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We could have saved a fortune in electricity if dark mode was a default and as a standard rolled out decades ago across everything. One of my old CS teachers w

We could have saved a fortune in electricity if dark mode was a default and as a standard rolled out decades ago across everything. One of my old CS teachers would rant about googles evil choice of white background.

marginalia_nu 2y ago
It's my understanding that most monitor types (except CRT and OLED) are literally just a filter over an always-on white backlight. Is this not correct, or is the light somehow re-absorbed and turned back to energy?
- mjevans 2y ago
  It's more nuanced than that. Modern displays do use a backlight, but might not drive it at full brightness for mostly not-white displays.
  - arp242 2y ago
    On the other hand, people tend to crank up the brightness on "dark mode" themes.
    - kalium-xyz 2y ago
      I personally do the opposite and use high contrast mode plus low brightness to safe battery on my non adaptive backlight lcd laptop. It also doesnt make any sense to do this considering brightness is relative. If im wrong about this please show me how.
      - mjevans 2y ago
        Kind of; the human eye shifts to adjust for the quantity of light. The ambient lighting in the environment also matters too; both for cameras and eyes. Perception matters. http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/White_balance http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/White_balance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_balance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_balance
- arp242 2y ago
  Unfortunately some people will bring up these kind of topics no reasonable person is against (climate change, racism, accessibility, etc.) to support their pre-conceived notion, whether it makes sense or not. We might call this "playing the climate change card".
  - xxs 2y ago
    The weirdest part is a CS prof. ranting about -- the dark mode, display tech, etc. have exceptionally little to do with CS (which is mostly Math). Personally I'd have called the prof. on the nonsense -- google can be evil but that has little to do with their choice of colors.
- kalium-xyz 2y ago
  CRT was universally used in the past. And backlights are dimmed when displaying black most of the time. You can test your power usage of displays yourself if for some reason you dont believe this.
xxs 2y ago
>We could have saved a fortune in electricity if dark mode was a default and as a standard rolled out decades ago across everything. How - you need an OLED display for this to be a thing, The ones with backlight (well the extreme vast majority) prevent the light from going through. >One of my old CS teachers would rant about googles evil choice of white background. That's awkward - get a display and measure the input current with different modes.

marginalia_nu 2y ago

It's my understanding that most monitor types (except CRT and OLED) are literally just a filter over an always-on white backlight. Is this not correct, or is the light somehow re-absorbed and turned back to energy?

mjevans 2y ago
It's more nuanced than that. Modern displays do use a backlight, but might not drive it at full brightness for mostly not-white displays.
- arp242 2y ago
  On the other hand, people tend to crank up the brightness on "dark mode" themes.
  - kalium-xyz 2y ago
    I personally do the opposite and use high contrast mode plus low brightness to safe battery on my non adaptive backlight lcd laptop. It also doesnt make any sense to do this considering brightness is relative. If im wrong about this please show me how.
    - mjevans 2y ago
      Kind of; the human eye shifts to adjust for the quantity of light. The ambient lighting in the environment also matters too; both for cameras and eyes. Perception matters. http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/White_balance http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/White_balance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_balance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_balance
arp242 2y ago
Unfortunately some people will bring up these kind of topics no reasonable person is against (climate change, racism, accessibility, etc.) to support their pre-conceived notion, whether it makes sense or not. We might call this "playing the climate change card".
- xxs 2y ago
  The weirdest part is a CS prof. ranting about -- the dark mode, display tech, etc. have exceptionally little to do with CS (which is mostly Math). Personally I'd have called the prof. on the nonsense -- google can be evil but that has little to do with their choice of colors.
kalium-xyz 2y ago
CRT was universally used in the past. And backlights are dimmed when displaying black most of the time. You can test your power usage of displays yourself if for some reason you dont believe this.

xxs 2y ago

>We could have saved a fortune in electricity if dark mode was a default and as a standard rolled out decades ago across everything. How - you need an OLED display for this to be a thing, The ones with backlight (well the extreme vast majority) prevent the light from going through. >One of my old CS teachers would rant about googles evil choice of white background. That's awkward - get a display and measure the input current with different modes.