What's the purpose?
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Love this thread. Couple more ideas:
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Sleep helps people remember things and solve problems, so "productivity" is not just about the moment to moment. It's good to think about your productivity over 24 hours or 48 hours, and not 2. You can solve problems while you sleep.
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If you're mostly a night owl who's had the most productive hours late at night, it is extremely uncomfortable to "reorganize" your day to be earlier. The idea that you could be productive several hours earlier might be pretty strange.
In the ideal world, people would have fantastic tools for understanding their circadian timing and how to optimize the day for what they want to do.
What seems pretty important for productivity and "feeling good" is that people keep a more regular schedule day to day, and the trouble with really bright light at night is that it seems to make people have an irregular schedule. So one big idea with f.lux is that we give you a way to automate some of the light/dark timing this way.
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@gambagus said:
@TwoCables said:
Of course, other uses can involve reducing eyestrain and discomfort.
How exactly? Does reducing/eliminating blue light have this effect?
Oh yes. I think at night, the highest color temp the eyes really want to see is near 4100K (but probably lower.) This is the color temperature of moonlight, which is just light from the sun reflected from the moon. I would guess this is the whitest light we would naturally ever see at night (excluding lightning, which seems very bluish, maybe 8000K in color tone).
What I mean is, in the daytime, a 100 watt bulb looks quite yellow, but around 9 PM, you crank that thing all the way to the brightest setting, and it's VERY crisp white., not much yellow to be seen there. turn down light again
Our eyes seem to strongly prefer warmer colored light at night, and I am sure that it's much nicer for my eyes, and relaxation.
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@herf said:
Love this thread. Couple more ideas:
- Sleep helps people remember things and solve problems, so "productivity" is not just about the moment to moment. It's good to think about your productivity over 24 hours or 48 hours, and not 2. You can solve problems while you sleep.
What's that?!
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@timpster What? No one would ever like seeing a sunny day if that were true...
@lorna
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@timpster said:
@herf said:
Love this thread. Couple more ideas:
- Sleep helps people remember things and solve problems, so "productivity" is not just about the moment to moment. It's good to think about your productivity over 24 hours or 48 hours, and not 2. You can solve problems while you sleep.
What's that?!
Think back to how people say things like, "I'll sleep on it and get back to you". There's a huge amount of truth to it. With proper sleep, the brain is given the ability to process a huge amount of information.
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@gambagus said:
What if I want to be active and productive day and night?
Then that's a problem. Because you can't.
Your body (and mind) needs rest, and time to repair itself, and there's no way around it. You can pump yourself up with coffee, cigarettes, and blue light late at night, to keep yourself awake, sharpen your thinking, and get more work done. But it's not sustainable, and it will sooner and/or later catch up to you.
After sunset, the body starts to produce melatonin, and continues for around twelve hours. One effect of melatonin is that it makes you feel more relaxed and sleepy. But it's also very important for many other processes of protection and repair. It helps process cholesterol, protects your cells' DNA, keeps your body young by fighting oxidative stress and inflammation, and most likely helps fight cancer. So it's very important for short-term and long-term health.
Bright blue light at night can completely stop melatonin production, so instead of twelve hours, your body only has access to it for maybe seven.
Is whatever you're working on late at night, important enough to seriously risk your health over? And are you sure that plan really works anyway? My experience is that you shouldn't expect more than about six hours of really productive work in a day. Beyond that, you push yourself into being exhausted, and the next day it's that much harder to do anything well. You end up with that on-the-treadmill feeling, and your work suffers. The research shows that people who regularly work sixty hours a week accomplish less than if they worked under fifty hours. That's accomplish in total, not per hour.
F.lux helps you have a more natural and healthy lifestyle. What you're asking for doesn't fit in well with that. The tradeoff between the demands and stress of work, and your own personal health, is something everyone has to decide about. It can be difficult when there's a big project deadline this week - and maybe every week - that seems more important than not getting cancer twenty years from now. Believe me, it's not. When the sun goes down, your body will tell you it's time to stop working. You should probably listen to it.
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@lorna said:
@timpster What? No one would ever like seeing a sunny day if that were true...
No, I detailed at night, in the daytime, I want regular light! But at night, it's incredibly relaxing to not have bright white light.
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@timpster said:
@lorna said:
@timpster What? No one would ever like seeing a sunny day if that were true...
No, I detailed at night, in the daytime, I want regular light! But at night, it's incredibly relaxing to not have bright white light.
I have a different way to say the same thing:
It's incredibly relaxing to not have bright white light when I have been awake for a long time (like say 18 hours).
The reason why I put it this way is, I don't always sleep at night. I find that even I've been awake for 18+ hours by the time noon comes around and it's a clear sunny day, I notice that I prefer lower brightness levels and lower levels of blue light too.
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@TwoCables Woah that's really interesting!
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@timpster said:
@TwoCables Woah that's really interesting!
It is, actually. If I maintain my exposure to bright light, then it's not really noticeable (except for the possibility of my eyes watering). As soon as I spend like say 30 minutes or more in darker light, brighter light becomes uncomfortable for me.
What really happens is, it takes my eyes longer to adjust to bright light when I've been awake for a long time (that is, if I go from a semi-dark room to a bright one), and I find that I feel better when I reduce the brightness in the brighter room.
I experimented with this once in my bathroom with my dimmer (I have three 75W 20,000 Aero-Tech bulbs in there). I went in there and turned the dimmer all the way up as I always do, but I found it to be uncomfortable. So instead of using the bathroom as planned, I found myself curiously dimming the light to a more comfortable level and then playing with the brightness and learning a lot in just a few seconds of time. lol I've been hyper-aware of it ever since, and it's the same result every time.
I think this comes from a natural production of melatonin, but I'm not sure yet. So I think the body begins producing melatonin if you've been awake for a long time and the light is dark enough, but not if you're well-rested and have only been awake for a few hours. I mean, think back: have you ever gone from a dark room to a bright room when you're well-rested and have only been awake for a few hours? It's no big deal. Do that when you've been awake for like 18+ hours, and your body is like, "No! I don't want bright light right now. Sigh." You can force yourself to get used to it and then you'll be fine, but it's not as easy as adjusting when you're not tired yet.
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@TwoCables said:
@timpster said:
@TwoCables Woah that's really interesting!
It is, actually. If I maintain my exposure to bright light, then it's not really noticeable (except for the possibility of my eyes watering). As soon as I spend like say 30 minutes or more in darker light, brighter light becomes uncomfortable for me.
What really happens is, it takes my eyes longer to adjust to bright light when I've been awake for a long time (that is, if I go from a semi-dark room to a bright one), and I find that I feel better when I reduce the brightness in the brighter room.
Exactly! I really don't see how people do it. I guess because they don't have a choice, and nobody (and I mean NOBODY) uses dimmer switches or even knows what they are. So they just "deal with it". I just can't do it anymore! I take an old flashlight in the bathroom to brush my teeth at night. If I had my choice I'd keep a small lamp in there haha...
Edit: I have a night class, and to prepare for the onslaught of the 4000K+ (most likely a bit higher, but I can't tell because everything looks whiter at this time of day) fluorescent lights, I turned off all the cozy lights, and set my hue lights to daylight! Then the other fluorescent lights in the house got turned on. It's all I can do to prepare. It's just too much, maybe I can get the class to just use the one row instead of all three.
MaybeDone! Helped a lot it seems.We just derailed this thread!
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@timpster said:
@TwoCables said:
@timpster said:
@TwoCables Woah that's really interesting!
It is, actually. If I maintain my exposure to bright light, then it's not really noticeable (except for the possibility of my eyes watering). As soon as I spend like say 30 minutes or more in darker light, brighter light becomes uncomfortable for me.
What really happens is, it takes my eyes longer to adjust to bright light when I've been awake for a long time (that is, if I go from a semi-dark room to a bright one), and I find that I feel better when I reduce the brightness in the brighter room.
Exactly! I really don't see how people do it. I guess because they don't have a choice, and nobody (and I mean NOBODY) uses dimmer switches or even knows what they are. So they just "deal with it". I just can't do it anymore! I take an old flashlight in the bathroom to brush my teeth at night. If I had my choice I'd keep a small lamp in there haha...
What? Just install a dimmer.
Help me out here: you think that nobody uses dimmers or knows what they are? Let's not go that far; lots of people use dimmers and they do know what they are. It's just that it seems most people don't know that they shouldn't be exposed to bright light at night - especially if that light has a high level of blue in it. Go out in public and ask random people if they try to avoid bright light at night and if they are ok with using their bathroom's full brightness when brushing their teeth before bed. You might even get a few people going, "Well I have dimmers in every room. Should I be using them at night?" lol
Typical fluorescent lights are 4100K, at least mine were at the old house.
Perhaps you could buy several floor lamps for the class (with incandescent bulbs that you installed in them). That would heat the room up pretty quickly though.
You can't say that you derailed a thread until you have several people following you. So far, it's just us having an off-topic conversation.
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@TwoCables Sure, dimmers are $10, actually less, but anyway yeah, I could do that. About the floor lamps.... that'll probably never happen. I just don't want to even try. Very uneven illumination. I've thought about it a ton.
My idea would be, 2700K (or close) awful fluorescent lights above, and everyone has a warm white LED desk lamp. The reason I wouldn't suggest incandescent is because 60 watts (or even 40) x 25 is a lot. Sure the computers may idle at 50 or so, but I just couldn't see it being a good idea for doing so, unless the overhead lights could be off. This is truly tough to design a way to provide adequate light all around the room, without having lamps in the way.
I'd even thought about hanging chandelier style LED bulbs that get around 2300K with a bit more green in them, from the ceiling and using that instead of the overhead stuff, but would everyone be comfortable with that much lower reduction in light. I could do two of them per socket, and that may work. I wonder if any of this will take off.... I'll have to try sometime. Oh, and the desk lamps would be needed here for sure. I really think this one seems feasible! It would take a lot of adjustment from the rest.
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@timpster said:
@TwoCables Sure, dimmers are $10, actually less, but anyway yeah, I could do that. About the floor lamps.... that'll probably never happen. I just don't want to even try. Very uneven illumination. I've thought about it a ton.
It would not be uneven, and it would be far superior. I bet you'll get several people thanking you for doing it. Some people might even contribute to the cost of the lamps and bulbs. You'd be surprised by how many people are keeping their feelings on this a secret for fear of looking or sounding like a paranoid lunatic.
Again though, it wouldn't be uneven. Does the room have 4 corners?
@timpster said:
My idea would be, 2700K (or close) awful fluorescent lights above, and everyone has a warm white LED desk lamp. The reason I wouldn't suggest incandescent is because 60 watts (or even 40) x 25 is a lot.
Why would you need 25?! Are we talking about a HUGE room here or something? Even so, 4-6 floor lamps spaced evenly around the room should be more than plenty.
@timpster said:
Sure the computers may idle at 50 or so, but I just couldn't see it being a good idea for doing so, unless the overhead lights could be off. This is truly tough to design a way to provide adequate light all around the room, without having lamps in the way.
It seems to me that you're trying to come up with every reason for why this wouldn't work so that you don't have to do it.
And the fluorescent lights wouldn't necessarily need to be turned off. A few bright Incandescent lights can do a very nice job of filling in the holes of the blinking fluorescent lights.
@timpster said:
I'd even thought about hanging chandelier style LED bulbs that get around 2300K with a bit more green in them, from the ceiling and using that instead of the overhead stuff, but would everyone be comfortable with that much lower reduction in light. I could do two of them per socket, and that may work. I wonder if any of this will take off.... I'll have to try sometime.
Why would you use LEDs? We're talking about using incandescent lights in order to get away from the flicker.
Maybe you could ask the teacher/professor if you could stand up in front of the class to ask everyone how they feel about the lighting in the room, to get an honest show of hands from everyone who would prefer to use incandescent lights instead of the fluorescent lights. Or maybe you could show up early one day and just set up 3-4 floor lamps evenly around the room with like 150W incandescent light bulbs in them. Who knows? You could end up being everyone's hero. You might be surprised by how many people secretly wish the room had incandescent lights. More and more people are awake and aware these days than ever before.
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@TwoCables the desk lamp thing would be very small lamps, with domes, to light up paper for taking notes. It's a class that involves lots of note taking, and seeing the notes is very important. A lamp per person because I think there is around 20-25 people in the class.
I'm thinking about floor lamps that shine directly upward, and back down as to not glare into anyone's eyes when they look around the room. Yes, the room has four corners, but there are 3 rows of desks, 1 row for left / right side of room, so 6 long desks, and not a large amount of room in the middle. Also the desks, from the front / back have very little amounts of room in between, enough for one person at a time to get through. Just trying to give you a general idea of the size of the room.
I think the lamps in (almost) the corner may work, but I'd like one in the middle, but I really don't think that's remotely feasible, as it would be in the way. I'm not sure how I would set it up, but I'm sure we can come up with something!
Maybe @lorna has some ideas too! Do you have any ideas of strategic lamp placement for a setup like I've mentioned above? I'll make a picture in Paint, and add it here for a better visual.
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All desks (except the back one) have 3 computers.
http://i.imgur.com/WFm7N2q.png
Oh, and they are all about the same size, that picture is not drawn to scale!!!
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Not all floor lamps shine upward only. Mine shine up and down, and glow sideways too. Brightly.
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@TwoCables Yeah I don't want the light in people's eyes, that's very distracting, and it's not nice to look through a really bright light to see across the room. That's why I'd want to use one that only shines up.
Alternatively, I could use really tall one's that only go down (and inevitably to the sides, but it's higher up so it would hopefully be better).
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@timpster said:
@TwoCables Yeah I don't want the light in people's eyes, that's very distracting, and it's not nice to look through a really bright light to see across the room. That's why I'd want to use one that only shines up.
Alternatively, I could use really tall one's that only go down (and inevitably to the sides, but it's higher up so it would hopefully be better).
Um, mine aren't bright in that way. They'd be perfect for this. They're just simple cheap Menards store-brand floor lamps I bought 6-7 years ago that have a basic cheap lamp shade. It's nothing like you think. I don't know where you're getting these negative views from.
I think you're over-thinking this and over-complicating it.
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@TwoCables Well it's new for me, and I've never done anything like it, so it's difficult to come up with something that I'm fairly sure might work. Of course there will be little issues along the way but I want to knock out all the big ones.
