A new community where people can just vent about or actually do coordinate action against the pest of ultra bright LEDs.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    If all LED headlamps followed a new polarization standard, things could be very cool. As an example, let’s say the headlights could only shine horizontally polarized light and the windshields could only pass vertically polarized light. That means that one could see every thing very clearly because you wouldn’t be blinded by the cars coming on the opposite side. Your light would illuminate everything in from of you, which would then reflect non polarized light back at you plus all other light reflections from other sources like street lamps. Houses could be fitted with the same filter film as older cars. Similarly, people could wear polarized glasses and get the same benefit.

    • Etterra@discuss.online
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      2 days ago

      Yeah but see that would require the government to do something, and right now they can’t even tell their asses from their elbows. Oh and they’re cutting at least half the jobs. Because eFiShAnSeE.

    • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca
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      3 days ago

      In North America we can’t even get signal lights to not look different than break lights. I hope Europe has better luck.

      Edit: that sounds like an awesome idea

      • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        I agree with you. Our king Elon tried to make our cars automatic. Our felon president trumpfus will be banning electric cars and orange lights because he doesn’t like to be called orange face.

        But yeah otherwise not too crazy of a solution.

    • AynRandLibertarian@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I didn’t pay attention in physics class, why is the light reflected back not polarized? what happened to the once polarized photons that they come back non polarized?

      Also what is polarization? I know that Electro Magnetic Radiation or EMR is made up from pulsating magnetic and electrical fields that propagate through space at a fixed rate or frequency… but what does polarization mean? does it mean the fields are slanted to one side or into one direction or something? or is it like some sort of spin or other sort of modulation?

      • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        There’s Horizontal and vertical polarization as well as circular polarization. In a simple explanation , think of horizontal as a fence with horizontal bars so that only the horizontal part of the photons pass thru. Now once those horizontal photons pass, they will meet surfaces, which will reflect back their light so your eyes can see it. However, in this experiment only the vertical photons will pass your windshield. Because polarization depends on the angle of incidence, you will get some of the horizontally polarized light back as vertically polarized light which will pass thru. The effect is psychedelic. I totally recommend you to try it. You need polarized glasses, a flashlight and a piece of polarized film to place on your flashlight. The colors and shapes come back to you without defined form or glimmers so stuff looks normal, but weird as heck.

    • DarthKaren@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      It would add to the price, which would suck, but I’d love to see some sort of HUD assist system. Even if it was a wire frame or something that appears as a HUD on the windshield. Not bright enough to blind you or be in the way, but enough to see. User could adjust the color (within limits to maybe not negate the system). To me, we don’t take enough advantage of HUD tech and different types of vision that a computer could do that a human can’t. Make it come on with the headlights or something. That way it’s not on during the day.

      • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        One big challenge with this is that the human eye has not followed all the technological advances… Its still gonna give you shit after the age of 40. So that means you cannot have a simple mirror reflection system where the driver simply focuses on stuff outside of the car and then from time to time onto the HUD. But I think Mamazon and the apple companies have figure either automated focusing or long distance focusing such that the eye doesn’t have to focus on shit up close while driving. So it’s totally doable.

        • rumba@lemmy.zip
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          2 days ago

          But check the date this is a very old idea. Would probably make a very interesting YouTube video or two

            • rumba@lemmy.zip
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              2 days ago

              I do have some concerns about polarizing the light. If I can get a hold of some cheap filter material I might be inclined to do some tests. Maybe I can rescue the polarizer out of an old LCD TV.

              Polarizing’s not completely magic, It does seriously reduce the amount of light coming in. There’s just usually enough light around that it doesn’t affect us, our pupils dilate a fraction of a fraction and it’s no big deal.

              But at night when there’s already relatively little light out, It does reduce the overall light amount.

              I’m also concerned that any light that bounces off something but maintains the polarization will be blocked, so there will be a higher chance of you not being able to see some percentage of your own headlight illumination, I would think that the average diffraction off everything in front of you would thoroughly destroy the coalescence of polarization but I don’t really know for sure, it’s possible that would make your own headlights less effective to you.

              I suspect if we were thinking about this in the '50s if it were viable somebody would have pulled it off by now. But we only have had windshield sized polarizers in TVs for maybe a decades so maybe?

              • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                All I can say is that it works. I’ve tested this using a flashlight and polarized film on the lamp and on my safety glasses. It makes everything evenly lit. Other light sources become useful since you’re not blinded by the incoming light.