= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Baughn comments on My simple hack for increased alertness and improved cognitive functioning: very bright light - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
Comments (126)
I've noticed the same effect after installing 240 watts (that is, 25kLumens) of LED lighting in my living room. I stay more alert while they're on, and then pretty much crash when they turn off or I leave the room.
That was for an aquarium, though, and that much lighting actually is pretty expensive up-front.
If I gain say an hour of productive time on average, that benefit from that far exceeds the one-time cost of lighting.
Thanks for the data point.
LED prices just haven't come down enough yet.
I got halogen-buffed incandescents for the price, and because I was afraid fluorescent lights, if packed too close, might destroy each other and release that mercury.
LED lights are currently very slightly cheaper than any other type of lighting, amortized over the full lifetime of the lights. It'll probably get better.
Accounting for future value of the money, of course, it's more expensive. I'll take that over having to keep changing the lights, though.
Also, if you buy RGB(W) LEDs and add some work, you can choose your rooms color temperature at will. Keep it at 6k if you want to work, let it shift gently to 2k3 to help with a regular sleep rhythm, make it turquoise for a party...
Four CFLs in a cluster will be at least as happy as four incandescents in a cluster; possibly more so, given the much lower heat dissipation.
That's only true if they're built to tolerate heat as well as incandescents have to. Do you know they are?
Ooh ... good question. I have no idea.
Mind you, my experience of CFLs is that they blow out well before their claimed lifetime anyway on the crappy electricity we have around here. But I really, really like having daylight spectrum bulbs.
Where might one acquire such a setup?
The aquarium? Or the lighting?
You probably meant the latter, but I'll answer both, just because I enjoy talking about aquariums. :P
Okay, first: The lighting is made up of six Grobeam 1000ND LED tiles. They're not cheap, and their spectrum is somewhat bizarre by living room lighting standards; they're tuned to deliver maximum useful light to plants, per watt, not for reading by. It's definitely not black-body.
They perfectly well do work as living-room lights, unless you're a photographer, but you should probably consider other options if you're not trying to grow plants. Cree also makes LED modules designed for wide-angle lighting, which these are not.
The actual aquariums look like this. There are two tanks, each with three tiles, or about 12000 lumens of directional lighting each. It's not quite at the level of daylight, but the amount of light that spills out is already enough to have a noticeable effect, so apparently it doesn't take extreme measures.
I got the tanks from a custom-tank-building outfit here in Ireland, along with about forty kilos of sand and fifty of gravel. The substrate is mostly mud, made using topsoil (gardening shop), kalium chloride (homebrewing website), clay and dolomite (pottery shop), with a thin layer of said sand and gravel on top.
The twisty wood is from a local fish shop. So would the fish be, if there were fish yet.
Lastly, about 1000 liters of tapwater...
If any of you followed me this far, you're probably interested in aquariums. I'd be happy to provide any advice I can, if you want, by private message. :-P
I was primarily interested in the lighting, but your aquarium is pretty awesome, too! :)