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Comment by DarkShikari | Hacker News Reader

I have the exact reverse here. I love sites and applications that use a dark background; bright backgrounds are like staring into a lamp. It probably depends on the environment you tend to read in; I usually read in a darker room.

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I'm quite OK with a lot of dark sites, but this one produces an insane "buzzing" feeling. Might have something to do with the gray-ish text. I couldn't get through the entire article even if I wanted to.

I'm reading in a dark-ish room right now. I suspect it may have something to do with the type of monitor used to view the site, because on mine the physical effects are very pronounced.

I agree. I can't put my finger on it, but the white/red text on the page positively glows at me, not in a pleasant way either. It feels like I'm staring at a lit light bulb.

I'd guess that it's a difference in screen brightness. Try turning down your brightness and see if that helps.

If he changed the background color to a very dark shade of grey rather than straight black, it would lessen the contrast and ease the strain on your eyes. If you're feeling buzziness from reading inverted type, there is also a good chance your screen is at an unhealthy brightness. Great for picking out contrast, but painful on the eyes. One trick my friend taught me was to place a light source off in the distance to the side, to break up the focused source of light from the screen. It cured his computer-induced headaches immediately, along with lowering his brightness.

The lamp-effect depends on your monitor. I hated white screens when I was using a CRT. Now it doesn't make any difference to me with an LCD.

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