not all heroes wear capes, much less releases personal AI assistant to navigate your own data while the MAIL CLIENT AND CALENDAR APP is on beta on Linux for YEARS
Is there any actual scientific study saying anything either way?
I'm aware of a lot of anecdotal evidence in favor of e-ink displays being easier on the eyes than normal LCDs in some way, my own personal experience included, but I will happily admit I'm wrong if there are studies indicating otherwise.
I like my Kindle and DIY e-ink weather display but I'm not religious about it. I wouldn't be shocked to find out it was just a weird placebo thing because it's different.
there's a study from Havard concluding "e-ink is 3 times better for eye health than LCD" but it feels rather dubious from the claims (blue light stressing more the retina... like i couldn't use a glass or apply a filter on my screen), light intensity (again...), in-vitro study and who funded the study (a great e-ink screen producer) -> https://sid.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jsid.1191
i probably read hundred books since i sold my e-reader and moved to my smartphone. i really like having a single device. battery is fine. physical books with images still rocks but maybe becuse i don't have a tablet :)
I've spent thousands of hours (I think) reading on a phone. I even prefer it over a physical book because it doesn't have that annoying crease and it doesn't spoil the story by telling me how far along in the book I am.
The problem is that there's not even a hypothesis for how light reflecting off an e-ink display could be easier on the eyes than light emitted from an LCD, unless the LCD is using PWM dimming of the backlight and thus flickering. I've never seen a claim that e-ink displays are easier on the eyes get further than the most obvious question: have you tried e-ink and LCD at the same brightness and similar color temperature?
How would that comparison work using an e-ink display illuminated only with ambient light in the room?
(i.e. setting the "frontlight" brightness to 0% on a Kindle, which would also eliminate color temperature control other than room ambient light).
It does seem hard to believe that e-ink + a reflected frontlight would be any easier on the eyes than an LCD backlight (particularly since it's probably also using PWM). But an e-ink display on its own at least removes an additional light source pointing directly at the eyes, which could provide a potential mechanism for different effects on the eyes/brain.
> But an e-ink display on its own at least removes an additional light source pointing directly at the eyes, which could provide a potential mechanism for different effects on the eyes/brain.
Not really, since LCD/OLED aren't an additional light source, but absorb and thus replace the ambient light that would be coming from their direction.
I don't know the science, but my experience is that my brain is simply able to process and retain information so much better with eInk than with LCD screens.
I started as a teenager with cathodic tubes, which were killing my eyes and bringing daily headaches; moved on to LCDs which stopped the headaches but still tire my eyes significantly (some of them literally make me cry after a few minutes); and then found eInk and it's so much better, I will definitely move to that once prices of large color monitors at 60hz get into my price range. I honestly don't care about power draw one bit.
Not really, since it's not just about the light intensity, but also its spectral power distribution. This especially matters when using the display in a darker environment with low-temperature illumination, e.g. when reading before bed.
Quick experiment to show the effect: Go into a room with low 2700K or lower-temp lighting. Take an LCD, set its colour temperature same as the external lighting, then display an all-black screen. Since the screen is displaying #000, the software colour temp adjustment can't do anything, and you'll see the screen as emitting blue light, the colour of its backlight.
OLEDs don't have this issue, which makes them great for night-time use when configured properly, but they also generally use low-frequency PWM dimming on low brightness.
> Not really, since LCD/OLED aren't an additional light source, but absorb and thus replace the ambient light that would be coming from their direction.
Don’t they actually have to over power the reflection you would see with the screen off?
E-Ink’s brightness is naturally proportional to ambient lighting. From indoors to bright sunshine.
Their brightness can also be conveniently, even subconsciously controlled, by how they are held.
LCDs can be dimmed and brightened, but matching the E-Inks “response” in both brightness and contrast over a high range of ambient lighting would be difficult. Probably impossible without an LCD specifically designed to do that.
Huh? I never read studies about it, but no hypothesis?
I frequently stumbled upon the assumption that a LCD screen is pulsed and flickers and that makes all the difference as E-Ink is more steady. (Artificial lightsources can also flicker, but with reflection it evens out)
In (old?) theory too fast for the eyes to notice, but I surely notice a difference.
You wait for the science then. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I can't use an LCD screen for more than 30 minutes without getting a headache. I use my e-ink screen all day without it triggering a headache.
Before I got the e-ink screen, yes, more or less. At the peak I did little screen-based development and a lot of pen-and-paper maths. I thought I would have to give programming away, and retrained for a different job. I got the e-ink screen 1 year ago and since then have slowly started developing again.
It is fair for you to think I assumed the poster was a software developer, but in fact I looked him up before I made my comment and that is how he makes a living. (Unless something has changed recently.) I am genuinely curious how people (he's not the only one I know of) with such high sensitivity to LCD screens manage a career where staring at such screens for prolonged periods is the norm.
> communicates something and isn’t an active impedence (as demonstrated in the linked post)
woah! you are starting from the point an individual preference is any metric to gneral public preferences and understanding... there's not a SINGLE study cited on the blog!
first of all it's Bayer, second. going for a 2°/3°/4°... generation makes them lose their genetic resistance to specific pesticides; this is not viable economically, otherwise farmers would go for a second round out of the seeds they collected! they spend millions/billions of USD on seeds for a reason
i don't like monocultures or "closed source science" but this talk about Monsanto being evil is rather weak and kept by people who think organics are the solution to sustainability; meanwhile they use mores pesticides/herbicides/fungicides than GMO, they have authorization to even use synthetics by USDA (or whatever your country's forum) and they use more land... organic has much more less research on health outcomes and they have MUCH LESS specialized equipment to spray poison around in precise quantities down to 10 mililiters per 1 kilometer sq in some scenarios you find in GMO farms
Farmers spend millions on seeds partly because they are/were contractually obligated to NOT harvest and reuse seeds gathered from the patented GMO plants. While you're correct that resistance traits generally are less effective in F2/F3 generations, they would be committing a crime if they even attempted. Aside from this farmer-hostile position, there's plenty of other reasons to believe Monsanto and now Bayer were historically and continue to be evil. There's a relevant Veritasium video posted just 2 days ago about this very topic and I think "evil" is a very apt description. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxVXvFOPIyQ
Secondly, your claims about organic farming are way more nuanced than you're making them out to be. For instance, the pesticides used in organic farming have way different toxicity profiles than conventional farming pesticides. The argument of "they use more pesticides" doesn't hold water under serious scrutiny.
Finally, you're creating an false dichotomy where everyone who criticizes Monsanto/Bayer must have a pro-organic stance. I am allowed to think that Monsanto/Bayer is evil while also supporting GMO farming. In fact, that's my exact position.
so show me any meta-analysis pointing less poison usage on organic crops vs. GMO. i also challenge you to show me any paper pointing organic uses less land than GMO... organic pesticides have different toxicity profiles for sure, some have even greater impact than synthetics [0], most of the times applied without the safety of a high-tech cabin [1]. the very few independent meta-analysis studies done on health, points no health impact on eating GMO too
organics literally don't even compose 3% of the whole world food production. if we have a sane society that doesn't think only about meat and money, GMO research on various other crops would be pretty beautiful by now
again, i don't like proprietary science nor greed billionaire companies with no pro-social intention but they are screwing the planet much less than farmers going organic because "sustainability". rural flight is a solid phenomena, which by the way, still happens. high-tech farms allows machines do the work everyone doesn't want to and don't cite me some few people that would stay there if wasn't for the "aggressive competition of GMO [3]"(which goes from resources efficiency, investment and financial returns), because farming scores uber high on modern slavery. being a field worker applying a substance that can kill you in a minute if you swallow a swig and the hard endurance work of farming stuff has no comparison against city jobs... i worked for a year volunteering on WWOOF and the situation of some workers is miserable. most of the times organic is about the tech enthusiast or medium/upper class retiring into the country while running their production out of cheap labor that even if it was well paid, you probably don't want to retire as a working class farm field worker
ok, ok! just like you can find for much less computation power involved using a search engine, forums/websites having if not your question, something similar or a snippet [0] helping you solve your doubt... all of that free of tokens and companies profiting over what the internet have build! even FOSS generative AI can give billions USD to GPU manufacturers
In my mid 20s I started developing RSI. I went through a bunch of different devices designed to supposedly be "ergonomic" and while the problem would go away temporarily, it would eventually come back.
I eventually found that it's not any one device that cures RSI. It's much better to switch up between different devices on a regular basis.
So, now I have two keyboards I switch between about weekly. It's fairly easy because I just switch between working at the office vs home and have two different designs of devices in the two locations. Occasionally I use the laptop keyboard and track pad directly. I still program a lot and haven't had another RSI flare-up in about 7 years.
you can ask or hire any personal ergonomic service/company to evaluate what needs to get better at your workstation and they will say that devices are the last item on the list. posture, adequate chair/table height and breaks are much more important than 50 grams less on your mouse
The OSHA Computer Workstation Posture Checklist is gospel and if anyone reading this is struggling with RSI and hasn't followed it to the letter, please do so immediately. It is frankly disgusting how quickly a few seemingly small bad habits can grow into a monster nerve issue
