Gregory's ServerBecause these billboards are just monitors rotated 90 degrees, they’re invisible to polarized sunglasses. It’s like a real-life ad blocker!
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 @sandofsky With the added bonus of not being able to see your car console while driving because that is also a monitor now!  @Unabart @sandofsky thankfully I do not need a car. Lucky me. BTW this reminds me of the movie They Live That was also my first reaction. Most famous quote from the film that I could use every day: „I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum.“  @jhavok @HolyCrap @prefec2 @Unabart @sandofsky also my first reaction... What is wrong with us?! @prefec2 @sandofsky I love my car. I’m lucky I have one. It’s been a tremendous benefit to my livelihood. I would be fucked without it. @Unabart @sandofsky This is unfortunate for you that you need a car and that they use screens with polarised light so many sunglasses can render them unusable. Unfortunately, this issue does not disappear with OLED. Of course this can be avoided with another type of sunglasses, but that can be quite expensive when you need special ones tailored to your eyes. BTW thanks for reminding me of this issue. I would have missed that otherwise. @prefec2 @sandofsky I don’t have polarized glasses. I can see everything as intended! @taixzo @Unabart @sandofsky honestly I did not understand why, but it seems it does. I found multiple sources pointing that out and one that explained it. Also I did not find sources which claimed the opposite. However, if someone can provide a comprehensive and understandable explanation, I would be delighted to read it. @prefec2 @taixzo @Unabart @sandofsky Just a demo of the effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SIxEiL8ujA With some explanations: @prefec2 @taixzo @Unabart @sandofsky Most OLEDs use polarizers and wave plates to reduce reflections which would otherwise come from internal components. You lose brightness (~50%), but gain contrast. This is one of the reasons why the efficiency of OLEDs is lower than one might naively hope. Here's one model: https://optics.ansys.com/hc/en-us/articles/5845197523731 (Note that the front of the display is at the bottom of the diagrams, and unfortunately the OLEDs themselves are left out.) @Unabart (Cc: @prefec2 @sandofsky) @migmit @prefec2 @sandofsky I live and work in Europe, so you have guessed wrong. @migmit @prefec2 @sandofsky I work throughout all of Western Europe. Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, U.K., and throughout all parts of Germany. This requires a car. I have a nice car and it’s an important part of my life. There’s nothing strange about this.  @migmit @Unabart @prefec2 @sandofsky so strange indeed! I lived in Europe all my life and never even saw a car or met a person who owns one. @mykhaylo @migmit @prefec2 @sandofsky Super proud of you! Pride of the village!  @Unabart @sandofsky it's ok with my car (sandero II) and my current phone (s21, it wasn't with my s7 though)  @Sharedcow @sandofsky "Five new ways to use your sunglasses – number three will shock you!"    @MyLittleMetroid @gruik I've made a reply on that wavelength and I am glad I was not the only one. :11117:  It would be quite unfortunate if someone applied polorized film to the covers of those monitors 😇 🤷♂️  @Green @simonzerafa @sandofsky doesn't seem cheap unfortunately. Covering it would be $20-30 bucks  Far cheaper and effective to just apply spray paint. Also ask questions in local politics why these are permitted in the first place. @sandofsky Oh look! Good spot! Its almost like somebody in tech got together with somebody in marketing and together they completely ignored reality. Shocker. @bocs @sandofsky More likely somebody in tech said it would be an issue, and was totally blown off by marketing, because the marketing guys think the tech guys don't know anything.   @sandofsky Next is a big sign that pops up 'you can't use this street until you disable your ad blocker' @tony @sandofsky The obvious corollary is that if you turn 90deg the lenses, you will not see the image of conventionally oriented monitors. Useful in restaurants with annoying screens so you can concentrate on the persons you are with.  @sandofsky They're practically as good as Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses! @sandofsky Yup my sunglasses do that too. I can’t help to think this is the reverse of the movie They Live (one of my favorite movies). #Goodr #TheyLive  @sandofsky according to Google, the bus organizations would probably not transport people that didn’t see the advertisement This is wonderful - it puts me in mind of “They Live” :-))) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live @sandofsky BREAKING: Google announces dynamic polarized glasses that always let you see the ads. 🤓  I love the phrase "diminished reality"! it perfectly describes the effect of those horrible ad screens.   @sandofsky (un)fortunately some smartphones have polarized screens so one needs to be careful when buying sunglasses to avoid incompatibility   @sandofsky @sandofsky Wait until they start blocking polarised sunglasses on the street... Real life anti-adblocker. @sandofsky @harshad I recently was at a restaurant with an outdoor video food screen and a paper thing advertising brunch and was like oh- I guess they only have a small brunch menu and my husband was like take off your glasses…   @sandofsky now I'm wondering if there'd be some way to make glasses that block any polarized light, without any electric parts, to always block displays, independent of their rotation. At least I remember from physics that you can't just use two polarized lenses 90 degrees rotated over each other as that would block all light. Any other way to achieve this? Maybe via some prisms and mirrors? @sandofsky worth considering not all displays are polarized at the same angle, so this won't work universally.  @sandofsky @sandofsky bills to ban polarized sunglasses, coming to a state legislature near you soon @sandofsky It was a neat kickstarter project a few years ago. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ivancash/irl-glasses-glasses-that-block-screens  @sandofsky So amusing. That's what happens when people implement technologies but don't really understand it.  @sandofsky I've long wondered about whether you could set up an effective AR adblocker for billboards. I guess you don't even need to get that high-tech though. @sandofsky Upper West Side, New York City near the Belnord Apartments ? #OSINT  If the blocking power turns out to be insufficient, a basecap may work better. I cannot stand the bloody things either, especially when they play videos on them. (Speaking from experience. If sensitive to this, don't move to #Hamburg currently if you can avoid it ... sadly it's a stronghold of the nonconsensual ad industry, and all the main streets and subway stations are full of this shit.) @sandofsky   @sandofsky A friend of mine had a Huawei phone a few years back which must've also had a flipped polarizer, it was completely black in portrait mode while wearing sunglasses.  @kjhank @sandofsky I had a car with an LCD instrument panel like that. If you wore Polaroid sunglasses you had to tilt your head to see how fast you were going 🤣 @sandofsky "Adblockers are not allowed in reality. Please disable so that you may continue enjoying existence." ~Google @sandofsky Thanks.  @sandofsky ok now I want to know how that works… like why it works. Does that mean I can’t watch tv with my sunglasses? Too lazy to go out to the car and get my sunglasses.. besides it’s cold and snowy at the moment.  @sandofsky sssssh some industry lobbyist will see this and work to make polarized sunglasses illegal  @sandofsky yeah, they're designed to filter out horizontally polarized light, which helps reduce glare from surfaces such as water or shiny objects. when the light from the billboard's monitor is emitted vertically, it becomes blocked by the polarized lenses of the sunglasses, rendering the ad invisible to the wearer @sandofsky I often wonder about AR glasses and whether they would one day be able to be smart enough to block real life ads. One can dream. @sandofsky this reminds me of the classic film “They Live” starring Rowdy Roddy Piper. If you haven’t seen it, worth a watch, still relevant!  For the full fashion experience, I can recommend polarized Originals from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Eyewear :)  @sandofsky Way back when I first got my Fitbit Alta (the small thing that just had a step tracker and a watch; no other fancy apps), I was wearing my polarized sunglasses while fishing, and I thought the Fitbit had died, because I could not get the clock to light up. Turned out that I just couldn't see it with my polarized lenses.   @sandofsky Noice! ...Our OLED phone is polarized /diagonally/... there should be big round glasses with rotating filters!  @sandofsky I‘m always surprised about the iPad. It is in one direction brighter than in the other but my sunglasses don‘t block it, not even diagonal @sandofsky I love my polarized sunglasses. Good to know they block ads too. lol I like how I get little random rainbow shows that other people don't see. @sandofsky sunglasses aren't polarised. Light is. These sunglasses are polarising FILTERs. @sandofsky I know someone who wanted to create ad blocker glasses like this, 10 years ago. Or a least a paint that you can cover on the billboards :D @sandofsky What you want to now is somehow paste something over the billboard that's transparent in normal light but displays "WATCH TV", "CONSUME", etc. a la billboards in "They Live" ;)   @sandofsky@mastodon.social because these billboards are just monitors rotated 90 degrees, they're vulnerable to being fucking turned off :stronk:  @sandofsky it would probably end up being used for more ads, but I think it would be cool if there were some easy way to sneak art of some sort over these ads for when you're wearing polarized glasses.   @sandofsky In other news, Google floats the idea of a "street safety" API in which everyone is forced to tilt their heads sideways. @sandofsky So those "adblock glasses" with 90° rotated glass they sold on Kickstarter a few years ago would not have worked on them? No perfect solution yet. Sigh |
@sandofsky surprise win!