best picnik ever?

The other week I thought to myself: "I really ought to shell out for Photoshop...everyone else has such lovely photos, and I'm stuck with iPhoto.." However, shelling out is one of my least favorite activities, and thus it was much to my parsimonious glee that we learned about the wonders of picnik, picassa and gliffy last week. I immediately went home and downloaded picassa onto my parent's computer, and picnik onto mine. Fabulousness ensued, and I was quite pleased, except that picnik tends to be a trifle whiny and suggested I restart my browser. Never! But I will continue to use the program regardless. Because making pictures of my cat look like infrared neon is so cool!

A bit of technological news that caught my eye was this

about Lasik surgery and the potential damage it has caused a minority of those who have undergone the treatment. I had read in the newspaper a few months back about a woman who has been suffering severe depression since her Lasik surgery, but the article seemed to make it all better by mentioning that only a very small percentage of people have experienced complications and most people really dig the procedure. This was enough to alarm me, though, for I have entertained the notion of Lasik for years now, since my eyesight is atrociously bad and I hate it. Now, since the expose, many more afflicted people have come out and are demanding change. The most frightful side effect of Lasik-induced injuries is suicide. Blurry images, double vision and eye pain and dryness have caused many to experience depression and suicidal thoughts. Having poor vision is certainly a handicap in some ways, and is incredibly annoying...since fourth grade I've been a little angry at my ever-declining vision. But imagine the pain of these people who underwent a surgery to fix their eyesight only to be left with irreperable and painful damage. Indeed, any surgery is risky, and often people die under the knife, or emerge worse off than before. Lasik often seems too good to be true, too easy, too painless (definitely not too cheap, though). It's also elective, and these people knew there may be a risk of injury from doing it. Still, because Lasik is so new, we haven't been able to make really long-range assessments of it's impact and how it evolves with vision through the lifespan. The suffering people have had is important to consider, and I think that the procedure ought to be improved and re-assessed to further lower the percentage of people left in debilatating pain.