4 ms·

> As well, did you know lights have a flicker? If you think it's bad, it's even worse for dogs which can lead to stress. As someone who notices and gets really

> As well, did you know lights have a flicker? If you think it's bad, it's even worse for dogs which can lead to stress. As someone who notices and gets really tired from the stroboscopic effects of cheap LEDs, I can only imagine how terrible that must be for dogs

tw04 7y ago
I'll take that over florescent any day of the week.
- vanderZwan 7y ago
  Flickering fluorescent is soulsucking, I agree. Technically speaking, a similar kind of solution that exists for LEDs also exist for fluorescent tubes: using high frequency ballasts that do not perceptibly flicker (not even (near)subconsciously - which is true for a lot of LED and fluorescent lights). Those are more expensive, hard to find and not the default though.
vectorEQ 7y ago
try candles. natural light for me gives me least issues. most electric lights are exhausting...
- vanderZwan 7y ago
  Incandescent light is generally better for the environment though (IIRC LowTechMagazine did the math for this)
- atombender 7y ago
  Candles generate soot, which is not good for your health. The soot will also stain walls and ceilings, similar to cigarette smoke. Natural waxes like beeswax candles have a cleaner burn, but they're very expensive. If you're going to go non-electrical, I think an oil lamp (e.g. paraffin) is your best bet. Very cheap, safer than candles in the right lantern, and clean-burning (assuming a quality oil that doesn't have a lot of sulfur and other pollutants).
tzs 7y ago
Another dog sense I've wondered about is hearing. What is our music like to them? Let's consider live music, first. A lot of instruments have significant harmonics well above 20 KHz. So let's say you are practicing your violin or trumpet, and your dog is in the room. The maker of your instrument took great care to get the sound right, which mainly consists of making sure that the various harmonics are at the right relative amplitudes. Does the instrument maker take any care to get the harmonics above 20 KHz right? They don't affect how the instrument sounds to humans, so I'd expect not. That could mean that your beautiful violin has a horrible screech that only your dog hears. How about recorded music? If my guess is right and our instruments sound bad above 20 KHz, recorded music may be an improvement from the dog's point of view, because we filter out those highs when recording. But if live instruments do actually sound OK above 20 KHz, then to a dog our record are going to seem limited at best.
- korethr 7y ago
  > Another dog sense I've wondered about is hearing. What is our music like to them? This is a thing I've wondered about too. Their frequency range is only part of it. There's also the frequency weighted sensitivity; it's why we humans perceive music the way we do. A dog might be able to hear a tone at 45kHz, but it might require significant amplitude, e.g. threshold of perception at 45kHz might be 80 dB SPL. The ISO 226:2003 equal loudness contours shows that human sensitivity for high frequencies falls off very sharply after about 16kHz[1]. Looking stuff up for dogs, I'm finding mixed results, so I'm less confident in my assertion here, but it seems to me that dog hearing still falls off sharply near the upper end of it's range. From the charts I find, a dog's sensitive band seems to be wider than humans and centered higher[2], but there's still that sharp upper cutoff. > Let's consider live music, first. A lot of instruments have significant harmonics well above 20 kHz. This is heavily dependent on the nature of the instrument. A bass instrument like a tuba or a bass guitar isn't going to have much frequency content once it gets into the mid-to-high hundreds of Hz. A guitar is going to be done between 10-15kHz, and most of it's frequency content that defines its character is going to be down in the mid-range (mid-hundreds to low thousands of Hz). Cymbals? Yeah, I'd be in no way surprised if those contain tons of content above 20kHz that's only detectable with lab equipment or a dog's ears. > Does the instrument maker take any care to get the harmonics above 20 KHz right? They don't affect how the instrument sounds to humans, so I'd expect not. That could mean that your beautiful violin has a horrible screech that only your dog hears. Instruments with significant frequency content in our most sensitive bands (e.g. human voice, eletric guitar, trumpet) are often considered 'lead' instruments, and they're are also the ones where getting the frequency balance right to sound good instead of harsh is the trickiest. So, my intuition is that a similar thing plays out with dogs. Those instruments that do contain significant frequency content in the high kHz to low 10s of kHz (e.g. cymbals) are more likely to sound harsh, IMO. Something like a tuba, a dog probably cares less. > How about recorded music? If my guess is right and our instruments sound bad above 20 KHz, recorded music may be an improvement from the dog's point of view, because we filter out those highs when recording. > But if live instruments do actually sound OK above 20 KHz, then to a dog our record are going to seem limited at best. My guess here is that our recordings probably sound unnaturally muffled. In my own study of recording and mixing, it seems common to filter sharply above 20Khz, or maybe a little less, because their's no sense in frying the tweeters with content nobody can hear anyway. Additionally, the DACs in modern recording gear are going to have their filters set to filter sharply above 20kHz anyway, to keep digital aliasing noise from impairing an accurate reproduction of the original analog signal from the digital one. It might not sound bad to the dog, but I'm pretty sure a dog would be able to easily tell the difference between a recording of a cymbal, and a live cymbal. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour 2. https://www.lsu.edu/deafness/HearingRange.html https://www.lsu.edu/deafness/HearingRange.html

tw04 7y ago

I'll take that over florescent any day of the week.

vanderZwan 7y ago
Flickering fluorescent is soulsucking, I agree. Technically speaking, a similar kind of solution that exists for LEDs also exist for fluorescent tubes: using high frequency ballasts that do not perceptibly flicker (not even (near)subconsciously - which is true for a lot of LED and fluorescent lights). Those are more expensive, hard to find and not the default though.

vectorEQ 7y ago

try candles. natural light for me gives me least issues. most electric lights are exhausting...

vanderZwan 7y ago
Incandescent light is generally better for the environment though (IIRC LowTechMagazine did the math for this)
atombender 7y ago
Candles generate soot, which is not good for your health. The soot will also stain walls and ceilings, similar to cigarette smoke. Natural waxes like beeswax candles have a cleaner burn, but they're very expensive. If you're going to go non-electrical, I think an oil lamp (e.g. paraffin) is your best bet. Very cheap, safer than candles in the right lantern, and clean-burning (assuming a quality oil that doesn't have a lot of sulfur and other pollutants).

tzs 7y ago

Another dog sense I've wondered about is hearing. What is our music like to them? Let's consider live music, first. A lot of instruments have significant harmonics well above 20 KHz. So let's say you are practicing your violin or trumpet, and your dog is in the room. The maker of your instrument took great care to get the sound right, which mainly consists of making sure that the various harmonics are at the right relative amplitudes. Does the instrument maker take any care to get the harmonics above 20 KHz right? They don't affect how the instrument sounds to humans, so I'd expect not. That could mean that your beautiful violin has a horrible screech that only your dog hears. How about recorded music? If my guess is right and our instruments sound bad above 20 KHz, recorded music may be an improvement from the dog's point of view, because we filter out those highs when recording. But if live instruments do actually sound OK above 20 KHz, then to a dog our record are going to seem limited at best.

korethr 7y ago
> Another dog sense I've wondered about is hearing. What is our music like to them? This is a thing I've wondered about too. Their frequency range is only part of it. There's also the frequency weighted sensitivity; it's why we humans perceive music the way we do. A dog might be able to hear a tone at 45kHz, but it might require significant amplitude, e.g. threshold of perception at 45kHz might be 80 dB SPL. The ISO 226:2003 equal loudness contours shows that human sensitivity for high frequencies falls off very sharply after about 16kHz[1]. Looking stuff up for dogs, I'm finding mixed results, so I'm less confident in my assertion here, but it seems to me that dog hearing still falls off sharply near the upper end of it's range. From the charts I find, a dog's sensitive band seems to be wider than humans and centered higher[2], but there's still that sharp upper cutoff. > Let's consider live music, first. A lot of instruments have significant harmonics well above 20 kHz. This is heavily dependent on the nature of the instrument. A bass instrument like a tuba or a bass guitar isn't going to have much frequency content once it gets into the mid-to-high hundreds of Hz. A guitar is going to be done between 10-15kHz, and most of it's frequency content that defines its character is going to be down in the mid-range (mid-hundreds to low thousands of Hz). Cymbals? Yeah, I'd be in no way surprised if those contain tons of content above 20kHz that's only detectable with lab equipment or a dog's ears. > Does the instrument maker take any care to get the harmonics above 20 KHz right? They don't affect how the instrument sounds to humans, so I'd expect not. That could mean that your beautiful violin has a horrible screech that only your dog hears. Instruments with significant frequency content in our most sensitive bands (e.g. human voice, eletric guitar, trumpet) are often considered 'lead' instruments, and they're are also the ones where getting the frequency balance right to sound good instead of harsh is the trickiest. So, my intuition is that a similar thing plays out with dogs. Those instruments that do contain significant frequency content in the high kHz to low 10s of kHz (e.g. cymbals) are more likely to sound harsh, IMO. Something like a tuba, a dog probably cares less. > How about recorded music? If my guess is right and our instruments sound bad above 20 KHz, recorded music may be an improvement from the dog's point of view, because we filter out those highs when recording. > But if live instruments do actually sound OK above 20 KHz, then to a dog our record are going to seem limited at best. My guess here is that our recordings probably sound unnaturally muffled. In my own study of recording and mixing, it seems common to filter sharply above 20Khz, or maybe a little less, because their's no sense in frying the tweeters with content nobody can hear anyway. Additionally, the DACs in modern recording gear are going to have their filters set to filter sharply above 20kHz anyway, to keep digital aliasing noise from impairing an accurate reproduction of the original analog signal from the digital one. It might not sound bad to the dog, but I'm pretty sure a dog would be able to easily tell the difference between a recording of a cymbal, and a live cymbal. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour 2. https://www.lsu.edu/deafness/HearingRange.html https://www.lsu.edu/deafness/HearingRange.html