Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness • Hacker News Board

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#161

Post by arama471 » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

erikbye wrote: post #152

taneq wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hijacking this for a moment to say thanks for f.lux :) I've been running it for years and it's one of those things where you don't really notice the effect until you turn it off and then EGADS MY EYES.

Windows 10 has this built-in, so does macOS.

I assume you mean the night light button in the action center?

If so I would argue f.lux does a lot more. For one thing you can choose the hue it goes to, but also unlike the Windows 10 one which (AFAIK) is simply on/off, f.lux will adjust based on a schedule which means that you don't typically notice the effects (as the change happens slowly). This, combined with the ability to change damn near every parameter it uses, makes f.lux significantly better.

Edit: apparently windows does have hue adjustment and sunset/sunrise activation/deactivation available. TIL.

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#162

Post by herf » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

herf wrote: post #136

f.lux author here, still slogging through the article. It is hard to understand the light levels used because they use "power" (uW, mW) from a laser, and not "irradiance" (uW/cm^2 or mW/cm^2), so which area they have concentrated that light over is hard to understand. All I can see is it is from a laser, so the irradiance could be extremely high. The human lens filters most light at the peak of the given spectrum for…

If you are curious, the smallest doses where "blue light hazard" has been observed in humans (short-term exposure) are around 10 J/cm^2. International standards use around 2 J/cm^2 for a safety margin.

One example of this is hiking in fresh snow for hours, no sunglasses, meaning exposures well above 10,000 cd/m2 to "white light".

Computer screens are way dimmer - an hour of iPad use is .0365 J/cm^2.

http://www.nature.com/eye/journal/v30/n2/full/eye2015261a.ht... is a good summary.

For long-term exposure (AMD risk) we have very little data, so understanding the mechanisms (such as above article does) can help.

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#163

Post by cmurf » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 6:19 PM UTC

erikbye wrote: post #152

taneq wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hijacking this for a moment to say thanks for f.lux :) I've been running it for years and it's one of those things where you don't really notice the effect until you turn it off and then EGADS MY EYES.

Windows 10 has this built-in, so does macOS.

So does Fedora, courtesy of recent versions of GNOME with "Night Light" feature.

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#164

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 6:19 PM UTC

kjullien wrote: post #8

b_b wrote: post #4

For many of us whose use of these blue-light emitting computer and phone screens is necessary, what can we do about it?

Use f.lux or an equivalent (most OS have their own implementation by now) that filters out the blue light at software/rendering level, it's not perfect but you do instantly feel the comfort it brings to your eyes. Been using f.lux for over 10 years and it also helps alot with going to sleep at night. When it's off your eyes/brain thinks that they are in daytime / broad daylight, when it's on I fall asleep 2 or 3 time…

[deleted]

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#165

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 6:19 PM UTC

mafuyu wrote: post #44

I'm in the process of building a Philips Hue-compatible light therapy LED strip that goes above my bed, and I chose 500 nm cyan LEDs due to this concern. The goal is to have the lights gradually wake me up every morning and help align my sleep cycles, as I suffer from Delayed Phase Sleep Disorder. Figure 3[0] in the paper seems to show that 500 nm is safe, and that melanopsin has high absorption at 500nm, which has i…

[deleted]

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#166

Post by erikbye » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 6:22 PM UTC

arama471 wrote: post #161

erikbye wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 10 has this built-in, so does macOS.

I assume you mean the night light button in the action center? If so I would argue f.lux does a lot more. For one thing you can choose the hue it goes to, but also unlike the Windows 10 one which (AFAIK) is simply on/off, f.lux will adjust based on a schedule which means that you don't typically notice the effects (as the change happens slowly). This, combined with the ability to change damn near every parameter it u…

Both macOS and Windows 10 has on/off now, scheduling, less/more warm adjustment. Windows 10 even has sunset to sunrise based on location.

EDIT: HN is becoming more like Reddit every day, I see. Ridiculous. Down-voted for pointing out the existence of helpful features. EDIT: might have been my fault.

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#167

Post by smileysteve » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 6:26 PM UTC

codemac wrote: post #69

Anyone have suggestions for kindles? A lot of the "screens" I've seen on amazon have pretty terrible reviews. It's the one major source of nighttime blue light that I consume. I've largely given up using my phone / laptop in the dark, as I decided I'm an adult and can just leave the lights on. Reading in bed is one of my favorite things, and it bothers my partner to leave the lights on.

The contrast of just your screen and focusing in the dark is likely damaging on its own; but you can add the red filter, and, if using kindle app, make the font white on black background.

But yes, as Kindles imply, reading text printed without a backlight is preferable to backlit text, so prefer lights over the backlight.

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#168

Post by nathan_long » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 6:27 PM UTC

I am excited about LED lights for their efficiency, but keep seeing articles like this and don't understand the practical ramifications, like "what bulbs should I buy?"

I messaged Cree on Twitter, expecting a very corporate response, but they linked to some studies (which I haven't yet had time to explore.) FWIW - https://www.energy.gov/eere/ssl/street-lighting-blue-light-a... and https://www.lrc.rpi.edu/resources/newsroom/pr_story.asp?id=3... were the resources they suggested.

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#169

Post by erikbye » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

benrbray wrote: post #159

erikbye wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 10 has this built-in, so does macOS.

These are relatively new features, and they arguably wouldn't have been added if not for the popularity of flux ;)

Does that matter? It's built-in now, and that's why I commented. To raise awareness. If built-in features have you covered there is no point going third-party.

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#170

Post by m_ke » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 6:30 PM UTC

verta wrote: post #73

JohnBerea wrote: post #54

In addition to f.lux, I also use the Dark Reader Chrome extension[1], which dynamically generates dark themes for every page you visit. It seems to make a bigger difference than using f.lux. 1. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-reader/eimadp...

Def'ly a great relief for my eye strain - using it during the day too and keeping on by default. One annoyance is that Chrome needs to let the address bar be darkened as well as it stands out like a neon tube when Dark Reader is on.

I just use a dark chrome theme with it to get around that issue.