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Maybe now is a good time to remind everyone: your vision will deteriorate. Keep this in mind when designing. When I first came to HN it wasn't an issue. Now I

Maybe now is a good time to remind everyone: your vision will deteriorate. Keep this in mind when designing. When I first came to HN it wasn't an issue. Now I have to use my own app for it so the font (and some other things) are workable. According to my eye doctor the screen time is causing eyesight issues earlier. We're not designed to stare at a bright light 40cm away all day. May want to look at some eye exercises - or at least something far away.

mrob 2y ago
Very few screens are bright enough to compete with the normal brightness of outdoor sunlight. There's no evidence that close focus or looking at bright screens causes eyesight problems. Bright light actually seems to protect against myopia. Here's a good overview: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470669/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470669/
- immibis 2y ago
  Once I took apart an LCD monitor (with LED backlight) since one of the backlight elements was broken (I got it broken for very little money). I thought I'd see whether the LCD element can be used in front of a window to make a sci-fi type screen. Turns out the backlight is much, much brighter than daylight, and the LCD lets almost no light through. The LCD was too dark to make a cool sci-fi screen, and the backlight sitting separately was blindingly bright.
- IWeldMelons 2y ago
  From the same article: "In contrast, long-wavelength light is growth-inhibiting and short-wavelength light is growth-promoting in rhesus monkey (57) and tree shrew (58)." Modern monitors have high amount of shortwave spectrum, blue is unusually shortwave.
  - mrob 2y ago
    The "in contrast" is to chickens and guinea pigs, where the opposite occurs. What relevance this has to humans is unclear.
    - IWeldMelons 2y ago
      It happens in primates, blue light causes problems. So yeah very much relevant. Stop cherrypicking.
      - mrob 2y ago
        Outdoor daylight typically has more blue light in it than indoor light, yet outdoor light appears to be protective. So yes, "unclear" is accurate.
        IWeldMelons 2y ago
        No this is incorrect. Spectrally, LED light has far "bluer" spectrum, with a very sharp peak at 450nm. Sunlight has its blue part smeared all over the range, with the most energy in cyan 500 area .
        fragmede 2y ago
        Depends on the LEDs. High CRI LEDs are available for those that want light closer to sunlight.
KineticLensman 2y ago
Just want to endorse this point about considering accessibility when designing interfaces. Small low contrast fonts are a real pain as you get older.
ahoka 2y ago
Doctors would say the stupidest things. We are not “designed” for anything.
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  Evolution by natural selection of often regarded (somewhat by analogy) as a process of ‘design’. If you like, replace ‘designed for’ with ‘suited to’.
  - xanderlewis 2y ago
    'of' --> 'is', of course.
- samatman 2y ago
  You can get grumpy about it, sure. Or you can just accept that any use of "designed to" in respect to humans can be replaced with "adapted for" without loss of meaning. Most people who say "designed" here aren't ignorant: they don't care about the distinction and say what's idiomatic.
badsectoracula 2y ago
> When I first came to HN it wasn't an issue. Now I have to use my own app for it so the font (and some other things) are workable. FWIW in Firefox (and i guess Chrome and other browsers) you can have per-site zoom. Also addons like Stylus allow you to setup site-specific CSS rules (and HN uses a bunch of classes in elements that use the same visual style by default but can be altered with custom CSS). For example in HN one thing (among others) i have is to use a slightly darker background for every other comment to make it easier to distinguish between comments when scrolling.

mrob 2y ago

Very few screens are bright enough to compete with the normal brightness of outdoor sunlight. There's no evidence that close focus or looking at bright screens causes eyesight problems. Bright light actually seems to protect against myopia. Here's a good overview: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470669/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470669/

immibis 2y ago
Once I took apart an LCD monitor (with LED backlight) since one of the backlight elements was broken (I got it broken for very little money). I thought I'd see whether the LCD element can be used in front of a window to make a sci-fi type screen. Turns out the backlight is much, much brighter than daylight, and the LCD lets almost no light through. The LCD was too dark to make a cool sci-fi screen, and the backlight sitting separately was blindingly bright.
IWeldMelons 2y ago
From the same article: "In contrast, long-wavelength light is growth-inhibiting and short-wavelength light is growth-promoting in rhesus monkey (57) and tree shrew (58)." Modern monitors have high amount of shortwave spectrum, blue is unusually shortwave.
- mrob 2y ago
  The "in contrast" is to chickens and guinea pigs, where the opposite occurs. What relevance this has to humans is unclear.
  - IWeldMelons 2y ago
    It happens in primates, blue light causes problems. So yeah very much relevant. Stop cherrypicking.
    - mrob 2y ago
      Outdoor daylight typically has more blue light in it than indoor light, yet outdoor light appears to be protective. So yes, "unclear" is accurate.
      - IWeldMelons 2y ago
        No this is incorrect. Spectrally, LED light has far "bluer" spectrum, with a very sharp peak at 450nm. Sunlight has its blue part smeared all over the range, with the most energy in cyan 500 area .
        fragmede 2y ago
        Depends on the LEDs. High CRI LEDs are available for those that want light closer to sunlight.

KineticLensman 2y ago

Just want to endorse this point about considering accessibility when designing interfaces. Small low contrast fonts are a real pain as you get older.

ahoka 2y ago

Doctors would say the stupidest things. We are not “designed” for anything.

xanderlewis 2y ago
Evolution by natural selection of often regarded (somewhat by analogy) as a process of ‘design’. If you like, replace ‘designed for’ with ‘suited to’.
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  'of' --> 'is', of course.
samatman 2y ago
You can get grumpy about it, sure. Or you can just accept that any use of "designed to" in respect to humans can be replaced with "adapted for" without loss of meaning. Most people who say "designed" here aren't ignorant: they don't care about the distinction and say what's idiomatic.

badsectoracula 2y ago

> When I first came to HN it wasn't an issue. Now I have to use my own app for it so the font (and some other things) are workable. FWIW in Firefox (and i guess Chrome and other browsers) you can have per-site zoom. Also addons like Stylus allow you to setup site-specific CSS rules (and HN uses a bunch of classes in elements that use the same visual style by default but can be altered with custom CSS). For example in HN one thing (among others) i have is to use a slightly darker background for every other comment to make it easier to distinguish between comments when scrolling.