HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

nitins_jakta

33 karma · joined April 9, 2019

submissionscomments
nitins_jakta··on The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy (2014)
You're not alone with these LEDs causing migraines.

See https://FlickerSense.org for a PhD scientists personal account, and, https://LEDStrain.org forum full of people that get migraines, dizziness, eyestrain and headaches from LED lights and other forms of flicker like temporal dithering.

nitins_jakta··on Apple previews Live Speech, Personal Voice, and more new accessibility features
Great stuff. Next, would love to see Apple give an option for people sensitive to temporal dithering or PWM.

It triggers migraines (or vestibular migraines), tension headaches and dizziness in a minority.

See https://www.change.org/p/apple-add-accessibility-options-to-..., or FlickerSense.org, or LEDStrain.org forum.

nitins_jakta··on Thunderbird Is Thriving: Our 2022 Financial Report
Too bad there's no Linux port.
nitins_jakta··on There's something off about LED bulbs
There's a forum/community of people who get migraines / severe eyestrain from LED bulbs at LEDStrain.org. It's likely related to any LEDs that flicker (PWM).

Also a PhDs website: www.FlickerSense.org

nitins_jakta··on Samsung bets on MicroLED and 8K for its premium 2023 TVs
Some people get much more severe symptoms including migraines at LEDStrain.org
nitins_jakta··on macOS Monterey
I hope Apple will add an accessibility option to disable temporal dithering in the OS.

It causes a minority of people eyestrain, vertigo and migraines. See LEDstrain.org.

nitins_jakta··on 14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack
I agree, apple has done great with things like VoiceOver.

There is other stuff they can do, like a toggle to disable temporal dithering. Or actually test their devices with people with binocular vision dysfunction.

nitins_jakta··on 14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack
Older systems like a ThinkPad from 2013 work. Something changed around then for the display tech.
nitins_jakta··on 14-inch MacBook Pro review: A Mac Pro in your backpack
Apple still won't take some accessibility issues seriously, which is unfortunate given they are a leader in this space. They don't test their devices on people with binocular vision dysfunction, although I've asked them to.

There is a whole community of people on LEDStrain.org who suffer from severe eyestrain, vertigo, headaches and migraines to the point where these devices are unusable for a minority of people.

One possible cause is temporal dithering which can be seen as the dancing pixels on a slow e-ink display: https://youtu.be/0y-I3hqQgCQ. Windows also uses this technique, but Apple's causes more strain for some reason.

It would be great if apple could look into this.

Some of us are desperate and will gladly pay for help. I am at risk of losing my IT job cause of these companies. I have a binocular vision dysfunction but treatment is not working well.

Any ideas from the community as the technical root cause?

Edit: not sure why I am being downvoted. Please have some empathy!

nitins_jakta··on MacBook Pro 14-inch and MacBook Pro 16-inch
Great to hear you found a solution. I believe Neurolens is focused on treating exophoria where the prism correction required is different at near vs. distance. In most patients, the correction required at near is greater.

The Neurolens are also unfortunately very expensive and seems to not be covered by insurance. But I think most people would gladly pay out of pocket to get relief. I surely would.

nitins_jakta··on MacBook Pro 14-inch and MacBook Pro 16-inch
Thanks for pointing this out.

We actually have a discussion about Neurolens on LEDStrain: https://ledstrain.org/d/754-trigeminal-dysphoria-and-neurole...

I plan to give them a try. But unfortunately it does not work for everyone.

Have you had success with them? Many other members have convergence excess (esophoria) or vertical heterophoria.

nitins_jakta··on MacBook Pro 14-inch and MacBook Pro 16-inch
Ah, so for most of us LED itself is not strictly the problem. Low quality ones with a low refresh rate, like in some department stores, are a problem.

It is likely other sources of flicker like temporal dithering (FRC), you can see it here (it is on Windows too): https://youtu.be/0y-I3hqQgCQ

The visual noise/dots you see is the dithering. The e-ink display is slow enough so we can see it.

People with BVDs are strongly affected by that noise...and unfortunately simple pair of glasses does not help.

nitins_jakta··on MacBook Pro 14-inch and MacBook Pro 16-inch
Unfortunately it looks like Apple still has no option to disable temporal dithering or other sources of flicker (PWM, pixel inversion, etc).

A minority of people have binocular vision dysfunctions (like convergence insufficiency) that give them severe eyestrain, headaches and migraines when this flicker occurs. Apple should treat this like an accessibility issue (like VoiceOver) but does not. The current treatment from behavioral optometrists is not always effective.

I recently found a whole community on this: https://ledstrain.org.

If you have expertise in displays, please join us on LED Strain! We were hoping Apple would address these accessibility issues and let people with vision problems use their products.

nitins_jakta··on Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
Backing up now, thanks. Even worse I'm an Android user. I don't have a good solution for the people that mail me every few months. Oh hey, Google might lock my account because I didn't fork over 14k in fraudulent charges, can you start emailing me from my Outlook email instead?
nitins_jakta··on Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
I agree with you 100%. This has certainly left a sour taste in my mouth. Unfortunately Google Maps API is much better than the competition. AWS has none here.

The google customer experience is just horrific.

nitins_jakta··on Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
Will try to ask, seems unlikely they have tools out of the box for billing support to do this. I bet they have to have an SWE grep logs. Thanks for the advice!
nitins_jakta··on Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
This is even more terrible as an Android user. So much for "don't be evil". Thankful for the HN forum.
nitins_jakta··on Student Charged $14k on Stolen Google Cloud Credentials
Will do, thanks for the advice. The only thing they did was validate the API count, but I was not disputing this, only that I made the calls.

The call volume itself looks suspicious. No calls for well over a year and then suddenly an incredible amount? You would think Google would have some algorithm to detect this?