More on topic, I can imagine! That white light is horrible! I know it all to well; it is so common here in Ugandan houses. Bang for buck, that’s how they call it right? As many watts for my Ugandan shilling please, I want to be able to see every tiny detail..
It's tax season and IR is..."Internal Revenue"? I'm suffering from post traumatic stress from my experience in the tax office just the other day. Knowing it's paying fake interest on fake loans for fake money makes it worse.
Viewing this problem through 75-year-old eyes that never did see well at night even with glasses, I've noticed another factor in LED-induced literal "night blindness". This may be old news, and I've observed it many times, but somehow it didn't quite bubble up to conscious thinking until now.
I no longer drive at night, but I rode with someone to a seasonal event last December, and I had the pleasure of being able to put on my custom-fitted clip-on sunglasses over my regular glasses. What a difference! The shock to my brain from that horrible light from all sources was attenuated. If I were really stupid, it would be tempting to go back to driving at night again, that way. But there were times when the sunglasses made it too dark to see.
I'm not quite sure how it connects, but following that night I stopped to think about the lights we have in the house. They are mostly LED, although we have a few surviving incandescent bulbs left, one with red glass, and halogen bulbs over the kitchen range. Most have clear (or clear-red) glass, but one, in my bedroom, is frosted. It doesn't make a lot of difference. Frosting dims the light a little, but either way they don't mess with our brains the way LEDs do.
We also have a mixture of LED lights in the house, some frosted and some not. With those, it DOES make a difference. The frosted bulbs -- incandescent replacements screwed into lamps -- are tolerable. We go for bulbs with warmer color temperatures. So are diffused ceiling lights, although some of those are tolerable only with dimmers (which are an EMI problem so we mostly avoid them).
The bare LED strips, such as the under-cabinet work area lights in the kitchen, are horrible, like lights on the road. There is a sit-down niche in the kitchen where I had to hang a cardboard flap over the front of the LED strip light, leaving it to only project straight down or reflect off the back wall, because otherwise it blinds me and I can't do anything that involves seeing. To get any real work done there I have to turn off the under-counter lights off, all on the same circuit unfortunately, and rely on other more indirect light sources.
The lights encountered at night while driving are of several kinds including headlights, tail lights, traffic signal lights, street lighting, and off-the-street sources such as lighted signs and landscape lighting. Most of it is from bare LEDs, and at least partially blinding.
LED headlights are the worst. Some cars still have incandescent headlights, not frosted, but dimmer and less harsh, and they are no more of a problem than they ever were. The difference is quite obvious. The signal lights, now all LED, are the most interesting. They are too bright but they have diffusers, but they also point right in our faces. What a combination! If they were dimmed back down to what used to be the legal standard using neutral density filters, they might not be a problem.
Maybe I'm just old and addle-brained, and it wouldn't resolve the spectral issues anyway, but couldn't the bare LED lights on the road be diffused and dimmed back down to the old standards? Or would that defeat their purpose of causing trouble?
I know that one purpose the present situation serves is to "drive" older people to have cataract surgery, that being SO much better than taking care of one's eyes, avoiding cruddy "cheap and convenient" industrial food-like substances, and other harmful practices. Speaking of which, there's the optometric industry which serves to further degrade vision over time, keeping the cash flowing, but I won't go there because it's past noon and I haven't cooked breakfast yet.
Yes, I still cook, with foods as real as I can get them, though it's getting harder and the vegetables are getting rottier. But imagine that, cooking.
Thanks for the thorough info CM. There’s only so much we can do but there are some things:
Stock up on many years worth of incandescent lights
Sit at a desk facing a window during the day to get natural light
Use some cloth or handkerchiefs and improvise wrapping them around bright LED fixtures that don’t have dimming functions, and/or turn them away from direct line of sight. Roman Shapoval had some posts on red color lights recently that you can buy.
I got blue blocking glasses but the color is uncomfortable, maybe there are better ones.
When driving I just turn the rear view mirror away from my face, essentially don’t use it and try hard not to drive at night. Fortunately I only drive on occasion.
☞ I’m very interested in hearing what others do.
That was a courageous thing to do! It also tested the Japanese system for self-correction.
In the US, such attempts probably wouldn't turn you into a target (for ICE or any other crap orgs). I tried that with the "smart" meters by contacting officials and lawyers; nobody dared to touch the topic. Ultimately, you get the silent treatment, just like my articles by Google (brought me up during my first year, but only obsolete materials after that; the recent exception is my Goebbels article from yesterday at https://rayhorvaththesource.substack.com/p/goebbels-said-in-1945-what-those).
As you said, chances are, LED is bad enough. It's not an accident that incandescent bulbs are banned in the US.
I live in a two-story condo community, from the street I can see lighting in neighbor bedrooms. The sterile blue-white light-lit ceilings are visible in 80% of them, easy. Smh. When they've installed the same light spectrum in street lamps we've complained, fortunately the HOA has had them removed...but new board members, their agendas and beliefs are always a risk. HOA's, the other, more insidious, more proximate threat than government. Takes vigilance everywhere. Especially when the powers that be make the healthier choices more expensive.
Now that is a result! Congrats!
Thanks IR, it means a lot to me.
More on topic, I can imagine! That white light is horrible! I know it all to well; it is so common here in Ugandan houses. Bang for buck, that’s how they call it right? As many watts for my Ugandan shilling please, I want to be able to see every tiny detail..
I think I am damaged; every time I read IR my brain goes ‘…. baboon’.
It's tax season and IR is..."Internal Revenue"? I'm suffering from post traumatic stress from my experience in the tax office just the other day. Knowing it's paying fake interest on fake loans for fake money makes it worse.
No, knowledge is not always a good thing.
Certainly going the right direction, little proton! Thank You for the work You do!
Thanks for your kind words AS!
🤗 💜 🤗
Viewing this problem through 75-year-old eyes that never did see well at night even with glasses, I've noticed another factor in LED-induced literal "night blindness". This may be old news, and I've observed it many times, but somehow it didn't quite bubble up to conscious thinking until now.
I no longer drive at night, but I rode with someone to a seasonal event last December, and I had the pleasure of being able to put on my custom-fitted clip-on sunglasses over my regular glasses. What a difference! The shock to my brain from that horrible light from all sources was attenuated. If I were really stupid, it would be tempting to go back to driving at night again, that way. But there were times when the sunglasses made it too dark to see.
I'm not quite sure how it connects, but following that night I stopped to think about the lights we have in the house. They are mostly LED, although we have a few surviving incandescent bulbs left, one with red glass, and halogen bulbs over the kitchen range. Most have clear (or clear-red) glass, but one, in my bedroom, is frosted. It doesn't make a lot of difference. Frosting dims the light a little, but either way they don't mess with our brains the way LEDs do.
We also have a mixture of LED lights in the house, some frosted and some not. With those, it DOES make a difference. The frosted bulbs -- incandescent replacements screwed into lamps -- are tolerable. We go for bulbs with warmer color temperatures. So are diffused ceiling lights, although some of those are tolerable only with dimmers (which are an EMI problem so we mostly avoid them).
The bare LED strips, such as the under-cabinet work area lights in the kitchen, are horrible, like lights on the road. There is a sit-down niche in the kitchen where I had to hang a cardboard flap over the front of the LED strip light, leaving it to only project straight down or reflect off the back wall, because otherwise it blinds me and I can't do anything that involves seeing. To get any real work done there I have to turn off the under-counter lights off, all on the same circuit unfortunately, and rely on other more indirect light sources.
The lights encountered at night while driving are of several kinds including headlights, tail lights, traffic signal lights, street lighting, and off-the-street sources such as lighted signs and landscape lighting. Most of it is from bare LEDs, and at least partially blinding.
LED headlights are the worst. Some cars still have incandescent headlights, not frosted, but dimmer and less harsh, and they are no more of a problem than they ever were. The difference is quite obvious. The signal lights, now all LED, are the most interesting. They are too bright but they have diffusers, but they also point right in our faces. What a combination! If they were dimmed back down to what used to be the legal standard using neutral density filters, they might not be a problem.
Maybe I'm just old and addle-brained, and it wouldn't resolve the spectral issues anyway, but couldn't the bare LED lights on the road be diffused and dimmed back down to the old standards? Or would that defeat their purpose of causing trouble?
I know that one purpose the present situation serves is to "drive" older people to have cataract surgery, that being SO much better than taking care of one's eyes, avoiding cruddy "cheap and convenient" industrial food-like substances, and other harmful practices. Speaking of which, there's the optometric industry which serves to further degrade vision over time, keeping the cash flowing, but I won't go there because it's past noon and I haven't cooked breakfast yet.
Yes, I still cook, with foods as real as I can get them, though it's getting harder and the vegetables are getting rottier. But imagine that, cooking.
Thanks for the thorough info CM. There’s only so much we can do but there are some things:
Stock up on many years worth of incandescent lights
Sit at a desk facing a window during the day to get natural light
Use some cloth or handkerchiefs and improvise wrapping them around bright LED fixtures that don’t have dimming functions, and/or turn them away from direct line of sight. Roman Shapoval had some posts on red color lights recently that you can buy.
I got blue blocking glasses but the color is uncomfortable, maybe there are better ones.
When driving I just turn the rear view mirror away from my face, essentially don’t use it and try hard not to drive at night. Fortunately I only drive on occasion.
☞ I’m very interested in hearing what others do.
Excellent info Toiya, thanks!
That was great! Also, sometimes you are pretty funny.😄
That was a courageous thing to do! It also tested the Japanese system for self-correction.
In the US, such attempts probably wouldn't turn you into a target (for ICE or any other crap orgs). I tried that with the "smart" meters by contacting officials and lawyers; nobody dared to touch the topic. Ultimately, you get the silent treatment, just like my articles by Google (brought me up during my first year, but only obsolete materials after that; the recent exception is my Goebbels article from yesterday at https://rayhorvaththesource.substack.com/p/goebbels-said-in-1945-what-those).
As you said, chances are, LED is bad enough. It's not an accident that incandescent bulbs are banned in the US.
Bravo, PM. A small illustration how of 'less is more'.
IMPRESSIVE Proton!
I salute you for your determination and perseverance! 🫶✨
Nicely done, PM. Congratulations 🎉
I live in a two-story condo community, from the street I can see lighting in neighbor bedrooms. The sterile blue-white light-lit ceilings are visible in 80% of them, easy. Smh. When they've installed the same light spectrum in street lamps we've complained, fortunately the HOA has had them removed...but new board members, their agendas and beliefs are always a risk. HOA's, the other, more insidious, more proximate threat than government. Takes vigilance everywhere. Especially when the powers that be make the healthier choices more expensive.
Suggest you run for HOA board seat!