Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: How to Exploit Post-Cataract Ultraviolet Vision?
xmas2003 writes "I recently had cataract surgery with a Crystalens implant. With my cloudy yellowing (UV-filtering) natural lens removed, I see the world in a new light (more on that in a moment) as everything is brighter and colors are more vivid ... plus in focus.
As a typical Slashdot reader, I've been myopic since childhood, so it's wonderful not to have to wear glasses/contacts for distance. One interesting oddity is that I can now see ultraviolet light — it seems that there are a few people who have photoreceptors sensitive below 400nm into the UV spectrum. I've done some testing with a Black Light and UV filter to confirm this but would love to do more conclusive testing such as using a Monochromator — anyone in the Boulder, Colorado area have access to one? And any suggestions from Slashdot readers on how I can further explore this phenomenon? While I can't see dead people, I guess I have a 'superpower' ... although I'm not sure a middle-aged suburbanite dad should don purple tights and cape to become a crime-fighter!"
Think up a really cool super hero name. Then we can you welcome you as an overlord. Assuming that you can get Natalie Portman to deliver the Hot Grits!
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Don't go out of your way to expose your eyes to UV!
Actually, you should don purple lights.
Given the presence of NIST, NOAA, JILA, and a whole bunch of optics and laser companies, I'm sure someone can hook you up! ^_^
Your eyes do not. UV light damages your eyes. That's why all but the most rubbish shades include a UV filter. Don't look at strong UV sources with remaining eye.
Do black lights actually look black when on to most people? I thought they only looked black when they're off. To me they've always looked white with purple edges when on. I thought that was normal.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
1. Check to see if this ability enhances your sight during low level light. 2. Check the boundaries of your abilities and record such data. Is there a certain amount of UV light you can and can not detect? 3. Use this ability for a stealth motion detector. If a robber can't see in the dark, but you can, this would be a advantage. 4. Use this ability to sneak in late at night to prevent people yelling at you! :p
5. During a Solar eclipse, TOTALLY watch it, with proper protection of course. You will be recieving a special view that few humans will ever experience. :3
Restore the madness of youth's lechery
Which naturally gives off UV which could make this power very useful? Aside from being able to see UV bulbs...
I can't remember much from physics ... IR vision would have been much more cool and useful.
I guess you'd be a good "natural" tracker now...
Wouldn't that be infra-red, not UV?
UV vision would let you see semen stains more easily but I'm not sure if that's a superpower or not.
No sig today...
Back in WWII, when the medical treatment was much more primitive, elderly persons in England, who had vision partially restored by cataract surgery, were asked to watch for long wave UV covert signals, from off the coast vessels, as part of the war effort. This may be an urban legend -- it is unanswered on Snopes http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=25056, but I do recall reading about it as a child, I believe in a commentary written by Arthur C. Clarke. But the memory is vague, and who knows where Clarke might have learned of it. So as something vaguely remembered from a book half a century old, that may or may not exist, where the original author may or may not have had first hand knowledge, ... well, by Internet standards, that's your proof right there!
-- Perhaps I see less than some, but more than many.
Sorry; you do not have special UV-sensitive super-powers. So-called "black" lights are not, by any stretch of the imagination, UV-only. They have a filter on them that blocks most, but not all, visible light. They are called "black" lights because the UV causes appropriately fluorescent and phosphorescent materials to glow out of proportion to the visible light emitted by the bulb.
I understand that the definitive text on ultraviolet astronomy was written about then by an astronomer who had also been through the operation.
For him astronomical objects with high UV emission were "naked eye objects". He could just look through the telescope eyepiece and zero in on interesting stuff, when others had to wait for the film to be developed.
Not as big a deal these days, with 'scopes aimed using semiconductor image sensors rather than naked eye. But may still be an advantage.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
My prescription glasses have the tint that goes from essentially clear to sunglasses depending on light. I've noticed if I look at black light with them on, they go kind of foggy, which I guess makes sense given that IIRC, it's actually ultraviolet light that makes the shift happens, which is also why they're less effective in cars. Anyone else have this effect?
Sigh. No. Only excessive UV light can damage the eye. If you are both lacking the UV filter in your lens and are able to perceive a reasonable spread of UV light, you'll instinctlively blink when it gets bright enough to do damage, just like regular light.
There's a real danger for people who have the surgery but don't see anything in the UV spectrum that's now hitting their retinal cells. But at the age most people get cataract surgery, who cares? They generally don't.
"purple tights and cape to become a crime-fighter?"
Of course not!!! They should be black as in Batman and possibly some green as in the Green Lantern!
Purple?! No way for a dad!
But if you are serious with fighting crime on a regular basis i guess the police blue would fit too, and if you get the badge then you're set.
No Capes!
Many things appear different and downright gross under UV light. I've rented a UV CCD imager - here are some things that you may find interesting to look at:
Skin damage
Dental plaque
Oliy/organic stains and contaminants - fingerprints, floor wax patterns
Anything with fine structure - scratches and scattering are wavelength dependent
reapir jobs - cars that are repainted, furniture
You can rent such a device here: http://www.uvcorder.com/ . The product is excellent. Their customer service department seems to be staffed by extraterrestrials, though - dealing with them was a bizzare experience.
Do I really have to suggest to a bunch of /.ers to try and see thru clothing using UV light? Some clothing is sorta IR transparent, sorta.
My gut level guess is very little clothing is UV transparent, but bleached underclothes might fluoresce brightly beneath regular clothes, maybe.
In a completely unrelated topic, does anyone know of any (long term) UV phosphors? Perhaps the original poster could see glow in the dark "whatever" that most of us couldn't see. I'm not talking about short term florescence, but long term phosphorescence. florescence is that rock that momentarily glows yellow when hit with UV. phosphorescence is that weird kids plastic toys that glow and give off green light for a couple minutes after being charged with light. This is what I'm interested in, is there anything that glows UV for a couple minutes after being flashed momentarily with light?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I thought all sunglasses had UV protection because the cheapest plastics aren't transparent to UV light. I was under the impression that UV filtration was easy because very few materials are UV transparent.
moox. for a new generation.
Superman can see even beyond the ultraviolet, into the x-ray spectrum, but only when he wants to. Me, I've been trying like heck to shut off my ability to see blue, primarily during Redskins/Cowboys football games, but I haven't yet gotten it to work. So I was thinking, maybe the shorter wavelengths are what allow voluntary control. Please let us know what you discover.
In related news for nerds, here's a B movie about a guy who wanted to see more outside the normal-human spectrum, but without the ability to turn it off: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057693/
UV vision would let you see semen stains more easily but I'm not sure if that's a superpower or not.
A career in CSI, or pornography set-cleaner.
I can too but I never knew it was a rare/unusual thing, it just never came up in conversation or ophthalmologist visits. This is strange news indeed.
One interesting oddity is that I can now see ultraviolet light — it seems that there are a few people who have photoreceptors sensitive below 400nm into the UV spectrum. I've done some testing with a Black Light and UV filter
1) Purchase a UV source and filter the heck out of it to output purely UV (no purple leakage). Ask a geologist or perhaps a scorpion exterminator, they'll know what to buy...
2) Visit astronomical telescope parties and offer your safety assistance... help walking down the mountain, help reading directions, help stepping off the road curb without tripping, just .. sighted help in general.
What to them is pitch black, to you, could be lit up like a searchlight, at least until your batteries die.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
We should be breeding this trait RIGHT NOW.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
One interesting oddity is that I can now see ultraviolet light â" it seems that there are a few people who have photoreceptors sensitive below 400nm into the UV spectrum.
In World War II the OSS recruited elderly cataract patients as coastwatchers --- able to read Morse sent over UV light.
Stanley Lovell's "Of Spies & Stratagems" can be found quite cheaply in paperback and as a legit free download on the web. It's well worth a read.
Lovell was the head of R&D for the OSS, their "Professor Moriarity," and it is here you will learn why.
Every Xmas one of the folks in the neighborhood puts up decorations that emit a purplish light. It never fails to give me a sinus headache. Older Xenon lights did the same thing.
I can't say this has been particularly more useful to me although I do think I see rainbows as 'wider' than most people with a much thicker "purple" band than others seem to see. Totally subjective and something I can't substantiate but I think I am more sensitive to sunlight as well.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
And then mark the cards with UV paint.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
People have been doing the same thing for IR.
http://amasci.com/amateur/irgoggl.html
You could make UV goggles to let the UV pass only and go out on a sunny day. You wouldn't expose your eyes to much more UV than regular (well, your pupils will be open wider so it may be about 10x more). Enjoy the new experience.
Bert
I had cataract surgery earlier this year. My ophthalmologist told me that all modern replacement lenses filter out the UV to protect the eyes. However, the lenses do reflect light better than natural ones giving you a bit of a "cat's eye" effect. I like to tell people that I now have bionic eyes to go along with my augmented hearing. Does this make me a cyborg?
Good, inexpensive web hosting
A percentage of women have an extra type of cone in their eyes which would seem to indicate sensitivity to more light spectrum
And gay guys? This would explain their ability to perceive more than the six colors straight guys can see.
Have gnu, will travel.
We should be breeding this trait RIGHT NOW.
Well, he did refer to himself as a "suburban dad" - so he's been doing his part...
#DeleteChrome
Anything where your ability to see a custom display that others cannot gives you an advantage. An alphanumeric LCD with a UV back light and filter for example.
Have gnu, will travel.
". As a typical Slashdot reader, I've been myopic since childhood,"
Seriously, WTF?With that kind of biased reasoning, it's no wonder you have convinced yourself you can see into the UV.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It could be Octarine. Not sure if being able to do or at least see magic is considered superpower, but it could have interesting applications. In any case, is better than seeing infra-black.
Any UV likely to reach your eye is non-ionizing. At the energies where it becomes potentially ionizing, it can't travel in air very far... so unless you have an short wavelength UV emitter up against your face there's hardly any danger there.
=Smidge=
As a typical Slashdot reader, I've been myopic since childhood,
Hey now, that's uncalled for. Sure, there are some around here who are still expecting the next Year of the Linux Desktop, but you can't let them speak for all of us!
But more seriously, I've had great vision more or less for my whole life. I don't think it's entirely genetic either (though my father has never needed glasses either), and I have always done a lot of reading/computer in my time as well. I just make sure to look away every few minutes and focus on something far away so my eyes don't adjust too rigidly. So I wonder if it wouldn't be too difficult to prevent bad eyesight if other people did this too.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
That may be true for non-ionizing radiation, such as visible and IR. However, because UV light is ionizing, the damage it does is CUMULATIVE. I.e., there is no threshold.
Sayeth wikipedia:
Most ultraviolet is classified as non-ionizing radiation. The higher energies of the ultraviolet spectrum from about 150 nm ('vacuum' ultraviolet) are ionizing, but this type of ultraviolet is not very penetrating and is blocked by air.
So, probably okay unless Ultraman wants to look at a strong source in a vaccum.
Babies can see further into the UV than adults, probably due to the gradual yellowing of the cornea, which usually becomes apparent in old age. Water reflects UV to varying degrees, too.
I'll ask around and see what I can find. Work has a lab to specifically measure human eye sensitivity across the spectrum, but unfortunately it's in Illinois. However, I'm wondering if you couldn't build a DIY spectrophotometer using a DVD as a diffraction grating, and see what your sensitivity/wavelength/intensity graph would be.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
...though "ability to see into the UV part of the spectrum" is not quite as useful as "ability to smell into the future" (my personal fave).
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
He's more machine than man now
' ... although I'm not sure a middle-aged suburbanite dad should don purple tights and cape to become a crime-fighter!"
You're correct; you'll be wanting ultraviolet pants for this job...
If it were me, I'd want the ability to switch the "shimmer" off: I'd keep both replacement eye lenses unfiltered, and then get a pair of glasses with a filter on one lens (which is also an idea more helpful for the submitter, since he already had the surgery).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Photokeratitis can happen even when yours eyes do constrict. The Inuit eskimos used to make goggles out of caribou antlers to protect their eyes from UV light. Without that protection, the UV light reflecting off of snow was enough to cause blindness.
I thought all sunglasses had UV protection
Yep.
That's why you can buy $5 sunglasses with full UV certification.
Neither glass nor polycarbonates will let UV though. Anything else is bad science by sunglass salespeople.
No sig today...
Years, nay decades, back I read about gamblers who wore rose-colored glasses to read marked cards. Tinted contacts were substituted in later years. Perhaps there are clear fluids that now have a 'color' to you! Expect to soon see spinoffs in CSI, The Fringe, Alphas, etc.
Downside: He might find hotel rooms less appealing...
No sig today...
(and he might not be able to buy any more second hand cars ... )
No sig today...
1. Mark some nice decks of cards in ultraviolet ink and give them to all your friends.
2. Develop an interest in poker.
3. Show restraint.
and what i mean by that is, natural mutations in cone pigments means that 2-3% of women are tetrachromatic. only women can achieve this, with their two X chromosomes. the inference is that half their brothers would be somewhat colorblind, with a pigment with a skewed sensitivity range overlapping with normal ranges
for these rare women, the new sensitivity range falls in between existing blue/ green, or red/ green pigment ranges, not outside the normal human range into the ultraviolet. this is still important and potentially useful: looking at a simple vista of foliage or swirling river water, the tetrachromatic woman would theoretically see color patterns a normal human cannot
it is even more theoretical as to whether or not human neurology can support a fourth color channel, but normally dichromatic mice have been mutated to express a third channel, and further tests show that these mice can take advantage of the new color information. so at least mice brains can support the bandwidth for a new color channel
i suppose every superhero needs a supervillian, yours is obviously some chick somewhere. cue the softcore fan fiction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
... where they tell you you'll never see daylight again. So you dig up a doctor, pay him twenty menthol Kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyes
Of course it's company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a dildo... always use the indefinite article a d
Every LL quote I've posted on /. in the last few years is moderated troll.
The single worst indicator of how fucked /. is.
For example watch the moderation:
Yeah ... there's someone out there who does not like Robert A. Heinlein. I could see it if it were L. Ron Hubbard quotes but ... Heinlein? I mean, Lazarus Long was something of a elitist in his own way (so was Heinlein for that matter) but he was right about a lot of things.
I mean, small change can, in fact, be found beneath seat cushions.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If only you'd gotten IR vision instead of UV. Then you'd be able to see through womens clothing!
Sounds like you got the wrong end of the spectrum :(
We should be breeding this trait RIGHT NOW.
Well, he did refer to himself as a "suburban dad" - so he's been doing his part...
That's what his wife wants him to think anyway. Looking up rates of superfecundation is an exercise for the reader.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
For those of use who can see it, it is very close to being a different color. Or, at the very least, there is much more violet there than normal people see. Can't focus on it, however. It is a diffuse blur, quite like trying to read a blue LED clock in the dark.
It is called visible light for a reason. UV wavelengths reflect poorly which makes "seeing" anything lit up in UV light unlikely. Items exposed to UV light fluoresce rather than reflect. Also, what makes you think UV light has anything to do with violet or purple? The wavelength is beyond violet. If you could see UV light, you would be seeing the next color in the spectrum, which would be very cool. What you are experiencing is sensitivity to UV light due to your natural UV filter being removed.
I once made a night vision viewer, gosh, thirty years ago or so by removing the IR filter from an old B&W TV camera. I think it was a vidicon tube: might have predated CCDs, I don't remember. Anyway, it worked well enough for near-infrared, although it wasn't very sensitive.
I put together a light source with a handheld spotlight (big old thing that used the sealed-beam from GE aircraft landing light) and used a layer of exposed camera film to get rid of the visible output. I could shine that thing and see for a half mile around in pitch darkness. Any of you know how dark a moonless Western night is? Yeah, dark. I was visiting a girlfriend's parents who lived out West near the Rockies. We mounted the camera and the light on the rail running around the deck on the back of their house.
There were all kinds of nocturnal animals there: you could hear them rustling around and making noises all night. So we hooked the output up to their TV set, and we had a private nature show right there on the screen. Some of them could see us, I think: they seemed to notice the infrared source. I have no idea what a lot of those creatures were, but we could see them plain as day. The bats were cool. Well, I think they were bats. I mean, the camera was an antique: not exactly hi-def. But it was a lot of fun.
I tried it again with a CCD imager a few years ago: picked up the output from TV remotes quite nicely.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
There are six? I thought there was only three or four: red, blue, green and rage.
Don't look at UV light.
UV light bulbs are used to kill germs (really all living things) in hospitals and to erase EPROMs.
UV light is extraordinarily dangerous for your skin and ESPECIALLY your eyes. I had moderate eye damage from looking at one as a kid for several minutes. It never goes away or gets better. It's a cool purpley-white color for those of you who want to know what it looks like.
Frankly I'm concerned about the health implications of having no natural UV filter. What protects the rest of your eye(s) from UV light?
Yes and no. Long-wave UV (such as what comes out of the typical black-light lamp you'll see at Toys 'R Us) isn't particularly harmful. Shortwave UV, like what you would get from a welding arc or a fluorescent tube with no phospor coating is. I knew a guy in high school that built himself a carbon-arc furnace, and made the mistake of starting at the naked arc for a couple of seconds. He was blind for a few days: fortunately he recovered. He was very lucky.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
i'd love to be a super human crime-fighter.
I'd love to be superhuman, but I suspect that I could find better things to do with my time than fight crime. All that does is get all the bad guys trying to find ways to kill you.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
UV photos can look very cool. You should have an advantage in being able to see things that look interesting in UV without having to make a photo to check.
I have no clue if what you see is anything like on the photos, but I figure it should at least give you a clue of what kind of thing to photograph.
From the posted link, a monochromator is nothing more than a prism and a slit. The prism spreads the white light into a spectrum, and the slit selects only a narrow part of that spectrum. You could probably make one out of cardboard, old razor blades, some duct tape, and a diamond.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
"Your eyes do not. UV light damages your eyes. That's why all but the most rubbish shades include a UV filter."
While it is true that UV exposition might damage your eyes, that's not why shades should have an UV filter.
Think: have you heard of all people being blind before somebody invented them?
The point is that vogues filter *visible* light and thus avoid the natural reflex of both your iris contracting at high light intensities and/or your eyes blinking. Wearing sunglasses your eyes remain wide open so a higher than usual UV will pass through. *That* is why sunglasses should have an extra UV filter that pairs to their visible-spectrum filters.
I see slightly into the infra-red end of the spectrum, and proved it repeatedly in film photography class. When we were rolling negatives for small batch developing in full darkness I could see my classmates, and if they dropped something I could pick it up and take their hand and put the whatever in their hand.
The downside is my resolution in IR requires total darkness, and is very very faint. I didn't believe that I was doing it until I had several experiences with it and some conversations with classmates. I have met another person who also reports a similar experience, so I have to believe it is not terribly uncommon, just uncommon to recognize and not all that useful for most people. I would be unaware of this ability if I never took film photography.
Because your experiences in the UV end of the spectrum are obvious enough during full light I expect that projecting a large rainbow from a prism on a wall and having several people mark the lowest and highest portions of the spectrum will give you results you will find useful. Have them also mark individual color bands and you can calibrate the setup to other people in a repeatable manner.
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
There are six?
Well, eight actually. But I ate two of my Crayons when I was a kid and never did learn what those were.
Have gnu, will travel.
UV vision would let you see semen stains more easily but I'm not sure if that's a superpower or not.
It would be handy in the average strip club, especially in the VIP room
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
As a physics professor, I must suggest that you test this with a hydrogen spectrum and a diffraction grating. You may remember that each element has its own "spectral fingerprint" of wavelengths of light that it emits when excited. Several of the spectral lines for hydrogen are in the visible spectrum, 656 nm (red), 486 nm (cyan), 434 nm (blue), 410 nm (indigo), 397 nm (UV). I've only ever seen the first three, my eyes aren't sensitive to the 410 nm light (plus it's fairly weak) . If you really have UV-sensitive eyes you should see the 410 nm easily and even the 397 nm light. Good luck!
There is really no other question of relevance.
no, i wanted infrared; it gave me ultraviolet. it's the maintenance man, he knows i like infrared.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
The apple remote uses ultraviolet light, doesn't it? If you point it at a webcam you can see it light up, but when you look at it you can't... So you can have someone use it to signal things for various reasons.. Shrug.
I was trained to arc weld in high school and one of the things the teacher said was that after the first couple of time your eyes would feel a little like they had some grit in them and that was of course wearing traditional arc welding gear.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
. . . and help me find all the places the cat peed when he had that bladder condition.
I am not a crackpot.
I know all the right people. You're sitting in a very fortunate place (lots of science in Boulder). Email me at noah (dot) bronstein (at) gmail (dot) com if you are serious about finding a spectrometer.
University of Colorado Boulder happens to have a top notch optics program. There are likely more monochromators in a ten mile radius of the city than almost anywhere else on earth. My suggestion, however, is to consult your ophthalmologist and to be certain that you are not doing damage to your eyes in looking at UV radiation. If you darken a room and turn up the UV, your pupils will dilate and you will see some light below 400 nm. However, UV light exposure to the retina can occur in eyes with natural lenses and can lead to macular degeneration - I would definitely not volunteer for a test with a monochromator in the UV!
Protect your vision - you are lucky to have it!
My mom had cataract surgery a while ago.
She works in clothing/fashion, designing garments for kids and the like.
She noticed after the surgery that violets are different. I asked my optometrist, and she said that the cloudiness in the removed lens is yellowish, and the brain compensates for it, and therefore she is seeing a different color/hue after the surgery.
She did not tell me she had Steve Austin powers so far ...
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Well, mouse piddle reflects UV--it's how hawks hunt, follow the trails of piddle that lead to mouse burrows since the nasty little things piddle everywhere they go. So there you are, super rodent-hunter man!
According to Neil Stephenson in the Cryptanomicon (sp?) They had post cataract soldiers in a row boat and on shore and used UV lights to meet. The German soldiers could not see UV so they were blind to the lights.
According to the some Toaists if you spend 21 days in total darkness the brain converts melatonin to tryptophan then to 5meoh-DMT then to DMT (most powerful hallucinogen in the world.) After 14 days or so people claim to be able to see in UV and IR. This is before the ass-kicking drugs kick in.
You cold use a UV flashlight to illuminate object and see the reflections that we cannot. Apparently bees see in UV so many flower intricacies are lost on us.
This thread is entirely off topic, but slashdot needs a "+1 more interesting than the current subject" moderation. Thank you for the link.
"For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice" -- God
Yee-haw. "Pillow Fluffer" in New Reno, if I recall correctly a job you could get in Fallout or Fallout 2.
To
Or furniture. Don't ever touch furniture in a newlywed's house because chances are they've had sex on it.
You should become an astronomer, a bee, a flower expert, a raptor, a hawk hunting by mouse piddle, or a crow. Oh, and of course the superhero that can find supervillains that only radiate in UV. I think there were a few somewhat plausible ideas in there, too, LOL.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I've been wondering if being able to see magnetic fields was a direct visual sensing or if something else wasn't inducing some perceptual experience either in the visual cortex or the optic nerve of Tesla. There have been experiments where audio signals have been induced along the long nerves of the arm and subjects report hearing a sound (the brain receives the nerve impulse, recognizes it as an audio signal and processes it as such. I recall someone patenting an invention for people with profound damage to the ear using this technique to provide some sense of hearing (of course surrounding yourself with a strong electromagnetic field would almost certainly have its down side.)
I'd recommend that the OP join this list:
http://visionscience.com/mail/cvnet/cvnet.info.html
You could try getting a message posted out to people who work in perceptual psychology and visual neuroscience to see what they have to say about your condition. Some of them might even be local. Be careful not to come across as too crazy though!
Sorry but if your "rubbish shades" dont filter UV light then you need to buy all of them because it's made of Crystalline Quartz and are exceedingly expensive.
UV is filtered by 99.99786% of all transparent materiel. Only fools believe the "Filters UV radiation" label, as EVERYTHING filters UV radiation. It's like buying a stereo certified Digital TV antenna. a 3 foot piece of lamp cord is a stereo certified Digital TV antenna.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I poked around komar.org and found it somewhat eery. Clicked on the first link(cataract surgery), then scrolled down---Whooboy... There is a lot of family info, and some basic content, but the site has not been updated for years. There remains the descriptions of diseases, which is certainly sad, along with detailed walk-throughs of an evolutionary new cataract surgery. Humbly, I enquire: Is it relevant, or even appropriate, to post a Ask Slashdot question that is laden with links to obviously stale content which also happens to include all sorts of donation opportunities? Don't think I will be buying Dirk a beer anytime soon.
What color is it?
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
They do nothing!
No brain, no pain.
Black lights use filter glass in addition to the different phosphor. UV lights that just change the phosphor are used as bug lights (the light-blue you see in bug zappers); but the parts of the visible spectrum those emit is too bright to be used as black lights.
2. Point it at any standard digital camera (in a phone is fine.) Take a picture of it while pressing activating the UV (press the button on a remote control for IR)
3. The picture should have a bright light on it. Remember that location
4. Point the UV source (or remote control for IR) at your eye and activate Do you see that same bright light?
If you can see it, you can see Ultraviolet (or Infrared.)
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Share your gift with the world by taking a photograph with an ultraviolet-sensitive camera of whatever looks cool to you.
MOD PARENT UP
Wiping liquid from LCD screen.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Thanks for the link. Very interesting.
Clothing is generally at least as opaque and/or randomly refracting in UV as in visible.
Some synthetics, though, are transparent in infrared. A few paparazzi have taken advantage of this by using IR film and snapping celebrities. If they happen to be wearing all IR-transparent clothing they look naked or dressed only in underwear (and slightly out-of-focus, since the longer wavelength results in visible issues that are just below eye resolution in visible wavelengths.)
Was a famous shot of a movie star debarking an airline via the roll-around stairway, published in a tabloid, a couple decades back.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Make sure you mention observations to scientists or people with naturally-inquisitive natures (who are probably scientists of a sort anyway) and not to "common people," though, or you're likely to offend people all the time. I know that from personal experience.
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I had cataracts out too. Can also see much better into the UV than most. Actually, this is not very useful as the lenses do cut of UV a bit further than before but not that much. You can see blacklights but much more.
While UV sight seems like a cool "superpower" except for the blacklight thing there is not much difference to normal life. There are definite downsides as well:
a) You are now extremely sensitive to sunlight. Get a pair of good polorized glasses. That really makes a difference. I work for a company that makes testing equipment with really intenst lamps that can generate the same radiation as the sun indoors, and that lamp really a headache-induction machine.
b) After a while your lens might shift, and now one eye is not locked on infinity anymore. No more 3D films. Reading becomes a bitch. Invest in a monitor arm that allows you to quickly shift your screen around.
c) You are going to pay the college education of your optometrist when the lens shifts over time for reading glasses
d) Wanna buy a camera? MAke sure it has a viewfinder with a diopter adjustment, and small handheld point-and shoots become a hassle to use. Manual focus old cameras? Forget it.
e) One upside: When I have to clean house I can tell my missus that that I did not see the dust on the floor as I cannot focus there, and (usually) I am not lying
f) Another upside: I can buy an iPad and get it by the missus because it is much easier to read than books as you can increase the font size.
Another thing, you will have a layer of cells growing over your lens soon. this has to be burned off with a YaG laser. That is a really cool experience, it feels like an electric shock right in the middle of your brain.
In short, enjoy your new ultra-crisp sight, be careful in sunlight, get sunglasses and get annoyed by reading hassles and inability to focus you eyes up close.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Birds supposedly have UV vision, and some of their markings are for each other, and are more clearly distinguished by other birds that can see UV.
So you might consider observing birds and making sketches of their markings, much like the naturalists of 100 years ago, so that the rest of us can see what the birds can see of each other.
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats