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Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

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Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#521

Post by Shorel »

deckard1 wrote: post #507
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dark modes are a choice. Light modes are a choice. Everyone is free to choose what they like In the Windows 95 era, we really could just flip a few settings in our OS and everything[0] would conform to our color and font preferences. Unfortunately we have no regressed to the point that only two options are offered, and even then only sometimes. Hooray for progress. [0] very nearly everything.

Precisely. And then people defend slow bloated software and systems by claiming this software is "doing much more today". Yeah, not really. Google Docs does nothing WordPerfect couldn't do (and much better) back in the '90s. If you take away collaborative editing (which is janky at best, and surely could have been done in the '90s if anyone cared) then Google Docs is doing much much less. Slack is IRC with pictures (…

Get Ripcord. The only sane way to use Slack or Discord.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#522

Post by onli »

binrec wrote: post #518
onli wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can enjoy what you want. The article we are discussing has measurable claims: 1. Easier to read 2. Eye Strain 3. Battery savings Your subjective "studies" about that are irrelevant if you put them in contrast to proper scientific studies for those things - if you don't measure them properly. And that's not how you feel about it. That's what I was saying. And it does not matter for that whether you like dark or br…

Easier to read for whom? I have pretty bad eye floaters, and they're more visible in bright light. Having crud bouncing around my entire field of vision does not make for an easy or strain-free reading experience, so I enable dark mode whenever it's an option. I found checking Zulip at work pretty unpleasant until I realized I could enable dark mode. If you're running a scientific study and basing your conclusions on…

Yes, I'm aware. A school friend of mine was almost blind and he enabled the Windows white on black accessibility setting to make using the PC easier. I'm not arguing against that.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#523

Post by marcus_holmes »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #419
guykdm wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this commentator invested far less effort than the scientists in reaching his result about dark mode, he also has no benefits from you choosing to believe him or not. You are in fact choosing to see the brand "science" as something transcendental that doesn't concern any incentive structures, which if false and opens you to lots of manipulation.

I am just wondering does the author alao distrust science when it comes to medical treatments and the law of gravity, or does is his distrust highly selective.

pretty selective.

Maths has proofs. Logical reasoning from first arguments that a thing is true or not. It either is, or is not, proven. End of.

Physics as applied maths, pretty solid. We need to conduct experiments to verify that nature agrees with our mathematical constructs, but on the whole these are simple and unequivocal. e.g . gravity. Particle physics gets dodgy because of the vast range of collision results - statistics starts creeping in. Rather than being able to say that particle A collides with particle B to produce particles D an E, we now have a statistical chance that somethng might happen.

Chemistry as applied physics, again, pretty solid. Everything has to be tested by experiment, and experiment frequently throws up surprises, but if a reacts with B in Chicago, it probably does in Moscow too.

Biology as applied chemistry. Mostly solid. It gets massively complex, and so the temptation to resort to statistics is overwhelming and most biological papers start talking about statistical probabilities rather than actual results. But the basic biology is mostly the same for most subjects, and if the conclusion is simple (virology and the effectiveness of vaccines, for example) then we're all good.

Any social science as applied biology: not much. This is really dodgy territory where the experiment design totally dominates the result, and the result is statistical data that has to be massaged into a definitive statement. This is p-hacking territory, where experiments are largely unreproducible, very subject to bias, cultural references, and academia politics. E.g. whether creativity shares a limited resource pool with willpower - highly subjective, highly variable between individuals, hihgly suspect if your paper cites this as a proven result.

Not all science is worthy of the same level of trust. The scientific method is trustworthy. Academia is not.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#524

Post by marcus_holmes »

rconti wrote: post #465
yiyus wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science is not a faith based system. If you doubt about the rigor of some study, by all means point the errors you find. In the meantime, I will trust those scientific studies more than subjective opinions in hackernews comments.

I also cringed at the "I don't trust science" vibe, but I also don't feel like someone should have to be an expert in statistics AND eyestrain measurement AND visible spectrum of light in order to credibly disagree with the results of a study. IOW, we shouldn't be able to reject someone's disagreement merely because they're not credentialed enough; that would lead to a tyranny of supposed expertise.

I should have made it clear. I trust the scientific method. I don't trust that that method is being rigorously applied by social scientists seeking tenure.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#525

Post by marcus_holmes »

dekhn wrote: post #454
HappySweeney wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fighter-jet seat problem is pretty famous. https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...

The article you cited is an interesting just-so explanation but it's mostly narrative, not really correct. It's based on this book https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780062358363/the-end-of-averag... which espouses some rather non-quantitative concepts (it seems like the author had a hobbyhorse and they rode it as far as they could). I don't know that it's "pretty famous", as I find only a few references to it (the book I…

I strongly urge you to become familiar with the fighter-jet-seat problem if you're working with humans and applying averages.

"no-one is average" is more than technically correct. If your scientific analysis is missing this key point about humans, then it's basically worthless because it doesn't apply to real humans. This is what the US Air Force found: you have to personalise. You can never apply a generic result to an individual and have a good outcome.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#526

Post by marcus_holmes »

acrefoot wrote: post #491
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 60% people perform better with light theme and 40% dark theme, average is going to be that light theme is superior. This doesn't make dark mode a bad idea.

This is going to appear nitpicky, but the average preference is some average gray, neither dark nor light. The mode is light. That relates back to the fighter jet thing: if you’re going to build a non-adjustable cockpit, build one that fits (within some tolerance) the most number of pilots, not the average on every dimension.

or, better, don't build a non-adjustable cockpit

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#527

Post by marcus_holmes »

rsynnott wrote: post #486
marcus_holmes wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel more productive when using dark mode. Better?

Some people feel more productive when they get their auras adjusted or take homeopathic medicine. The placebo effect is fairly strong. And how productive someone feels vs how productive they actually are when it's measured often varies, of course.

it's not a placebo if it actually affects your productivity

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#528

Post by cmonnow »

yiyus wrote: post #254
marcus_holmes wrote: post #241

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…

Science is not a faith based system. If you doubt about the rigor of some study, by all means point the errors you find. In the meantime, I will trust those scientific studies more than subjective opinions in hackernews comments.

> Science is not a faith based system

False. If you did not do the study/experiment yourself, you are putting your faith in scientists that did. This is philosophically equivalent to someone putting their faith in, say a monk, or a pastor.

If you go one level deeper, the monk might say, 'do X penance for Y years to verify Z claim', then it's up to you whether you want to follow that route or not. Until then, his claim is not unfalsifiable, like many skeptics claim.

Even for mundane day-to-day claims, 'science', as commonly understood, falls short.

e.g. Science cannot prove to me that a mango tastes sweet, without putting the condition that I must taste it. The only 'proof' it can provide is 'Taste it and see for yourself'. If I say, 'I will only taste it AFTER you prove it is sweet', then nothing will happen. Because Taste is subjective. Yet, everyone, 'miraculously' is able to come to a consensus.

There are truths that are individually/subjectively verifiable, but collectively/objectively unverifiable.

The denigration of the former type of truths is something armchair scientists must avoid. Real scientists never denigrate them.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#529

Post by bobdole12345 »

yiyus wrote: post #254
marcus_holmes wrote: post #241

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…

Science is not a faith based system. If you doubt about the rigor of some study, by all means point the errors you find. In the meantime, I will trust those scientific studies more than subjective opinions in hackernews comments.

Science might tell me that on average, most people prefer beer to wine.

That doesn't mean I preach to someone that they shouldn't be drinking wine because beer is superior.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#530

Post by bobdole12345 »

cmonnow wrote: post #528
yiyus wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science is not a faith based system. If you doubt about the rigor of some study, by all means point the errors you find. In the meantime, I will trust those scientific studies more than subjective opinions in hackernews comments.

> Science is not a faith based system False. If you did not do the study/experiment yourself, you are putting your faith in scientists that did. This is philosophically equivalent to someone putting their faith in, say a monk, or a pastor. If you go one level deeper, the monk might say, 'do X penance for Y years to verify Z claim', then it's up to you whether you want to follow that route or not. Until then, his clai…

No, you don't understand science.

Science can define what a sweet taste is, by assigning it to a set of measurements that define the boundaries of sweetness, as a technical term.

Is that sweetness to you? Nobody cares. It's a technical term that you need to accept to participate in the conversation productively.

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