Comment by theothertimcook 3 days ago
Big old hole in the ozone layer right over North East Australia, I see dark skinned south Americans blistering because they spent too long in the sun.
Legend has it why Aussies call the English Poms, short for pomegranate, because they come over and get burnt to shit, end up bright red.
Same is a great part of the culture.
I'm also in the same boat but more out of laziness and hating being greasy.
Definitely wish I'd been more sun smart when younger though.
Having lived in the UK and Australia, they're not kidding when they have don't get skin cancer promotions. The most remembered one from my youth is Slip, Slop, Slap. So Australian. Slip on a shirt, Slop on some suncream and Slap on a hat.
And yet mostly living in Australia, (was only in the grey UK from 2.5 years in our 20's), I'm still vitamin D deficient, because the majority of my life I've been inside on computers, presumably like a large percentage of Hacker News readers.
Ironically, our suncream QA is crap and all of the supposedly good sunscreens with high SPF factors failed indepdent testing - even including the one recommended by the Cancer Council.
The sunscreen thing is atrocious, about 7 years ago I bought a big expensive bottle of LeTan spf50 waterproof sunscreen, had a big day at the beach but applied and reapply diligently following the instructions.
Burnt to a crisp, I emails them and never heard back, I can't image I was the only person to notice.
Which is why Im probably vitD deficient too, the sun is toobharde to spend any amount of time outside unprotected here.
It's now slip, slop, slap, seek, slide - shade and sunglasses!
> Legend has it why Aussies call the English Poms, short for pomegranate, because they come over and get burnt to shit, end up bright red.
I love Aussies’ sense of humour!
Skin cancer is no joke, but I don’t wear much sunscreen because I don’t need to. I need all the vitamin D I can get. I wish I would’ve protected myself more earlier in life, though.