Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

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The great thing about Australia is that that is probably illegal here.

We've got some pretty fucked up protectionist rules about what you can and can't do in/to your own home. It's nuts.

Now, nobody is actually watching most of the time, so you're usually fine, but it's as stupid as being illegal to replace a tap or existing light fitting. Every so often state governments review the rules and get swamped by trade associations who say the rules are there to prevent people being 'scammed' by untrained 'handymen' and are there for your own protection. This regulatory capture means that legally you need to complete a four year apprenticeship before you're allowed to change a plug! And another one if you want to do any basic water plumbing.

I wouldn't be surprised if what the guy did in this blog is strictly speaking illegal - for instance when it comes to data cables, you need to be a qualified electrician with data specialty to install them. You can plug ethernet cables into your computers yourself (wow! such privilege!), but if you install them even by getting some stick-on plastic conduit and passing the cable through that, you're in contravention and could potentially be fined, up to thousands of dollars. For sticking some plastic tubes to the wall in your own house.

Reminds me how, in USA, it’s the only civilized nation I’ve been to where you must have a prescription to purchase contacts and glasses. Everywhere else I’ve been will just sell you whatever magnification you need at the pharmacy.

Obviously there is some acceptable line here, but I think the States handles this decently well enough. In Austin where I live you can get what is called a “homeowners permit” in a lot of cases. Meaning the city will come look at your work and as long as it’s up to code you get a legal permit just like a contractor would get (https://www.austintexas.gov/page/homeowners-permit). You can only do this to your own home so it’s not a shortcut to running a chuck in a truck business without a license.

There's an easy hack for the contact lens (and maybe glasses?) situation. There is a consumer protection law meant to ensure eye doctors can't stop you from using any retailer you want (otherwise they'd essentially make themselves your retailer), and it works like this:

You place an order with the retailer (online retailers typically allow you to simply type in your prescription values when adding lenses to your online cart; you don't need to show an official written prescription) and specify your doctor's name and phone number. Upon receiving your order, the retailer must call the doctor to see whether the doctor objects (invalid prescription). The retailer is to ship the order only if there is no objection (including no response at all) within 8 business hours. So just give the retailer the name and number of someone who won't immediately object, which is quite easy (e.g. a permanently closed office).

Of course, you need a refraction to know your prescription values. But once that's done, if your vision doesn't change over time, this allows you to ignore the expiration date of the prescription.

US based online contact vendors reject orders without a signed prescription. The doctors intentionally don't sign them. The workaround is to order them from Canada

I couldn't find a Canadian (or any foreign) retailer that would ship to the US, but I found tons of US retailers that allow self-entry (as an alternative to uploading a signed prescription) as I described.

ContactsExpress ships to the US. There is at least one other that escapes me.

1-800 contacts will write a prescription for you with a $20 online eye exam.

Optomitrist asks if your current prescription is ok, asks you to stand 20ft back and read a few letters and you’ve got a script you can use wherever.

As will several other retailers, but only in some states. As someone in an excluded state, I considered whether enabling Mock Location on my phone would get me past that check (I think they require you to use a native mobile app, so I assume they use location from that?) but then thought of the method I mentioned earlier instead.

Reading all that, I'm happy my part of Europe is a bit behind the tech curve here.

I mean holy fuck, "native mobile app" and "getting contacts" do not belong in the same sentence in any sane universe.

Haha well the thing is, a vision exam requires that you read letters of a certain height from a certain distance while proctored, and presumably this is quite difficult to achieve in telehealth with more open computer systems. Of course some folks can figure out how to break anything (I mean, just plug a projector/TV into your phone with a usb-hdmi adapter and now the letters are huge?) but I think it keeps things easy and reasonably accurate among normies.

I purchase my glasses from Zenni, and I don't believe I've ever had to give them the name of my doctor.

On the other hand, maybe I typed that in when I was first signing up two decades ago, and the optometrist I gave them has long since gone out of business?

I also order from Zenni and have never had to provide my doctor's info. They happily create lenses with whatever prescription I type in, and for me personally it usually takes a couple years for it to change enough to warrant new glasses. (I still get an exam annually)

This sounds too good to be true. Having to get a prescription to get contacts is insane…

But how would you know what to order if you don’t have a prescription?

Trial and error? I guess that might work if you have a simple correction (no astigmatism).

Getting a prescription when you don't know what you need makes sense. Getting one just because your last one has expired (1 year) is the off-putting aspect.

Exactly. Mine hasn't changed for years, but I still need to pay this tax.

My first thought is - how do you get the contact information for a closed office?

My current hack, which is not as great as yours, is to put a reminder on my calendar for a few days before my 1 year prescription ends. If I order new contacts in the one year period for another year’s worth of contacts (even if I am not out yet), I essentially get to go 2 years between visits. I will try your hack next if I can figure out a good way to get contact info for an office that won’t object.

Google it. When places like this go out of business, local news articles get written. Or just pick randomly among ones still in business, worst case your order gets canceled?

There's an even bigger hack: use photoshop to modify the prescription. My wife has been doing it for years. This is helpful since sometimes the prescription is over-specific and points to contacts you don't like.

I considered that of course, but something about the signature on it (as opposed to self entry which has no signature) made me very uneasy. And doesn't the verification phone call (which fails unsafe, luckily) happen either way? Maybe not.

They must not be making this verification call since we've been doing this for years. Yes, it's straightforward forgery, so your unease is warranted. But I have no problem breaking pointless laws.

Oh wow... I'm totally going to try this next time just to see if it works

Yeah my beef isn’t around the actual requirement of determining your prescription. Obviously you should wear eyeglasses/contacts that match your vision requirements. I think this is especially relevant when we are talking about usage with a drivers license. The ridiculous part is the arbitrary 1 year renewal. As you imply it is really only necessary to recheck that often when your vision is changing a lot which is usually not something that happens after some period in your 20’s.

Neat trick though. I got lasik a few years ago but I would do this if I hadnt

> Reminds me how, in USA, it’s the only civilized nation I’ve been to where you must have a prescription to purchase contacts and glasses

Anecdotally this is far from true. Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK for example require a prescription for anything more complicated than reading glasses.

There are plenty of reasons why, mostly summed up by your comment about “whatever magnification you need” - eyeglasses for distance vision are infinitely more complex than “magnification” and if you’re buying anything other than reading glasses without a proper exam and matched lenses, you’re doing yourself harm.

Unless of course you are talking about reading glasses, in which case you’re also wrong, as you can get those for a couple of bucks pretty much anywhere in the US with no prescription.

> [...] the Netherlands, [...] for example require a prescription for anything more complicated than reading glasses.

I have never needed a prescription to get (non-reading) glasses in the Netherlands. In fact, there are webshops where you can purchase any pair of glasses (obviously, you have to enter the values of an eye examination).

You can order glasses from web shops in the US too - those “values of an eye examination“ come from your prescription.

I'm not sure that's true about the UK and prescription glasses. When I moved back here I packed my glasses up in storage so was going to be without for 6/8 weeks before our stuff arrived. I went onto Glasses Direct[1] and ordered 2 new pairs of glasses for £50 by putting in my prescription details from another country. The glasses themselves are regulated as medical equipment, but you could go on there and buy any prescription you want and nothing will stop you.

[1]: https://www.glassesdirect.co.uk/

> Anecdotally this is far from true. Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK for example require a prescription for anything more complicated than reading glasses.

I’m in Canada. To order glasses I just punch the few numbers from the optometrist into any random website and glasses show up. That’s… kind of necessary if you want lenses that actually correct for your vision.

With Americans in this thread talking about them trying to verify with the optometrist and stuff… I don’t think we’re in the same league at all.

I am not sure about Canadas situation since that is where I used to order my contacts from before I got LASIK several years ago. I don’t recall having to provide a script then. But Mexico and several other European countries I’ve been to (Sweden as an example) it’s absolutely the case you can just walk into the pharmacy and grab the magnification you need with no prescription. I am actually surprised you were able to provide that many counter examples but I’ve never tried to buy contacts in the countries you’ve listed outside of Canada

> it’s absolutely the case you can just walk into the pharmacy and grab the magnification you need with no prescription.

I don’t understand how this could possibly work. Contact lenses have at least three parameters to define the lens. It’s not just “magnification”.

If you have an astigmatism, there are two more, and a further two if you have presbyopia (for a total of up to 7). Almost everyone has presbyopia by the age of 65, so it’s not some rare condition.

Do these pharmacies you speak of just have aisles upon aisles of contact lenses?

When I was in Germany, I saw vending machines where you could buy contacts. Sure, there's a lot of possible values, but they probably only stock the most popular ones.

Here in Japan, you can easily buy contacts from optical stores. They have several shelves behind the counters where they stock many varieties. Sometimes they even put a bunch of unsold/unpopular ones out front for 1/2 off (a lot of these are color contacts). I get mine online; I don't need a prescription.

One thing I did notice, as someone with astigmatism, is that the number of possible values is less here. My axis back in the US was 100, but here I have to use 90; they just don't carry them in all the possible axis values here.

Not aisles upon aisles but yeah for instance in Apotek, a big pharmacy chain in Sweden, there is usually a whole wall of them with little drawers to pick from. As sibling comment mentioned there isn’t every combination available so presumably you have to special order some if you have some weird combination but for myself who never had astigmatism at all it was perfectly fine.

Yeah in the UK where I spent most of my life, it seems like you do whatever you want, pretty much. Golden rule - you don't touch gas plumbing. And you don't mess with your circuit breaker board/RCDs etc. I think installing new ring circuits may be off limits.

Anything else? Go for it. I fitted a bunch of taps and a toilet, changed single sockets to double+USB sockets, changed light fittings, fixed poorly wired lighting circuits, installed Cat-6 through the walls to a few rooms, all sorts of stuff. And none of it was anyone else's business. You can (should?) get a professional inspection and safety certificate before you sell the house, but that's about it AFAICT.

I'd be happy enough with the situation in Austin, so long as the city inspections were cheap or free. I'd be happy enough to do a short course in the basics before getting some sort of permit. Where we are now is nuts.

(But at least I can buy a pair of generic reading glasses pretty much wherever here!)

The inspections themselves here are reasonably priced, but it’s still annoying to deal with the city because they operate in 1995. There’s no portal for scheduling inspections for homeowners, you have to call them. They don’t tell you when they will show up on the day they will perform them, so you have to be available at home from 7-17 ready to instantly answer the door at a moments notice the second they knock or you will miss them and have to reschedule

The pricing is reasonable enough - it’s cheap enough to actually be worthwhile to do several things yourself that normally you’d have to pay a contractor for. I did it when I ran some electrical conduit to my garage to add a few 120V receptacles in there.

My general rule of thumb is also I won’t touch gas. But also anything like plumbing that is INSIDE walls I usually am looking to have a professional handle as well. It’s harder to fix knucklehead DIY mistakes when they are covered up behind drywall.

It does make me want more plumbing setups like I’ve seen in Europe. When I lived in Sweden I loved for instance that a lot of bathroom plumbing is completely exposed, so DIY’ing plumbing work is actually pretty accessible. Here where you have to dig into the walls to get at it makes it much less appealing since not only do you have to be a a decent plumber you also have to be a decent drywall person as well.

Watching "Scrapheap Challenge" has taught me the UK has a lot of regulations about steam engines.

One of the behind-the-scene videos was something like "that old steam-powered whatever they just happened to find in the scrapheap? Yeah, we've got the inspection certificate right here."

Boiler explosions will do that to a country.

In the US, it's probably more of a "don't ask, don't tell" situation most of the time. Only the idiots get caught when they screw up.

Canada enters the room

Australia is definitely one of the most rule-obsessed countries, even in comparison to Germany, where I’ve lived for the last decade or so. Parts of my parent’s house back home are heritage listed, some rules make sense and some are bizarre, especially regarding the garden.

Heritage listing is it's own thing. What I hate is the rules surrounding...essentially any home services. Like it took me a long time to realize when people in the US were saying they "needed to get something up to code" what they meant was, that they themselves didn't feel up to doing the work and it would cost them. But like...you can. You can just call the guys and double-check what needs to be done and do it yourself and get it inspected.

Whereas in Australia the answer is, it's all illegal, and if you're not a licensed whoever then they don't want to tell you how it should be done in case gasp you do it yourself.

So of course everyone does do it themselves, and lies about it. And the quality of workmanship from the trades is...poor.

Yeah it's not like the work done by the trades is always a shining example of competence.

I can and often do do a better job on things myself, because I have more time and I care about getting it right. And with the apparent trade shortage (at least in part caused by how much you need them for real basic shit), it's expensive and half the time the bastards won't answer the phone or don't show up to appointments. So stuff gets done on the down-low or it just doesn't get done at all.

Gotta love the signs at the hardware store saying "You can buy this stuff but if you even think about installing it yourself, that's illegal!"

I moved back to Perth from Berlin last year, and yeah, agree completely. Germans have a reputation for being rule-obsessed but they're lax compared to the Aussies, who have a reputation for being larrikins that is almost completely undeserved. It's all "beer & bbq on the beach" until you find out that's illegal and the police will pour out your beer on the sand and fine you for the bbq.

larrikin:

1. (Australia, New Zealand, slang, dated) A brash and impertinent, possibly violent, troublemaker, especially a youth; a hooligan.

2. (Australia, slang) A high-spirited person who playfully rebels against authority and conventional norms.

Today I learned a new word.

See also "Wowser", the opposite side of the coin. At some point it seems the wowsers gained the upper hand.

What's left of larrikinism unfortunately seems to be cooked in the head these days. Australian politics is sorely in need of some decent larrikins, but they seem to be AWOL.

agree 100%

check out "Wowser" - the Larrikin's mortal enemy.

The Wowsers are winning :(

Yeah it’s striking whenever I visit again. I guess there’s that famous quote about Australians being the descendants of not just criminals but also jailers which makes sense.

Germans tend to obsess over rules and processes in bureaucratic contexts and when it infringes on others but are very open with personal freedoms.

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