What it's like to be color blind

[Timepass]

you know there is something us normal people to have an idea on what it like to be color blind.
On your computer open up the spot where you can adjust the how much red, blue and Green that the monitor puts out. Turn off one of the red or the green and see how it looks.

I wonder if what looks lets looks like white to the color blind would have like a blue, red or green hue to use because it missing that color of light.

 

[SilentPanda]

you know there is something us normal people to have an idea on what it like to be color blind.
On your computer open up the spot where you can adjust the how much red, blue and Green that the monitor puts out. Turn off one of the red or the green and see how it looks.

I wonder if what looks lets looks like white to the color blind would have like a blue, red or green hue to use because it missing that color of light.

If you look at some of the other posts in this thread there are several good websites that allow you to see "as a color blind person". I don't believe that simply changing your RGB sliders is a good method. Then again I'm colorblind so who am I to talk?

 

[dukebound85]

heres a cool websight. Not sure if it has been posted earlier since I havn't read the whole thread but it's cool none the less

http://www.toledo-bend.com/colorblind/Ishihara.html

 

[Doctor Q]

When you compose a MacRumors forum post, vBulletin used to let you pick colors by name, and I could easily use that feature.

Now you get a drop-down palette with color swatches instead of names, with no mouseover text, and I can no longer pick the color I want.

For example, if I'm posting a warning and want it to be red, I have to try various colors and see what tags get inserted. I just tried to pick red and got dark green instead. Eventually, I'll learn which colors are where in the palette, but for me the vBulletin upgrade was a step backward.

Edit: I've also attached a simulation of how I see the palette.

 

[SilentPanda]

Eventually, I'll learn which colors are where in the palette, but for me the vBulletin upgrade was a step backward.

I didn't even notice it had been changed! Change it back or I'm taking my football and going home!!!!

Actually I usually just type the color name...

 

[Doctor Q]

As a young teen I was hired by some neighbors to water their garden. One day they said they didn't want me to work for them any more, without saying why. My mom found out later it was because I didn't water the brown areas that needed water more than the green areas. I didn't realize I was missing crucial information and they never asked me about it. I had to give up my career in horticulture and become a computer scientist instead.

That's from a post of mine from earlier in this thread. While searching for something else in the forums yesterday, I discovered that I had mentioned my ill-fated gardening job once before, in the Your worst job thread a year ago, although I didn't mention then why I was so incompetent.

I'm also pretty bad at choosing socks that match. When I was a kid, I had socks of various colors, so my mom sewed a bit of yellow thread into some of them to help me distinguish them. Wasn't that nice? These days, most of my socks are black or white, and that avoids the issue.

iPod mini colors are another challenge. None of the four shades are ones I can easily identify. If I didn't already know the answers, I'd look at this photo and guess #1 is silver or pink or grey, #2 is green or light brown, #3 is blue or purple, and #4 is blue or purple. Which makes it kinda funny that StarbucksSam used the iPod mini avatar I created for him here, even though it didn't depend on the colors.

 

[Doctor Q]

Here's a fun game: Click the Color. It uses the Stroop effect to confuse you, by showing you the name of a color written in a possibly-different color. You have only a second or two to click a button to identify the color, but the word you see tends to confuse you.

I get the addition challenge of telling the colors apart in the first place. The green and yellow are very similar to me. Without seeing them side by side I tend to guess wrong a fair percentage of the time. One of the color appears grey, so I assume that's pink.

But I got to Level 2 once!

 

[SilentPanda]

I got to level 2 but the green/yellow are the same to me (at least with the time allotted)... so no dice here.

 

[dotdotdot]

You can probibly take me off that list thing... because I have none of the things described in this thread...

except I can hardly see the 3.

(i.e., this is my request to have my name removed from that list thing)

 

[Doctor Q]

Today while driving I found myself behind a school bus, stopped in the right-hand lane of a street with two lanes going each direction. On the back it said "Stop when red lights flash".

It had two pairs of lights on the back, an outer pair and an inner pair. One pair was flashing (the inner pair, I think), and the other pair was unlit. The flashing pair looked yellow to me, but I stopped in case they were red.

A car passed us in the other lane, which could mean that the bus lights were not red, that the other driver didn't notice the bus, or that the other driver was breaking the law. I didn't see any children get on or off the bus and it started moving again in 10 or 20 seconds, and that was that.

Do those school busses have yellow lights that flash, in additional to red? If so, what do they mean? And if not, do people commonly pass the bus anyway when the red lights are flashing? I've had this happen to me a couple of times.

 

[emw]

School buses do indeed have two sets of lights. The outer lights are red, and the inner lights are yellow (or amber).

When the yellow lights are flashing, it is still "safe" to pass, but they indicate that the bus is about to turn on the red lights (either it's slowing, or it's stopped and waiting for some cars to pass).

 

[iMeowbot]

Do those school busses have yellow lights that flash, in additional to red?

Yeah, they started to become more common a few years ago.

If so, what do they mean?

It's about the same as a yellow traffic light, prepare for a stop. Passing is still allowed in some places, at reduced speed.

 

[Doctor Q]

Here's a handy driving tip: If you are color blind, feel free to run stop signs anytime you like. If you get stopped for it, simply explain that you are color blind and thought the stop sign was green. I'm sure the nice officer will understand completely, and send you on your way without further hassle.

If this doesn't work, or if you are crushed by a Mac truck because you didn't stop when you should have stopped, then never mind.

On a more scientific note, I remember a fun physics homework problem. The problem was to figure out how fast someone (with normal color vision) would have to drive through a red traffic signal so that it would appear green to them due to the Doppler effect. Perhaps that information would be more practical than my stop sign suggestion.

 

[WildCowboy]

If this doesn't work, or if you are crushed by a Mac truck because you didn't stop when you should have stopped, then never mind.

How about a Big Mac Truck?

Or our very own MacTruck?

 

[Doctor Q]

I was looking for an old thread where something color-related and embarrassing happened to me. I finally found it, just now.

Look at my post here, the pie chart I made, and the posts a few below it by Mr. Anderson and Rower_CPU.

I had no idea I had put a pink section in my pie chart. I thought it was a shade of blue. Luckily, Rower_CPU didn't mind, so I didn't bother to explain that I couldn't tell the difference.

 

[Doctor Q]

Here is an interesting color blindness test, called the the Farsworth test:

http://www.univie.ac.at/Vergl-Physiologie/colortest/colortestF-en.html

You arrange buttons based on your perception (with little guidance as to how), and then see your choices in the form of a path in color space. Those who don't see color properly tend to produce a crisscrossed path.

My path was indeed crossed, but only at the lower left side. The other factors they measure and report are a bit hard to interpret.

 

[Jaffa Cake]

Hmm... if I'm reading my results correctly, my colour vision is spot on. That's reassuring for this graphic designer to know.

 

[imacintel]

I can see the red green- but I see an 8.

 

[Doctor Q]

Anybody who has seen the movie Fargo will recall a particularly bloody scene near the end, when Frances McDormand's character catches one of the bad guys in the act.

When I saw it for the first time, I sat there wondering why those around me were groaning and wincing. I didn't know there was any blood in the scene at all. I learned it only later when somebody explained it to me. Perhaps I'm lucky.

 

[Jesus]

The thread (and in particular Doctor Q's post above) has reminded me of studying a poem that became my absolute favourite for a period of time. It was about a colourblind man who goes off to fight in World War One and how he dies in a field, surrounded by red grass, covered in lumenesent green blood. Powerful image.

 

[vanzskater272]

Yeah im color blind but not many people belive me they think I am just acting stupid.lol

 

[Doctor Q]

Yeah im color blind but not many people belive me they think I am just acting stupid.lol

"You got the color wrong. Why don't you just study the colors harder until you know them?"

Sound familiar?

 

[skunk]

Should I be worried? Doesn't look good to me. Funny thing is, my clients always like my colour advice...

 

[WildCowboy]

Should I be worried? Doesn't look good to me. Funny thing is, my clients always like my colour advice...

Nope...that's a great result.

 

[skunk]

Nope...that's a great result.

Well I certainly couldn't see the three, and I'm always confusing greens and browns, but I guess my colour blindness must be mild. I thought it looked like the axis was at a right angle to what it should be. Maybe I just can't see it...