1) Light was here when I moved in
2) The room is her kitchen -- not a place I normally expect light to be a problem.

>light pollution levels will never improve until someone gets the process started.

I'd put more faith in cultural change and creating a market for thoughtful lighting than in going directly to the government for a solution. Since when did the government start listening to me?

Thanks for the details on this. I had thought about red lights but was unaware of anyone actually using it. It's good to know that it works satisfactorily.

I'm actually a geneticist. My understanding is that these plants are in the earliest stage of development.

Well said.

That's a new idea for me. Thanks. We'll see how "dorky" she's willing to be.

Hi, I'm the anonymous coward who asked the question. I forgot to add one issue to the post -- what about car headlights? As a bicyclist, I feel like I'm trying to compete with cars for attention at night, and the brightness of their lights is unnecessary (especially in an urban area with other lights). Also, I sometimes get headlights in my window. I see two functions for the headlights: the visibility of the car, and visibility for the driver. The visibility of the car could be achieved with much less light -- perhaps distributed over the body of the car. Achieving visibility for the driver is harder without a bright source (or some sort of smart lighting system along the road). Any thoughts? My only thought is that a non-white color may be just as effective without being as obnoxious... but I'm not too optimistic about that.

Thanks for the details on how to implement this.

That's part of the solution. Our floodlight in on a motion detector (directly connected to the house's wires), but not a very good one -- it turns on when we don't need it, and not always when we do need it. It's a rental property so there's only so much time/expense that I want to put into replacing this with a good motion detector. Are there better ways to set up motion detectors than having a single point right next to the lamp itself? Even if lights are only on when needed, there's still a lot to gain from containing the light better. For instance, can lights turn on/off slowly so that they aren't so startling? I think the big benefit would be from finding a better way to implement car headlights.

Thanks. This is one of the things I like about LEDs... that they can provide low-intestity, dispersed lighting. This is something I'll look into at my next home.

I am the OP: Short answer, my landlord installed the floodlight and the motion detector that runs in. I think she was partly concerned with security, which I don't really think is an issue. Longer answer, my wife has MS which gives her both vision problems and balance problems. She also walks with a cane which would make it hard to carry a torch. I think that a lot of older people have similar issues.

Whatever the rhetoric ("exceptional" or not), we have major inefficiencies arising from restrictive visas on taleneted workers. My non-citizen colleagues in the sciences have had to jump through a thousand hoops to keep working here, and sometimes their education/employment has been disrupted by delays in getting the visa.

And within the country, allowing in skilled migrants promotes equality by increasing competition at the top of the wage scale. Dean Baker included this as one of the ways that the upper classes protect themselves (competition for thee, not for me) http://deanbaker.net/images/stories/documents/cns.html#2 Anyway, as a knowledge worker, I'm totally comfortable with inviting more "competitors" because I actually think of them as "colleagues". I think that their presence will increase the productivity of native knowledge workers sufficiently to compensate for any loss due to competition.

One way to respond to this is to figure out what these people were trying to suppress, and publicize that information. The information becomes newsworthy for the simple reason that someone tried to suppress it. This is an unintended consequence of trying to suppress information -- the act of suppression itself brings attention to the information. So what specific posts triggered this attack from the fanatics? I we can identify them, we can publicize them. I skimmed the linked articles and did not get a good idea of what set them off.