Update On My Eyes

Time for a bit of an update here about my eyes. It has now been over a month since I had refractive lens replacement and the healing process is still on-going. I am sitting here able to read this screen without glasses and I can read printed matter too. There is however, a range to this reading. Text that is at the distance one would normally hold a book is easiest, but double that distance and it is cloudy. My long range vision is good too. When I’m outside looking at stuff I can’t fault my vision but when I’m inside there is a bit of cloudiness for things at about 10 feet, like the time on the DVD player. As with my vision before, the more light the better it is.

At my last check-up it transpires that this cloudiness is likely due to debris in my eyes. After these operations stuff floats about in there and sticks to the lenses. This can be cleared at a later date with a short procedure with a YAG laser. However, they won’t do this until after the healing process, which takes a minimum of 6 weeks. I’ll be in Crete by then so it’ll have to wait until after I get back. This is not a problem since the light out there is much more intense than here and I’m managing fine without glasses anyway.
Also during that last check-up it turned out I was suffering from dry eye which, since they provided me with eye drops, I’ve found out was also a cause of cloudiness in my vision. Apparently dry eyes are also a by-product of healing.

Another problem is halos. If your job were to involve a lot of night-time driving I would not recommend the multifocal lenses I have. Bright lights on a dark background all have a series of concentric rings around them. I get this with small items like the small lights on various electronic devices. I get it round titles on the TV that are on a dark background. And it was especially noticeable during the last leg of my journey back from Chester this weekend – from car headlights when it got dark. Then again, my eyes did not feel tired from the drive and I also wonder if the effect will decrease after the YAG laser and when my eyes are less dry.

The upshot then is that I’m still not sure if this operation was a great idea. However, this might well be due to my own lack of patience. I was hoping for quick good results. My vision has improved but I doubt I can properly judge the success of the operation until a year down the line.

Second Eye Operation

I went back to Harley Street for my second operation on Friday the 13th – not an auspicious day if you believe in that nonsense. This time I took a camera in the hope of getting some shots of the procedure, so be warned if you’re squeamish – the shot of me in a hair net is quite horrible.

When I arrived there I was still slightly worried about the cloudiness in the eye that had been operated on. I use the word ‘cloudiness’ rather than ‘blur’ because it wasn’t as if I was straining to focus but to see through a dirty glass. After a chat with my surgeon Mr Samer Hamada (a guy whose letters after his name are about twice as long as his name) and his inspection of my eye, I felt reassured. Swelling from the surgery causes astigmatism until it goes down and there are also debris in the eye that take a while to clear. Sometimes these debris stick to the lens but can be quickly cleared at a later date with what’s called a YAG laser – this takes just a few minutes.

Also noticeable during this consultation was when he checked what I could read on a card. I could read even some of the small print not commonly used. The vision in that eye is improving daily.

Anyway, after a bit of a wait I had the drops in my second eye then, after a further wait went into surgery. I handed the camera over to one of the nurses and climbed onto the surgical table. Same procedure as before, obviously, though slightly different pains and lots more fluid squirted in. Maybe he was making sure to be rid of as much of the debris as possible.

Afterwards my vision had improved noticeably – there certainly didn’t seem to be any of the cloudiness as from the first operation. I went home, put my eye drops in then later found myself even able to read the text on my Ipad without strain. I later went to bed with two eye shields on and looking like a bug.

The next day things were a bit blurry but I didn’t let it worry me. I took a train into London yet again for an inspection at the Optimax clinic in Finchley Road. Everything was still looking good. This morning I’ve seen another improvement and suspect that the slight blurriness I now have is due to the scotch I drank last night rather than the surgery.

Later I’ll try to find a video animation I watched in the clinic yesterday showing in detail the procedures I’ve undergone. Can’t find it at the moment.

Eye Operation

A number of years ago, like most people heading into their 50s, I found that reading was starting to become difficult. Mostly it was a light thing. I picked up some +1.5 reading glasses which I used when the light was crappy and that is how it has always been. I could read in good light even when I moved to +2.5 and then admitted that my eyes still weren’t right and had them checked. About this time I suffered from a lot of styes mostly in one eye and it turned out that eye had developed astigmatism. Also it seemed my body had adjusted to the age-related inflexibility of my eye’s lenses by giving me one eye for reading and one for distance.

Because Caroline had had good results from laser eye surgery I went to see what could be done. Turns out that I had a choice: I could have my eyes lasered so I needed glasses only for reading or alternatively only for distance. Since I did not yet consider my distance vision sufficiently crappy I was a bit reluctant. Another alternative, at much higher cost, was refractive lens replacement. I booked to see the eye surgeon next time he was in the clinic but the appointment was cancelled because he wasn’t coming, so I just let it go. This was in 2012.
  

Over the ensuing years my vision worsened. The disparity between my eyes made it difficult to watch TV – I could read the time on the DVD player with one eye but not the other – and to drive at night. I ordered some glasses over the internet using my prescription but with the reading element taken off. These I used for driving at night, and then started to use for driving during the day. My eyes felt perpetually out of balance and tired.

Meanwhile, through my science reading, I learned about the new multi-focus lenses now being used in refractive lens replacement. So I decided to look into it again. I booked an appointment with Ultralase – where Caroline went – and learned that the clinic in Chelmsford had closed down. It turns out that Ultralase was bought out by Optimax and some clinics closed during the reorganisation. I went to a place in Southend and the results were much as before for laser, but by this time I was thinking what the hell, I’ll have the replacement lenses. The success rate for 20/20 vision is well into the upper 90%s and most failures can be corrected anyway. I am also aware that nothing is 100% and that usually the failures in any kind of surgery are with those who have something very seriously wrong or other health problems. Also the operation was a lot cheaper than previously quoted. And, in the end, an SF writer with cyborg eyes? Gotta be done. I paid the deposit and booked in.

The operations were to be in Harley Street – first one eye on the 6th February with a check-up in Southend on the 9th, second on the 13th with a check-up on the 14th (this time in London). I’ve now had the operation on my first eye. I was nervous about this and still wondering a little if I was doing the right thing. Were my eyes sufficiently bad for this? Would the result be a marked improvement or sort out the vision problems I had but just replace them with other drawbacks? I had read about problems with halos and adjustment to the change. In respect of eyes being sufficiently bad (or ripe for change) I learned from the surgeon that the earlier the better. The harder the lenses are when removed the higher the likelihood of damage to the eye during the operation.
After a talk with the surgeon and the signing of some ass-covering forms I sat in a room, had a x penned on my forehead to mark the eye to be operated on and drops put in to open the pupil to begin numbing it. I then went into the theatre where more drops were added and then some sticky fabric was used to hold my eyelids open. I was a bit worried because my eye did not feel numb at all. I could see nothing but three glaring lights. A nurse offered to hold my hand but I manned up and folded them on my chest. The surgeon began furtling about in my eye and I could see movement. He then told me the next bit was going to sting. It did. I could feel my eye being cut, but only briefly. More furtling ensued – painless – and then the operation came to an end. Briefly I noticed something: I could see individual diodes in two of those lights. Next an eye shield went on and I went into recovery – just a blood pressure check and five minutes sitting chatting to a nurse – then I headed off  home. In all I would classify this operation as much less traumatic than having a filling at the dentist.

My vision was heavily blurred and it was more comfortable to keep my eye closed. My eye felt as it does when you have a stye. I also felt quite tired afterwards – maybe stress. The blur remained throughout the day but even through it I can read the time on my DVD player, which I could do before with that eye. At one point I did notice halos but they’re not much of a bother. They only seem to be there when there is a bright light nearby. During daylight there is no sign of them. The blur reduces each time I put my eye drops in – two lots 4 times a day consisting of an antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory. Now, on the second day the blur has reduced by half, the eye more comfortable and I’m keeping it open more. I’ve popped a lens out of my reading glasses since wearing them makes the blur in that eye worse.

I’ll do some more blog posts about this later. I might even take a camera to my next operation to see if it’s possible to get a few pictures…     

Back to Grey Skies

So here I am back in the land of grey skies, the droning of the BBC and, for me, seemingly endless bloody paperwork.

 
First I opened my parcels to see free copies of the American editions of some of my books and also a German edition of The Departure – I’d forgotten they were even doing a translation.
 
 
As discussed elsewhere I should have saved the parcel opening as rewards to myself for opening letters. As it was I spent all evening opening letters, discarding rubbish and trying to put the rest into some sort of order. I did discover a great load of letters from a debt collection agency. Seems I didn’t pay my last Asda bill though I thought I sent a cheque. I sorted that out too, chuckling when asked questions about my ability to pay.

 
Meanwhile I noticed that my central heating did not seem to be working properly. Sitting there with a house temperature of 17C after being of Crete and being tired from the journey might have been what brought it to my attention. I hit a reset button and generally buggered about with it and now it is working. I’ll have to pose some questions to my plumber when he comes round to service all this stuff in a week or so. I got an electric fire down from the loft and used that till I hit the sack.

The next day I intended to fully sort out all my mail and get onto filing my tax return online. What I actually did was shopping. First I thought it might actually be a good idea to have some food in the house so went out to my garage, reattached the battery on my car and started it up. When I tried to drive it out of the garage it stalled. The brakes were locked on and I actually ended up driving it out just skidding the back wheels along the ground. A couple of thumps with a metal bar and hammer on the back callipers sorted to problem and I headed for Morrisons.  

 
When I got back I’d obviously got the shopping bug because I continued online. Presently, on the ecig front, I’m down to my Vamo, one Protank and a couple of spare atomizers. I spent quite a bit of money on Fasttec and elsewhere behaving like a kid in a sweetshop and the first items have already arrived from Go-Liquids.

 
Next I noticed something wrong with my access to Google+ then to my blog and my account on You Tube. This drove me mad for quite a while. I got madder when I discovered that Virgin.net emails could no longer be used to access Google accounts. I don’t remember receiving any notification about this. I got madder still when I discovered both on Google and Virgin the solution to my problem was to use another email address to access my account. To change this other address I first had to log onto my account. The circle jerk lack of logic there is incredible, but there it is in black and white on their sites. I finally sort-of cracked it much later by getting myself a gmail address and somehow managing to log onto Blogger, then ending up with a new password and another email at gtempaccount.com. If you have the same problem please don’t ask me about this because the details of how I got there are vague. I now have conflicting accounts and that ‘tempaccount’ worries me.

Today I’ve managed to clear most of my mail and it’s time to start on my tax return. This is why I’m writing a blog post and will shortly be pissing about on Facebook and Twitter … and probably looking at You Tube videos about rebuilding ecig atomizers…  

3D Printing with Jeff Perkins

Those of you that follow me on Facebook or Twitter @nealasher will be aware that throughout the winter I read a lot of science articles – usually about ten every morning until my mind has warmed up a bit. Of the many things I’ve been following with interest is the evolution of the 3D printer. This is one of those items I’ve mulled over getting for myself, and I may yet buy one (though a quadrotor, satellite watch and underwater camera are first on my shopping list). It was, therefore, great to see that one of my fans, JeffPerkins, has a 3D printer and has been posting his progress with it on Facebook. It was even more enjoyable to see him having a crack at the prador, so I asked him if he could do a post on that here.

Jeff Perkins:

For the sake of coherence, I thought I would restrict the pictures to just the crab print, as it gives a better idea of the process using just one.

I have included a picture of the design stage – adding the bits together in Blender (a 3d design and animation program). I pull the different pieces in there to re-size, rotate etc and weld together. Once done, I export the final piece into a .stl file, which is pretty much the standard for transferring models between programs for 3d printing. .stl comes from “STereoLithography”, and the file type can be used across many types of printers and laser cutters.

I then load the .stl file into ReplicatorG – this is one of a number of programs that take the model file and convert it into GCode, which is the scripting language 3d printers use to make the prints. The model can be re-sized and rotated about to make it fit on the print bed better as necessary. From there, you generate the GCode, selecting things such as the speed of printing, the amount of infill (a lattice support inside the structure, 10% gives good support and saves a lot of time and plastic, as opposed to making a solid model). The temperature can also be selected here, and this has a lot of bearing on print quality because differing plastics require different temperatures to print well – even different batches of the same plastic can require slightly different temps for optimum printing.

Once this has all been selected, the computer generates the script – this can take anywhere from a minute or two, to hours for a really large, complex model. I then load the resulting file on an SD card and print from that in the printer – you can connect it up to the computer, but I have found it much

less fiddly to print from the card and not connect the printer to the computer at all. Not all printers offer the SD card capability, unfortunately.
 
From there, the printer prints! I had crabby print upside-down after the first print. I tried with him the right way up but failed badly – the legs came off mid-print, things were getting warped and it was a mess. It printed well upside-down, the only unfortunate thing being that the support mesh leaves a lot of marks on the surface it touches. For a really good print I am going to have to configure it to print right-side-up and have the support structure leave the marks underneath.

 
But that is the joy of 3d printing! It is a technology very much in its infancy and in the experimental stage, and even an unsuccessful print is a good print, as you can always take something away from it to improve the next one.

 
I hope the above info and the pictures is of some use to you, and the sort of thing you were after.

 
Let me know if you want anything else and I can send it off. I will be doing a lot more work on crabby in the next few weeks to convert it into something a lot more like the Prador descriptions in your books, hopefully. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thank you, Jeff.

Snakeskin

When the hot dry wind hits here is fries vegetation and heaps the detritus here and there around my garden. The leaves, flower petals and bougainvillea bracts haven’t had a chance to turn brown. It’s like someone has tipped out a few sack loads of potpourri. While clearing these up recently, ever wary of the odd concealed scorpion (though they’re not often about when it’s hot and dry) I found numerous crisp-dried sections of shed snakeskin. Judging by the size of these pieces the snake was three of four feet long. I wish I’d saved them for a photograph but they went in my composter with the potpourri. Only a few weeks after that wind did I pick up one small piece…

…and think ‘USB microscope’!

 
I don’t know whether this will be interesting – let’s find out.

Snakeskin x20

 
Snakeskin x80

 
Snakskin x350

 
Okay, I did find these interesting, but then I have a confession to make: I’m a nerd. Also, coincidentally, when going back to editing these are the first words I read: He gazed at the snake drone locked in its clamps, and at the spine driven in through its mouth and deep into its body.

Fun with a Scorpion

Yesterday when I took my walk to Handras I set out in shorts and t-shirt because the sun was shining and I expected the temperature to just climb, but cloud steadily thickened. As I approached that village I was pretty sure I was going to get rained on and it occurred to me that while I didn’t mind getting a bit wet since it was still warm, the Greek/English lexicon, sheet of paper with Anna’s latest lesson on it, wallet and notebook in my man-bag might not appreciate it. I started looking for a plastic bag, damning myself for not sticking to my idea of always carrying a spare because wherever you go here Greeks will give you gifts of fruit and veg. (I digress: on one of my first walks here a pickup stopped beside me and the old guy behind the wheel waved to the back and held up three fingers. I took three mandarins out of the back, thanked him, and enjoyed them on the way home.)

The first plastic bag I found had fur and other icky substance stuck inside so had probably contained a dead cat. I passed on that one. The next I picked up was clean so I put the vulnerable items in that then back in my man-bag. Rubbish in general, including plastic bags, is never in short supply here and is strangely lacking in the tourist photos. On many occasions I’ve had my Jaws moment while swimming only to see a carrier bag sliding by under water.

Rumbles of thunder ensued and I did get rained on but not enough to bother me much. Back home, with the weather clearing a little, I set about varnishing woodwork then tidying the garden and other areas surrounding the house. This done I read Greek for an hour before deciding that maybe it was time to fire up that USB microscope that has been sitting on my shelf for 2 or 3 years. I connected it to my laptop, opened camera app, then looked around for the slides. I couldn’t find them anywhere so had to pack the microscope away again and instead watched the Sopranos.

This morning I was determined to make a concerted search for those slides after a walk to Lithines. However, it was grey and pouring with rain and has only eased off now at 9.30. Foregoing my walk I began rummaging through drawers – always traumatic because every item has a memory attached. I threw stuff away and relocated it, then finally found the box of slides in a cobwebby mess behind my desk. Time to set up the microscope again…

 
 
Here’s Mr Scorpion in place:

 
And here are some shots of him, respectively the sting, part of the main body and one claw.

 
This is my first effort. I would have liked a lower magnification so as to get a detailed picture of the whole thing but at x20 this is the lowest of the main settings which then go up to x80 and x350. Here’s x80 on the sting, while x350 is just a difficult blurry mess I won’t bother with.

 
Maybe if I take a series of shots at different points along its body I can paste together a whole picture in one of the other programs I have available? That’s a project for another time. I also need to get hold of the kind of slides I remember from my childhood (when my parents bought me a very good microscope for maybe my 10th birthday). These slides have dished recesses in them so you can put in a droplet of filthy water and watch fascinating diatoms zipping about, and the app will allow me to take video clips of them.

There you go: it is now confirmed that I am a weirdo.

Anti-Ageing Breakthrough

Well, I didn’t see this is one coming, and really should have. I’ve always felt that life-extension would go in a series of small steps, just as it has been going. There is no cure for cancer as a whole because there are thousands of different varieties of cancer. If a cure or some kind of delaying treatment is found for one kind then that pushes overall life-expectancy up, just a little. Just as if a better way of treating dementia or diabetes is found. Statisticians have a lot of fun with these figures because, with life presently being 100% fatal, if you cure one thing then more people die of another. Next time you hear ‘dementia on the rise’ just remember that is probably because less people are keeling over from heart attacks.

Since 1970 life expectancy in Western European countries has typically risen by six to eight years, and the rate of increase has been 2% a decade. Of course these figures vary hugely across the world and are dependent on numerous factors, but the trend is ever upwards. There are many coffin dodgers would like to try and stay within that slow rise and, unless our civilization collapses, there will be people born in the next 100 years who are just going to keep on living, with no end in sight.
However, even though most of the low-hanging fruit have been picked – consider how much life expectancy must have leapt up when penicillin was discovered – but the possibility of big jumps in life expectancy should not be discounted. And this looks like it might be one of them. Here is a link at Extreme Longevity, and another at Science Daily and lots more can be found if you just google ‘Anti-aging drug breakthrough’.
Publishing his work in the prestigious journal Science, David Sinclair of Harvard reports a breakthrough in the development of drugs that can block the aging process.
The article is entitled Evidence for a Common Mechanism of SIRT1 Regulation by Allosteric Activators, and reveals how interaction with a single amino acid in the SIRT1 enzyme is crucial for the ability of drugs that can activate the enzyme.
SIRT1 is an enzyme in the class of molecules called Sirtuins. Significant research shows that activation of sirtuins  reduces cellular aging through its interaction with other cellular master switches such as FOXO3a and PGC-1a
“At the cellular level,” explain the authors. “SIRT1 controls DNA repair and apoptosis, circadian clocks, inflammatory pathways, insulin secretion, and mitochondrial biogenesis”
The increase in centenarians is well known, but this particular comment caught my attention:
 “Now we are looking at whether there are benefits for those who are already healthy. Things there are also looking promising,” he says. ”We’re finding that ageing isn’t the irreversible affliction that we thought it was,”
“Some of us could live to 150, but we won’t get there without more research,” he adds.

Cellweld TM

Being back in the Polity now, while reading lots of science articles on the internet, I’m finding that the Polity needs updating in detail. All here have doubtless read stuff about 3D printing of inert matter and even of cells, and this morning my first science article of the day was this over at Singularity Hub:

3D printing technology is hot and getting hotter. Whereas once 3D printers were limited to a few select materials, these days inputs include metal, plastic, glass, wood, and—human cells? Bet you didn’t see that coming. (Actually, if you’re a regular here, you probably did.) Bioprinting firm, Organovo, isn’t anywhere near 3D printing a hand or heart. But a recently announced partnership with 3D modeling software giant Autodesk (maker of AutoCAD) might speed things up a bit.
We first encountered Organovo in 2009. The firm introduced the NovoGen bioprinter in 2010—the first of its kind—and has since built ten more. At a cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and as yet only rudimentary capability, bioprinting technology is firmly in the developmental stages.

So, of course 3D printing was invented long before the Quiet War. It’s so common in the time of the Polity that it is hardly worth mentioning that it is precisely the 3D printing above that is used by cell-welders and bone-welders or, rather, I neglected to mention it in the previous books… And, of course, many maintenance robots use 3D printing to repair damaged ships but foolishly, being a 21st century viewer of these activities, I took what they were doing to be welding or some other similar activity, so am now working to correct that:
Here a tic-shaped printer-bot was slowly and meticulously blocking off the tunnel, the numerous jointed printing heads sprouting from its foreparts steadily depositing layers of some white crystalline substance round and round its interior. Trent was reminded of a paper wasp building its nest, and as he eyed those busy printing heads he wondered if they were capable of doing any damage. Perhaps it would be better just hit the thing now… He raised his particle cannon, at which point the robot abruptly retreated out of sight.
‘I’ll go first,’ he said.
Nothing dates quite so fast as science fiction…