Warby Parker, Zenni optical, eyebuydirect, etc are finally breaking the luxottica monopoly. 5-6 years ago my glasses were easily 2-3x that
Very jealous of the ICLs. I need the toric kind (or to also get lasik or also continue wearing glasses/contacts) and the last quote I got was 5-7k per eye. It should be covered by insurance, ridiculous
Does Europe have options that break the luxottica stranglehold?
I have some major qualms with zenni optical, warby Parker, etc but the fact of the matter is that luxottica/essilor had a stranglehold on many independent opticians, places like Walmart and target, chain stores like LensCrafters, etc and drove prices up substantially. Those other places have issues but they bring costs down substantially
My newest glasses I got last week. -15, -15.25, astigmatism both eyes, prism. Warby Parker frames were $99 and 1.74 index lenses brought to 230, with insurance it was $130 because they pay for frames. Zenni would’ve been even cheaper because they have frames super cheap and the 1.74 index for like $75 but warby Parker has actual stores near me where I can get an exam and also get the glasses adjusted if necessary.
Whereas a few years ago I was in the same boat as you. My script was closer to -13.75 then but the local optician only had luxottica brands: Gucci, Ray ban, etc. a few no name ones that still cost like $150 instead of $250-300. High index lenses were like $3-400. Insurance would bring the $6-800 glasses down to 4-600
Someday I’ll get implantable contact lenses. They recently approved the ones that correct astigmatism in the USA and can correct up to -20. No insurance coverage though. “Cosmetic”. $5-7000 per eye. Sigh
Thank you for making me feel more confident
Spoken like someone who has normie glasses
Talk to me when your prescription is -13 or worse, your glasses always have to be special ordered with the most expensive high index lenses, your glasses are physically heavy, and they distort your face so the area around your eyes looks far away.
You go to warby Parker and get the $99 frames but it’s still somehow $230. Even a place like Zenni is $75 for 1.74 lenses (not including frames).
Also you have to be cautious about what frames you pick because the larger your lenses are the thicker they’ll be. You one of those zoomers that wants cute big grandma glasses? Bad plan
Interesting fact: when lowtax was forced to sell somethingawful to one of his moderators that got bitcoin rich for 400k he revealed during the negotiations that conde nast attempted to buy somethingawful for 13 million dollars around 2006 or so. He turned them down because he “was still having fun with the site”
After the sale was completed the mod looked into it a bit more and realized in that same timeframe conde nast ended up purchasing a majority stake in reddit for a very similar amount
Imagine how different the internet would be if “the front page of the internet” was a hacked up vbulletin site from 2003 filled with 40 year old IT dorks and run by a guy that was so afraid of paying child support that he literally killed himself
Well they’re not good, they’re still enabling the government to remove your rights and the rights of others plus they tend to have a lot of other hot takes and behavior that are objectively shitty.
Speaking broadly they seem to be people that are bigoted and reassess their bigotry when it becomes humanized. They only changed this opinion because it impacts someone they care about directly, basically. In some cases they still hold the shitty opinion and view their loved one as the exception (the “real trans” vs “fake trans” thing)
The other piece that can be a real mindfuck is that they can often go to a “we just don’t talk about it” thing, where they do silently think the absolute worst of you but at least aren’t assholes about it. This is at least not detrimental to you directly but can lead to ugly behavior and systemic oppression
Approach with caution, basically, and don’t be shocked if someone who initially seems very sweet and courteous says some utterly disgusting shit if the conversation turns ugly if you bring up “sensitive topics”
On one hand this is objectively true
On the other hand, $$$
Everyone is going on about how maga is inherently anti trans but the situation is more nuanced
If you’re terminally online then yes, maga is 100% anti trans all the time but irl that is not always the case
I provide gender affirming care and work with families where someone is trans and their families are MAGA people, respect pronouns and names, give rides home from surgery, call partners boyfriend/girlfriend as appropriate, and will even at times get mad at others for not respecting their child’s identity
This is not a super common thing, to be clear, but it’s also not shockingly rare. Maybe 20-25% of my clients? It also gets into the whole “humanizing” factor. These people are so insulated from minority groups thanks to continued segregation that they can easily demonize them but lgbt minorities can pop up in their families much easier. That’s why they fucking hate acceptance movements; you can’t white flight from your queer kid but you can bully them into a loveless marriage that ends in divorce or suicide. But when they finally do integrate they generally recognize that while there are aspects of a culture they still despise the people within it are still just people, especially if those people are the people they’ve known and loved their whole life
It’s cognitive dissonance at its finest though and creates tons of friction. Client is obviously very upset that family is voting to end their rights and family usually does mental gymnastics to not see it that way. Also majority of instances, overwhelmingly so, are trans men. This is all based on my anecdote so take it with a grain of salt but imo trans women are most often used for propaganda and portrayed as monsters so trans men sometimes fly under the radar via erasure. though to be absolutely clear key word is sometimes, trans men absolutely get a ton of shit flung at them too. This probably plays into the fact that trans women outnumber trans men by a significant margin and more importantly/likely systems of misogyny, people hate women.
That said I would generally assume the worst, especially if you encounter a group of Trump people, or if you are in a place where you are doing discourse online
You’re correct, I was misremembering (it’s been awhile)
The prodinfo/console identifier is on the emmc and in situations where the console was dead or not hacked this couldn’t be dumped (although looking it up now it appears there are methods to extract prodinfo from dead emmc or generate a fake one that will get you banned but make the console boot).
I repaired more switches than anything because there was an ample supply of broken ones and they were easy to sell as refurbished. I stopped a few years ago but for awhile I would buy every broken switch I could get my hands on that was reasonably priced, fix it (if possible), and resell it
I would argue they are very repairable though it is in spite of nintendo, not because of them. The modular design does help a bit but ultimately what helps is that there were a lot of people like me posting notes online and if you know where to look (badcaps, gbatemp, youtube (side note youtube fucking sucks for this post your notes as actual notes), etc) there is extensive documentation on the switch and joycon motherboards to the point where they’ve basically been reverse engineered (not fully but close enough).
Then on top of that there is a huge level of support from Chinese manufacturing. I can get all the chips that were hard to source from places like mouser and digikey on AliExpress. I can get replacement joysticks, batteries, fans, usb c ports, LCDs, casings, basically everything Nintendo won’t sell, and most of it is all solid quality. In some cases it’s greatly improved - I can skip the $3 joycon stick replacement that will inevitably drift again in 6 months because of the flawed design and get the $20 Hall effect stick replacement that will last for years. I have these in my switch and they work great, I haven’t replaced the sticks since like 2020
Nintendo made the somewhat modular design and not pairing parts right but otherwise fucking suck at support. If you get one I refurbished they’ll tell you to go fuck yourself. Fuck nintendo. That said if you want a console you can repair yourself the switch is extremely well documented and parts are everywhere.
Keep in mind that not all switches are fixable before you buy a broken one and some repairs are extremely complex. If the emmc is fucked you’re screwed because it’s paired to the cpu. If there’s a short in the cpu you’re screwed unless reballing the cpu fixes it but this is generally not worth the effort and probably won’t work. If someone else who sucks tried fixing it first you might find a nightmare scenario of board damage: the worst deals I got were ones where someone said their switch broke and sold it to me, I opened it up, and it was clear they tried to replace the usb c port. This isn’t a terribly difficult fix if you know what you’re doing but if you’re new to soldering it’s pretty challenging, definitely not a first project. So the board is all charred, burnt flux (from flux core solder, they never use flux haha), pads lifted and traces ruined, blobs of solder, passives in the area like filters just straight up missing. Fixing all that is a nightmare so it becomes a donor
Honestly the bigger thing is sponsorblock, blocking youtube ads is a big deal but it’s so much nicer to be able to circumvent the internalized advertising. Youtuber spends 4 full minutes plugging a vpn service? Automatically skipped seamlessly
Rooting ranges from very easy (literally go to a webpage, very unlikely you’re on a firmware this old), to medium (put stuff on a usb and try to play some music, may have to try a few times), to very difficult (connecting hardware to the tv), and in some cases is impossible. Don’t update your tv if you don’t have to, lg rarely fixes issues and never adds new features
They absolutely do this. A drug with a lack of efficacy data is a great way to get shortlisted to insurance denials
It’s one of the frustrating things bc people can then easily manipulate the issue. A drug that can be prescribed a doctor and filled by a pharmacy being denied by an insurance company is very easy to write about online. Then it’s a slam piece, “x insurance company denied me my meds”. Basically 0 people will have any interest in the nuance that the medication is bullshit or possibly even harmful. Too bad insurance companies made their bed by being absolutely horrible for decades, I guess.