andperseand

Can you tell the difference between someone saying 'faa' and 'baa'?

I feel like that study is probably an example of the McGurk effect.

Of the very few bourbons I've bought, Buffalo Trace and Wild Turkey 101 have been excellent value to me. I keep hearing Rittenhouse Rye as well, so that might be my next one to try...

What is this $15 bottle of whiskey? I'd love to know what cheap bourbons are good.

Contact lenses aren't always easy to fit. Especially if you are correcting for astigmatism. There's sizing, weighting, permeability and the unmeasured but distinct differences between brands. There's also the choice of changing the actual powers involved for different reasons. So people have to take them away, try them for comfort and such... Three visits is pretty normal. If you are a keratoconic then 3 visits would be a very easy case...

Being married to an optometrist and privy to some of the numbers of the business, I'm always a bit annoyed reading these articles. Yes, the margins on frames are high. Are the overall profits of the business high? Not particularly. The staffing costs are essentially subsidised by the products they sell. If you put 'reasonable' markups on the frames, then you have to make the costs of the eye tests a lot higher to pay for the time of your expensive staff and then fewer people are willing to get tested and their problems go unnoticed. Sometimes they are serious enough to be life-threatening or to cause total loss of vision. Your GP is not going to notice a bulging optic disc for example.

So while I appreciate the consumer sentiment of 'This looks like I'm being ripped off', I think the current pricing model is actually in the best interest of public health. Even SpecSavers model of 30min appointments is a bit suspect really.

Given that the article is about China and that the OP wrote about global trends you can probably remove 'white' from your list of descriptors...

I'm unaware of schools ruining mathematics - in what sense has this happened? Has this happened in most countries?

All thinking is a skill. If there is one thing I wish schools would teach, it is meta cognition.

Hydroelectric probably wins on cost benefit ratio. Or perhaps geothermal?