Drowning in Light | Hacker News Reader

Drowning in Light

nautil.us

80 pointsdnetesn30 comments

I believe the fact that current displays glow all the time will seem like a temporary aberration when we look back in a couple hundred years. I just wrote a couple short pieces about it. [1][2]

That said, I don't think we'll go back to a world with less artificial light, in fact most people seem to view sleep/night as problem to be solved. Light = productive time, so as a culture obsessed with productivity, I can only see us wanting to create even more time.

[1] http://edgemade.com/2014/9/16/the-unglowing

[2] http://edgemade.com/2014/9/18/the-unglowing-continued

I bet someone clever could hack together a quick script that makes a laptop screen dim instantly when you look away, provided your face is in the field of view of the builtin camera...

http://justgetflux.com/

Flux is an aesthetic thing. It just tints the screen reddish to match incandescent lighting. If you wanted to remove blue light, which is what affects melatonin production in your brain, your screen would actually look very yellow.

Flux can go far past matching incandescent. I generally set it to get rid of the vast majority of non-red light when activated. Removing green is more benefit than harm because it overlaps the critical blue range somewhat.

I'm guessing the article is mostly related to the USA? As an Aussie, I thought the articles was hyperbole, but I then remembered this image [1], which showed how bright the world is at night.

Is the problem that serious in the USA? Out of curiosity, can someone give me an example? Thanks.

[1] http://www.lightpollution.it/download/mondo_ridotto0p25.gif

Having lived on the east coast (in cities) my whole life until recently, seeing the stars was a notably rare occasion. Even just one or two was asking too much on most nights, the sky just sort of glows an off-orange color near the horizon, becoming more visible as you are nearer to light sources.

I for one would love to see far far less light pollution, but I don't think that will happen until technology enables us to make doing * in the dark as safe/easy as doing it in the light.

There's a bunch of light going into the sky for no reason at all - pure waste. Better reflectors and lighting design would cut that down dramatically.

Then there's a bunch of light going into the sky for sub-optimal reasons. Lighting up the exterior of buildings at night time is something that should be more expensive. See, for one example, the San Diego temple which is a bright white building with an insane amount of exterior night time lighting for very little reason. (You have to see it in person - it's a particarly egrarious waste of energy) http://sealofmelchizedek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/San-...

I agree with both of your points. That being said, there's also the matter of the less low-hanging-fruit, street lighting for instance. I know in densely trafficked areas the street lighting is sufficient to completely obfuscate the sky, up to a few tens of miles away. Perhaps we can improve how we do said lighting but I see a lot of resistance in scaling it down until as I said, our capabilities are improved.

>"Out of curiosity, can someone give me an example?"

I've lived my entire life in areas that show as white on this light pollution map [1]. I've certainly never seen the Milky Way.

In the city, you'd be lucky to make out any stars at all. Jupiter is visible when it's high in the sky, but that's about it.

In the suburbs which are genreally red on the map you can make out the main sequence stars of bright constellations, but something like Andromeda (M31) needs the help of binoculars or a telescope.

1: http://www.jshine.net/astronomy/dark_sky/

"The 1994 Los Angelos-Northridge Earthquake -- The above statement is not at all overly dramatic. It is a growing trend. The National Institute of Health's issue of the January 2009 Environmental Health Perspectives Journal included a story from the 1994 Northridge earthquake which had knocked out the power in Los Angeles. Apparently local emergency centers then had received numerous calls from anxious residents reporting a strange, giant, silvery cloud in the dark sky. What they were really seeing - for their very first time - was the Milky Way, so obliterated by the urban sky glow that it had become forgotten and had practically become an urban legend." [1]

[1] http://physics.fau.edu/observatory/lightpol-astro.html

If we expose ourselves to light patterns that different from the historical precedent from birth, should our brains, over time, learn the new way of interpreting light?

I guess my question is, why don't I notice any particular problem with my sleep patterns.

No, it's a physiological thing:

>Production of melatonin by the pineal gland is inhibited by light to the retina and permitted by darkness. Its onset each evening is called the dim-light melatonin onset (DLMO).

>It is principally blue light, around 460 to 480 nm, that suppresses melatonin, proportional to the light intensity and length of exposure... Kayumov et al. showed that light containing only wavelengths greater than 530 nm does not suppress melatonin in bright-light conditions. Use of blue-blocking goggles the last hours before bedtime has also been advised for people who need to adjust to an earlier bedtime, as melatonin promotes sleepiness.

>When used several hours before sleep according to the phase response curve for melatonin in humans, small amounts (0.3 mg) of melatonin shift the circadian clock earlier, thus promoting earlier sleep onset and morning awakening.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin

Isaac Asimov's Nightfall:

https://www.uni.edu/morgans/astro/course/nightfall.pdf

Depth of field is biologically relevant. I can see more, better, when an area is well lit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field

Also your visual cells don't do color below a certain flux level, so brighter "world" means not just are the colors physically brighter, but your eyes can perceive colors "better".

Finally brightness is sometimes a side effect of smooth even writing. I have track lighting with 17 LED lamps in my basement to eliminate shadows. I use tracks instead of cans to make it very easy to adjust the position of light to where I'm working.

So there are at least three scientific appeals to bright light that were not covered in the article.

Interesting article. They just installed LED street lights outside my house and I had to buy a pile of black curtains before I could sleep again. People have even knocked over a couple of the lights down our street because of the negative effects.

Feel sorry for these people who have a street light bolted to their house wall by the bedroom windows.

http://imgur.com/osQ0ycb

Ouch - that sucks badly!

When it comes to light pollution, am I the only one who thinks that blue LEDs are particularly weird?

Although it is not bright as white light, probably because it doesn't stimulate all our cones, I find blue LED light strangely bright and intense. As blue is the highest frequency among the primary colors I suspect that there is an energy intensity aspect to it, that I may be sensitive to, that sets of some subconsious alarms.

I think they should be banned or their usage reduced.

Anyone feeling the same way?

If you own it, paint over the led with translucent nail polish. Layer until it is an acceptable level of brightness.

Isn't this article just a bit confused?

It talks about light as drug (an interesting topic IMHO), but then it veers off into smart networks that keep lights on only where the people are. This doesn't deal with the over-drugging issue at all. In fact, such a network actually allows us to get our drug more easily; if the lights are off where the people aren't, then it costs less to keep the lights on where they are.

For a moment I thought this was a link to a Gabriel Garcia Marquez short tale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Pilgrims#Light_is_Like_...

I know this is off-topic but it's a delicious reading and one my favourites (non Macondo related )from him.

Can't we instead have a pill that fixes us our suprachiasmatic nucleus? Preferably one that comes with the remote control

LOL. I understand that there is too much light around, especially at night.

But really how long winded an article with all kinds of economic theories about light usage and resource allocation etc, can a correspondent drone on about? It sounds like someone wanting to put their some expensive university education and research to good use. http://youtu.be/4dbgljZFi1A?t=15s

Dudes! What's going on here? I feel you. I live close to the commons and at night when you walk across it,the lights from the shop signs are so bright when you want some darkness around you. I've even wanted to complain to the local council about it. The light is really 'noisy' so I totally understand where this issue is coming from.

But really, how many column inches can one read about concerning its costs and what nots? It sounds like another new case for the IoT, the Internet of Things. But dudes?!?

hah, i'm with you. i thought the same thing reading the article. if there was anything new or interesting in it, it was way too longwinded for me to dig through and find it.

Well, percent of GDP spent on light has remained steady for 300 years at .72; that was buried rather far in.

The article also mentioned Jevons’ paradox, which is something I didn't know had a name.

I think you might be mistaking HN for reddit. Have a look at the guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

Actually it is a very serious topic relating to human biology:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=light+exposure+breast+ca...

I would give a big upvote to Philips Hue Bulbs if I could. When those are too expensive nightlights are fine with me.

Asking politely doesn't seem to have changed behaviour. Now people are doing the research to try to force change.

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