u/0jdd1

We’ve been binge-watching Doc Martin, and just finished Season 9. Am I the only one who appreciates the edits the show has made to the opening credits? There used to be a clumsy cross-fade near the end of the credits but now it’s gone!

(And yes, this may be the perfect series for someone as OCD as me.)

I had my cataract surgery back in the first half of 2025. Today I had my every-several-months appointment with my cataract surgeon to make sure everything’s still going okay. (SPOILER: it is.)

Today she took the suture out of my right eye since it seemed to be coming loose. That certainly felt weird! Now I’m waiting to see what happens in February 2027….

I have mild/moderate strabismus. I had surgery in May and (I’d guess) I’ll need some more soon, as I’m still having double vision at times.

I also have mild/moderate prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, meaning I can have a hard time recognizing faces. When watching movies, I often have to ask my wife which character is which, since everyone tends to look alike. I joke that I must be using that part of my brain for something else.

When people post their photos here of their strabismus, I really can’t see anything wrong with them, but I’d imagine others people here don’t have this problem. Would you guess that’s because of my prosopagnosia?

(And yes, this really is a serious question. I kept wondering why people keep posting perfectly normal-looking photos here, but finally decided it’s a me thing.)

So here’s a funny story. A couple of weeks ago my son’s iPhone 17 Pro Max was stolen. He had Lost & Stolen protection, so he filed a claim, and he’s received a new/different iPhone 17 Pro Max. Good.

In the meanwhile the police recovered his original stolen iPhone and returned it to him. It had already been bricked by Apple, of course, since it had been stolen and was in the process of being replaced, and so it could not be used. My understanding had been that we should drop the recovered/bricked iPhone off at an Apple Store later to be used for parts, but the Apple Store didn’t want it when he tried that today, and Apple Support agrees. I asked if we should just throw it in the trash; they said yep, that’s right.

So right now we have an extra, unusable iPhone 17 Pro Max. I know that stolen/bricked iPhones are often shipped off to China to be disassembled for parts. Does anyone know how to do that, or (better) to help it be recycled closer to the US?

I asked my doctor on July 3 for a Zepbound prescription under the Bridge program, and it was very quickly approved. I was amazed! (I did have an old Zepbound prescription from over a year ago that I’d never used because of the cost.)

I’m a long-retired researcher who’ll probably have a paper accepted for a major conference. It’s a thirty-year retrospective on seminal work that was never published back then due to corporate collapse.

I plan to list my affiliation as being with my original research lab, which used to be well-known but hasn’t existed for 29 years. That is, I’d list “Dynadigitronics Research (retired), Boston, USA.” I didn’t write the paper there, you should understand, but rather in the small beachside community where I now putter about. The paper has no co-authors.

The actual decision is of course up to the conference’s Program Committee. I’m just wondering whether anyone can cite precedent on listing affiliation in similar situations.

I took a Test Spin on the ALSO TM-B this weekend. I’ve been following its development with great interest and had considered buying one for a while. They seem great in the ads, giving the impression that they’re all things for all people.

I test-rode one this weekend and hated it. It’s far too heavy (for me). It’s got a lot of power—or so I read here—but I’m not looking for a lot of power. I found the power-assist controls to be counter-intuitive, and the “throttle” control to be pretty pointless.

(Of course, it’s possible the bike I rode was set up wrong.)

Just read this morning’s recall notice and checked my Omnipod DASH™ pods. Three out of my four boxes are affected, including the pod I put on this morning, AND the pod I took off right before that, which BTW might have caused a nasty infection. (Or maybe not, since Insulet is of course innocent until found guilty in a court of law. I’ve made a doctor’s appointment to look at the old infusion site anyway, and we’ll see what they say. It’s badly swollen, painful to touch, and feels very warm.)

And now I’m on eternal hold, since their website says their online help queue is too full to join. Their phone queue said it would just “minutes,” thirty of those minutes ago. At least my call is important to them, as they keep telling me.

I’ve (M73) had mild strabismus for decades, with prismatic correction added to my eyeglasses about four years ago. Things have been getting worse—or at least more noticeable—following cataract surgery last year, so I’m having strabismus surgery (OD) tomorrow. The surgeon kept explaining that the chances of loss of vision are only 1:50000; I added that a chatty anaesthologist friend of mine likes to include the odds of, say, loss of life from general OR problems….

But I digress.

Anyway, I’m having surgery tomorrow. I’ll tell you how it goes.