Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by jrockway on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @02:12PM
(#694343)
I assume there is something higher-grade than chemistry-lab splash goggles for this. There must be some protective equipment available for people working with white-hot aluminum.
Nobody should have to do a job that can lead to blindness.
Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by TrevorJ on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @03:48PM
(#694540)
I worked in a machine shop for four years, and I can tell you that stuff happens no matter how good your gear is. There's always the odd bit of debris that bounces off your dust mask or something at just the right angle to make it under the small gap between your goggles and your face.
Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by kd5bjo on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @03:18PM
(#694466)
I'd think that they would work fine for this; they should absorb the kinetic energy of the impact and keep the molten aluminum out of your eyes, even if they do then melt quickly thereafter.
Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by sho on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @03:13PM
(#694459)
"Nobody should have to do a job that can lead to blindness."
I agree. Yet in our society, where efficiency must often be balanced against safety, risk cannot be fully eliminated.
Council workers would surely be safer if the roads they repaired were closed for the duration, but we cannot stomach the roads being fully closed. Furniture movers would certainly suffer less chance of back injury if there were four men lifting that dresser instead of two, yet no-one would hire them if their prices doubled. And the aluminium smelter might well be able to significantly reduce its injury rate by investing billions in a new process, but the product would no longer be viable and the factory would close, simply moving the risk to a less caring jurisdiction.
One can continue like this all day. There's always a compromise, and most developed countries have settled upon a sweet spot. Workplace injury declines with advancing technology, and we should certainly do our best to minimise it, but while society values economic competitiveness over absolute personal safety, you can never eliminate risk, and maybe not even then.
Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by jacquesm on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @03:17PM
(#694465)
You'd be surprised how many jobs can lead to injuries, including blindness.
I met a piano tuner with only one eye one day. He was tuning a grand piano, overstressed the string, it broke and the little loop at the end of it was shot off straight into his eye...
I'll bet you he never thought that piano tuning can lead to blindness either.
Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by handelaar on Thursday July 09, 2009 @01:35AM
(#695285)
That jarred for me, having grown up in the UK where -- famously -- almost all piano tuners are blind. It's almost a cliche, and even schools for the blind were of the opinion that this was historically the best chance its students had of a 'normal job'.
I hope that this is no longer the case, but it certainly still was when I was at school in the 80s.
Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by jrockway on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @03:44PM
(#694531)
Conversely, people can stop working jobs that value economy over safety. I guess they must make enough money to not worry about the risk, which is somewhat sad.
Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by cellis on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @04:15PM
(#694583)
Its called a danger premium. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't object to being paid 400k as a programmer in the Green Zone in Iraq. Or maybe you would, depending on your appetite for risk.
Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by josefresco on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @06:21PM
(#694841)
And the fact that they work directly to save/improve/alter life whereas great software projects tend to be somewhat disconnected from the actual life saving thereby making their authors somewhat removed from that 'thing' that allows doctors to charge the big bucks.
Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by asdlfj2sd33 on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @06:31PM
(#694856)
You know there's a lot of medical software right? And I'm not just talking about record keeping. What do you think most high end medical and scientific instruments run on?
Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by 10ren on Thursday July 09, 2009 @12:15AM
(#695210)
You implant the skin in the eye and after two months "it acquires a blood supply". Surgeons and doctors do great work, and especially in this article, but they deal in stuff that heals itself. From an technologist's point of view, I say it's indistinguishable from magic.
Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by pbhjpbhj on Thursday July 09, 2009 @08:26AM
(#695690)
I'm guessing teeth can join well to flesh without rejection (mine seem good on this anyway) and also don't reject implanting foreign matter (filings, those little diamonds chavs^W people have, etc.) they're basically a bridging medium; an interstitial that avoids rejection.
Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by theblackbox on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @04:33PM
(#694611)
While from this thread alone this may look like slashdot, the community happens to put a much higher emphasis on _conversation_ rather than praising an individuals wit.
At the risk of being down modded myself for not contributing to the thread I just thought it might be worth pointing that out and reminding those that seem to have voted on this particular thread as though the emphasis was on humour.
I'm not exactly one to throw the first stone, as my karma/comments/submissions are far from exemplary, but I do try to stay in keeping with the ideals of the community.
Re:Blind man sees wife for first time after having a tooth i...
by craigs on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @07:57PM
(#694928)
I actually like a bit of humour; when applied correctly it can accentuate the gist of an item and throw into sharp relief what the "community" really thinks. In this case: facinating story, but, come on, it's from the "Daily Mail". Humour, quite simply, is required.
This is why you should always wear safety goggles.
Nobody should have to do a job that can lead to blindness.
I occasionally see code that makes me wish I had turned blind.
I agree. Yet in our society, where efficiency must often be balanced against safety, risk cannot be fully eliminated.
Council workers would surely be safer if the roads they repaired were closed for the duration, but we cannot stomach the roads being fully closed. Furniture movers would certainly suffer less chance of back injury if there were four men lifting that dresser instead of two, yet no-one would hire them if their prices doubled. And the aluminium smelter might well be able to significantly reduce its injury rate by investing billions in a new process, but the product would no longer be viable and the factory would close, simply moving the risk to a less caring jurisdiction.
One can continue like this all day. There's always a compromise, and most developed countries have settled upon a sweet spot. Workplace injury declines with advancing technology, and we should certainly do our best to minimise it, but while society values economic competitiveness over absolute personal safety, you can never eliminate risk, and maybe not even then.
I met a piano tuner with only one eye one day. He was tuning a grand piano, overstressed the string, it broke and the little loop at the end of it was shot off straight into his eye...
I'll bet you he never thought that piano tuning can lead to blindness either.
I hope that this is no longer the case, but it certainly still was when I was at school in the 80s.
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2009/07/07/a-good-man-is-ha...
Sigh, I really hate the pointless deaths of good people.
Yeah, people who don't want to eat or have shelter can do that.
(The word "they" is never said, contrary to the meme on slashdot a few years ago.)
So now I'm curious. I want to see his wife...
I'm just a programming but I think a large portion of the bucks surgeons make is due to the expense and duration of medical school.
No such force assists the programmer.
Surgeons don't post here & we wouldn't understand them anyway. Gimme a funny comment any day.
At the risk of being down modded myself for not contributing to the thread I just thought it might be worth pointing that out and reminding those that seem to have voted on this particular thread as though the emphasis was on humour.
I'm not exactly one to throw the first stone, as my karma/comments/submissions are far from exemplary, but I do try to stay in keeping with the ideals of the community.