cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/19798927
Sure, the whole world is on fire right now, but there are also little things to be upset about. ☝😉
I often put a piece of duct tape on power indicator LEDs, some of them are incredibly bright to the point that it’s hard to read the display. The LED is generally still visible under the tape …
I have a fan with a special silent mode to be used at nighttime. Guess what: The LED indicating silent mode is on is bright enough to read by its light.
If I meet the person responsible for that decision I will put them to sleep.
Same here. I put two rings of jet-black electrical tape over the speakers I bought online because someone thought it was a great idea to blind me whenever I use the computer. There’s no way to turn them off when they’re plugged in. WHY??
Try gaffer tape instead. It blocks all the light. It doesn’t reflect much light at all. It generally sticks to anything. You can get it in a variety of colors. It doesn’t leave as much sticky residue when removed or repositioned. I’ve not encountered many surfaces (expect painted surfaces) that it actually damages when carefully removed. I use black gaffer tape on basically all my electronic stuff: one strip to cover the whole light, two strips a razor’s edge width apart so that I can still see the indicator if I try but otherwise 99.9% of the light is blocked, or a strip with a folded over tab at one end for the displays I want to block %100 of the light %90 of the time.
Duct tape, duck tape, electrical tape, masking tape all really suck unless you love that sticky gunky residue they inevitably leave on everything. Gaffer tape isn’t perfect, but it’s much better for this kind of semi-temporary light blocking without too much surface damage kind of job.
TBH I have no idea which one of these the stuff I use qualifies as. It’s called “Panzertape” where I live, and the residue when you remove it doesn’t really seem to be in line with what you describe from duct tape (i.e. it’s very little).
Panzertape can either be sort of like duck tape or like gaffer tape (with the actual fibers inside visible/noticable).
The way I usually distinguish gaffer from no gaffer is: can you easily (and I mean easily!) rip it into the desired size and does doing so sometimes/potentially leave small strands of “thread” at the end of the roll? If yes it’s very likely gaffer tape and awesome!
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This feels like one of those small innovations that will become a marker of quality once somebody thinks about them for a while. Someone will figure out how to make the perfect indicator visible in a dark-ish environment without emitting much light otherwise, or some other way to confirm something is charging and it’ll become the way you can tell which electronics are expensive. I, for one, can’t wait. My fiber box is wrapped in so much tape you could drop it from a tall building and it’d be just fine.
I wonder if just like a super small piece of like color e-ink display might work right.
Off it’s just white but on it becomes a red square. Doesn’t have to emit light but could add a gentle backlight but you can see it from pretty much any angle and it would be immediately identifiable.