Random Collected Tidbits
Jun. 5th, 2007 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fr_defenestrato1. A serious pet peeve of mine in new business (or possibly military) English coinage is "to include" as used for all instances of listing. Of yore one ran across the phrase in instructions, written agreements, or listings of Things That Will Be: "I will bring along supplies, to include lollipops and latrodectus mactans." The phrase implies future action or sometimes imperative, but in no sense, in the Good Old Days, was it used to describe past actions or lists of items. Now it's everywhere. I first noticed it in USDOD-issued requests for proposals (RFPs) and similar documents, where it could be excused because military personnel have long been famous for mutilating the language; but it's crept into the written vocab of Real People, such as this example from a recent resume qualifications summary: "[Carl LaFong] has more than 20 years' technical experience performing all aspects of network engineering, to include network resource planning, conducting requirements analysis, ..." Fuckin' ugh.
2. Twenty-four new species have been discovered in Suriname [presumably all animals but I'm not certain; somewhat extraordinarily, all news reports I've seen are too friggin' stupid to specify!], out of which 12 are new types of dung beetles, confirming, once again, J.B.S. Haldane's observation that "The Creator, if He exists, has an inordinate fondness for beetles."
3. Following the last Movie Marathon chez Maggotte, I burned my left eye trying to put a contact lens in after having done extensive bare-hand handling of jalapeño peppers. I realized that this particular lens was probably beyond salvaging, and so threw it away. I waited a full week for the capsaicin to wear off my fingers, and tried again with a brand new (disposable) lens. This resulted in immediate, intense burning pain. Searing. Maddening. I recalled the time as a child I was wiping part of my face with isopropyl alcohol and some of it accidentally leaked into my eye. Really, truly incapacitating pain such that it was a sheer act of will to open my eye and take the damn contact back out. Really, really nasty pain. I thought, "Da fuck? Could some of the capsaicin gotten into my contact case via the old lens? Could there still be some on my fingers after all this time?
So I waited TWO full weeks and essayed to put a brand new pair of lenses, right out of their disposable foil-backed wells, into my eyes. The right one went in ok but appeared to have some small irritant behind it, so I took it out and rinsed it with "Care One Multipurpose No Rub Solution for Soft Contact Lenses Sterile" (as it's listed on the Giant shopping website). I put it back in my eye and ZAP! Screaming pain. Screaming. Just like last time. Just like the isopropyl incident. Just like the jalapeños. Screaming.
Them as don't wear contacts may not know the techno-evolution of soft contact lens solution. Used to be you bought plain, sterile saline solution and some kinda cleaner, and you squirted cleaner on them, rubbed a bit, then rinsed well with the saline, and stowed (usually heat-sterilized) them till the next morning. Now you don't need heat sterilization and there's this "all-in-one" solution made by various eye care companies, where you take your lenses out, squirt them down well, and put 'em in their case in the same solution for storage overnight. That's it. I had bought "Alcon Opti-Free Express No Rub Multipurpose Disinfecting Solution" the first time after I got my new contacts (February)... but what I hadn't realized is that the Movie Marathon also marked the point where I ran out of that stuff and started using the Care One product, whose primary ingredient appeared to be isopropyl alcohol.
After this incident I went out and bought another bottle of the Alcon stuff, and have had no further trouble with getting my contacts into my eyes.
So, logically, either the stuff I was using was as-marketed or not. If not, it must have been compromised somehow. Maybe it's because I've been watching the entire series of The X-Files for a second time, but I started wondering about consumer espionage, about some saboteur hitting the contact lens care section of the local Giant with a hypo filled with isopropyl or some other caustic agent—like poisoned analgesics but merely extremely annoying rather than lethal. Idly, I theorized that one company could improve its market share by so tainting the product of its competitors, driving their customers away via sheer, excrucitating pain. I wondered what the alcohol content of the so-tainted competitor product has to be to create that level of pain. Then I looked again at the brand name of the product that I ended up returning to: Alcon. ALcohol CONtent.
And I am sore afraid.
2. Twenty-four new species have been discovered in Suriname [presumably all animals but I'm not certain; somewhat extraordinarily, all news reports I've seen are too friggin' stupid to specify!], out of which 12 are new types of dung beetles, confirming, once again, J.B.S. Haldane's observation that "The Creator, if He exists, has an inordinate fondness for beetles."
3. Following the last Movie Marathon chez Maggotte, I burned my left eye trying to put a contact lens in after having done extensive bare-hand handling of jalapeño peppers. I realized that this particular lens was probably beyond salvaging, and so threw it away. I waited a full week for the capsaicin to wear off my fingers, and tried again with a brand new (disposable) lens. This resulted in immediate, intense burning pain. Searing. Maddening. I recalled the time as a child I was wiping part of my face with isopropyl alcohol and some of it accidentally leaked into my eye. Really, truly incapacitating pain such that it was a sheer act of will to open my eye and take the damn contact back out. Really, really nasty pain. I thought, "Da fuck? Could some of the capsaicin gotten into my contact case via the old lens? Could there still be some on my fingers after all this time?
So I waited TWO full weeks and essayed to put a brand new pair of lenses, right out of their disposable foil-backed wells, into my eyes. The right one went in ok but appeared to have some small irritant behind it, so I took it out and rinsed it with "Care One Multipurpose No Rub Solution for Soft Contact Lenses Sterile" (as it's listed on the Giant shopping website). I put it back in my eye and ZAP! Screaming pain. Screaming. Just like last time. Just like the isopropyl incident. Just like the jalapeños. Screaming.
Them as don't wear contacts may not know the techno-evolution of soft contact lens solution. Used to be you bought plain, sterile saline solution and some kinda cleaner, and you squirted cleaner on them, rubbed a bit, then rinsed well with the saline, and stowed (usually heat-sterilized) them till the next morning. Now you don't need heat sterilization and there's this "all-in-one" solution made by various eye care companies, where you take your lenses out, squirt them down well, and put 'em in their case in the same solution for storage overnight. That's it. I had bought "Alcon Opti-Free Express No Rub Multipurpose Disinfecting Solution" the first time after I got my new contacts (February)... but what I hadn't realized is that the Movie Marathon also marked the point where I ran out of that stuff and started using the Care One product, whose primary ingredient appeared to be isopropyl alcohol.
After this incident I went out and bought another bottle of the Alcon stuff, and have had no further trouble with getting my contacts into my eyes.
So, logically, either the stuff I was using was as-marketed or not. If not, it must have been compromised somehow. Maybe it's because I've been watching the entire series of The X-Files for a second time, but I started wondering about consumer espionage, about some saboteur hitting the contact lens care section of the local Giant with a hypo filled with isopropyl or some other caustic agent—like poisoned analgesics but merely extremely annoying rather than lethal. Idly, I theorized that one company could improve its market share by so tainting the product of its competitors, driving their customers away via sheer, excrucitating pain. I wondered what the alcohol content of the so-tainted competitor product has to be to create that level of pain. Then I looked again at the brand name of the product that I ended up returning to: Alcon. ALcohol CONtent.
And I am sore afraid.
