71–80 of 159 posts
This doesn't help people like me who just want to stargaze. How about, empty city streets don't need to be lit up at 2 am. And what lighting there is, is too bright, too intrusive, and overused.
As a man I'm all for it. But I think the women I know would object to walking at night on pitch-black streets.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean they need to be pretty bright to be visible at all. Notice how red leds still look dim at night, but green blue are shining in the dark room. The eye can't adapt well to dim warm light. And that is the other reason. Those would still make nights look like nights, they should look sort of moonlight like with reasonable brightness.
I'm still unsure what you're advocating for. Dim, but cool coloured lights? That's certainly better than bright cool ones but I still find them very annoying and overstimulating at night. The only thing I can't do with dim, warm lighting is read small text from something other than a backlit screen. For everything else, it's perfectly fine. And if I do see myself having to do that, I'll just add a spot of light to wh…
In my area I've noticed the problem isn't so much that they are brighter, but that our new bulbs just emit light near 180 degrees (sideways) with no control over direction. It causes light to flood into homes, and more than half isn't even illuminating the road. They also have no diffusion, so its harsh on the eyes. A bad design all around
I often wonder how cutting and folding a bit of sheet metal and bolting it onto the streetlight as a shroud is overlooked whenever streetlights are built or repaired. There's one that shines directly into my bedroom but there's no good reason for it to illuminate any part of the building I live in.
No. The article is light on details, but: > A simple device that makes LED lights flicker at a very high frequency that is imperceptible to the human eye > shutter, which needs to be lightweight and agile enough to blink about 150 times per second. Subjecting an entire city to 150 Hz flicker is not even remotely acceptable. IMO this needs to comply with IEEE 1789.
Why not?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel the same way. If I'm sitting still I find I don't care much... but if I'm working with my hands and moving around it drives me crazy and gives me headaches, especially if I'm focusing on something spinning. Just for fun, I replaced the LED dimmer in my garage with a homemade board that has a frequency knob in addition to a duty cycle knob. I've found that the cutoff for bothering me is around 10KHz, which is f…
You should consider talking to the researchers who developed IEEE 1789. 120 Hz is problematic for many people, but 10kHz seems unusual unless you’re a camera.
If I'm just sitting typing on my laptop, even the 120hz ones don't bother me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a man I'm all for it. But I think the women I know would object to walking at night on pitch-black streets.
I think that's a bit sexist. While criminals will prey on people they think are weak and that often includes women, that's not exclusively so. I don't know that someone who is vulnerable would really be any safer in a well lit street at night, depending on other circumstances of course. Cars have headlights. It could be that pedestrians can carry lights too. We could reduce infrastructure costs, electricity costs, al…
Aye, on my midnight walks when I can't sleep (middle of nowhere - no streets, never mind street lights, it's all trails and fields. Amazing for stargazing!) I use my watch in flashlight mode to see where I'm going wherever it's particularly pitch black. I've also got a backup make-everything-daytime strength torch on me too if I need to properly see something or take out someone's night vision long enough to leg it
Never needed to use the latter so far. I don't imagine anyone trying to prey on me would even see me (or me them) until they're right up close if I turned the watch light off.
Fun tidbit for any new midnight walkers: Your night vision is separate in each eye. If you do need to use a light source in the dark, close an eye before you turn it on. That way when you turn it off you can open the eye and still mostly see where you're going while the other eye catches back up :)
I learned it doing backstage work at a theatre, I also heard it's the actual use case for pirate eye patches -- swap eye when going above and below deck. Good times.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I often wonder how cutting and folding a bit of sheet metal and bolting it onto the streetlight as a shroud is overlooked whenever streetlights are built or repaired. There's one that shines directly into my bedroom but there's no good reason for it to illuminate any part of the building I live in.
Try contacting your city about it. Here they will come around within a few weeks and do as you suggested if you complain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm still unsure what you're advocating for. Dim, but cool coloured lights? That's certainly better than bright cool ones but I still find them very annoying and overstimulating at night. The only thing I can't do with dim, warm lighting is read small text from something other than a backlit screen. For everything else, it's perfectly fine. And if I do see myself having to do that, I'll just add a spot of light to wh…
I think their point is that all the wavelengths that make the lights most-useful from a safety perspective are also those which interfere with seeing the stars and whatnot.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's a bit sexist. While criminals will prey on people they think are weak and that often includes women, that's not exclusively so. I don't know that someone who is vulnerable would really be any safer in a well lit street at night, depending on other circumstances of course. Cars have headlights. It could be that pedestrians can carry lights too. We could reduce infrastructure costs, electricity costs, al…
> It could be that pedestrians can carry lights too Aye, on my midnight walks when I can't sleep (middle of nowhere - no streets, never mind street lights, it's all trails and fields. Amazing for stargazing!) I use my watch in flashlight mode to see where I'm going wherever it's particularly pitch black. I've also got a backup make-everything-daytime strength torch on me too if I need to properly see something or tak…
As a kid, I also learned your eyes will individually adapt to not only brightness, but color.
The front door to the house was open and I put my face with my nose along the edge of it. One eye faced indoors, one eye faced outdoors. After a short amount of time I pulled my face away and it was quite clear that color in each eye had adapted to what it was seeing.
fun but weird.
No. The article is light on details, but: > A simple device that makes LED lights flicker at a very high frequency that is imperceptible to the human eye > shutter, which needs to be lightweight and agile enough to blink about 150 times per second. Subjecting an entire city to 150 Hz flicker is not even remotely acceptable. IMO this needs to comply with IEEE 1789.
Why not?