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by kazinator
2019 days ago
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Use a small font that becomes hard to read if your eyes are tired or dry and you start to strain. I discovered this decades ago at university. For a time, I switched to a large font, thinking naively that it would help with eye strain. But the problem became worse; my eyes became crazy tired, and it became obvious to me why: I could read the text no matter how tired my eyes were. Heck, I could stare at the screen without even blinking for minutes at a time, and still read the text. So I persisted in marathon hacking sessions without taking appropriate breaks. I promptly went the opposite way and used the smallest font I could comfortably read with rested, relaxed eyes. Problem went away. This established a corrective feedback loop. Firstly, I had to blink in order to continue to read. That font size was not possible to read without blinking for a minute. Secondly, straining to read when tired didn't work; I just had to take a break. |
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I remember e.g. when heart failure was treated with beta-agonists (every doctor at lectures: "It makes sense! The heart is struggling, so we give it a boost!").
Then they did some studies and found that while the heart output increased, people were dying faster. So they decided to do the exact opposite and switch to beta-blockers (every doctor at lectures: "It makes sense! A dimmer candle burns for longer!").
Then they found out beta-blockers made things worse too. I have no idea what they do nowadays, but I'm sure doctors still have a rationalisation-by-analogy explanation for it, whatever that is.