it but wouldn't say it's changed my life.

I have this problem too!

It could make their lives so much better, but kind of awkward to broach. Perhaps sholladay‘s advice will work well.


> deciding if they'd appreciate me telling them

This is me daily.


Don't tell them. Just use the information to silently judge everything they say or do, and have ever said or done. It's gotten me where I am today.

Have you moved it anywhere else? I checked codeberg and didn't see it there.

Watch the video. They worked around this by selling lego sets to 10 different people (as it was still owned by the lego owner), then the 10 different people all opened separate $10k suits, which they all won.

Then corporate shut down the location to avoid paying the suits they lost.


> scamming from the literal money

That's par the course for Anthropic. I added some money to my account before I really had a use case for product. A year later they said my money had expired and when I contacted support they basically told me to pound sand.

This while they have the audacity to list one of their corporate values as 'Be good to our users'. They'll never get another dollar from me.


I had exactly the same issue with Anthropic API. It was only $15, but I was so annoyed when they just decided that they'll take my money for free. If it's really the law as some people state, it's a stupid law.

I think my Zalando gift cards expire after 4 years.


Fal.ai does the same thing.

It's pretty much a universal API credit policy at this point. I'm not sure if this legitimately escapes the prepaid gift card requirements or if the providers see nuance where there might not be any.


it makes it hard to think their "safe ai" will ever be human friendly. itll match their company ethos of theft and lack of empathy for the people interacting with it.


Everybody does that, the only question is how much time they give you. The issue, as far as I remember hearing, is that in the US expiring company credit can be immediately recorded as income, whereas indefinite-term credit only becomes income once the user spends it.


Not true of non-US companies. I had also added money to Deepseek, and it was still there (and Z.ai and Moonshot are the same). I'm reasonable though, if it's been 5 years or something I might have understood, but it was 1 year and the account was in use during that time.

Where I live (in Canada) it's actually illegal for gift cards to ever expire, and there's lots available from US companies, so if it's an accounting issue other companies have figured it out.


I put $20 on Mistral and Deepinfra several years ago, and it’s still there.


Gift cards generally cannot expire until 5 years after activation in the United States (CARD Act 2009), so I would have wanted a similar time period here at least.


There's a 5 hour difference between the replies, and new data that came in, so the posts aren't really in conflict.

Also it doesn't sound like they know "there's a model issue", so opening it now would be premature. Maybe they just read it wrong, do better to let a few others verify first, then reopen.


not to use the cli tool. You can install it and change the settings to point to pretty much any other model.

It's an okay-enough tool, but I don't see a lot of point in using it when open sources tools like Pi and OpenCode exist (or octofriend, or forge, or droid, etc).


@eieio: whatever email protection you're running is triggering on the extension info. For example I see:

> And they’re sent to servers that advertise the availability of the [email protected] extension. What if we just…don’t advertise [email protected]?


Is it possible that this is on your end?

The extension is "ping@openssh.com." It shows up in the blog reliably for me across several browsers and devices.


No, it's Cloudflare munging the HTML. Cloudflare then provides JavaScript to un-munge it, but that's not reliable.


And of course it totally doesn't work if the client doesn't have JavaScript at all. I read the HN front-page through an AI summary and it also got censored when it scraped the article.


TIL! I'll see if I can change that.


If you avoid Chinese-branded devices you should doubly avoid US-branded devices. See National Security Letters and Room 641A as a small subset of why.


There are systems (like the sanco2) that use an indoor/outdoor pump.

> This sounds terrible for efficiency in winter, as you will need to reheat the room

Sure, but lots of people have some point of the year they want cooling.

Even during the heating season it's only worse if you're heating the living space with something _worse_ than what you're using to heat the hot water. If you have a heat pump for room heat then you're moving heat from outside, to in the house, to in the water heater.

If you're heating the room with electric then in the winter it's no different than using an electric water heater (100% efficient).


> If I’m gone on a trip for 2 weeks my hot water bill is zero

You mention other advantages, but money isn't one. You're limited to 100% efficiency with tankless.

Although an idle hot water tank can waste ~70W (~1.7kWh) of power, this is way more than made up for by using a heat pump. Plus tankless strains the grid a lot more than any system with a buffer built in.


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