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Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

kevq.uk

441–450 of 552 posts

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#441

Wait. So. "Multiple studies show that light mode is better" trumps my actual experience, with my eyeballs, in my office environment? No. No it doesn't. 1. I don't have that much faith in scientists. Someone trying to p-hack their way to a publishable result that's sensational enough to advance their career is not going to produce good advice for me. 2. Even if they were perfect scientists, they're not using my eyebal…

> "fighter jet seat problem" sorry, but is there a link to this? A quick Google showed only issues with the F-35's ejection system.

I think I can throw some light on this one. (Sorry, no references. I read about this, but can’tremember where.) Some time years ago, the US air force tried to find out, using statistics, how to design cockpits to fit most pilots. So they did multiple measurements on many people; upper and lower arm lengths, ditto for legs, back lengths, etc. Then they took the average of each measurement and designed cockpits to fit pilots of average size, allowing for some variation, of course. As it turned out, almost every pilot was much more than a standard deviation from the mean in some dimension, so these cockpits actually fit practically no one – resulting in a too high rate of (near) accidents. I am not sure how they overcame the problem, but IIRC, part of the solution involved designing for the exact measurements not being quite so critical.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#442

Wait. So. "Multiple studies show that light mode is better" trumps my actual experience, with my eyeballs, in my office environment? No. No it doesn't. 1. I don't have that much faith in scientists. Someone trying to p-hack their way to a publishable result that's sensational enough to advance their career is not going to produce good advice for me. 2. Even if they were perfect scientists, they're not using my eyebal…

>> I don't have that much faith in scientists. well I guess you have faith or dogma to fall back on, then. Safe travels!

Note they didn't say they don't have faith in science, but that they don't have faith in scientists. There's an important distinction there.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#443

Wait. So. "Multiple studies show that light mode is better" trumps my actual experience, with my eyeballs, in my office environment? No. No it doesn't. 1. I don't have that much faith in scientists. Someone trying to p-hack their way to a publishable result that's sensational enough to advance their career is not going to produce good advice for me. 2. Even if they were perfect scientists, they're not using my eyebal…

>…I don't have that much faith in scientists

And that’s how we got to 2020 with anti-vaccine and flat-earth.

It’s science. Axioms and data. You don’t need faith.

Got better data? Cause “I like it better” isn’t.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#444
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I mean, serious question - aren't they they same thing? What IS our subjective experience if not our conscious estimation of how we experienced the thing? Is it possible to think you're enjoying something when really you're not, and if so then what the heck does that even mean?

Well, eating at a restaurant with my wife, I said "This is really good!" She looked askance, said "Well, its a little salty". "Yeah, I guess it is." "And not really very hot" "Oh, yeah. Hm." "And there no spice in it. Kinda plain." "Dang, you're right" So was I enjoying it? Or the experience of being out with the wife and not having to cook? Or just hungry and anything would do? And I'd mis-attributed what I was enjo…

So when you first said "this is really good", was it?

Or did you just let your wife bully you into not liking something that you, personally, actually liked?

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#446
post #440

Wait. So. "Multiple studies show that light mode is better" trumps my actual experience, with my eyeballs, in my office environment? No. No it doesn't. 1. I don't have that much faith in scientists. Someone trying to p-hack their way to a publishable result that's sensational enough to advance their career is not going to produce good advice for me. 2. Even if they were perfect scientists, they're not using my eyebal…

I think you have multiple misunderstandings about how science provides valuable results. The first thing I want to say is that I don't devalue your personal experience. I am unaware of any fighter jet seat problem. If you use the average, you're actually pretty likely (depending on the shape of the distribution, which in the case of phenotypes like body size, are normally distributed when broken down by gender) to fi…

The fighter-jet seat problem is pretty famous.

https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#447

Wait. So. "Multiple studies show that light mode is better" trumps my actual experience, with my eyeballs, in my office environment? No. No it doesn't. 1. I don't have that much faith in scientists. Someone trying to p-hack their way to a publishable result that's sensational enough to advance their career is not going to produce good advice for me. 2. Even if they were perfect scientists, they're not using my eyebal…

> I don't have that much faith in scientists Suppose your mechanic mess up your car. Suppose this happen again with a second mechanic, and maybe even a third. Is that enough to justify the conclusion that “mechanics are bad”? I don’t think so. Science is the same.

> Is that enough to justify the conclusion that “mechanics are bad”?

Maybe not, but it's certainly enough to justify the conclusion that "mechanics should not be blindly trusted". Same with scientists. Doing good science is hard, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if most studies are flawed.

Also, there's a reason the concept of independent verification is so important in science. Even if the scientists doing a study are trying their best to do good science, it's incredibly easy to make a mistake. A healthy dose of skepticism is very much warranted.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#448

No one seems to be mentioning the lighting of the room you're in, inside/outside, or the time of day. Ambient light is one of the primary factors that make light or dark mode better at a particular moment. See redshift to make light mode more tolerable at night.

Exactly! When I started using dark mode, it felt so much more pleasant for my eyes. After a while I realized this was because I was in generally dark environments a lot, so I started to switch up my environment instead: I.e. light up the room with a large ceiling lamp instead of just a small reading lamp on a desk etc. I noticed when I'm working in the morning or generally when it's bright outside, it's sooo much mor…

iOS was late to the dark theme train, but they did it right. One setting can change between light and dark depending on time of day, sunset times, etc.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blues exist along a range of brightness values and blues work great in dark terminals and editors all day every day for many many people. I'm typing into a browser window surrounded by probably about 4 or 5 terminal and editor windows peeking out of the background with somewhere between 5 and 10 different shades of blue on dark grey backgrounds and they look clear, bright, and amazing. The dark background makes the b…

Blue is objectively the hardest color to see. Amber would be so much better in this scenario.

or green like the Hombebrew default scheme in Terminal. non-techy people I used to work with called me the matrix because my screen was stacked with multiple terminal windows with the green text on dark background color scheme

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#450
post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, eating at a restaurant with my wife, I said "This is really good!" She looked askance, said "Well, its a little salty". "Yeah, I guess it is." "And not really very hot" "Oh, yeah. Hm." "And there no spice in it. Kinda plain." "Dang, you're right" So was I enjoying it? Or the experience of being out with the wife and not having to cook? Or just hungry and anything would do? And I'd mis-attributed what I was enjo…

So when you first said "this is really good", was it? Or did you just let your wife bully you into not liking something that you, personally, actually liked?

That's a little harsh. Entertaining new information is not really 'bullying', not when I recognized the truth in what she said.

Sure I was enjoying myself. This is kind of the point of this thread. Your enjoyment is not a real measure of what's good or bad.

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