Why does the eyeglass manufacturer Masunaga sound familiar? Ah, that’s right – that’s the outfit that designed Sarah Palin’s distinctive glasses. What are they up to lately?

Well, they’ve developed a set of glasses that monitors how often you blink.When a sensor detects that you haven’t blinked for more than five seconds, a liquid crystal display is released in one lens causing it to fog up and gradually turn opaque.

Okay, remind us – why do we need this again?

Actually, there’s a very good reason. People who gaze intently at a computer screen or read an e-book for prolonged periods of time often develop ocular dehydration – dry eye. By being forced to blink, your eyelid coats your eyeball with a thin layer of moisture. The blink immediately clears the mist on your eyeglass lens.

Probably not the best thing to wear while driving on a highway, one would imagine.

The name of the product? Wink Glasses. If you’ve got 40,000 yen to burn, pick up a pair. That’s $430. Read New Japanese glasses bring tears to the eyes.

A much cheaper if somewhat grosser way to moisten your eyes may be seen in the below video.

RC

Wonderin’ how Sarah Palin, who ain’t much for readin’ newspapers, wrote her memoir in sixty days? Read John Cook’s profile of Lynn Vincent in Gawker. Vincent is described as a “co-writer” but what part of the book Palin “co’d” is a worthy matter for speculation.

Vincent’s viewpoint is certainly compatible with Palin’s, though. Cook reports that she “ghost wrote the memoir of Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, the former head of the Army’s Special Forces Command, who literally believes that his job in the U.S. military was to defeat Satan for the Christian nation of America.”

Cook’s conclusion? “Sarah Palin’s book will be awesome because her ghostwriter has abundant experience in shaping the confused, fevered thoughts of religious fanatics into sentences.”

Sorry about the dropped g’s. It’s the Sarah Palin influence, obviously.

RC