Live data from Hacker News

Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

phys.org

321–330 of 345 posts

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The severe issue for the last 5-6 months since trying to use LED panels has been a tingling/tightness sensation around cheeks/nose that spreads to back of head/neck/trapezius turning into pain/ache. If you clench your eyes/face and lean forward you can feel the neck/upper back tighten too and it's all that area which makes me think something is triggering eye muscles to the degree they are making me tense everything…

I have no idea why the new displays would be different, but I did discover at one point that medication can affect eyes in surprising and wierdly lighting-device specific ways. In my case, I found that phenibut was causing a light therapy visor to hurt my eyes even on low, although strangely even fairly bright natural light did not. Even without phenibut I have trouble with the visor on high (a ReTimer that I got due…

"Later I learned that taurine transpoters can also transport GABA and I suspect that this might have something to do with it"

Can you clarify this? Phenibut affects GABA but above you said, taurine transporters can also transport GABA so I am not sure what you mean. Are you saying that Phenibut might hijack the taurine transporters so they cannot be used for Taurine? I have taken Zolpidem (which affects GABA) for sleep off and on for long periods but I am pretty sure I had this strain even when off it for 6 months or so so not super hopeful. Do I need to supplement Taurine then or is there some test for it in the retina you can have done? If it's permanent as you say that's not hopeful.

However once again, and I know you said it was weirdly spcific, but since this only happens on LED backlit displays I find it hard to believe it's something like that since that should affect other visual things.

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#322
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…

Hey since I have you here, please, can you add support for proper color calibration, profiling & characterization to f.lux? Or at least outline in more detail how f.lux handles color profiles?

I wouldn't mind having to create multiple display profiles for this, but right now, flux seems to only support non-LUT based, Matrix based calibrations and only if they have VCGT headers, and then only based on those headers.

But this seems highly problematic.

Take a look at this page here for why:

https://argyllcms.com/doc/calvschar.html

I assume you based the current mechanics of f.lux when it comes to handling color profiles based on what the quickgamma homepage says about this:

https://quickgamma.de/indexen.html

To quote:

"[...]

Apple has been using the LUT since many years for its operating system built in color management. In fact, Apple has registered the private ICC Profile tag video card gamma table (vcgt) with the International Color Consortium (ICC). This tag is used in a dedicated Monitor Profile and holds the gamma values, which are then loaded into the LUT by a loader program.

Hardware based Monitor Calibration Systems also use the vcgt tag, which in this case contains the correction data to achieve the monitor calibration. Because Windows did not provide a LUT loader, each calibration program had to provide its own LUT loader program. ...

[...]

Things changed when Windows 7 came along and provided its built in calibration loader, which not only loads the LUT at system start up, but also takes care of Standby and Hibernate.

[...]"

As you might notice, the two stories from those pages seem to conflict?

Right now, when I use Windows to load my icc profile, I get correct colors. Same if I use the DisplayCAL profile loader.

However, if I start f.lux during the day (where f.lux shouldn't mess with the colors at all) I get semi-incorrect colors - they end up "more correct" than when I have no color profile loaded at all, but still VERY incorrect.

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've been a flux user for years, but sadly I had to switch to the Windows 10's version. Flux causes a 1 frame lag every 60 frames which was driving me crazy. Only fix was to put it into Safe Mode, but Flux is really janky in that mode; especially when alt tabbing. The Windows 10 version also has no lag while shift colors. It's a shame. I'd love to have kept supporting flux.

Too bad neither f.lux nor the Windows 10 version properly support color profiles. f.lux has some support, but it sucks. And the Windows 10 version just outright has NONE. :\

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#324
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The message is: there is no more risk from LED than older sources, by the metrics we have now. I would suggest that one problem is that LEDs don't "warm dim" (unless you get some special ones from Philips and a few others), and people tend to dim them less overall.

What do you mean by "warm dim"?

An incandescent/halogen will go to warmer temperatures when dimmed. So it might start at 2800-3000K but be 2100-2200K at 1% brightness.

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to remind everyone that LED backlights emit blue light that isn't eliminated by f.lux or similar utilities.

Can you explain this more? If LED backlights emit multispectrum light (to get a white), and the LCD display filters those spectrum via RGB selection (say, letting less blue through, and more red/green), wouldn't this effectively filter the blue spectrum? I know very little about this so I'm genuinely curious.

[deleted]

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you be more specific about "severe eyestrain"? E.g. if there is pain, where? Eyes dry, red? Difficulty focusing? Peripheral vision? Have you had an eye exam when the strain is present? When the strain is present, what happens if you switch to reading paper? Or switch to distance vision, e.g. looking out the window? How long does it take to recover from the strain when reading or looking into the distance?

The severe issue for the last 5-6 months since trying to use LED panels has been a tingling/tightness sensation around cheeks/nose that spreads to back of head/neck/trapezius turning into pain/ache. If you clench your eyes/face and lean forward you can feel the neck/upper back tighten too and it's all that area which makes me think something is triggering eye muscles to the degree they are making me tense everything…

Have you tried an external LCD monitor that is big enough for you to increase the viewing distance to about 40"/100cm? As a simple experiment, move your current laptop further away, increase the font size and see if the time-to-eyestrain gets longer.

There are gaming monitors which have faster refresh rates.

Dry eyes need to be addressed, as the tear film contributes to clear vision. You can use a "sipper" bottle of water to keep your upper respiratory track moistened. Yawning can trigger lubrication of the eyes, if you are drinking enough water.

Do you have EMF sensitivity?

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The severe issue for the last 5-6 months since trying to use LED panels has been a tingling/tightness sensation around cheeks/nose that spreads to back of head/neck/trapezius turning into pain/ache. If you clench your eyes/face and lean forward you can feel the neck/upper back tighten too and it's all that area which makes me think something is triggering eye muscles to the degree they are making me tense everything…

Have you tried an external LCD monitor that is big enough for you to increase the viewing distance to about 40"/100cm? As a simple experiment, move your current laptop further away, increase the font size and see if the time-to-eyestrain gets longer. There are gaming monitors which have faster refresh rates. Dry eyes need to be addressed, as the tear film contributes to clear vision. You can use a "sipper" bottle of…

I have adjusted distance and font size and every other display parameter I can with no effect. refresh rates seem irrelevant. I use eye drops when needed but have had this dryness issue since lasik surgery in 2000. It's not so bad in non-forced air homes where it's not as dried out all the time but right now I am in one. I drink a lot of water. I don't have EMF sensitivity that I know of and again this only happens with LED displays so far.

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#328
post #285
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…

Hi herf, your software is really nice but one thing that kept me from using it (and adopted since Apple's 'night shift', though I don't use all days) is that I enjoy photography. Probably you heard this a few times, but one thing that I'd love to have is this off for photos (I'd switch from being an eventual user to being a full-time user).

[deleted]

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#329
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…

Hey since I have you here, please, can you add support for proper color calibration, profiling & characterization to f.lux? Or at least outline in more detail how f.lux handles color profiles? I wouldn't mind having to create multiple display profiles for this, but right now, flux seems to only support non-LUT based, Matrix based calibrations and only if they have VCGT headers, and then only based on those headers. B…

Surely you don't expect color profiles to work when f.lux is operating? I'm not sure what the point would be for color profiles when you're explicitly opting for distorted color reproduction with f.lux.

Is what you want more like "don't mess with the operation of color profiles when f.lux is disabled or otherwise shouldn't be adjusting the screen?"

Re: Chemists discover how blue light speeds blindness

#330
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the way your eyes work. If it is bright, your pupil will be shrunk, to not be blinded by the luminosity. When it is dark, your pupil will be opened wide up. It is this principle that camera apertures are based on. Now if you have your pupil wide open in a completely dark environment and put a 100% brightness screen at ~10cm of your eyes, what do you expect will happen ? Our eyes are made for nature, that m…

Would using a kindle at night have the same effect? It's light is kind of yellowish (I think)

Probably less so because it's reflected off the e-ink screen surface and probably diffused a bit that way.
Post reply on HN