How are you setup to deal with eye strain?

At work, I've got a pair of 27.5" monitors @ 1920 x 1200. I've moved to a standing desk that has a riser which puts them more at eye level and also further away than they were at my cubicle desk. At home, I have a pair of 25.5" monitors, also at 1920 x 1200. Each of those monitors are on articulated arms, so I can keep them at a better height than their original stands. I can also adjust the distance as needed. Both the additional height and distance have reduced the strain on my eyes considerably.

To deal with my eye strain, I use Gunnar Glasses (http://www.gunnars.com). Although I get some jokes about wearing "hunting glasses", it's totally worth it.

try out f.lux. it's been a life saver for me.

I'm working on an answer for you, but your question is too difficult for a short answer. You can either check this HN submission in a few hours, or contact me by email (in the 'about' of my HN profile).

EDIT

The spectrum (pun intended) of vision issues is an exceedingly vast and complicated field. Your eyes are the biggest part of the equation, but it's actually more than just your eyes; how your brain tends to evaluate the things you see also comes into play. Though there are generally defined groupings and descriptions of issues, it's very important to remember that your eyes (and brain) are specific to you. The odds of two people "seeing" things in exactly the same way are minuscule. This still stands true for even physiologically "identical" people such as "identical" twins.

Figuring out what works for you personally will involve a good deal of trial and error experimentation.

Line length is just one example out of thousands.

Have you ever wondered why HN and the essays at paulgraham.com both have long pages with narrow columns of text? --In one of Paul's essays/pages he explains how narrow columns of text are easier for him to read, and since both HN and his own site are his to control, he "wastes" a lot of horizontal space to get what he wants. For many people, scanning/reading a long horizontal line is difficult, or better said, more difficult, than scanning/reading short horizontal lines. This is one of the many reasons why printed newspapers use narrow columns of text, and why one of the well accepted styles for academic papers is to use two narrow columns of text per page. Of course, for some people, long horizontal lines are not a hindrance at all, so they might wonder why so much space is being "wasted" to achieve narrow columns.

At least some of the endless wars of opinion on the "correct" way to format code are simply manifestations of the differences in the way people see. For example, if your eyes/brain have no difficulty parsing long horizontal lines, then you'll be more inclined to use them, but of course, you'll undoubtedly be at least annoying all the people who have trouble with reading long lines. For some people, the long lines may actually result in pain due to eye strain/fatigue.

Type Faces (Fonts) and Type Sizes

Just as PG has difficulty with long horizontal lines of text, my brain has difficulty with most type faces (fonts), and even more difficulty with switching between varying type sizes. I love books, but the typography of most books makes reading them far more difficult, and painful, than they need to be. The same is true for websites, PDF files, and other documents. On a computer I can force my preferences of type face and size on whatever I'm trying to read. It does take a lot of effort to learn how to configure browsers and other programs to over-ride the style of all websites and documents, but for me, the results are worthwhile.

Foreground and Background Colors/Brightness

This is one of the most wide spread and well known problems causing eye strain on computers, but due to fads and fashions, it may never be fixed. The typical dark foreground text on white backgrounds on computers is just a skeuomorphism carried over from printed pages of black ink on white paper. The trouble is, paper pages reflect light, but computer displays generate light.

The best way to understand this problem is to pick the brightest lightbulb in the room where you're sitting, and go over and read the wattage off the top of the bulb. If you're a smart person, you turned off that light bulb before trying to read the wattage numbers on the top. If you're a not so smart person, you stared into the sun while trying to divine the nearly indecipherable written text. If your eyes are normally sensitive to light, then you only caused yourself some mild discomfort when reading the lit lightbulb. On the other hand, if you're one of the people who are extremely sensitive to light (sometimes called "light allergic" in less accurate terms), then by reading the lit lightbulb, you just caused yourse...