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> So the last thing I want, is to be near unconfined lasers powerful enough to ionize the air. I wholeheartedly agree. Just thinking about how the potentially

> So the last thing I want, is to be near unconfined lasers powerful enough to ionize the air. I wholeheartedly agree. Just thinking about how the potentially-unregulated cheaply-manufactured knock-off projectors will result in having to wear welding glasses when walking around the street to avoid being blinded by the 3D advertisements that are being shot at your face...

cyanydeez 2y ago
Unfortunately, we couldn't even protect the dumbs from staring at a solar eclipse. Safety standards are ridiculously hard to calibrate.
- PhasmaFelis 2y ago
  Unrelated, how bad is it to look without protection during totality? We got the approved eclipse glasses and diligently kept them on through the whole lead-up, then couldn't see shit once totality started, so we took them off and gazed at the loveliness and then hastily put them back on t moment the sun started to re-emerge. I get that it's not good to tell the public "don't look at an eclipse unprotected except for this precisely-timed period," because that would lead to a statistically significant increase in permanent eye damage, but what we did seems to have gone fine, at least when exposures are circa once a decade.
  - LegionMammal978 2y ago
    The general advice (at least from everything I've seen) is that you can and should remove your eclipse glasses during totality; after all, the bright surface of the sun is totally blocked. I personally looked into the research on solar eye damage a few years ago (when the 2017 eclipse fervor had died down), and my impression is that all recorded cases result from focusing directly at the sun for at least several seconds straight; glancing very briefly at the sun, or seeing it in your peripheral vision, is only uncomfortable at worst. Eye damage is mainly associated with eclipses since they motivate many people to stare at the sun, rather than the partially-eclipsed sun being uniquely dangerous to look at. But when the time comes around, the messaging gets very black-and-white, as you said. (Not that it's a bad idea to avoid looking at the sun as much as possible!)
    - schoen 2y ago
      I've also been interested in this in the past since I slightly damaged my eye by staring at a partial eclipse as an adolescent. (I can no longer perceive any damage, but it might have permanently reduced my retinal acuity in one spot.) > Eye damage is mainly associated with eclipses since they motivate many people to stare at the sun, rather than the partially-eclipsed sun being uniquely dangerous to look at. Most sources seem to agree with that, and that's basically my impression. But I do know of another theory, which is that damage is associated with something like J/m² absorbed energy, and so roughly with (W/m² × s) of exposure, but the blink or discomfort reflex is associated with something more like total W entering the eye. The way that the sun is obscured during a partial eclipse is not by dimming (which would reduce both the total power entering the eye and the total power absorbed by a given region of the retina by the same factor), but instead by making a portion of the solar disc invisible, while leaving other portions fully visible. Those portions are still causing a comparable absorption of energy per second on the parts of the retina where they are focused, but the partially-obscured sun, in addition to being much more interesting, might be less uncomfortable to stare at because of the total amount of light being lower. Sorry if that account was too wordy. A more concise way of putting it might be: Your desire to look away after a relatively short time is based on the total amount of light entering your eye (which is reduced during a partial eclipse), but the sun's ability to damage your eye is based more on the total amount of light focused on a given part of your retina (which is not reduced very much, since the parts of the sun you can still see are just about as bright as usual). I don't know whether that interpretation is right, but it's another wrinkle on the "you're more inclined to stare at the sun during an eclipse than you usually would be" issue: it might not be exclusively because it's more interesting, but also because the total light is less than usual, so your discomfort is less than usual, but your risk of injury per second is only very slightly decreased. Related to this, we don't have pain receptors directly on the retina itself, so the feeling of discomfort we get when looking at a bright light isn't directly indicating whether the retina is being damaged or not.
      - throwaway290 2y ago
        Don't our eyes adjust, so if it seems like the sun is obscured the pupils would dilate increasing potential damage?
  - noqc 2y ago
    During totality, there is no danger to your eyes to looking directly at the corona. You can tell on account of how it isn't bright.
lyu07282 2y ago
> result in having to wear welding glasses when walking around the street to avoid being blinded by the 3D advertisements that are being shot at your face... but I'm sure the welding glasses would fit the overall cyberpunk aesthetic of that future very well
- sterlind 2y ago
  And once everyone's walking around wearing welding masks, the dorky look of AR goggles will no longer hold back mass adoption.

cyanydeez 2y ago

Unfortunately, we couldn't even protect the dumbs from staring at a solar eclipse. Safety standards are ridiculously hard to calibrate.

PhasmaFelis 2y ago
Unrelated, how bad is it to look without protection during totality? We got the approved eclipse glasses and diligently kept them on through the whole lead-up, then couldn't see shit once totality started, so we took them off and gazed at the loveliness and then hastily put them back on t moment the sun started to re-emerge. I get that it's not good to tell the public "don't look at an eclipse unprotected except for this precisely-timed period," because that would lead to a statistically significant increase in permanent eye damage, but what we did seems to have gone fine, at least when exposures are circa once a decade.
- LegionMammal978 2y ago
  The general advice (at least from everything I've seen) is that you can and should remove your eclipse glasses during totality; after all, the bright surface of the sun is totally blocked. I personally looked into the research on solar eye damage a few years ago (when the 2017 eclipse fervor had died down), and my impression is that all recorded cases result from focusing directly at the sun for at least several seconds straight; glancing very briefly at the sun, or seeing it in your peripheral vision, is only uncomfortable at worst. Eye damage is mainly associated with eclipses since they motivate many people to stare at the sun, rather than the partially-eclipsed sun being uniquely dangerous to look at. But when the time comes around, the messaging gets very black-and-white, as you said. (Not that it's a bad idea to avoid looking at the sun as much as possible!)
  - schoen 2y ago
    I've also been interested in this in the past since I slightly damaged my eye by staring at a partial eclipse as an adolescent. (I can no longer perceive any damage, but it might have permanently reduced my retinal acuity in one spot.) > Eye damage is mainly associated with eclipses since they motivate many people to stare at the sun, rather than the partially-eclipsed sun being uniquely dangerous to look at. Most sources seem to agree with that, and that's basically my impression. But I do know of another theory, which is that damage is associated with something like J/m² absorbed energy, and so roughly with (W/m² × s) of exposure, but the blink or discomfort reflex is associated with something more like total W entering the eye. The way that the sun is obscured during a partial eclipse is not by dimming (which would reduce both the total power entering the eye and the total power absorbed by a given region of the retina by the same factor), but instead by making a portion of the solar disc invisible, while leaving other portions fully visible. Those portions are still causing a comparable absorption of energy per second on the parts of the retina where they are focused, but the partially-obscured sun, in addition to being much more interesting, might be less uncomfortable to stare at because of the total amount of light being lower. Sorry if that account was too wordy. A more concise way of putting it might be: Your desire to look away after a relatively short time is based on the total amount of light entering your eye (which is reduced during a partial eclipse), but the sun's ability to damage your eye is based more on the total amount of light focused on a given part of your retina (which is not reduced very much, since the parts of the sun you can still see are just about as bright as usual). I don't know whether that interpretation is right, but it's another wrinkle on the "you're more inclined to stare at the sun during an eclipse than you usually would be" issue: it might not be exclusively because it's more interesting, but also because the total light is less than usual, so your discomfort is less than usual, but your risk of injury per second is only very slightly decreased. Related to this, we don't have pain receptors directly on the retina itself, so the feeling of discomfort we get when looking at a bright light isn't directly indicating whether the retina is being damaged or not.
    - throwaway290 2y ago
      Don't our eyes adjust, so if it seems like the sun is obscured the pupils would dilate increasing potential damage?
- noqc 2y ago
  During totality, there is no danger to your eyes to looking directly at the corona. You can tell on account of how it isn't bright.

lyu07282 2y ago

> result in having to wear welding glasses when walking around the street to avoid being blinded by the 3D advertisements that are being shot at your face... but I'm sure the welding glasses would fit the overall cyberpunk aesthetic of that future very well

sterlind 2y ago
And once everyone's walking around wearing welding masks, the dorky look of AR goggles will no longer hold back mass adoption.