Slashdot Mirror
World's Northernmost Town Gets Nightlights
Velcroman1 writes "On October 26, 2,000 Norwegians watched the sun set. The next time they'll see it rise? Sometime in February. Extended nighttime is an annual occurrence for the residents of Longyearbyen, Norway — Earth's northernmost town. Located at 78 degrees north latitude in the Arctic circle, Longyearbyen experiences a phenomenon called Polar Night, in which the town remains in perpetual darkness for four months each winter. To lighten up the seemingly endless night, Philips has started an experiment called 'Wake Up the Town.' And anyone who's complained about the brief daylight hours in winter will want to know how it works."
It may be me but that linked article very much reads like one big advertisement. Having the sponsor's name all over the place isn't helping of course. Anyhow great marketing, they even managed to get it on slashdot while it has nothing to do with tech whatsoever - and light therapy isn't something new either.
It's a gimmick. There's no gigantic artificial whole-town sun or anything. Certainly nothing "ultimate".
Philips makes an alarm clock that includes a gradually-increasing bright light. They're couching this in the terms of an "experiment", but there's no actual science being performed. They just picked a north-of-the-arctic-circle town and gave away some of the product as a publicity stunt, and then sent out a text release, which is being published as news.
I live in Boston, which is north enough for me. I have a different Philips lightbox product, and I think it does provide a useful regulation of my mood in late winter afternoons. But I don't think the science behind it is particularly well developed, even if it seems promising. I thought for a second as I started to read the aticle (after I realized it wasn't the giant artificial sun thing) that it was a real scientific experiment with control groups and so on. Even then, it'd be hard to really control, because you can't exactly do a double-blind study. But, it's actually even lamer than that.
There are settlements in Svalbard farther north....
Pyramiden was a longtime soviet mining town in Svalbard that once was home to over a thousand people, it was abandoned in 1998 but is being redeveloped. It is 50km north of Longyearbyen. However since it currently is home to about 8 people we'll bypass that for Ny-Alesund, which is some to about 35 people year-round (over 120 in summer), and also farther north than Longyearbyen. It is listed as the "world's northernmost functional public settlement", whatever that means.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
I would love to be there. 24hours of light in summer! In winter you can go temporarily in some other place; but in fact, MOST people, face the same even at much lower latitudes: if you stay at the office from - say - 9.00 to 18.00, you will barely see the sun anyway.
For this reason, to me 24 hours of daylight in summer far outweigh the darkness in winter.
Wouldn't wanna live there unless I had to. The darkness would mess with your eyesight, would put you in a low mood (to the point of depression) and your skin wouldn't produce enough vitamin E.
And that's different from your parents basement in LA how? /profiling
Skin produces vitamin D when hit by sunlight, not vitamin E.
Biologist-puuuuunch!
I live in Finland. Not as north as this town (obviously) but in a place with a few hours of light a day for a large part of the winter. And yes, it indeed causes a lot of depression. Or, I don't know whether one can say "Causes" but certainly amplifies. Let's say you're feeling down and then you won't see sunlight for a week (+don't feel like going outside because the temperature is at [-25C/-13F])... Yeah, it's a lot worse.
But different people react to it in different ways. A few days ago, some foreign exchange students asked my sister about how dark it gets in the mid-winter and how can they cope with the depression. She answered that if they aren't feeling down yet, they probably won't. I don't know if it is about genes, nutrition or what but some people just feel down because of the darkeness, others won't.
That brings me to the next subject... Actually, the mid-winter isn't the worst time. There is snow, a lot of it. It is cold and dark, sure... But the white snow is beautiful and any light that you have (stars, moon, northern lights, street lights...) is reflected from it in really nice way. The worst time for most people is actually late autumn: It is getting cold and and dark but you know that everything is only going to get colder and darker and there isn't any snow yet... When the mid-winter actually comes, people tend to be a lot happier. And they'll continue to get progressively more joyful all the way to the late summer.
Despite the downsides, I would never want to move to a country with different climate. There is something so very beautiful in this cycle of darkness and light... Captcha: Patriot
Nice, but my wife would kill me if I used something that would wake her too when I have to get up.
We use alarms for deaf people with a vibrator element that's put under the mattress cover, so only 1 person wakes up and not everybody else in the room/house.
Best thing I ever had.
http://www.harriscomm.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=42_123