Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by fhdkweig 8 days ago
Those things drive me nuts. There is a walking path that I frequent, and I can't use it at night because they are spaced every 20-30 feet. When I am not under them, they are off and my eyes adjust to the darkness and as I pass under one it flips to full daytime brightness and blinds me. As soon as I walk away from it, everything goes dark again, but my eyes had adjusted to the daytime brightness of the lamps. And I know that in 30 feet, I have to do it again, for the next couple of miles.
1 comments

The timing and brightness is well adjusted, it feels natural, like a friendly ghost taking care of you.
unfortunately they never are. Brightness-adjusted, that is. Everyone installing lighting fixtures these days believes they must be daylight-level bright. The only ghosts you see are afterimages if you happen to look straight at the streetlamp ...

(I find it odd; dark-adapted eyes see a lot, including movement in shadows or low-contrast obstacles - after all, our bodies know how to see well at moonlight levels of illumination. Why are we so keen to kill this ability?)

Because

1) Humans night vision is significantly worse than your regular vision. Low light would cause more accidents, eg.

2) The elderly have pretty terrible night vision. Your idea would exclude them from half the day.

The elderly don't generally go to the park for a midnight stroll. Nighttime is the realm of the young.
What? When sunset is at 5pm you want to lock the elderly up in their homes? What about those that have trouble sleeping, like many do? Or those that wake up before sunrise?

This is the kind of thinking that leads to totally inaccessible cities.

If you want to go for a walk in the park in the middle of the night and can't see without a light, BRING A FLASHLIGHT. That's just basic safety. You never know when a power outage will strike. If you are 100% dependent on artificial light, the safest thing to do is bring your own.
Excessively bright and excessively blue lighting can also be inaccessible.
Your Park May Vary (YPMV).