cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/19798927

Sure, the whole world is on fire right now, but there are also little things to be upset about. ☝😉

  • NaoPb@eviltoast.orgEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    I don’t charge things at night since I don’t like to be asleep when a battery is charging. This conveniently makes it so I don’t get to see a charging light at night. Everything else is on a power strip with a switch. My bedside light and alarm clock are the only things plugged a power strip without a switch.

  • Benchamoneh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    3 months ago

    Is it because blue is the newest of the LED colours and so as the last to be made is still considered “new” and “fancy” by manufacturers?

  • rainynight65@feddit.orgEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    I once slept in a hotel room where the TV had a blue LED standby light. I had to go and cover it up, it was way too bright.

  • Wrench@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    I have black electrical tape over most led indicators. It’s stupid because now I can’t tell the battery charge on a lot of devices, but I hate the involuntary nightlights everywhere.

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      You can get tape that’s not clear nor is it completely opaque.

      You can find dark colored “clear” style tape.

      Alternatively, take a sharpie to some Scotch tape. Color to preference.

    • CompostMaterial@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      I use white electrical tape. It drastically reduces the light brightness but allows enough though to know the light is on.

    • brianorca@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      It also falls off too easily. My favorite for this use case is black Gorilla tape. Like duct tape but thicker.

        • Godnroc@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          I use metallic permanent markers. They apply a nice, thick coating so that the light still works but is severely diminished. It also can be done to some devices without opening them if they don’t have the light recessed too far.

  • MoogleMaestro@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    White painters tape on top of LEDs generally makes the light a bit smoother and, importantly, less bright.

    I have done this to devices with poorly dispersed LEDs.

  • inbeesee@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    Blue is meant to be calming and nice. The brightness probably needs lowered on these chargers.

  • d00ery@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    Bluetac - no light gets through and it’s usually pretty easy to remove when necessary.

  • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    I have a microphone that when plugged into my computer, even if the computer is sleeping, shines a bright blue light that cannot be covered up without removing the sticker covering the screws holding the mesh in, so I just put a pair of socks on top of it as a ‘temporary’ solution

    • weker01@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      3 months ago

      Black electrical tape works really well to temporarily cover LEDs.

      Edit: I feel unoriginal… The very next comment I read also suggested black electrical tape. That’s why I should just lurk like always :/

      Edit2: it feels like every other comment suggests electrical tape. At least I am not the only unoriginal lemming.

  • *Tagger*@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    to be fair, on my WiFi router, a recent (cheap) TV my mother bought and my Xbox the LEDs are able to be disabled in software, so some manufacturers are catching on.

  • _____@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Time to get roasted again but I dislike LEDs and I always tape black electrical tape on them.

  • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    3 months ago

    There was a time when blue LEDs were the white whale of electronics, always out of reach and everyone wanted to figure out how to make them work. When someone finally did it, it was considered a massive breakthrough, and rightly so. Now they have somehow become the default cheapo LED, moreso than red or green. Could it be an industry-wide ‘fuck you’ to physics? “You tried to keep us from making blue LEDs, hah! Now look at us!!!”

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      Yeah, the history of the blue LED is actually really interesting. It basically exists because one Japanese dude refused to take no for an answer, and continued working on developing them even after his company stopped funding his LED project.

    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
      0·
      3 months ago

      You even see them in Christmas lights. They’re so retina piercingly stark, like not a chill light at all (though obv on the “cool” end of the spectrum). I’m out here walking my dog looking at the nice twinkly warm lights - no one wants to see your damned pinprick holes into the Tron dimension

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      They’re the “literally” of LEDs? Wrong in almost every context but people can’t stop using them?

    • towerful@programming.dev
      0·
      3 months ago

      At one point, blue LEDs were super expensive because of their difficult production.
      So any product that has a blue LED was considered premium. I guess they were also considered futuristic and high-tech.
      Somehow, this is still in the mind of some manufacturers.
      All I want is a barely-visible-in-soft-daylight diffused/frosted red or amber LED.
      But no, it’s always some 5w lensed blue LED at somehow produces a tighter beam of horrendous blue light that’s brighter than most flashlights.

      • justme@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        0·
        3 months ago

        Reminds me on a German proverb “to add your mustard to it”, which apparently came from a time at which mustard was rare and exquisite. So they added it to any kind of food just to “up it’s prestige”.

        • towerful@programming.dev
          0·
          3 months ago

          What a great origin. I Googled it, and it now means “to add your opinion”.

          1. Seinen Senf dazugeben

          Literal translation: To add your mustard to it.

          Actual meaning: To give your opinion on something./To give your two cents.

          Where there are sausages, there also must be mustard. If you want to ask someone for their opinion and sound like a fluent speaker when doing it, you better invite them to add their mustard.

          https://www.mondly.com/blog/german-idioms/

          In the process, I found some other great German proverbs with hilarious literal translations.

          Literal translation: To talk around the hot porridge.
          Literal translation: To ask for an extra sausage.
          Literal translation: I believe I spider.
          Literal translation: To have tomatoes on one’s eyes.
          Literal translation: I can only understand ‘train station.’.
          Literal translation: You’re walking on my cookie.
          Literal translation: The bear dances there.
          Literal translation: Everything has an end. Only the sausage has two.

          But, I guess that’s always the case with idioms. Their literal translation/meaning is useless. Regardless, I find German ones particularly titular

          • justme@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            0·
            3 months ago

            Yeah sorry, forgot to mention the actual meaning :) But I can add some more:

            • My dear Mister singing club
            • shit at the wall
            • one has seen horses puke Maybe I’ll remember some more with good English “translations”.

            Something else I just remember is a discussion between Erasmus students (Erasmus is a student exchange program in Europe, so you study for a semester in another country, ergo that group was quiet diverse) about how you call very strong rain: German: is raining cow shit (although that might be local, because those phrases often differ quiet much between German dialects) British: is raining cats and dogs Greek: is raining the legs of Zeus I don’t remember the others… But anyway… what is the deal with English speakers and cats??? A lot of languages have a proverb like “many paths lead to Rome”… But in English apparently it is “there are many ways to skin a cat”… dafuq?

            • justme@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              0·
              3 months ago
              • I believe my hamster is sweeping
              • I believe my pig is whistling
              • you don’t have all cups in the cupboard
          • Vlyn@lemmy.zipEnglish
            0·
            3 months ago

            As a German they are all technically correct, but one of them isn’t a proper translation.

            I believe I spider.

            “Ich glaube ich spinne.” isn’t in regards to spiders, the last word is a verb. “spinnen” means “to spin”, originally coming from spinning yarn, which then became spinning a thought :)

            • towerful@programming.dev
              0·
              3 months ago

              That makes a lot more sense!
              I’ve edited my comment. Feel free to contact the blogger. “I believe I spider” is hilarious. But “I believe I spin” is much more believable!

    • Rob T Firefly@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      And when they just started being available, props designers for scifi loved them because LEDs work much better on screen than incandescent bulbs, and blue lights were something people didn’t have yet in their household objects so a blue LED was new and interesting. Look at the Doctor Who and Torchwood props from the mid 2000s, everything from the iconic Sonic Screwdriver to alien zappers and bleepers of all kinds were full of tiny blue lights because it screamed “scifi” to the viewer.

      Very quickly though, blue LEDs got cheap enough for everyday junk and manufacturers immediately shoved them into every consumer product because they were new and interesting and, thanks to the scifi trend, made stuff looked like scifi future tech you could have in real life.

      Now, a couple decades on, we’re still kind of stuck there.

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      At least with my LG TV you can switch that off. It’s in general settings “Standby light” :)

    • Troy@lemmy.ca
      0·
      3 months ago

      It’s how you know that it’s waiting for your remote controller signals, right? Otherwise how would you know that the TV is waiting. Always waiting. So lonely. Please send it signals!

      • Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world
        0·
        3 months ago

        To be fair to the tv, it’s not letting you know it’s off, it’s letting you know it’s still on but in sleep mode. TV’s are just giant tablets now. If it was off, you’d have to wait for it to boot into its operating system the next time you wanted to watch TV.

        • paultimate14@lemmy.world
          0·
          3 months ago

          I have dumb TV’s still with the same problem. It’s to communicate that it’s plugged in and receiving power. If the TV isn’t working properly, that’s easy to verify rather than having to worry about the surge protector, outlet, circuit breaker, etc.

          The fact that TV’s are “smart” is a whole other issue I could get curmudgeonly about.

      • w3dd1e@lemm.ee
        0·
        3 months ago

        I laughed at your reply, upvoted, and started to scroll when I remembered my TV has a “screen off” feature. I use it at bedtime to listen to futurama without the light making my sleep bad.

        At some point the show stops playing and goes to a menu. You actually wouldn’t know the TV is on if it wasn’t for the light. 😑

  • aesthelete@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    The slimline AV receiver I bought for the bedroom has a fucking blue LED standby light. I had to put a piece of electrical tape over it.