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Multicolored Keyless Entry System
mollyhackit writes "Here's a how-to guide for building a keyless entry that uses color identification instead of numbers. All eight buttons are initially blue; as you press the individual buttons they change color. Cycle the colors to your particular pattern, and you're in. This lock obviously wasn't designed for high security use since anyone in the same room would be able to see you and your amazing technicolor dream lock's pattern; it's just a fun project and will keep the youngins out of your workshop (timer prevents brute forcing). The RGB buttons are monome clones from hobby shop Sparkfun."
Only if the value is different can a color-blind person tell that the colors are different. If you tell them that the red is darker than the green, they can then tell you which one is darker than the other if they're next to each other, but if all they have is blue, brown, and yellow to choose from, they have no idea if that brown is the red or the green.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I'm colorblind.
Red-green, but not too badly. I get along just fine, but fuck those test patterns. There was some kind of a jumbo poster ad with that pattern, and the only time I was able to read it was at night, from a sufficient distance.
Certain shades of red, green, purple, brown and grey simply blend into each other. When I see something colored like that, I can't even name the color.
Kind of like someone tone-deaf guessing whether he heard a C or an E note. He can hear whether it was high or low, just like I see whether it is light or dark, but other than that, I simply cannot name it.
For instance, most of this /. page is green. Though it may be light brown.
The frame around the text field I'm typing my answer in is a different shade of green, but it might also be grey.
I'm leaning towards green, but I don't really see it.
Ignore this signature. By order.
it.slashdot.org has brown as its colour, not green :-)
So it is not the colour blind, but rather, poor design that makes the it section look crappy brown.
Why me? Why not!
BACKUP YOUR PARTITIONS
Another note: The way this is currently designed, as was mentioned in TFA, others could see and memorize your secret pattern. But I think it'd be trivial to change it so that as you push a button, ALL of the colors potentially change. And the "combination" might be something like:
If Red and Green are paired together (one on top of the other), press the button to the right of the Red one. Otherwise, press the lower Right button. If you can do that 6 times in a row, you're in.
Such a pattern would be VERY difficult for someone to learn through observation. And with random displays, the combination (which keys to press) would virtually change every time. And you'd be locking out the color-blind burglars (and blind burglars too).
Unfortunately, though, that's the same combination as my luggage.
Someone I know who is Red-Green colourblind once told me he could tell the difference between red and green lights because they lights have different intensities, or something like that. How do you think colour blind people deal with traffic lights?
By reading this signature, you hereby agree with the content of the above comment.
Traffic engineers choose the colours carefully so that people with the common forms of colour blindness (including deuteranopes, like me) can distinuguish them. Incandescent traffic-light green (and aviation green) looks blue to me, but it doesn't look either red or yellow, so I don't get them confused. With LED traffic lights, the traffic engineers have found a green light that does look green to me.
This sort of so-called cleverness really gets me going. As said quite a percentage of Anglo males are color blind. Products from Asia have historically used these clever color codes on equipment because they are oblivious to color blindness. As a color blind person I get quite indignant when someone wants to use miulticolor LEDs and so on because it is elegant. Those things are impossible to use for me. This concept falls into the category of "So Simple no one can understand it!" Grrr.
The traffic lights have the benefit of fixed positioning. The red (or shade of grey, whichever you see) is ALWAYS at the top or left. With the lock created, the colors move, so you need to make sure that the intensity of the color is different so that you see light grey / dark grey or what have you.
Layne
Agreed. I am nearly red-green colorblind. For most things the color is obvious, red firetruck, brown grass, and I can tell that apart.
For red/green bicolor LEDs... I have the hardest time figuring which is which. I often have to resort to comparing the angle of light coming out of the LED, since it differs slightly depending on which color is active.
The problem is that typical bicolor LEDs have 'red' as 625nm, and Green at 565nm for a difference of 80nm. (Perhaps this is to reduce manufacturing cost?)
Tricolor INGaN LEDs have green at a more useful 525nm, and red at 630nm for a spread of 105nm. (Blue is at 465nm, but that doesn't count in this discussion).
This is enough for me to be able to distinguish the colors in a typical tricolor LED, but not the older bicolors.
So, that 8 port Gigabit router I bought that uses green for 100MBit, Red for 1Gbit (or the other way around) as a link indicator? No clue.
My kids were never able to defeat Tot Lok.
They are a pain in the rear to install, but once installed properly, your kid is not going to get that cabinet or drawer open before you figure out what's going on.
That's the whole idea, really--to slow them down. Just make sure you put the key someplace that the kid can't get to without constructing some serious access ramp.
You want the parental, "Just what do you think your doing?" to refer to constructing a ramp rather than you kid spraying her little brother with Raid because "he was bugging her".
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock