I thought it was clear from the context, but my grass is greener on the other side comment was directed to US citizens actively looking for change and looking towards the government funded healthcare systems as examples of better heathcare systems and in the process glossing over issues within those alternate healthcare systems. The government funded healthcare systems are good (and I think are a lot fairer than what you have in the US) but, like most things, they are not perfect.

And just in case it's still unclear :-), given the choice of the current US system or the NHS, I would prefer the NHS.

Early 40's. The first episode of this (which stabilised after a few months, but hasn't so far this time) happened in my late 30's. Any ideas appreciated.

I understand where you are coming from and don't worry I'm not offended. I also suspect there may be an element of this in the response from the various doctors especially in the light of the negative test results.

However what I do know is that I am having to spend real money buying brighter and brighter lighting to be able to function in environments I had no problems with just a few months ago.

Right now I would just like to understand how, at a human physiology level, a person's vision could be getting dimmer, yet their visual acuity is unchanged.

I don't suppose there are any medical researchers here with any ideas by any chance ?

Personal experience here.

The NHS tends to be good when you have routine or easy to diagnose problems and personally I am happy with how routine procedures have been handled.

When you have more difficult to diagnose problems which have not yet become debilitating it's pot luck if you encounter a doctor interested to getting to the bottom of things or if you encounter a doctor more worried about meeting their government imposed targets.

While I think the NHS overall is more fairer than the US system (even with the major problems I currently have with it) just remember the grass always seems greener on the other side.

Try thinking of it as a wake for the US manned spaceflight program.

It saddens me to see the US lose it's manned spaceflight capability.

This government is going to be out of power in the next 3 months or so (which is when the next election must be held by), and Mandelson clearly wants to get this passed as law before the election.

Unfortunately, there's no real evidence that the Conservatives will be any better.

I agree with you that the NHS provides some good things and for a routine or otherwise well known illness I have found the NHS to do a good job.

However, when you have a unusual condition, as I apparently do, and which standard testing doesn't reveal any insight into, then you can be basically ignored by the NHS until your condition becomes debilitating. Unfortunately, by that time, it's generally too late to do something about it.

I have no real idea why the consultants will not spend any extra time trying to track down the problem, but I suspect it has to do with the NHS been very target driven and getting people through the door as quickly as possible. To any NHS workers here, I am sorry if that seems harsh, but it's how I currently feel.

The opinion of this patient is that the NHS needs to develop procedures for been able to spend time diagnosing patients with unusual conditions and not leaving it until it's too late to do any good about it, because right now, my only real hope is that this condition (whatever it is) stabilises before my vision gets too dim to be of use.

(BTW Slashdot, if anyone here has any ideas about why a person's perceived brightness level would dim without any MRI or VEP tests been positive, I would be very interested in any suggestions you may have.)

Yes, for as long as we have a documented history.

However, over the last few decades, we have developed the ability to destroy all life on this planet. 100 years ago we couldn't do that.

And while we have matured in some ways (we have not destroyed ourselves yet in a nuclear war) I don't think we have developed far enough to wisely use some of the military technology, like this one, which we are now developing.

The effects of a nuclear war are immediate for everyone. OTOH, this technology has the potential to be silently developed until one day we find out, the hard way, that we have gone too far.

When I start seeing developments like this, I wonder if we as a species are developing faster technologically than we are maturing as a civilisation.

Are we wise enough to use such a technology, if it were developed to it's full potential ?

"There are now 5 minutes to self-destruct"

Thanks for the feedback - I didn't realise this was done to reduce malware.

Unfortunately, this is also hitting legitimate users like myself who want to write their own MIDlets.

In my case, I am writing a MIDlet which uses SMS to receive automatic status updates from a device with a GSM module attached and I want to be able to control that same device via SMS using a control station MIDlet I plan to write which will be installed on the phone.

On the S40 series, and apparently on some S60 editions as well, you cannot self sign your J2ME MIDlets by loading your own certificate into your phone. This means you have to pay for a certificate to avoid been prompted every time when you want to carry out some security sensitive operations.

I've only just found this out this evening, so the scope of this is still unclear (and hence I am open to been corrected), but it appears that the S60 2nd edition may have had the self sign capability and it may have actually been pulled by Nokia from the S60 3rd edition.

Evil Overlord Rule #12:

Perhaps policy makers should read the Evil Overlord list before making policy. :-)

It's incidents like this which keep those of us who would really love to visit the US far away from it.

How could someone with a mentality which considers it ok to play such a joke on a passenger even be considered for employment by the TSA ?

Protecting innocent people is a serious business. It would be nice if the people entrusted with it didn't have a high school bully type mentality.

You have my sympathy.

Here in NHS land, I have found the NHS to be good when faced with known conditions (especially when it's associated with one of the many targets they use internally), but they are far less impressive when faced with unusual symptoms.

I hope your wife gets well again.