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A "Bill of Lights" to Restrict LEDs on Gadgets?
PetManimal writes "Mike Elgan has had it with useless lights on gadgets and computers. He singles out the Palm Treo and the Dell XPS gaming laptops as being particularly bad with the use of unnecessary lights, and also cites the plethora of LEDs on desktop PCs and peripherals. 'My PC and other computing equipment make my office look like a jet cockpit. I have two LCD monitors, each of which has two indicator lights that flash even when the PC is turned off. The attached sound control has a light on it. My keyboard has multiple lights. The power cord has lights, the printer has lights, and the power button is illuminated. My cable modem and Linksys router flash like crazy all the time. Together, these useless lights create a visual cacophony of blinking, multicolored lights that make me feel like I'm taking part in a NASA stress test for astronaut candidates.' Elgan calls on manufacturers to respect his 'Gadget Bill of Lights' to restrict the use of nag lights and allow users to turn them off. He also says the industry should pay more attention to industrial design when creating new products."
... whine about silly crap much?
There is a war going on for your mind.
I was immediately reminded of this http://news.yahoo.com/comics/uclickcomics/20070506 /cx_db_uc/db20070506
In my server room I actually play the computer "noises" from old Star Trek in the background on a CD boombox set to repeat!
Black marker is your friend, my man.
especially the blue LEDs. Maybe this dude, could disable his only.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Be glad you don't work in pro audio. My office/studio has more flashing lights than the space shuttle cockpit. 'course, I kinda like it.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
... that I should never invite him over to see my house at Christmas.
LIGHTS LIGHTS AND MORE LIGHTS.
I still like my LED's in blue. But colors that signify things are great. Green = good. Red = Bad. Blue = On. Blinking = Busy.
I need more LEDs! I WANT my office to look like a jet fighter cockpit! The ONLY thing I don't want with lights on it, is my watch. It's a simple, metal watch with a sigle dial.
There is such a thing as too far. I won't wear an LED belt buckle or name tag. I won't stick LEDs on the outside of my car.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
We've all got our switches, lights, and knobs to deal with, Elgan. I mean, down here there are literally hundreds and thousands of blinking, beeping, and flashing lights, blinking and beeping and flashing - they're FLASHING and they're BEEPING. I can't stand it anymore! They're BLINKING and BEEPING and FLASHING! Why doesn't somebody pull the plug!
He needs to learn the wonders of sharpies. Or better yet, how to hide the ugly router, cable modem, and power devices under his desk.
One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces.
What is better than one LED bright enough to light up a whole room? 50 of them! That BLINK!
I can understand why some people who dont understand the usefulness of gadget/electronic feedback. Nothing bothers me more than something without some kind of blinking status light that lets me know from a distance if it is functioning or not.
Simple things like the red light on a tivo letting you know it is recording. Other LEDs on modems and network gear that give you an instant "at a glimpse" status.
I wouldnt mind the ability to turn some things off, but I don't think we need to get rid of any. If there is the ability to turn off the lights, it better be mechanical, not electronic based. If you turn them off in the firmware somehow, then the device fails, how will you troubleshoot some kind of closed box when all it looks like now is a dead paperweight.
SAVE THE LEDS!
I suppose if you aren't a technical person, it's probably too much. As a technical person who does it for a living as well as a hobby, I've always really liked being surrounded by electronics with lots of lights. NOC/IDC facilities are even more fun. It's a mood thing.
As long as all of this stuff is not in my room so I can't sleep, I have no problems with the office looking like NASA.
What's next - no LEDs on network hubs and routers, because he doesn't understand what the lights mean?
If you don't like them, put some fucking electrical tape over the LEDs. That's what I do. Of course, that's not so easy to do with things like my Cooler master 830 case which is an awesome case but has all these useless and fucking ugly bright blue LEDs (in the fans, on the buttons, for the drive display, etc) that make it impossible to sleep at night.
You just pull it out of the wall and blessed darkness and silence.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Nothing excessive use of Duct tape cant fix.
zo relaxen und watschen der blinkenlichten
Wait until he finds out that people use fans with LED's...on purpose!
Error reading device 'Signature'. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
I bet Massachusetts legislators are behind this!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Slashdot Poll: How many lit LEDs can you see?
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I had to tape over the blue power LED on a Shuttle 51G system, as it was so bright I could see the reflections from it in another room. Kind of distracting when you are trying to go to sleep, see the light and wonder what light you left on elsewhere in the house. I understand the newer models are supposed to have a way do dim the LEDs. I used blue electrical tape so that I could still tell if the system thought it was on.
This is something I am use to on my products, but for another reason - Power Saving! When you are running on solar cells and batteries, every micro-watt counts. The user can disable the leds on all of our IO modules, with one mouse click.
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
Well... you can always poke your eyes out if you don't like those lights and leave others alone.
Uh... I like the blinking lights. I want MORE (thus my glow-in-the-dark keyboards with multiple color selections, and my LED mouse pad). And I love my XPS, doubly so in a dimly lit room.
My "Gadget Bill of Lights" would be to ask the Gadget and PC makers to please make MORE of these types of equipment and to PLEASE ignore Mike! (Well, I DO agree you should be able to turn the LED's if you want - my Timewarner DVR is ultra-annoying in that way, as it's in the bedroom). But otherwise, cram more LED's in!!!!
"Oh, cut the bleeding heart crap, will ya? We've all got our switches, lights, and knobs to deal with, Striker. I mean, down here there are literally hundreds and thousands of blinking, beeping, and flashing lights, blinking and beeping and flashing - they're *flashing* and they're *beeping*. I can't stand it anymore! They're *blinking* and *beeping* and *flashing*! Why doesn't somebody pull the plug! "
Obligatory "my Mac only has one LED to indicate that it's sleeping" post.
Dude, what am I going to do without all those blinkenlights in my computer room?! It's not a computer without them!
This sig no verb.
The lights are extremely annoying to me, especially the absurdly bright blue leds common now. Even layers of electrical tape don't fully block the output from most LEDS. The worst offender is an LED 'off' light. I mean really, I haven't seen this sort of useless notification since the last time I used a PC with a Symantec product installed. WTF people.
Sure there are more important issues, but since the solution is incredibly simple why the hell not give us an option?
Most, if not all, of the status lights on different equipment I have I prefer for status information they provide. If one doesn't like status lights, some can be disconnected internally or covered externally.
In my case, there are several devices I have which I wish had brighter status lights so I could see them more clearly in the day - e.g.: I have a couple of external hard drives with dim status lights.
Slow news day here?
The author is worried that the Boston SWAT team is going to break down his doors in the middle of the night and call the bomb squad to confiscate his electronics and have them detonated in a safe manner.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
To some degree it's controllable by equipment choice or judicious user modification or location.
My cubicle at work has just six indicator lights (power x3 for a PowerMac G5, two 17" Sony LCDs (though I have the one on the left covered w/ a blackened bit of Post-It[tm] Note), a Caps-lock indicator on the keyboard (WHICH IS NORMALLY NOT LIT), a blue light (which switches to green when I click) on my Wacom Intuos and a green light on the APC PowerChute UPS (hidden under my desk) --- the Mighty Mouse has an LED, but it can't be seen unless I'm cleaning it.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
I know exactly how the author feels, I have an Antec computer case with front panel blue LEDs that I can read by from 25 feet away, and my Samsung LCD monitor has a blinking blue light that makes my computer room look like sombody set up a bar sign just outside my window. The computer case was easy to fix, the monitor is still under warranty, and I don't want to mess with that.
Just because you dont know what they mean dosnt make them useless. But like any new technology people are going to over use it at first. You might want to look into Rittalin if you are having trouble concentrating.
I like LEDs on computer equipment. My aesthetics are clearly of the "ooh, blinky lights!" variety, but that means I like ... blinky lights.
That said, LEDs are also underused for information purposes rather than as mere decoration; anyone with an Apple battery probably likes that you can tell a battery's charge (to a rough approximation) with the built-in LED meter -- there should be more things like this. USB mics should have red LEDs when active, like "ON AIR" signs at radio stations. USB hard drives could have 10-bar meters to show how full they are, etc.
And *that* said, it would be nice if certain LEDs (like obnoxious front-of-case ultra-bright ones) were accompanied by some small black covers mated to grooves around them, so they could be used with more discretion.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
My keyboard will make him die!
For what it's worth, I have the red one so it doesn't interfere with my sleepy-time too much, and the shockingly bright blue power LED on my computer case is crudely covered with yellow paper and clear tape so that it does not wake me up for 15 minutes any time I happen to look at it.
But LEDs are cooooooool, and I won't pretend otherwise.
I'm confused. The article makes it sound like there are no alternatives to the products he mentions. I hate to play the, "Dude, get a Mac" card, but he's begging for it.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
But I don't find that annoying at all. I guess I am not a whiny bitch. Can we whine about other things that actually matter. Don't like the lights? PLACE A STICKER OVER IT. Also, if possible, then program the device to send you a SMS text message if it's broken. There problem solved. Thanks you. Can we discuss a more important issue now? How to provide unpolluted water and adequate sanitation facilities cheaply to the poor people in the world?
To the author of the "Bill of Lights", I suggest two pieces of tape... one piece of electrical tape to go over the offending light, and one piece of duct tape to apply over your cake hole.
I personally LIKE my computer area looking like the Bat Cave. "Relaxen un watchen das BLINKENLIGHTS!"
Soldier: Those lights are blinking out in sequence.
Buck Murdock: I see.
Soldier: What should we do?
Buck Murdock: Make them blink in sequence.
Oh, cut the bleeding heart crap, will ya? We've all got our switches, lights, and knobs to deal with, Striker. I mean, down here there are literally hundreds and thousands of blinking, beeping, and flashing lights, blinking and beeping and flashing - they're *flashing* and they're *beeping*. I can't stand it anymore! They're *blinking* and *beeping* and *flashing*! Why doesn't somebody pull the plug! --Buck Murdock
Vote Libertarian
You ever stop to think that maybe those lights mean something? That red light on your computer case shows you when the hard drive is doing something. When my computer slows down, I'll glance over to that light, If it's on, then I know it's waiting on the hard drive for something. That green light on your case shows you when the computer is on, so you don't accidentally push the power button when it's already on. Computers are so quiet right now, it's sometimes hard to tell if they are on or not. Those lights on your router can show you when a wire is disconnected, or when different computers are sending information. While I agree that some of the LEDs are unnecessary, I would say that I don't think there is many that I'd want to get rid of, and probably quite a few that I'd like to add.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Obviously Mike Elgan has never seen the beauty during Christmas time of a data center with the lights out, only light by the soft glow of hundreds of LEDs. On a more constructive note, I find the LEDs helpful indicators and don't think that they're overused. Also, the more something is manufactured, the more the price comes down, so this might lead eventually to cheaper white LED lighting.
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
... black paint? or tape? Poof, no more lights.
meh
"Annoyingly, nobody knows what that green light is for, and even worse, you can't turn it off."
It's true that the treo's indicator light is too bright, and it flashing in a dark room is annoying. It should definitely be turned down in future versions. But it does serve a useful and pretty obvious purpose, so I'm surprised that the author says "nobody knows what that green light is for".
It's simple. It blinks green when you're connected to the network. It blinks red when it can't get a signal. When you plug it in, it glows red until it is fully charged, at which point it glows green.
Oh, and it can be turned off: Turn off the phone function of the Treo. Not that useful, but easy, and if the problem is that it's blinking at night that may be acceptable.
The enemies of Democracy are
What's so useless about being able to look at my cable router to see if it's indicating a connection to the outside world? What's so useless about being able to tell whether the lack of sound is because the speakers are turned off?
People like the author of TFA are the reason that we have to wade through several minutes of "is it plugged in?" type questions at the beginning of tech support calls.
Wait a minute... Didn't they have one of these in China? And as I recall, it wasn't very effective.
Is slashdot really concerned about this? Is it just me or slashdot news are becoming less relevant? Stuff that really matters... I have too many leds!
I PAID for the privledge of having this. If you don't like the LEDs on a gadget, buy a different one. VOTE WITH YOUR DOLLARS!
Personally, my own beef is with with movies, I've stopped giving my $8.50 for movies that are remakes, sequels, rip offs, and such. Hollywood used to be creative, now it's just ripping off it's heritage. Look to Bollywood and China for good quality movies.
You know, those lights will stop flashing if you turn the monitors off as well....
Yea, it's not good enough to just talk on your headset in the theater... it has to fucking blink with that damn bright as hell blue light the entire time. I use to eat Milk-duds... now they're ammo. Cause I'm afraid of confrontation.
-AC
Why can't we just have IR leds on *everything*. Then if you want to see the status you could put some special glasses on to see them?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I went to buy a fan for my PC tower, and I couldn't find a single fan at multiple computer chains that didn't have a light on it. Austin TX USA.
Also their example machines they sell look so goofy with clear side panels and rainbow colored power supply fans.
Fantatsic idea, how about we get rid of all those useless lights on routers, access points, modems and ethernet jacks.
.... (you dont know!?) ....................
also lets get rid of the lights used in power indicators.
And while were at it, why not get rid of the lights in clocks too?
I mean who needs a caps or num lock key light right? you'll know when you start typing anyway.
Cause i personally LOVE having no idea if things are working or not with annoying visualfeedback, ill just wait until i try to use them., then ill know!
Dont get me wrong... there are plenty of useless lights that are super annoying and very bright (expecially when in your bedroom during sleepy time). And some of them are unnecesary... but advocating removal of activity lights, power lights? does the guy hate people? A grudge against tech support?
I can only imagine tech support calls.
User: "help, my computers not workin"
tech: "ok, is your computer on?"
User: "i dunno, how can i tell?"
tech: "go under your desk and feel your case, if its not hot its probably off, but if its just been turned on you may need to look in the back of your machine and feel for a small wind from the fan, if its a fanless PC then put your ear against the machine and see if you hear a slight whir of a harddrive"
user: "whats a harddrive sound like?"
tech:
user: "oh wait the screen is on now!, but i have no internet"
tech: "do you see your router?" (switch, hub, modem, linksys, wireless card, etc...)
user: "its the thing my ether cable is connected to right"
tech: "yea, now spin it on the table, if it keeps spinning like a hard boiled egg, its working"
user:
--VISION
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
Solution: 1 bottle of white-out ($1.21)
The Dell XPS Gaming laptop has all of those extra lights by design - some of us bought it because of that. Anyways, there is BIOS and software control for those lights - you CAN disable them. If the whole idea of superfluous LED's bothers you - I might suggest you get the plain model instead.
My new computer has a nice Lian Li case, Samsung 225BW monitor, blah, blah. It's a hotrod, and kinda designed for visual appeal. My case has precicely 1 LED, the power light. It's blue, and blinks when my computer is asleep. I have just 1 blue LED on my monitor. It's on the power button, and blinks when it's asleep, and turns off when it has no signal. These lights communicate to me, and let me know my computer's state when I sit down, and before I start poking buttons randomly or molesting my mouse like a moron.
My keyboard is an old logitech POS. I'm a tightwad, and haven't bought a matching keyboard or mouse. In fact, I use keyboards until they just completely die. I think I've owned 3 in the last 15 years. But my damn keyboard has -0- LEDs on it. I NEVER know if the stupid number pad or caps lock is on or off. Typing 120 WPM means I don't notice I'm yelling in WoW, or that those numbers I just typed in reality gave my cursor a spaz. And if you think you can remember if the NumLock is on, you'll be wrong 100% of the time. I know, from a year of experience. Thinking about it now, I may go tonight and drop that 50 bucks on a nice keyboard. Living without proper feedback is very, very annoying.
(I suppose being flooded by LEDs can be a problem too, but I've never noticed an overabundance of LEDs, so I'm calling BS about too many lights)
Although my Mac system isn't completely devoid of lights, they are smaller and far fewer.
The author listed a bunch of LEDs all of which indicate a status of the item in question. I can't fault the manufacturers for any of those. However, what I don't like is USELESS LEDs. My son has a custom computer case that has about half a dozen blue LEDs that do nothing but indicate that the power is on. He also has some kind of a blue light inside the case, one side of which someone has purposely built out of transparent material, instead of some kind of material which would shelter the innards of the computer from sunlight, and which would insulate other nearby electronics from the RFI generated inside the computer.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
> You just pull it out of the wall and blessed darkness and silence. ...unless the device notices power is missing and drops into a battery-backed blinkenlight standby. Like laptops, PDAs, etc.
c.
Log in or piss off.
I like to know the state that my keyboard is in. I like to know that the power to my monitor is on when blanked. I like to be able to see the activity of my switch so that if there is a problem I might get a preliminary diagnosis. You know, ALL of those blinky LEDs that I have do have a purpose. Like some have said, get out the electrical tape or the black marker pen and go for it if they so offend you. However, just because someone is bothered does not mean that everyone else is. This person is not the almighty, omnipotent, lord that he wants to be. Can it and go back in your hole in the ground.
Have an option on the device to turn off LED indicators...
...oh and have a status light to show when this option is off.
I suspect the case of LEDpox that all gizmos seem to have today is mainly due to the relatively new commercialization of superbright compact LEDs. They are new! They are sorta cheap! They make things like, you know, all high tech like. Look back at the 70's when small LCDs really started to appear on the market. For some reason manufacturers thought that everything needed a small LCD clock embedded in it (probably even pacemakers). In the 50's it was making everything look aerodynamic, as if your toaster was getting ready to hit mach 2.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
i mean how can anyone be expected to download *anything* with bittorrent if those damnable lights are on in a bedroom keeping one up all night?
A long time ago I worked in a recording studio. The studio payed extra for a bar of hundreds of LEDs to go across the top of the mixing board. They served no real purpose and cost quite a bit of money. I asked the head engineer why they spent so much money on useless lights. He replied: "It's a small price to pay for cool."
Create a gadget with two 3-4" prongs sticking out in a V shape. Whenever it registers the danger of an LED nearby it can poke you in the face while screaming "nyuk nyuk nyuk".
Now you have something more annoying to whinge about.
If you have a treo, download LedOff. It's donationware, and solves the LED annoyance.
- ADSL modem is connected and there's very little traffic flowing
- There are four active devices connected to the network via the switch, all in 100MB mode
- Laser printer is in power-save mode, and there isn't much toner left
- Inkjet printer is off
- PDA has finished recharging
- surge protection is online and healthy
- sound amp is on the PC channel
- computer is on but idle
- NumLock is on
Very useful info that I couldn't live without. How would you feel if the whole post was typed with CAPS LOCK on because there was no LED indicator? Besides, I do like the "busy cockpit" look my room has in the dark.What I hate is the stupid lights on my VCR and DVD player that go ON when the the thing is OFF and OFF when the thing is ON. Not only useless, but counter intuitive!!
All those flashing lights impress visitors. Chicks dig guys with lots of blinking lights all over their dorm room. I'll have to go back to lava lamps and black light posters.
-indybrett-
Let's get rid of all those pesky indicators on car dashboards, too. I mean, really, all that junk that nobody ever looks at just serves to clutter up the dash and raise the price of cars. Why, they try to make it look like they are indicators of something. Like you're operating a piece of equipment and want to know its status. While we're at it, let's get rid of the speedometer and fuel gauge, too. I mean, if there's no fuel, you'll know because the car will stop. If you're going too fast, Mr. Police Officer will kindly let you know sooner or later.
While some LEDs might be superfluous, the lights on my cable modem and router mean something. If they were to go off, it means something is seriously wrong with the network and not my computer.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I have a Treo and is has only one light. Blinking means message or missed call, lit means charging. All other times it is off. Seems like an appropriate use of a single indicator to me.
Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten.
Where would we be without our blinkenlights?
Dude - Opaque glasses are the answer.
In my days, we had to fill our lights with kerosene to get them glowing. Damn kids.
Some of us are kinda fond of them, you know...
If you don't like LED's, get a screwdriver and a pair of diagonal cutters.
Cut either lead, and the LED stops working.
If you really can't take all the lights on your desktop you always have the option to start DIY project. A simple rheostat would provide a dimmer for the LEDs, or you could always just use a pair of dykes and do a quick snip snip. A lot of products have power cables that only control the LEDs, you can always just pull the plug on 'em too, if you feel it's necessary.
And enough with these flowers blooming outside; everything should be grass ..."
Grass? Pave your lawn and paint it green!
You don't understand. He'll still know the lights are on, even if he can't see them. It causes him stress. Things aren't the way he wants them.
The only solution that will be acceptable is for every designer of hardware to design stuff the way he likes it. And do it now. Because he's important and his opinions matter.
"There are FOUR LIGHTS!!!!!"
Yes, they are useless on the Dell XPS M1710, but only if you have linux running: I've been searching for a way to control them from my linux operating system and the only information I found that it was already damn hard to do it from Windows using some kind of Dell Windows API (see http://www.notebookforums.com/post840284.html#post 840284.
Jet cockpit displays are designed to remain off unless there is some abnormal condition to the greatest extent possible. No lights, good. Lights, bad.
A lesson our industrial desginers would do well to learn.
Have gnu, will travel.
BTW: This reminds me of the Airplane II movie. William Shatner, doing a parody of himself,
Soldier: All I've found is that these lights keep blinking back and forth. Aside from that, this thing seems to have no function whatsoever, sir.
Captain Murdoch (Will Shatner): That's impossible; it must have some sort of function. Why would we pay all that money for a thing with lights that just go back and forth. Keep working on it.
Later:
Murdock: Have you figured out what those lights are for?
Soldier: No, Sir!
Murdock: Well, Make them go the other way.
Later he is nearly driven mad by all the blinking and flashing lights:
There are blinking, beeping, and flashing lights, blinking and beeping and flashing - they're *flashing* and they're *beeping*. I can't stand it anymore! They're *blinking* and *beeping* and *flashing*! Why doesn't somebody pull the plug!
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
The more the better...
Relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten!
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer." -Adolf Hitler
"We are one Nation, we are one People." -The One 'leader'
"I have two LCD monitors, each of which has two indicator lights that flash even when the PC is turned off."
Elgan should remember to turn off his monitors when his computer's off as well then.
The problem isn't necessary the proliferation of LEDs in devices, it's how they're designed into the product. Do we really need a 5000mcd LED to indicate that a box has power? It's more of a matter of putting putting more sedate LEDs into things we like to check, but are usually not checked often. Designers need to get away from the "bigger and brighter...because we can" mentality, that's all.
Having to troubleshoot a piece of hardware, I certainly appreciate having LED indicators available to speed the process. I design them in on machinery and systems for items that are critical to check. Yet, at the same time, LEDs simply don't need to be the super, ultra-bright kind unless they're indicating a warning or serious problem, or their environment requires it (i.e. sunlight).
This shouldn't be an prescence/absence of LEDs issue, it should be one of actually specifying the right LED for the job, and designing their placement in a box accordingly, including behind a technician's access panel door, if appropriate.
Don't like it? Stop buying the stuff. It's because you, the common yokel, buy these flashy things rather than the dull ones that people build to that sensibility.
You are also aware that fans, car blowers, and the like, are needlessly and deliberatly noisy because you, the common yokel, think that quiet fans and blowers aren't working very well, and gravitate to the noisy obnoxious ones, right?
And we won't even get into the bastardization of vacuum cleaners the past 8 years or so, other than to say, "Lookee! It has a tornado inside I can see! It must clean better!"
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Get a fucking life man.
I have to agree here. Mainly becuase I've had to have my computer desk in a guest bedroom before. When the in-laws came over it was annoying to have to unplug everything.
A Linksys router intended for home use generally has too many LEDs, that quite frankly don't do anything...unless you are monitoring. Think of all the electricity that is being wasted by the very computer you are typing on. The little send receieve blinking telling you nothing...because you are not looking at it..it might even be obstructed.
Yes you can tape them over and all sorts of things, but it is fairly tacky. I'd rather these devices have a "black mode" where a single button push can turn off al LED. How these things look are less important then their functionality, but not harm in making them look better to.
Another grype is devices that do not have power switches. Most cable/dsl routers and modems have no power switch. This is not only annoying when you want to reset the things, but means you can't easly turn off the LEDs. When my monitor is switched off it should not have it's LED on... I don't need a "it's plugged into the wall" indicator.
is so bright at night, it makes it hard to sleep. I try to 'cover' everything up, but light reflects.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Dude, I would say just relax for a bit. Take a day off, go outside for a walk or hike or something. I guess he is too stressed out with work and stuff. The cool geeks I know all love lots of LEDs every where.
pooyak.com
Why should anyone worry about what he thinks? This kind of "news" story ranks right up there with covering a MySpace page on the front page of Slashdot.
Enough of this moronic crap. It's not news, it certainly doesn't matter either.
Well those are simple to fix too. You see that skyscraper? The one near your house? You drive over there, take the laptop, PDA, etc, to the highest floor you can manage to get to and then drop it off the edge. There you go, no more annoying blinking standby lights!
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
I too despise useless lights on computers and other gadgets. I live in a studio apartment, and unless I actually go to the effort of switching everything off at the extension cord at night my room is lit up with the standby LED on the TV and DVD player, the modem and router blinking away, and various other things. It's incredibly annoying, and there is no need for it.
Even at my desk at work, I have a router sitting on top of my table, blinking away incessantly. Why does it need to do that? The only times I want to see it blinking are if there is actually a problem with a connection, at which point I should be able to press a button to enable the LEDs, or during startup and shutdown sequences, after which the lights could automatically turn off.
I don't want to go around with a marker ruining my hardware, or making the place look ugly with tape, although I'm frequently tempted. Please, manufacturers, stop this madness!
Meaningful LEDs are good, necessary for troubleshooting equipment. For example, life would suck troubleshooting an Ethernet hub without status LEDs to show which ports were active versus which were dead.
Even with servers, LEDs help at a glance. For example, new Dell servers have a faceplate that glows blue when everything is OK, but changes color if something has an issue (RAID in degraded mode, failed power supply), so its easy to find the failing server in a dense rack.
I personally detest "dumbed down" devices that have no ability to tell you if they are working or not at a glance. The more meaningful LEDs, the better.
My friends and I would use the amount of LEDs on at any given time as a measure of geekiness. This was several years ago, so the blue ones were worth even more points.
I think this was all due to watching too much Lain. I cannot sleep anymore without the noise of at least 3 machines.
I was grossly disappointed to learn that my new MacBook Pro had EIGHT LEDs, up from the PowerBook's seven. This giant increase, coming with the "iSight Active" warning LED, is hardly acceptable. Five on the battery, one on each of (caps|num)lock, one on the latch to indicate sleep, and now one more on the screen bezel itself.
If this keeps up, the next generation *Book might actually have an LED that I see illuminated. And that's just ridiculous.
Yeah, that guy needs to calm the hell down. The LED indicators are for the most part meaningful - especially for troubleshooting. Imagine trying to troubleshoot a router without any LEDs. Heck, this guy is complaining about power LEDs to let you know if a device is turned on. Get a life and find something more productive to do with your time.
If the LEDs reaaaaaaaaaaaaly bother you that much, put a small square of electrical tape over them. Problem solved. You can even trim them down with scissors so they are more asthetic.
The author of the article might not like the lights, but they serve important purposes:
:0
1. Motherboard LED displays failure of POST via blink pattern.
2. HD lights indicate the platter is spinning and heads are seeking (whether it is reading or writing is another thing).
3. DSL modem lights indicate connection status (DSL physical layer, IP layer, etc...)
4. Router and NIC lights indicate physical layer connection (ping-able), IP layer connection and activity (ssh/telnet-able)
5. LEDs on flightstick indicate it is connected and functional.
6. Temperature LCD display on fan controller blinks to indicate temperature thresholds.
7. Lava lamp light accents the gaming/coding session.
I've used the blinkin' lights to troubleshoot more than one problem in my network, quicker than the alternative.
He can't be a techno-geek, because no self respecting geek would rage against blinking lights.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
if the led is on you know its using power when you want to walk away , so you can switch it off at the socket
,, because theres no led to tell you its on or in standby you would be none the wiser as to if its using power or not ,, now leaving a device on rather than in standby, because you are not aware its on could cost you more over one night than the led would use in 1 year
i do like leds , at the basic level if the led is lit you do know that it has power and should work
without it you would find more people returning items as faulty because there was no power getting to it
all they know is its not working and no led to tell them that it is powered on so they would say its faulty
although i would rather campain for proper power off on the front , not just a standby mode on the front power
and having to delve over and down the back of the device to find the proper switch
the led is not the problem 20mA to tell you that the unit is drawing 500ma so it can tell when you press the power button to turn it on is the problem
in a way nomater how you look at it the fact that the led is on is working , as it is getting you to dislike the fact that its on and getting you thinking about the power its using when in standby
as to removing them well that would not cure the problem of power use
so when you power off at the mains sockets you know when all the lights are out that theres nothing left on drawing power
other than that you have a fear of equipment with lots of lights
The display cluster on an OmniSmart is useful, but man, that LED display is BRIGHT http://www.tripplite.com/shared/img/products/large /OMNI900LCD.jpg. You can remove them and re-orient them 90 degrees, but you can't dim them or turn them off/remove them. Just one will light up the room- two and you will be able to read in the dark.
I do wonder how this got onto slashdot. I mean, I complain about stuff, I complain about stuff at length, but I'm not about to post an article for a major internet news site to have it posted. But besides that, you may find it useless and annoying, but with the exception of a few really bright lights aimed the wrong way (my computer's subwoofer), they aren't bright enough to be very annoying at night. Then again, I've slept through having Linkin Park playing at moderate to slightly above moderate volume, so maybe I'm just weird.
Nonetheless, these lights tell us about the inner workings. While I am rather annoyed at standby lights, and think that a relay based analog system would be more energy efficient (like to know my ipod should be on, when the switch is moved, it uncovers a bright green painted section (not relay based, but showing how it can still protray information without using up power)). If you REALLY don't like the lights and don't want to waste the power you can open up the machine and either remove the LED (if it is parallel) or replace it with a normal diode or wire. De-soldering or clipping leads is not that hard. Of course it depends on the circuitry which one you have to use, and you have the risk of breaking the machine, but if these lights are so bad that they are that annoying, I guess you have to just annoy the electronic device back.
And for the record, I like my computer desk looking like a cockpit, it just plain looks cool.
At least you have complete control over *this* part of your "online experience" -- or does the DMCA apply here, too?
I kinda have to chime in here, its not having LEDs its how they are used
Green - ON / GOOD
Yellow - Warning
Red - Fault.
on consumer crap the Blue LED needs to FOAD bigtime.
Thanks to them, I no longer need any additional illumination when walking around the house at night.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
It's the "black cockpit" concept - lights only come on when there is a need to draw the pilot's attention to a specific button/switch/lever. It's much easier to spot a single light on a dark panel than a missing light on a panel full of lights.
Just think... Someone could leave a Palm or Dell XPS out on the street in Boston and cause a bomb scare. We need to stop the nip this potential disaster in the bud.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
all my indicators (save sleep) are on the screen.
no extra lights needed.
who gives a hoot if you can tell your hard drive is actually spinning at any point in time.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
It's the high-intensity blue LEDs that are the main problem. If the vendors stuck with the good old green, diffused LEDs we would be okay mostly. I find for the bright blue led's putting some electrical tape (white) over them makes a diffused sort of light that is less irritating. In my server room I used to get blinded. I have a 8 port ethernet power controller - it has blue led's all over the darn thing. You look at it, and you get momentarily 'spot blinded'. Way too many LED's - computer in the bed room?....Forget about it! Last night I unplugged everything in a zombie sleep-walk way because the leds were getting to me - no time for a 'safe shutdown' I was tired!! Minimal is the way to go - LEDs on RAID drive bays? Naturally! I like the promise superswap trays because at a glance you know everything is 'okay' - but they don't use any blue leds, which is very nice.
Well they DO make for nice nightlights.
Don't forget to RTFM too. Motorola Bluetooth headphones specifically allow you to turn off the lights (understandable, considering that they're on your ears). Trick is to do this without accidentally making a call to someone.
I used to wonder how much power the Num Lock light took up, but right now I've serendipitously configured FreeBSD/X not to turn it on (probably an XKB something).
I've had this problem, too, but there's an incredibly easy fix: black electrical tape (or other colors, I suppose, but most of my electronics are black). Cut out a small square, afix it over the light, and viola! If you cut the smallest necessary piece and press it down well, it blends in very seamlessly and keeps you from going crazy from lights.
I've covered my monitor lights, speaker lights, printer lights, case power light, and the light on my bluetooth mouse dongle. Sheesh! Too many LEDs that convey nothing other than "powered on", which is easy to see other ways on most of the devices.
This statement is solely an opinion. Kindly take it as such in all cases.
I own a small roll of black electrical tape...it only cost 50 cents and it works wonders on unwanted LEDs.
No sig today...
... live with it. The more LEDs, the more high tech everything looks. You also need the new machine that goes "Bing!"
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
But without the dozens and dozens of LEDs aglow around my computer system at home, what would I use for a night light?
Ok, I've seen MySQL errors, or general 500 errors. . .but this is the first webserver to throw me a java exception as a 500 error :-p and IllegalStateException. . how exotic.
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java.lang.IllegalStateException: forward() not allowed after buffer has
committed.
at com.caucho.server.webapp.RequestDispatcherImpl.fo
at com.caucho.server.webapp.RequestDispatcherImpl.er
at com.caucho.server.webapp.ErrorPageManager.sendSer
at com.caucho.server.webapp.WebAppFilterChain.doFilt
at com.caucho.server.dispatch.ServletInvocation.serv
at com.caucho.server.hmux.HmuxRequest.handleRequest(
at com.caucho.server.port.TcpConnection.run(TcpConne
at com.caucho.util.ThreadPool.runTasks(ThreadPool.ja
at com.caucho.util.ThreadPool.run(ThreadPool.java:42
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:534)
Back on topic: Some of those lights are usually there as debug info, (especially the linksys router and cable modem) would you feel better if EVERY error you got on a computer was a "E" like on calculators? I think manufacturers need to re-evaluate how necessary a LED is and the correct brightness, etc. But I don't think we should try to eliminate them.
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
I have no problem with no lights at all until an error occurs. I really don't need a flashing blue annulus to tell me the monitor is in sleep mode. I don't need a light to tell me the print server is running. I need a red or orange light if something is wrong, and guess what it has one of those. I don't need 6 flashing lights on my router. If it's messed up I'll have to reboot it. Again, put up an idiot light if something is wrong. I might once in a while need to know that my printer is online but more often the red error light tells me its time for an ink replacement. My VoIP TA is connected in a non standard way so one of the lights you would expect to see, you don't. There is only one of the three remaining lights that even tells me anything useful if something is wrong. The office phone that's connected to the TA has a power on/off hook like but I don't need any lights on the base station. No one should, it's a base station and you're never looking at it.
Speaking as the geek who has to fix your equipment when it breaks, I really like to have blinky-flashy lights like that, 'cause they tell me where to start looking for the trouble.
However, if you'd like to pay for me to be there longer, because there aren't any lights to quickly determine where to start, hey, I'd be happy to charge you more money.
Or, I suppose you could get some black electrical tape and cover up the lights that annoy you. I think a roll of that was $0.99. Your choice.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Just put normal scotch tape over it. It will absorb some of the intensity of LED's but still let you see the LED state when you want to know. I used to have a Shuttle XPC box in my room that kept me awake at night (their LED's are very bright). Just a little square of scotch tape and I was sleeping through the night again.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5... That's the combination on my luggage!
There are proper NEMA color codes for indicators, and you'll see them on industrial equipment. Unfortunately, we went through a long period during which red LEDs were the only cheap color, and far too many red LEDs went onto equipment. Since LEDs are now available in all colors, it's time to go back to the traditional NEMA rules:
Anything that goes in a factory or a rack should obey those simple rules.
If there are no LEDs how am I supposed to know it works?
Those of us from the VCR era know exactly how to fix this problem - the same way we stopped our VCRs from blinking "12:00:00" all the time.
2 inches of black electrical tape and the problem is solved.
"Straddling the sword of technology..."
Connection Machine 5 stat!
I understand this guy's anger. I wanted to try to get away from LED lights, too. I have a ton of them here in my office. So, my wife and I decided we would go on vacation to a remote location where there couldn't possibly be any, camping out in rural Arizona. But I was shocked when my wife pulled me out of the tent to show me that dad-gum SKY was filled with LEDs blinking and pulsing. WTF is that? God's hard drive? His switches? Jesus Christ!
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Apple is as guilty as anybody else.
All Apple machines, when "asleep", have a bright white LED on the front that sort of slowly pulses, as though the machine is sort of... breathing.
And the laptops have ring of light around the power cord where it plugs into the laptop. This glows orange when charging and green when fully charged.
Together, these two lights can be really distracting if you have your powerbook in your bedroom at night.
I've found out by experience though, that electrical tape isn't 100% opaque; put a bright enough LED under it, and stretch the tape a bit (as you might if you're putting it tightly over an protruding LED), and it'll shine through.
For really bright lights, a small square of aluminum foil works well, and is absolutely opaque.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"The only solution that will be acceptable is for every designer of hardware to design stuff the way he likes it. And do it now. Because he's important and his opinions matter."
Hmmm. That reminds me. ATI release open source drivers! Or else...!
perhaps the lights are there for a reason? for example, without typing i have no way of knowing wheter CAPSLOCK is on or not, unless i look at the light. if there was no reason for the light, it probably wouldn't be there.
Exactly, some dorf wants no lights so writes a screed about how bad those lights are and how they shouldn't be there. Well, folks buy what they want and if the ones with lights and blinking indicator lights don't sell then they won't make them. No problem at all. You can buy the style, the model, the features you want. Personally I like the shiny lights.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
There is always the option of turning things off at night. And if there are persistent lights indicating power, then turning off the power strip would fix this too. A regular home/office computer should take only a minute to start back up again...
The lights you see usually have a use for troubleshooting. If there is no power and there is no light you might thing something is wrong with your pc when you just don't have power. I can tell by the blinking of my modem, access point and switches whether connectivity is established and data is flowing properly. This a ridiculous issue to bring up because these leds use almost no power and are helpful. You should be complaining about how hot rooms get with pc's in them and the noises that the fan makes cooling them and your power bills! These are real issues. You have to much time on your hands if those little lights are bugging you.
Doug
I know for a fact that at least one large system vendor would cause the LEDs on the drives in their arrays to blink somewhat in unison when there were demos or customer benchmarks.
We had a set of scripts which we'd kick off at the start of the benchmark to make sure that the wall of disks looked busy. The salesmen would say stuff like "Look, you can see the parity writes being generated". When in fact the entire benchmark would complete in RAM. Hell, they could make the lights blink from left to right, right to left, top to bottom and various patterns. My favourite was the diagonal wave, but we couldn't credibly use it during a benchmark, though one engineer did try to claim once that it might be caused by the fibre channel layout.
The customers lapped it up. THAT's why there are LEDs all over the place.
Deleted
Quit yer bitchin' and enjoy the free art of dancing lights!
Or get some electrical tape and cover them up.
If you were offended by anything I said... No, I'm not sorry. Please lighten up.
You realize that this puts you one step away from building your own hat, right? :)
Just just black LEDs.
You are one of those people who don't seem to understand why we NEED lights on routers. Routers can be(and often are) kept away from the computers and devices. In those situations, checking the router to see if the Ethernet cable is plugged in on the other end, or if data is being sent on that port are more important. So, green for link, blinking for data being sent/received. It makes sense, and isn't useless.
Many devices go to sleep, so all you have is a LED to indicate that the device is on. You would NOT want a device that doesn't have a power LED since it's nice to know when the thing is on or not, even if it is in sleep mode.
Yes, some devices are annoying in having too many blinking lights, and I really dislike the extra lights that are on some computer cases these days. But, you have to admit that there are times when having those bright lights is a real advantage.
So, devices with blinking lights are fine, but excessive numbers of "cute" lights isn't. On a positive note, you can generally turn off or unplug the extra lights on computer cases if you don't like them. Standby blinking lights are annoying, but will show you that the machine isn't really off by blinking.
If the power grid is so overloaded by all the devices that are in standby mode, then building some nuclear power plants should be done. There are obviously some places that those plants should NOT be located, such as in places there are earthquakes or that might be hit by a tornado, but that doesn't mean new ones should not be built. Let's get some power generation in place that doesn't require oil, and we will be in better shape.
So Mike Elgan is befuddled by all the blinky lights. Here's a news flash for ya Mike - status LED's are far from useless. They are very useful aids for monitoring equipment status and troubleshooting. Take your Linksys router, for example. It likely has an LED to indicate the whether the WAN link is up, whether any devices are connected to its Ethernet ports and whether the wireless radio (if present) is enabled/in use. The colour of the LED's may indicate the connection speed and duplex of attached devices. Lastly, flashing LED's can indicate active traffic, sometimes with separate indications for sent and received data. This is a host of useful information that I could use to help a non-technical user troubleshoot a connection problem over the phone. Imagine what would be required if those LED's weren't there. I would need to go onsite with specialized test equipment or software to get the same basic information.
Remember when dialup modems were common? External modems typically had 8 or more LED's that told at a glance exactly what (if anything) was happening. When internal modems became the norm it was difficult to tell what was going on without some kind of software emulation of the LED's.
As far as I'm concerned the more LED's the better. Skimping on status lights is a sign of cheapness to me. Calling them useless just because YOU don't have a use for them is a sign of ignorance.
We should eliminate one of the two headlights on our vehicles and remove the foglights - after all they don't REALLY help that much!
And let's pull out the instrument cluster lights - and give the driver a helmet with a flashlight instead.
On my desk, I have one LED for my monitor, it's always on even if the monitor is off (totally unnecessary, imho). One on my external MyBook HDD that pulses when it's "off." One on my Mac mini the pulses when it's off. One on my belkin usb hub / iPod dock that is always on, and one that is on when the ipod's plugged in even if it's not in use (come on, like I need an led to tell me I have a device sticking out of the top of the hub!).
Before I switched to the mini I had a regular desktop which had an LED on the motherboard that was always on and shined through the case window (I guess that's the point of the windows, but, whey shine while off?) it has a power indicator that when the machine is in suspend-to-ram mode, BLINKS. Furthermore I have a cable modem and a router, both with blinking lights always going even when I don't care (which is 99.9% of the time).
And the worst one, I have these philips speakers and the volume control is surrounded by what must be the brightest blue LED circle ever made, it lights up my whole room.
So to deal with most of these useless LED's, I've taken to taping tin foil over them. Yes tin foil. Paper doesn't work, even relatively thick paper doesn't block the brighter LED's. But no light is coming through the tin foil.
What I'd like to see are no LED's for the really obvious things (like the light on my speakers, what good is that doing me?) and lights that can be switched on when necessary on things that may occasionally be interesting like my routers. Oh and the LED's all over the plugs and power strips have to go.
I have one example of a good LED, that's on my Logitech G5 laser gaming mouse. It has an led indicating which step is currently selected in the DPI setting on the mouse itself. When the computer goes to sleep, that light goes out. It's only on when I care that it's on, and even then it's dim. Another example is the Nintendo DS. This is a no brainer it seems, but, it only uses its LED when it's on, it blinks when it's in suspend mode, also it will blink to show wi-fi activity, and light red when the battery is low. It also lights up while charging but shuts that light off when the charging is complete. Basically it means the DS isn't annoying me with lights unless it's actively in use or in a state where it's reminding you of useful or important info (i.e. it's in sleep mode and dying so it's blinking red, time to plug in or you'll lose your progress).
The pulsing lights I mentioned are not terribly annoying, especially the mini's light since it isn't very bright when pulsing, but the always-on lights of the hub and the speakers are just unaccaptable, and useless decoration.
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
Until his computer doesn't work.
Or until his monitor disappears because IT thinks it isn't being used and decides to "recycle" it.
Sure, I can understand his sentiments, but the lights come in handy when it comes to troubleshooting. Just try removing the lights from every computer gadget:
- Let's watch you crawl under the desk every time your computer freezes because you can't tell the difference between an unplugged keyboard or mouse and Windows just being slow.
- Is that PC off, or is the monitor in sleep mode? Why don't you hit the power switch to be sure?
- When I have network problems, I always prefer to swap out the router rather than looking at the link lights to discover an unplugged cable.
Etc...A 10 cent LED can save $100 of IT support time. They're there for a reason.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Okay okay, SOME lights are cool. The Connection Machine for example http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/MetaComp/Imag es/CM5_lg.jpg is very cool.
And the IMSAI 8080 was damn cool because it has lights AND switches. http://www.imsai.net/ Now that's a computer.
On the other hand, all those damn goofy PC mods with lights on the stupid fans and all is bogus.
Interesting, since my modem and router only flash when in use (or their having trouble). If my cable modem and router are flashing all the time when I'm not doing anything with the network, I take it as a sign I have spyware.
My recommendation is to cover them up. I put a piece of electrical tape over the front of my modem so only the bottom two amber lights (online and standby on my Motorola SB5220) are exposed. And they would never be on at the same time, so I only have one LED showing all the time then.
I also did the same thing with the bright flashing power light on the front of my monitor when the PC's off (what was wrong with the dim amber standby light, I do not know).
I put a piece of paper in front of the router lights, tucked under and folded so its angled upwards in front of the display. I can pull it down to view the lights if I need to.
Fine on off feature is ok but the fact of letting you know everythings working... like the alarm and lights flashing after my keyboard wouldnt work when I started the computer.... is actullay pretty helpful. And I for one like the idea that if the sun explodes and manages to not to kill everyone or if its nighttime to have a source of light so I dont have to waste and bother with using more eletricity to see my stupid screen!
Put some REAL indicators on these products.
Pilot Lamps/Jewels
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Instead of whining about too many LEDs - good grief - why not take up a crusade against power-sucking wall warts (AC adapters) or against the Windows Registry, perpetuated by Microsoft and aided and abetted by software developers everywhere (think: Symantec apps, for instance). Regarding the latter, I had a mind to start an org years ago, call it the Data Independence Initiative, that would create and encourage an open standard for the structure and location of application data and configurations, especially with an eye to making backups easier.
Most of the time, I don't care about the LEDs, but lately there have been more and more products with those incredibly bright blue LEDs in them. The cheap pair of speakers I got to use with my laptop are a case in point -- one blaringly bright light on the right-hand speaker that was so annoying that I finally put a piece of electrical tape over it. I had a WiFi card with the same issue, though in this case, it would blink it's blue LED klieg light if it wasn't getting a signal. It was enough of a distraction that I finally replaced it.
Some kind of equivalent to -q would be nice for those exceptional cases.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Folks, coincidentally, I will be running for the exact office Mike is in right now come elections in 2008. If I am elected, my first action as representative of the people will be the "Mike Elgan should shut the hell up" bill.
Remember, a vote for me is a vote for someone who is not a dumbass.
Oh, also, I will still suck off the govt teat, but I will resemble a technophile parasite. Not the garden variety type.
In case you didn't know, you might already be in possession of a device that allows you to see infrared light: if you take a digital camera (even a simple phonecam will do) and look at the front of a tv remote when you press one of the buttons, you'll see a bright light flashing that's invisible to the naked eye. It's a great way to see if you need to replace the batteries or if the remote has not survived that drop from the table...
I also wondered if it might not be possible to build a (relatively) cheap light banner using IR LEDs - it would be black to the human eye but show up clearly through the viewscreen in your digicam or phonecam.
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
Sure, the corporate sector covers things with useless LEDs - even though they are well known to kill children.
That's a serious threat - we're talking hundreds of casualties a year - I'm not trying to minimize it.
But what about terrible puns like the one he uses? Careful, oh ye hunter of monsters, lest you should become a monster!
Defenders of this kind of terrible pun claim that they are essential in the war on gaudy light displays - but, actually, they're a *gift* to the tacky-ists, who were on the run before the forces of post-modernism before the author resorted to his horrible pun. Furthermore, puns like this have killed *twenty times* as many innocent children as have LEDs. How is that proportional?
If we're serious about eliminating blue LEDs, we know how to do it - and the first step is to eliminate horrible puns like this one.
Piers Anthony is the Hitler of the 21st century.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
How about an initiative on getting rid of that vestigial LED? Why have a dedicated indicator for a function that no has used since the days of Lotus 123. Think of the cost savings that would occur with the removal of the LEDs and related circuitry.
For that matter, does anyone really look at the Caps Lock indicator on the keyboard. Wouldn't an indicator on the monitor make more sense for trained typists?
leads to too many linking blights...
(CAPTCHA: SYNDROME)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
He should really stop using Christmas lights as power cords then.
Can I bum a sig?
My personal remedy is black electric tape, which masks enough that you just see a faint spot of colour while the light is on. Works wonders for those really bright and distracting blue LEDs that seem to be all the rage these days.
Well, some companies do, anyway. Maybe he just needs to look a little harder. Vote with your dollar.
But what about us geeks who like to feel like we're in a NASA control center? We want flashy lights!
/* No Comment */
On my case, I just had to unplug the power cord inside the case which went to the annoying blue lights which lit up the room.
I personally like my room looking like a cockpit thank you very much - switches to turn off or cycle LED's routinely fail, leaving me without critical information (damn you Cisco!), like "oh no the lights on my network switch are blinking more out of control than normal, I better check my firewall logs to see who's trying to get in here" (and they come from anywhere, Texas, Malaysia, Canada, D.C., China, Russia, England, Germany, you name it, everyone seems to want to know my taxes and get my badly composed "music")
If a light should ever bug me that I can't unplug it (or are just too lazy to), for an instance the Check Engine Light in my car, or the "RPS Level Low" light over at the nuke plant I can utilize a little known technology called electrical tape(tm) to turn that evil light off for good.
Can't we make an LCD?
I mean an LCD indicator. It would be in the same shape as an LED, but it would not emit light - it would only reflect it or absorb it, using the same dirt-cheap and simple technology as calculators and wristwatches. They could come in various shapes (and, I assume, colors) and would not annoy anybody - but they would still be there to display data when you need them.
Need to know if your printer is turned on? Look at the indicator - is it black or silver?
I think it would even draw less power, and at night, you'd have peaceful and unpolluted darkness.
This still doesn't do anything for the noise of cooling fans, unfortunately.
So, that's my idea and when somebody makes a million off it, please send me a $10 gift card for Best Buy.
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Just to clarify, scotch tape *is* electrical tape in the UK but is clear tape in the US.
Rich
My new case came with an LED illuminated fan. I discovered almost immediately that when the fan is not running at full speed, the bright blue LEDs visibly strobe -- a side effect of PWM speed control. Thing is, the fans would never run at full speed unless the CPU was actually on fire, so the LEDs always just blinked at something around 12Hz. It was a goddamn migraine factory. I ended up cutting the leads to each LED with a hobby knife.
I went to buy a second fan for the rear of the tower; 120mm with tachometer. I was unable to find one that neither lit up nor was dressed up to look like part of a 1950s jet engine. I ended up with a fan identical to the annoying one that came with my case. After performing the same minor surgery, it ended up working fine.
Is it so wrong to want devices that light up only to tell you something important? Soon, I imagine things will go dark to convey a message. Actually, I guess they already do: my old computer did it to tell me the power supply had died.
Christ almighty. This is proof people will whine about ANYTHING!!! If too many lights on gadgets is your big problem in life, consider yourself blessed. By the way - I've got a MacPro, Dell 30" monitor, and Apple keyboard sitting here. I can see exactly one light (power switch on the monitor). The MacPro has one light too, but since it is sitting on the floor under the desk, I can't it. Maybe you could try such a setup.
Yet there is a plethora of gadgets that are illuminated in blue, just for show-off value; I can understand that the blue LED eluded researchers for decades*, but now, we know that blue LEDs are possible, so, can you please stop sprinkling them all over the place? Thanks.
* When VolksWagen came out with the Golf/Rabbit in the late 1970's, it actually asked the USDOT to change the requirement that high-beam indicator lights be blue and allow other colours, because they wanted an all-LED dashboard, and at the time, blue LEDs were not possible.
The USDOT told them to pound sand, so there was a lone lightbulb in their dashsboards, the one for the high-beam indicator light.
...according to Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
'nuff said.
Gadget/PC/Peripheral companies put LEDs on things because they must have some reason to think it makes people buy them.
Apple puts tremendous effort and creativity into elegant and efficient interface design because they have reason to think it makes people buy their products.
They even added an auto-dimmer to the 'heartbeat' LED on laptops so it won't be too bright in the dark.
So, stop whining and express your preferences through your purchasing choices.
I like lights and lots of them on office equipment or anything else used when one is generally awake.
However, on residential light fixtures they can be annoying. We have dimmer switches in our house that have seperate fader / on/off switch. At the base of the fader is an LED that (when the switch is Off) indicates the approximate brightness of the light when the switch is turned on. The dimmer in my son's bedroom drove him crazy, so a screwdriver, wire cutters and 10 minutes later the LED was mechanically seperated from the board and the dimmer returned to the wall socket.
I have yet to stop and look at the LED on any of the other dimmers in the house to determine if the light will be bright or dim when I turn it on.
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
First off, I'd love if you had a toggle (hard- or software, I don't care) on all the stuff that has lights, so those who wants them can turn them on, those who don't want them can turn them off to save power (and aparently frayed nerves) and maybe an option where you activates the lights for a short period of time to check a status and it'll die after that.
But some of these lights are idiotic. Not because they light, but because of the way they're made.
My Acer Aspire 1520 currently has two LEDs on the inside (under the screen and above the keyboard) indicating that it's turned on. And two that indicates that the wireless network is turned on. There's maybe 3" between the WiFi LEDs and maybe 5 between the ON LEDs. That's just fucking stupid. There's no idicattor that it's running on battieries, but there's one that indicates that it's charging the battery.
Then there's the on on the end of the power cord, sticking into the computer. That one's always on, if the powerbrick has power. That, to me, is something I'd love to have a temporary check on, but not permanent. I don't ALWAYS need to know that it's being fed power.
Lights on keyboards aren't really that easy to avoid. As someone said, you really need an indicator and short of fixed signs, that's not going away.
But why do I need to be reminded that my computer is sleeping by it blinking constantly? What's the point? Either it's off or it's not.
And what's with the insanely bright LEDs? As someone said, sure, we can cover them with tape, but that's not an ideal sollution.
Sure, each LED may only eat up something like 1 W each, and I've only got 3 ones that aren't needed on this laptop. But add it up for each and every item you have, it gets "bad". Sure, it may only be 20$ or so a year for an average household in the US. Then multiply that by 50 million households or however many there are in the US. Why waste a billion dollars on silly lighting, that noone "ever" uses? It's not like you're staring on your indicator LEDs constantly. Nor do you need them to light up your room when you're not there. And you can't really use them to read by either (just remember all the bithcing and moaning every time that's suggested in discussions about incandessent lightbulbs).
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
The problem is that the article writer thinks that useful things like router status and numlock lights (you'll agree if you actually use the keypad) are useless. He just hates lights.
Well, you could get rid of the lights on the keyboard, but not with the crappy membrane-switch keyboards that most people use. My ancient IBM Selectric typewriter doesn't have a pilot light for Caps Lock (or anything else), and doesn't need one, because the Caps Lock key actually locks down when you press it. It's pretty trivial to feel whether it's down or not, in fact you can do it when touch-typing just by sliding your little finger over a little. Likewise, it doesn't have a pilot light for power, because the power switch is a huge thing that locks into position, so you can see or feel which way it's turned (and also, because it produces the most wonderful low hum and vibration from the motor when it's ready to go -- so just by resting your hand on it, you know whether it's on or not).
There's no particular reason why you couldn't build a keyboard that was like a Selectric's -- it would probably just cost $500 and require periodic maintenance with a can of light machine oil. Personally, I think that would be awesome, but I doubt too many other (non-Slashdot-types) would. [1] Caps-Lock lights are a compromise; a way of making a $9.99, virtually non-mechanical membrane-switch keyboard that doesn't leave you totally in the dark as to whether your next letter is going to be capitalized or not.
[1] Actually I think the Selectric is the pinnacle of man-machine interfaces, in terms of intuitiveness and using almost all of the human senses at once (okay, 4 out of 5; if you're licking your Selectric you're probably doing something wrong, or at least inadvisable), and it's been all downhill from there.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
My father got sick of cutting his hair. One day he just shaved it all off.
He didn't paint his head, though. I should tell him about that. He could get the entire Qur'an stenciled on that noggin.
What is is all that is. Isn't that obvious?
I like having the lights, they're useful. I can't tell the difference with a dual color red/green LED. I'm color blind to light green/light red. I've heard 20% of the male population has this problem.
Of course I have no problem with traffic lights. The top is red, the bottom is green and I can easily tell if it's off or on. I wish my computer gear did this.
CowboyNeal!
Yes, my faucet mounted water filter has a green LED that blinks every time it filters water. Damn thing actually blinded me when I got up in the middle of the night for a glass of water.
And it changes to red when the filter reaches its end-of-life...as pre-determined by PUR, not by the filter actually filling up. What's next, toilet paper rolls with LEDs?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I'm starting to get pissed off at the annoying little lights coming from cameras and phones people hold up at live concerts. When they're in the dark, people waving them around as they take video/pix or just send the audio to a friend are very distracting from the scene on stage.
Movies now feature standard trailers telling people to silence their mobile phones, after over a decade of idiots ruining the picture. It'll be many years, and still people won't keep their little side lightshow to themselves, as they selfishly ruin the scene for other people in the audience.
So I want a little dual power laser. Low power to target the device or the hand waving it. Then a blast of power high enough to burn. I could start a grassroots movement to leave the little lights holstered.
--
make install -not war
Clearly, solving this clock problem isn't going to be as simple as removing the clock. That's not even an option! No, your stove needs to be wireless-enabled so it can connect to a time server. You get the best of both worlds: futuristic blinkenlichter, and futuristic IP addresses.
On the other hand, I'm starting to sound like a 1960s Popular Science issue.
What is is all that is. Isn't that obvious?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Well you know we gave it a lot of thought, at one time we were even discussing adding
a little switch besides every light and led so he can switch it off... but then we
thought, hey let's give him something better.
Let's give him a test switch instead that makes all the lights come on!
The first thing I have to do when I get a new machine or peripheral is to disconnect all the useless LEDs (pimp LEDs) and a lot of time I have to use resistors or smoked plastic to dial down the brightness. Lots of times they use blue LEDs which are just stupid bright; those get replaced with different colors pretty often.
Well, as an Electrical Engineer, I have to point out to these companies, that as cool as LED's might be, they do still waste significant amounts of power. I propose two solutions.
1. I can 'modify' the device, and simple disable the LEDS
2. I can use some electrical tape, conveniently colour-coded, and generally matched to the color of the device, and voila, no more blinkenlights.
Subby has a point, lights are good for the server room, but not in my cube/office/computer room.
I think there's perhaps 2 considerations that have prompted the "more LEDs" and "brighter LEDs" movement in newer technology:
#1. Gamers and other such folk who trick out their boxes with windows, interior lights, glow-in-the-dark strips, etc. These have prompted more and flashier lights and so forth. "Ooooh...blue lights. It must have PWR!"
#1. When providing technical support, if there's a dull-green LED lighting up the power switch and you have Aunt Josie looking at a box tucked in a corner in a room that's so lit up that the light of God himself is shamed, if that LED isn't burning at 1.5mil candlepower, she won't be able to tell if it's on or not. "Well, I think...uh....yes? Maybe. Maybe yes. That's what I think." *headdesk*
However, I agree with the original article insomuch as more options need to be had for dimming, shuttering, etc. I don't think you'll ever get anyone to actually follow it, however.
Blog,Twitter
I have a Shuttle SB81P - a "P Series" Shuttle SFF - that is coming up on 3 years old...and the BIOS has a setting for the intensity of the power light...ranging from 0 to 100%. This fact is also noted in the manual. Of course, who has time for either reading the manual or at least looking around and experimenting. There is complaining to be done and blame to be assigned!
Personally, I like status lights. They convey information....and not to just techies, but anyone willing to take a minute to look at either the silk-screened explanation that appears on the device or perhaps (heaven forfend!) the manual.
Yes, I am a dreamer.
I believe they even blinked...
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Together, these useless lights create a visual cacophony of blinking, multicolored lights that make me feel like I'm taking part in a NASA stress test for astronaut candidates.'
Your problem being?
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
They all have a purpose, though 98% of the time useless.
... will solve your problems. It even works on the flashing "12:00" on your VCR.
I have to sleep facing away from my rig, or the blue light keeps me awake all night, AND THAT'S THE WAY I LIKE IT!
I want my computer to double as an emergency distress beacon. I want my computer to look like a giant blue blob of light. I want to be able to find my computer in the pitch-black of outer space, or in the blinding choking smoke of a house fire.
I have dual 12" cold-cathode tubes, two LED case fans (120mm in back and 80mm in front), an LED CPU fan, a spot LED shinging on my 7900GS, and four LED case feet. I want more.
We're all going to die. i intend to deserve it.
Ah right, I'm from neither place so I wasn't aware of the difference. Thanks for the clarification.
How else am I supposed to find my way around my townhouse at 2:30 am?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Take an aspect of technology that annoys even a tiny majority of "geeks" (who are annoyed by everything 'cause they live in their parent's basement)... and then complain about it!
Mac laptops and iMacs have a while light that slowly fades on and off when they're asleep, almost like they're breathing. I find it really quite creepy. My mother finally had to put a piece of tape over her's 'cuz it was freaking her out. I'll throw a blanket over my laptop before I go to bed, sometimes.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
But... that cacaphony of LEDs isn't useless!
Certainly Dick Cheney instructed Halliburton to require that all LED's be secretly modulated with brainwashing signals. The more LEDs, the better it works!
I, for one, welcome...
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Yea, it's not good enough to just talk on your headset in the theater... it has to fucking blink with that damn bright as hell blue light the entire time. I use to eat Milk-duds... now they're ammo. Cause I'm afraid of confrontation.
...
I find gum works just as well. And then there's no blinky light
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
laid. Getting laid is a vexation. It is impermanent.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Ahh if I'd have mod points they'd be yours. Seriously I expect this as first post come on people what's wrong with you!! http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/B/blinkenligh ts.html
What a dork. I love seeing tons of LEDs when I turn out the lights.
The only extravagant light I enjoy is the one on my laptop's cool mat. Blue and borderline laser, it appears to be freezing everything in its path.
But normally, I get the tape out.
sometimes, nothing.
My solution is black tape. But honestly, today I find I have to fix or modify a lot of newly bought stuff, because engineering in computer electronics generally sucks.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
"The power of your computer is directly proportional to the number of blinking lights that it has."
I like my lights. My DSL sucks, and at a glance I can look over at my DSL device and tell if the connection is down again or if something else is hosed. Verizon is tired of hearing from me. The light on my monitor tells me at a glance if the monitor is off or just in power save, so I know if I should shake the mouse, hit the power button on the monitor, or failing that cut power because it's locked up again (I'm tracking that at the moment, I think it's a flakey HDD). I'm picky about power consumption, (don't tell me LEDs use to much power, I will laugh at you), that LED being on or not tells me what needs to be turned off.
Besides, I work at NASA (for reals even) and I like my LED's. The first part of every day is spent checking LED's on the CDSS system to make sure all the power supplies are nominal. If I didn't have those LEDs I would have to put a meter on each and every one of them, then it would become the first four or more hours of my day.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
This guy seriously sounds like a crack head going insane from all the blinking stuff in his room.
They should see my Dual (cheapo Brand-X) car MP3 player. I knew from the reviews it had a reputation for its BRIGHT blue LEDs, but...wow! I think once it's out of warranty, it's going to grow a few voltage-drop resistors...
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
All those blinking lights make things look more complex and that's good for guys like me in the service biz. Makes people need to call me to learn how to use the stuff.
Hell, if they made sneakers in my size with those flashing LEDs I'd wear them. Why should the little kids have all the fun?
I mean, really - when did this become a problem?
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
I wonder if her realizes those lights (whether they're on, off, or blinking) ACTUALLY MEAN SOMETHING! As a Network Professional, the more indicator lights I have on a router, switch, or other piece of hardware, the faster I can identify critical status of a system, whether it is link state (up/down), link speed (10/100/1000/etc...), power, activity, and much much more... These lights are not just pretty, they're ESSENTIAL aspects to the design of technology. WE NEED OUR LEDS! Please don't take away our freedom to shine.
I think of this as scotch tape.
First of all, if you dont need it turn it off. Lights are gone. done.
Second, if you do need it run a *proper* OS. This lets you turn the lights off. done.
If you turn your monitor on and don't see and image, the monitor's "On" LED will help you determine if the device is getting power. Not all indicator lights have something to indicate all the time.
I think this discussion is more important in terms of designing more hardware that is meant for home use. In a business environment, the more flashing lights the better. I want indicators and gauges and alarms to let me know if there is a problem in the system somewhere. But at home, the media server in your living room doesn't need to reenact the finale of Close Encounters of the Third Kind all day, and that that desktop sitting in your bedroom doesn't need to be flashing its ultra-intense blue LED all night. A good industrial designer would take these things into account, and would never expect the consumer to "just fix it with some aluminum foil and electrical tape".
...I need my blinkenlights to tell me my machine is doing something. I have a laptop with a disk activity LED and a desktop without. The desktop I built myself on a shoestring budget, so I bought a dumb "Ninja 2" case with no activity lights and a silly set of blue LEDs to make it look cool instead. I find myself looking at the laptop's LED often to make sure that whatever I just did made something start happening -- sometimes it takes the hourglass a while to appear.
The various "I'm working" indicators in all the interfaces I've used (Windows since 3.11, Gnome, KDE, and OS X) are at the whim of the rendering engine. The LED, on the other hand, seems to be directly related to what's happening on the disk.
In fact, I've installed Desktop Sidebar on my XP laptop so I can have CPU, disk, memory, and network activity meters on-screen at all times. It's still subject to the same delays as the hourglass, but it helps. I wish I had a simple LED for all of them -- I don't need percentages, I just want to know that something's working when I tell it to. I've installed it on my mother's machine and it has cut down her frantic clicking by an order of magnitude.
Routers and switches are the same thing -- if something isn't coming through, I immediately look at the lights. Same with my cable modem, my VoIP box, and so on. All in all, while my office does indeed look like a cockpit at night, there aren't many LEDs I'd give up. I happen to like them, but after reading this I did a fairly careful assessment (I'm on deadline, you see, so I'm more easily distracted than normal) and found that almost everything except the dumb Ninja case was somehow useful to me from pleasantly far away. For 50 mW each, I can avoid burning countless calories rolling around on my chair checking machines and components.
But don't get me started on the eMac I have next to me -- the indicator light (a white LED under the case) tells me that the computer is on or asleep (something I can tell by looking at the 17" screen right next to it), and there is no indicator anywhere on the machine that the disk is running. Simple is good, stark is too simple.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
It should be right behind freeing Paris Hilton, and way ahead of such things as, say... curing cancer.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
I want the blinking ones to mean that something is happening, like disk drive lights, address/databus lights... But then what can you expect from a person who's first home computer was a PDP-11/35? Blinking lights are good. If something doesn't have any lights on then I figure its alright to pull the power cord. :)
"Hi modem, can I talk to you for a minute? I was wondering if you would like to go out with me tonight."
"BUSY"
"Next Friday, then?"
"OK"
---
"I really want to have safe sex. I don't want to get any nasty diseases."
"NO CARRIER"
---
"What's your favorite position?"
"CONNECT 9600"
---
"What if you get pregnant?"
"ABORT"
Black electrical tape. Cover them up.
If you need to be able to see your keyboard to type, you're doing it wrong.
Care about privacy? Read this!
Led lights are great. If you were to turn those LED's off and then something happened to your precious 60" plasma or 42" LCD television...I wouldn't be able to see the blinking LED codes which help me to easily diagnose your system. You know...the ones that are similar to BIOS beep code...only visual.
I like the status lights on my equipment. Most of them save me the expense of buying additional diagnostic equipment. Plus it makes my office look like christmas every night of the year.
If I win the lottery, I'm going to pay a politician to do two things for me:
(1) reguire whining assholes to wear helmut mounted warning lights that flash whenever the wearer is about to have a whine, so the rest of us can stand clear;
(2) Include an adjustment to the value of Pi in the next daylight saving time bill, fixing it at precisely 3.0, so we can avoid energy waste calculating those additional useless bits.
Just kidding about #2. Real serious about #1.
Mike: Did you ever flashy-thing me?
K: No.
Mike: I ain't playing, K. Did you ever flashy-thing me?
K: No.
(obligatory MIB quote)
....to harden the fuck up.
Now wash your hands.
my 2400 and 4800 baud modem didn't have em (internal) so when I got my 9600 hayes it was tits. Watching td and sd blink spastically was enough to convince me I'd never buy another internal modem. I welcome the plethora of LEDs on everything. The Blue ones get a little bright but a round piece of electrical tape with a small hole in it makes a nice mask.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
The point is there is no flashing HD activity light
No need - we have the SBBOD to tell us that it's swapping.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I see a lot of comments here about how "useful LEDs can be, so stop whining", etc. These people seem to be failing to realize that the article is about useless LEDs that have no discernible purpose. Sure I could desolder a decorative light, but I'd rather not have to pay for it in the first place.
Here's your reward! >:(
> You see that skyscraper? The one near your house?
Well, no. I see a grain silo. Not sure if that's high enough, and Jeff would be pissed if I dropped a laptop on a cow.
The cow might not be pleased, either.
c.
Log in or piss off.
It must be a lot of fun to toss that through the gate at the embassy. Clear! Opaque! Clear! Opaque! Clear! Opaque!
Must've been invented by the same people that did the thermos.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
"... that I should never invite him over to see my house at Christmas."
Well Santa sends his thanks for those landing lights and rotating beacon you put in.
Are you sure he wasn't just giving you an easy answer? I'm not saying it wouldn't happen, but I think the professional sound industry as a whole is less accepting of Blinkenlights.
Yeah I love my leds but not the one on my router in the bedroom, which I'm forced to have there because the people who built the place didn't put a phone point in the office (2nd bedroom). We're only renting, I can't be effed to pay hundreds to get another point put in.
Gaffa taping the linksys seems to be the solution, but it looks crap.
Yes, I do torrent....
ISO certified == THX certified
...like blinking lights!
Is this nit for real? Let's start with the Treo - poor design aside, the light flashes green to indicate that the phone has a connection to a native tower. It flashes amber to indicate a connection to a roaming tower. Turning off the phone turns off the light. It says all of this in the manual.
The lights on the keyboard indicate information that some of us consider important. Ditto for the cable modem. Ditto for all of his other appliances. I half suspect that some of the lights he's bitching about are called "clocks", and that they would stop flashing "12:00" if he learned to set them.
I can't help him with the mood lighting or case design on the XPS other than to point out that there are other viable options besides L337 64m0R rigs that are overpriced and all about - get this - "flash". I can help him with auxilliary lighting to make his keyboard more visible in the dark. They're called "lamps". Turn one on.
"Hey, the third matrix movie would have been good except for the plot,story, and acting." --AC
Yeah, it's empty now, but it seemed like a good place for people to post pics of their annoying LED's:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/billoflights
Often in Error, Never in Doubt.
is written with black electrical tape. Tape is doubled up if it's a really bright light.
looking at my desktop..... which is some what extreme compared to most people's
.. which is kind of cool but still it's a total wankfest orgy of mostly unnecessary lights.
dual monitor setup - 4 lights (must resist oblig "star trek" quote)
optical mouse - 1 light
keyboard - backlit - several? a dozen?
Graphics tablet - 2 lights
3 usb hubs - 20 lights- at any point at least 9 flashing
2 firewire hubs - 4 lights 2 flashing
5 external hard disks packs 20 lights 10 flashing
3 printers (laser, dyesub, inkjet)- 12 lights - 4 flashing
scanner - 2 lights + CC tube when scanning
external speakers - 3 lights 1 flashing/pulsing
Epson p1200 - 2 lights 1 flashing
5 battery chargers - 10 lights 5 flashing
2 DSLR's and 2 compact digital camera's which when ever plugged insist on switching on their LCD backlight even if no data is displayed - 4 LCD screens + 4 flashing lights
CPU - fortunately 1 single light.
1 network switch - at least 8 lights - at least 4 flashing
2 UPS's - 2 constant lights (good) or 2 lights flashing (bad)
= no less than 100 lights around half of them of them on constantly and at least another 25 constantly flashing.
this isn't even including an iPod or 2 or the 1 laptop and 1 tablet pc usually hooked up
worst thing is that on a large number of them of these - speakers, hard drives, USB hubs use the high intensity blue LED's so bright even with the monitors powered down you can read a book in that room without the ceiling light on.
I've had to put up a partition between the stack of peripherals and my line of sight else it's like being at a disco with arrhythmic lighting technician and is completely annoying and distracting.
people who come in to my office almost always, on their first entrance, make some sort of "you working for NASA or something?" comment or the regulars with their "permission to enter the bridge Captain?"
I'd yank the LED's out of the external hard disk packs as they are by far the worst offenders but I need to be able to tell which drives are operating often enough to make that a bad idea- maybe I'll get to swapping them out with regular low intensity red LED's some time.
> He also says the industry should pay more attention to industrial design when creating new products.
... you buy the well-designed products and you don't buy the poorly-designed ones.
When he bought those products, he should have paid more attention to industrial design. That is how you get manufacturers to pay attention to it
I've noticed network breakins on two occasions because of "odd" patterns on the router. (hrmm, nobody is here, why is there so much traffic to that box..)
Your brain is pretty clever at noticing those things. You wouldn't without LEDs. On routers, anyway.
..don't panic
Oh, cut the bleeding heart crap, will ya? We've all got our switches, lights, and knobs to deal with, Striker. I mean, down here there are literally hundreds and thousands of blinking, beeping, and flashing lights, blinking and beeping and flashing - they're *flashing* and they're *beeping*. I can't stand it anymore! They're *blinking* and *beeping* and *flashing*! Why doesn't somebody pull the plug!
(this guy must have been hanging out with Buck (William Shatner) Murdoch too long.)
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Not to mention the wasted electricity that is added to our already humming devices.
"Mike Elgan has had it with useless lights on gadgets and computers."
Mike Elgan is wrong about useless lights on gadgets and computers. Dude. They are cool. So what if they don't serve any purpose other than looking cool. I've had it with other useless things, such as the hair on Mike Elgan's head. I want my gadgets and computers to look like something out of a sci-fi action movie. More LEDs, and add sound, too. Also, some green women.
Blue is the worst. Covering is the only option, and I cover all that are in my view. Even my new amps had bright blue LEDs and unless they were covered I was blinded from seeing the other equipment. They are too F ing bright. The narrow bandwidth might also add to the effect as I met people who can't see them, at all. Weird!
I was just at the Import Car Show in Tokyo and they had a Knight Rider style long black convertible with the red led in front. The cockpit was absolutely smattered with blinkelights of all proportions and colors.
Personally I liked messing with IIRC xsetleds though no need for it now. Perhaps you need to implement some calm technology instead... "If computers are everywhere they better stay out of the way, and that means designing them so that the people being shared by the computers remain serene and in control." (a serious technology not a joke)
I for one welcome our new LED overlords.
Error:
There is sort of a larger point here. Others have rightly pointed out that a bit of tape covering an LED does the job of blocking light. But the thing that most resonated me when I read the original article was this:
To me, that's what it's really about. A case designer with good taste. What an idea. This putting lights everywhere thing is a classic example of people doing something because they can, never bothering to consider whether they should.
The thing is, virtually all computer cases are completely hideous from an aesthetic point of view. Apple is the only company that tries to do something decent with their cases, and even they don't have very good taste sometimes. Yeah, they do something which is interesting and maybe even artistic, but that's not the same thing as tasteful. Apple realizes that aesthetics matter to some people, but they've got their knob turned way over towards the "bold" side of the bold/understated continuum.
So yes, I can ugly things up by putting tape over the LEDs, but wouldn't it be nicer if I could just buy a computer that was pleasant to look at in the first place?
My latest light peeve is a 3Com wireless card. When nothing's happening, the light which should be glowing steadily or off entirely, blinks brightly at about 1Hz. When there's activity, instead of flickering along with packets, it blinks faster, in the 3-5Hz range. Are there large or small packets? Can't tell. Can I detect activity out of the corner of my eye? Nope, that information's masked.
What blows my mind is that it must've taken some effort to implement this system, which is much more complex than the simple "LED connected to TX" that you'd expect. Why?
so now I wont be able to tell if the router is on via the lights...is it a port malfunction or did someone turn off the 'nag' LEDs?...DUMB!!!
> I wonder if her realizes those lights (whether they're on, off, or blinking) ACTUALLY MEAN SOMETHING!
> As a Network Professional, the more indicator lights I have on a router, switch, or other piece of
> hardware, the faster I can identify critical status of a system, whether it is link state (up/down),
> link speed (10/100/1000/etc...), power, activity, and much much more... These lights are not just
> pretty, they're ESSENTIAL aspects to the design of technology. WE NEED OUR LEDS! Please don't take
> away our freedom to shine.
Back in the old days, car dashboards had it right. If oil pressure was low, the oil pressure light came on. If the engine was overheating, the temperature warning light came on. That's *THE RIGHT WAY* to use status lights.
I have an external USB drive I use to back up my PCs. It has a F***ING BRIGHT blue LED that *FLASHES LIKE CRAZY* when there's any hard drive activity. It only has USB 1.1, so a backup can be an overnight job. If I do not close the bedroom door, the blinking from the hard drive keeps me from falling asleep.
I have a USB extender cable with a honking bright blue LED. It puts on a very annoying lightshow when the PC is writing to or reading from a USB key that I plug into the cable.
I agree that annoyingly bright flashing lights are great for attracting attention when there's a problem. But please, no "heartbeat" lights. If you can't sleep with a with a solid-state electronic device in your bedroom *OPERATING NORMALLY*, that device is stupidly designed.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Well, you wouldn't expect a simple solution like this to solve every technical problem, would you? Sheesh.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Stunned that no one linked to a recent Doonesbury strip about this:
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http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2007/db070506
This isn't whining. A translation would go like "Oh dear, what are all these scary lights for? I'd rather not read the manual; that would show me just how much I have to learn before I can claim to be competent with this machine I'm employed to use. Best to just pretend the manufacturer spent money putting them there for nothing."
I'm shocked to read all the posts saying this is foolish.
The throbbing LED on the the MAC powerbook is the worst - it will light up a whole room at night. The desk in the bedroom has lights on the monitor, the backup drive, the printer, the power supplies, the lynksys.
The lights could be made unabtrusive, they could be put on the back/side, and they could be dimmer.
Most importantly there could be an option on more complex devices to TURN THEM OFF! Why on earth do I want a throbbing LED on my sleeping laptop. Add to that a bright green ring on the 05 version of powerbook G4 power supply... and I have to agree - it gets just silly.
what a loser.
People have aids, cancer, etc...and he complains about leds.
He doesn't like the leds....well....don't buy it.
Just don't buy the f***ing thing.
I guess he is a spoiled brat....from whatever country.
I've met these people before......they are the king of the world...and they are always right.
Pathetic waste of skin.
Some people are confused by information, and actually feel intimidated by having more. The end result is people feel more competent with something they know less about. Devices should be less informative, so that everyone can feel confortable using them.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
I've got one in front of me right now. No lights. If I turn it on (it's fallen asleep because I've not used it for a few minutes), then gosh, the screen and keyboard light up. I find this very handy as it means I can read an ebook on it in bed, and set my alarm.
Won't somebody please think of the watts
If those lights bother him so much, how about buying some tape and calling it a day. Seriously, most of the lights he's bitching about serve a valid purpose and manufacturers turning them off would probably open them up to litigation of some sort. The only valid point I saw in his "bill" was the option to disable the LEDs by consumers. That might be the happy middle people like him can settle for.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Duct Tape.
Elgan calls on manufacturers to . . . allow users to turn them off.
Ever heard of black electrical tape?
Just put a bit of it over whatever lights annoy you.
Valium and whisky might also help!
There's not much to match going into your "own" server room and seeing your children blinking away.
Not much at all.
- but i guess since O'Donnell got a pass for "Ching Chong" it's all right to do so on Slashdot?
God I hate those stupid damn LEDs. This has been a sore spot for me for a while now. I can't believe all the comments from the other slashdotters who don't see the problem -- you are the same crowd who puts crass blacklights in your dumb computer case and think it looks so freaking RAD. How about the post from the guy who is like, "and who DOESN'T get a cheap thrill from turning off all the room lights and seeing Mission Control all totally cool and lit up and stuff?" I'll tell you who: anyone who isn't twelve and who wouldn't be impressed by the aesthetics of a Turkish disco, circa 1978.
The worst offenders of the blinky LED department, in my opinion, are the bluetooth headsets. Many have an absolutely RIDICULOUS bright blinky LED that is on all the time and the guy wearing it (presumably, the guy who should be extracting status information from that dumb blink) can't even SEE the damn light while he's wearing it. I took mine apart and destroyed the LED, but I shouldn't have to -- and I'm sure I waived my product warranty in the process.
Nobody is saying that subtle indicator LEDs that actually INDICATE functionality (ie: hub/switch lights) are out-of-line, the article author even spells this out. It's overly-bright superfluous LEDs that are the problem here.
aha. He, of course, did not notice that the display might have a button to turn it off. Alternatively, he might be interested in the simple method of routing the display's power through the pc supply...
Well, otoh, just now, sitting in the office, i count 3 red LEDs (mouse, speaker, and usb hub power) and 7 green ones (NumLock, display power, smartcard reader, 4 * USB hub ports)
If my PC is off, so are all other LEDs by virtue of a Kopp master-slave outlet sourcing all peripherals...
So, while i do sympathize with him in general, applying his brain to the issue would reduce his irritation drastically...
I want my desk at home to look like a TARDIS console. That way i'll feel like I made it to the 'future' before I die.
While I agree overuse of LED's is a bit annoying, it's the sound factor of current PC's that sticks out like a sore thumb to me. More and more, I'm using PC's for more than just work; entertainment system, PVR, and so forth. Having to find some uber-elite and expensive fans and hard drives to quiet the noise, is frustrating.
After a particularly stressful day, I turned off the four or five PC's in my house (well, small cottage) that were normally going 24/7. The silence was striking; I think we're conditioned to accept a lot more background noise than we should. (Now I'm definitely an "auditory" type, and more sensitive to sound, whereas a greater percentage of people are visually oriented.)
On a side note, I notice that the hard disk in my MacBook (Toshiba MK8034GSX) is incredibly quiet. It's doubt specifically chosen by Apple, in their typical attention to detail. It is nice not hearing the clickity click all the time (on the other hand, there are times when things might be getting slow, and you don't know if your disk is churning or not; but the Activity Monitor helps with that). Unfortunately, when the MacBook is busy, the fan is far from silent. Sigh.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I buy my electronic gear by a LED per square inch ratio! I love the little blinking things. I even customize and add more of them. My PCs both glow blue and red at night and look really moody. I say more LEDs not fewer!
Although it would be nice to have a blackout mode on my switches, Sometime having 1000 LEDs blinking is cool, sometimes I wish i could just turn them off when I'm not monitoring the or changing things. Although for smaller devices with fewer leds electric tape works good, so does a good saudering iron and sauder sucker.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit!
"Together, these useless lights create a visual cacophony of blinking, multicolored lights that make me feel like I'm taking part in a NASA stress test for astronaut candidates."
And still, it's NOTHING compared to a 80's stereo rack.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
When I was in graduate school, we were always adamant about devices having blinky lights for things. When you're trying to determine whether something is working, it's very useful to have lights whose pattern will give you a general idea of functionality. On the LCD monitor, for instance, the light can tell the difference between, say, the cable being unplugged or the display itself having failed. One glance at a network device can tell you which cables are plugged in and active, and any dead spots in the network will be immediately obvious.
Craig Steffen
http://www.craigsteffen.net
Actually many (most?) good video cameras let you turn the cue light off. It's usually buried somewhere in the software controls, at least on my Panasonic.
... but I can imagine all sorts of good gaffes that you could capture with it.)
Makes for much more spontaneous interviews that way. But I'm sure it could be used for nefarious purposes also.
(Even more interesting, some high-end cameras for ENG have solid-state buffers, like 10 or 30s worth, available as an optional accessory -- whenever the camera is running, it's going through the buffer. You can set it so that when you press record, instead of going hot right then, it actually starts recording out of the back end of the buffer -- so you actually get a recording that begins 10 (or 30, or whatever) seconds before you started rolling. I think it's advertised as a way of making sure that you don't lose any of your shot to "pre-roll"
...almost too stupid an "issue" to need to point out the stupidity (but not quite).
Why not go after poverty, hunger, etc.?
A wasted life....
Let's say you turn off the lights for the router. Of course the method for turning the lights off would be the same place that all of the configuration settings for the router are, the web page interface. Then when you are having problems with your network and cannot use the internet or network shares or whatever, you can't look at the router and see what is going on. And then you can't even get to the router's web interface to turn the lights back on because your network is down. Then will see how happy you are that you turned the lights off.
This is a stupid thing to be complaining about. Just stick the extra things in the closet. The only stuff you need on the desk are the monitor, keyboard (and you need to know if caps-lock is on or not), mouse (no need for lights on that), and speakers (but the control pod can be hidden if it has lights, use Windows volume controls).
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
that is amazing. First off, almost every LED on equipment does something, and is very useful to troubleshooting equipment issues. secondly, "to make the annoying lights go away," try investing in some electrical tape and cover the LED's. You can even get stylish with colored tape so its not obvious.
I'm going to find an old Lite-brite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lite-Brite/ and give it to his kids.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
I know there are an ever increasing number of LED's and other lights popping up on an ever increasing number of products *cough*HP LAPTOPS*cough* but there are also an EQUAL number of products out there with very few or even NO lights of any kind, such as many Apple products. Of course, there are also every combination of lighting options in between. I, however, do not think "We the people" care much either way. Though on some subconscious level, led encrusted products that can be seen from space seem to induce an automatic "wooooow.." and all the subsequent drooling and twitching of fingers toward the wallet that causes fad products to sell well before word gets out how bad they suck. PERSONALLY, the more status information in the form of bright blinky things you can throw at me the better. I like bright things people! If you get that option taken away from me, I'm gonna find you and light you up with 3-phase. Nothing brings me closer to nirvana than when I walk into a server room and there are hundreds of thousands of brightly glowing and blinking LEDs of all colors. Now THAT'S some good shiny!!
This signature is lame.
... pluck it out.
Seriously though, Macs and Apple products in general don't have LEDs. Or at most they have one LED that is off when the product is on. And just like you ask, products like the Airport base-stations have config options for turning off the LED.
Gaffer's tape is better than electrical (or even duct tape) for covering lights because of its opacity and the fact that it won't leave residue behind. It's commonly used in theater and AV production.
...replace your PC with Apple gear, jeez. Surely there are better things to raise adrenaline levels over.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
a little piece of black plastic electrical tape over any unwanted lights should solve the problem, and is also later removable, as opposed to painting over the lights. This would seem to be a rather silly subject for a post anywhere, but even Garry Trudeau made light (sorry, no pun inteded) of this phenomenon a couple of weeks ago in the Sunday Doonesbury strip.
Hey, those lights actually serve a purpose, you know. For instance the link and traffic leds on a router are invaluable when troubleshooting. And the lights on most devices let you confirm they have power without having to pull out a voltmeter. If they annoy you and/or dont serve any purpose for you, get some black electrical tape and cover them up. But dont make manufacturers think they need to take them away from those of us that understand what they are for and make use of them.
...who the hell uses scroll lock? All 11 of you?
I would like to ask Mr. Elgan to respect my "Bill Of Whiners" that requires people who whine too much to be considerate of everybody else and shut the hell up.
There are few things more irritating than people who whine about too many blinking lights.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Have you ever had to deal with one of those behemoths?
They are supposed to be safer and whatever, I've received more shocks from an UK outlet than from an American one.
And the extensions cords are worse, I mean what they were thinking?
They are huge, makes you feel like your connecting a nuclear power station or something.
Unpacked it at her house, and what do you know? There's a hardware switch to turn the LEDs off, right on the case! Now that was a conveniently useful button.
John