Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with strain

Stress Strain Diagram

gzimmer — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:25:13 -0800

Looking for a quality Stress-Strain Diagram of Structural (Mild) Steel to use to study from. Googling around has only given me pretty low res and crummy pictures.

Bonus points if you can find one that has any of the more important aspects denoted.

Solutions for LCD Projector Eye strain?

tonci — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 11:02:27 -0800

New LCD Projector: Feeling significant eye strain, what can I do? I'm very excited with my purchase of an Epson 720p LCD projector. I haven't gotten a screen yet, and have it projecting against a wall about 18 feet from the seating area, about 95 inches diagonal. I'm surprised to be feeling considerable eye strain and have been unable to find much guidance on the internet. The one notion I found was that projecting anything that is not it's native resolution may cause such strain. I guess I've noticed this most with the cable which is either Standard Def or High Def (1080p, I think). I have to do more testing with my upscaling DVD which should send exactly 720p to the projector. Do you have any experience or suggestions for this issue? Thanks for your help.

How do I reduce glare in our sunlit design room?

jmprice — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 07:55:21 -0800

i work for a medium-sized web design company. How do I reduce glare inside of our design room while keeping our natural light? Hello. We have about 12 employees inside of our design room that's directly underneath a sunlight.

Here are pictures of our office:
http://www.box.net/shared/j9xgu252fg
http://www.box.net/shared/0ieif63pzu

The setting and natural sunlight is great but the glare is starting to strain our designer's eyes.

What is the best solution to reduce screen glare and designer eye strain? Is there something I can install elevated, in the center of the room, that will do the trick (an artificial cloud or something)? Should I instead just invest in anti-glare screen filters? Is there another solution?

It's pretty clear my boss is looking for outside the box solutions so I welcome your wildest suggestions.

Identify this teletype font from Andromeda Stain?

sharkfu — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:15:04 -0800

FontFilter: Can anyone identify the source for this font from Andromeda Strain? It seems one of the early printings of the book Andromeda Strain had teletype style medical reports printed in the book in a different font. It appears that current printings of the book don't use this font.

I suspect it's some sort of teletype or typewriter wheel / ball that was used, but I'm curious if anyone knows for sure. I don't expect a computer font facsimile would exist but that would be a nice bonus.

Here's an example from the screenplay for the movie with the teletype style font above and regular courier below:

Picture link (488k, Imagevenue.com)

Alternate picture link (488k, ImageShack.us)

Thanks for your help.

Pain in the Butt?

sweet mister — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 06:55:08 -0800

I have a pain in the butt. Help me fix it. A couple of months ago I strained my lower back on a bike ride. It happened when I got too hot in subzero weather and took off my top layer. Twang. It was sore and stiff but not incapacitating so I carried on riding for the next couple of days. However, on a long ride, again in cold weather, the pain migrated down to my left buttock. After that my whole left leg hurt every time I sat down -- so much so that I had to work standing up for a week. It eventually faded away and I went back to normal.

Last week I strained my back on a hard mountain bike ride (again in cold weather) and it has again migrated down to my buttock and leg. This is really a new thing for me and I'm trying to figure out what's causing it and what I can do. I suspect it may be pressure on the Piriformis nerve or something similar.

My buttock leg is not getting strained during the exercise: it's a pain which migrates from the site of the strain.

(I'm asking this on Metafilter because I have had horrible experiences with PTs and docs trying to fix/figure out muscle pain -- they seem to have no clue whatsoever).

I'm 42, 172lbs and 5'10. I'm fit but not very muscular. I recently lost about 15lbs.

Any suggestions welcome. I realize that cold-weather cycling (and probably not warming up properly) is a contributory factor here... but I really LIKE cycling in freezing temps... and I just bought a singlespeed mtb so I'm likely to be exerting myself even more in the future.

Looking for an RSI specialist

tabulem — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 10:51:52 -0800

Can anyone recommend a specialist in Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) in West Los Angeles / Santa Monica? I have serious neck, shoulder and wrist problems from excessive computer use. I've seen some doctors but they seem to have little knowledge of RSI. I'm looking for a doctor or physical therapist with experience in this area who can recommend exercises, etc. that might help.

Do I need glasses?

scarylarry — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 17:58:09 -0800

Am I farsighted, or Should I Visit the Optometrist? I read a lot (old-fashioned paper codex, plus computer) and for about three years I've felt a strain when I read for more than twenty minutes or so, which becomes a crippling headache if I don't take frequent breaks. I've found through trial and error that if I close either eye the feeling of strain diminishes significantly. I've considered visiting an optometrist, but I don't have any kind of health insurance and I'm hesitant to spend money I don't have for someone to tell me my vision is fine.

I don't know much about farsightedness, but I hadn't given much thought to the possibility since my vision seems equally crisp and clear no matter how close or far away the viewed object is.

I haven't seen the eye doctor in about 7 years (I'm 23), but back then my vision was 20/20. Would mefites recommend I open my wallet and make an appointment, or is it more likely that my headaches are just the effect of normal reading-strain?

My eyes! My eyes!

jaded — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 14:03:28 -0800

My eyesight has always been great, and in general I see just fine. As a general rule, the world is not blurry and when I look at something, whether it be 1 foot or 20 (or 100) feet away, I see what I expect to see. I've never worn glasses. But lately, I've encountered three annoying types of...issues.

1. Night driving drives me batty. It's not that I can't see, which I can, but light glare really bugs my eyes and if I drive in the city for too long, I get a massive headache. Busy and poorly lit highways (which are the norm in Massachusetts) are the most frustrating.

2. If I watch a long movie (say 2 or more hours) in a dark room, once the movie is over (be it TV or theater) and the lights come on, there is a short period when my vision is wrong. Visually everything seems quite dreamlike and focusing on specific things is hard. It's like my perception of perspective gets all screwed up. A few minutes and couple of head shakes makes it go away.

3. And here is what precipitated this question: If try to focus on something tiny that is close to my face it hurts. I noticed this today at work while looking at some bug reports which were printed in very small text (in a meeting - normally I read them on a screen). The text was too small and close together to read in a couple of spots, so I picked up the sheet to better focus on the text which resulted in eyeball pain and nausea.

Point three is the one that causes me the greatest concern. In the last couple of weeks, it's happened enough times that I'm starting to wonder what it is, but if I think back, the problem seems to have started a while ago (months at least), but today it was so bad that I actually had to stop what I was doing for a minute.

Points one and two have never particularly concerned me because I have chronic migraines and generally associate light sensitivity and strange visual behaviour to them.

The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is eye strain.

So my questions are thus:

What do you think it is?

Or, if you think that it's eyestrain, then what can someone who needs to spend an awful lot of time reading either from a screen or paper do to mitigate it?

Knee Twinge

hifimofo — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 16:22:06 -0800

TwingeFilter: I was doing some lifting (moving furniture) and now whenever I climb steep stairs my right knee twinges in a "Don't push it" kind of way. The lifting was over 6 months ago. Will this fix itself or is there something I should be doing to assist it?

Treating a Sore Shoulder

.kobayashi. — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 14:22:10 -0800

Yep, I've got a slight strain in my shoulder, which is bad. What's worse is that I'm moving tomorrow, so I'll need to be lifting lots of heavy things. Preamble aside: how do you treat a sore shoulder? Heat? Ice? Aspirin? What works best for you?