nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyd968gmewwp6kyqpquw8g8f3g29gw8uxfcj5863rnc783xyk0alqm9mcsx3leut98dausvd2wxk (nprofile…2wxk) City lights are (in some places at least) becoming better planned and less wasteful (I've done a few years in the smart street lighting business).
As systems are upgraded
* LED lighting uses less power than previous technologies
* switch on/off times can be calculated/measured more accurately, so lights are on for less time (they don't have to be switched on a few minutes early in order to be sure of meeting the regulatory spec)
* lights can be switched off in the middle of the night (which annoys punters) or dimmed down (which punters don't even notice, so is sometimes more politically acceptable)
* I'm assuming that better housings are also directing more of the light downwards rather than upwards.
[There are also places which do weird stuff like dim the lights down when there's nobody around and then brighten them when cars are detected. This seems arse about tit to me - cars have got perfectly good headlights, it's pedestrians and cyclists who need help from the street lights.]
I realised at one point that I had all the passwords necessary to turn the lights in a particular city on and off so as to look like a smiley (or even a rude slogan) from overhead. But I never did, even when I was working out my notice.
Does anyone with the passwords feel like having Clacton say VOTE BINFACE as seen from a couple of thousand feet? It'd cost you your job, but plenty of people would cheer you on.
Oh, and one strange factoid as an aside: it seems that half the "street lights" in the USA are not lighting streets at all - they're lighting car parks.
Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE
npub18d…nct69
2026-08-09 16:43:09 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…7f3y
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npub18dw05kgpmgsvhh0p2m0qtkfy99u3pkd967glv6fueeyqwtxkzxjsznct69Seen on
wss://relay.ditto.pubPublished at
2026-08-09 16:43:09 UTCEvent JSON
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