Due to Dr. Who Anniversary Special related internet blackouts I give it 24 hours before anyone actually sees this post.
I realised this week while window shopping that I had no idea how sunglasses are made, the sum total of my knowledge is that you grind the glass until it's i the right shape to focus light properly. I didn't know how the frames are made, how polarisation or tinting is made or how bifocal or multifocals mix their lens shapes.
So this is my summary, the polarisation film is made by spraying a layer of molecules which naturally align parallel to each other which cuts glare from light which is not aligned with the direction of these molecules. Usually glare is aligned horizontal to the ground, reflecting from objects like ocean waves and car windows slanted toward the cool shades wearing individual which is why the molecules are usually aligned vertically on sunglasses. The level of polarisation is affected by how misaligned the light is, so tilting your head may block more or less glare. The only reference to what kind of molecule was in a 1941 patent which described it as an "polyvinyl alcohol [solution] containing oriented molecules of polyvinylene" (Rogers, 1941) but I haven't found anything more recent, or anything suggesting optical manufacturers have updated their methodologies.
As for glass tinting all I could find was that most optical glass is made by immersing the glass in a chemical bath and the tint soaks in to a much greater depth (150 microns) than the thickness of a sprayed coating as was initially tested (5 microns thick).The only chemical I could find which was used for tinting was a combination of layers of titantium oxide and nickel hydroxide, although I couldn't find if these chemicals were in widespread use in this application.
The frames themselves were made by a couple of different processes, differing on the material and style. Wire frames are bent into shape with a collection of different machines which twist through certain angles to make different shape lens frames and bridges which are brazed together. Plastic is injection moulded with a die (metal pieces which act like moulds) which is cut to produce a specific style.
Multifocals and progressive lenses (lenses whose power varies around the lens) are made by using a standard front side of the lens and then the back is ground to different shapes for each patient.
Word of the day/week/whatever: hypoallergenic, as in doesn't cause allergic reactions.
Live fast and die old, please. Or never, you know. Depending on how legitimate these claims are. TED talks are crazy.
1941 Patent: http://www.google.com/patents/US2263249
Berkeley article on new tinting options (new for 1998): http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/cheap-photochromics.html
Sunday 24 November 2013
Sunday 17 November 2013
Page One
As the title suggests, this is the opening page of this blog and it should act as a guide to what will follow in the improbably infinite number of continued ramblings. The books in the background are not to suggest I am the owner of some mighty tome of knowledge but because I believe that the written word is humankind's greatest invention and books still carry that connotation. Think of this post as the front page of my newspaper. So obviously what will follow is the editorial, wherein I will try not to drive you away.
Dear New Reader,
Hopefully this is the beginning of a long relationship of me talking nonsense into the internet and you consuming it in your underwater palace/fortress of solitude/hermetically sealed chamber.
So to initiate proceedings I'm going to talk about myself for approximately one more paragraph and then I'll avoid doing it ever again. I want this blog to achieve a couple of goals. (I hope listing them will help me focus in on them as much as it helps you to close this tab if you don't want to read them, which I hope is different from disliking said goals) The idea is all my opinions, grievances, advice, questions, and actions will all be motivated by a desire to disseminate knowledge. I don't mean science or to act as a library, I want to make/help/push you into a different viewpoint by talking at you a couple of times a week about things that I like/hate/encourage/disagree with/think should be explored more/argue should be boycotted or ignored/argue shouldn't be ignored/want to remind you about because it's been a while and just like that person who's name you forget but really really should remember this is thing to store in that fabulous brain box of yours.
In essence I want this to be my own news clippings, scrapbook, and collage which you get to share in because you like to flip through other people's things when you're at their house too.
I'm not going to say anything about making it this far because you either did or you didn't. Instead I'm going to kindly gesticulate madly towards page two and the deluge of opinions.
PS, I really want to this to feel informed and unbiased. So if you feel like I start to favour some side of a discussion or discriminate I definitely want to hear about it.
I thought about starting off with something light and fun about being a college student but I decided that can wait for when I'm out of ideas (i.e. if I title a post "10 Reasons Why College is the Best" what it really means is it'll be my final post) so I discarded that and decided it'll be something that I've been thinking about all week.
To be a incremental fraction more specific: Staring. To focus our collective perspectives what I mean is the kind of staring where you catch someone in the corner of your eye and you think, my - insert particular reason for this existence here - what a stunning artwork has been moulded through cellular growth, life, and decay. Why if that isn't something I could drink in for eternity, I should wax lyrical upon this subject. That kind of staring. Because it isn't really staring, it's objectification. (I'm sure you all think along those lines when you do it, I know we've all got a little adoring lyricist in our mind who composes soliloquies when given the perfect stimulus) This is the word we use when we see/smell/detect in some meaningful way someone else and render them down to constituent parts and select those we like and take the bits we like to admire. Thereby rejecting the resulting pile of liver, back hair, and soles of their feet (things I suspect are rarely objectified).
I want to put forth my own opinion first because I'm selfless like that. I've tried to render it down as simply as possible when I say that I think actions can be understandable without being forgivable or more importantly acceptable. What we do is always under the scrutiny of our company, which I should remind you includes yourself. And now that you've read this it includes me.
Intuitively we know that some of our actions can appear creepy, or that things we do should seem odd/antisocial (the actual meaning of disrupting society in some way) but we can get away with them because we're attractive or fun or some other balancing factor is in play like a one sided power relationship. So today I want to remind you of that; to check one of our standard behaviours can really change how people see you to better match how you see yourself.
So to make a final suggestion to reinforce things we already know about ourselves, we don't want to be genderist because we are developed people who are capable of exercising our own self control.
To finish up, each post I'm going to try to make my sign off a link to something I've found, which while knowing nothing about you dear new reader I can accurately predict you will enjoy or find insightful. This week it's a song which has been in my head all week. Now it can be in yours too.
Dear New Reader,
Hopefully this is the beginning of a long relationship of me talking nonsense into the internet and you consuming it in your underwater palace/fortress of solitude/hermetically sealed chamber.
So to initiate proceedings I'm going to talk about myself for approximately one more paragraph and then I'll avoid doing it ever again. I want this blog to achieve a couple of goals. (I hope listing them will help me focus in on them as much as it helps you to close this tab if you don't want to read them, which I hope is different from disliking said goals) The idea is all my opinions, grievances, advice, questions, and actions will all be motivated by a desire to disseminate knowledge. I don't mean science or to act as a library, I want to make/help/push you into a different viewpoint by talking at you a couple of times a week about things that I like/hate/encourage/disagree with/think should be explored more/argue should be boycotted or ignored/argue shouldn't be ignored/want to remind you about because it's been a while and just like that person who's name you forget but really really should remember this is thing to store in that fabulous brain box of yours.
In essence I want this to be my own news clippings, scrapbook, and collage which you get to share in because you like to flip through other people's things when you're at their house too.
I'm not going to say anything about making it this far because you either did or you didn't. Instead I'm going to kindly gesticulate madly towards page two and the deluge of opinions.
PS, I really want to this to feel informed and unbiased. So if you feel like I start to favour some side of a discussion or discriminate I definitely want to hear about it.
*****
I thought about starting off with something light and fun about being a college student but I decided that can wait for when I'm out of ideas (i.e. if I title a post "10 Reasons Why College is the Best" what it really means is it'll be my final post) so I discarded that and decided it'll be something that I've been thinking about all week.
To be a incremental fraction more specific: Staring. To focus our collective perspectives what I mean is the kind of staring where you catch someone in the corner of your eye and you think, my - insert particular reason for this existence here - what a stunning artwork has been moulded through cellular growth, life, and decay. Why if that isn't something I could drink in for eternity, I should wax lyrical upon this subject. That kind of staring. Because it isn't really staring, it's objectification. (I'm sure you all think along those lines when you do it, I know we've all got a little adoring lyricist in our mind who composes soliloquies when given the perfect stimulus) This is the word we use when we see/smell/detect in some meaningful way someone else and render them down to constituent parts and select those we like and take the bits we like to admire. Thereby rejecting the resulting pile of liver, back hair, and soles of their feet (things I suspect are rarely objectified).
I want to put forth my own opinion first because I'm selfless like that. I've tried to render it down as simply as possible when I say that I think actions can be understandable without being forgivable or more importantly acceptable. What we do is always under the scrutiny of our company, which I should remind you includes yourself. And now that you've read this it includes me.
Intuitively we know that some of our actions can appear creepy, or that things we do should seem odd/antisocial (the actual meaning of disrupting society in some way) but we can get away with them because we're attractive or fun or some other balancing factor is in play like a one sided power relationship. So today I want to remind you of that; to check one of our standard behaviours can really change how people see you to better match how you see yourself.
So to make a final suggestion to reinforce things we already know about ourselves, we don't want to be genderist because we are developed people who are capable of exercising our own self control.
To finish up, each post I'm going to try to make my sign off a link to something I've found, which while knowing nothing about you dear new reader I can accurately predict you will enjoy or find insightful. This week it's a song which has been in my head all week. Now it can be in yours too.
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