Blue light, especially, can be unpleasant for cells.
Red and near IR, conversely, seems to be used for tissue regeneration and low-power laser therapy.
Agreed
A 600W one can pay for itself! 
Well, I think âhardware as serviceâ is actually more awful than software as service. There is an actual piece of junk being thrown out every month. It may be very little compared to the total volume of trash created, but itâs the thousands of little choices that add up to a huge waste.
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On the other hand, one personâs waste is another personâs assortment of free parts.
Or an almost-functional device that usually needs only a minor repair.
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They are already mining the landfills, I guess.
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Well, it may not quite be BS. Phototherapy is an accepted means of treating a number of dermatological disorders. The companyâs website references a number of clinical studies (e.g., http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10809858) that shows that red and blue light is effective against acne in a double-blinded study. But doing it at home comes with a lot of problems (especially without clinical oversight). And the DRM business is simply ludicrous.
Iâve never gotten in trouble for stealing from the dump⌠OK, well, my family gets pretty annoyed if I come back with more junk than I left with, thatâs true. But the state has never tried to keep me from salvaging wheelbarrows, pickle buckets, sheet foam and antique furniture from the landfill. Itâs dirty work, the mud tends to be pretty deep at the drop-off point.
Iâve occasionally gotten in trouble for taking stuff out of recycling bins, although I always leave more than I take 
.
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Whether intentionally or not, Iâd say the company broke the device and you fixed it. Youâre not renting the equipment, so I donât see how they can claim that youâre contravening anything. @Jim_Kirkâs water heater tank was designed to rust in 16 years, +/- 6 months. If you designed an effective coating to stop that from happening, presumably you would void the warranty by not using approved equipment (not that warranties are actually worth anything in most cases*), but youâre not really doing anything other than maintenance. In this case, IANAL, but circumvention doesnât seem to apply here:
(A) to âcircumvent a technological measureâ means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
(B) a technological measure âeffectively controls access to a workâ if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
Planned self-destruction doesnât seem to be a technological measure under this definition - the device works, then the equipment makes it not work after a certain number of uses. The âtechnological measureâ isnât making the device work, itâs making it die. I wouldnât want to argue that in court though.
*I voided the warranty on my smartphoneâs charging unit by inserting a foreign object into it (the charger they provided).
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Based on that wording, I would probably say you are right. I believe that this device fits (A) - you are definitely bypassing, avoiding or deactivating part of the device and âcircumventing a technological measure.â
But on the other hand, (B) seems pretty problematic for them. There is no âapplication of informationâ or âprocess of treatmentâ to gain access, so the measure doesnât effectively control access. The device simply shuts itself off after a while. DRM allows a company to control who has access and what people can do with a device. If it was âAfter the first month you can use this once a decade by mailing us to get a special one-use codeâ then, sure, that would be controlling access. But that definition doesnât seem to allow for DRM that simply denies all access to everyone at all times.
Iâd go rather for anodic protection here. Bolt on a sacrificial electrode, for example, or use an external power supply.
Yup, and whatever the law say, we have the intrinsic, gods-given right to repair, mod, and improve our gear. This right is independent on laws, it is dependent only on our equipment and knowledge.
You likely wonât have to; the probability they catch you is rather minuscule. Donât ask for permission, and whip out the soldering iron.
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If Acmeâs water heater rusts through in 16 years, Iâm not necessarily going to replace it with a new Acme Water Heater. In fact, I might well look at brands other than Acme.
At least a water heater that rusts through doesnât do this under any circumstances short of modifying it to do so:
Yeah seems questionable to me, especially considering the instructions on their site contradict themselves:
Why would your eyes need to be open to âachieve the benefitâ?
Because the most popular hypothesis for the mechanism for SAD is that the non-vision light-sensitive cells in the retina (intrinsically Photosensitive retinal ganglion cells) that connect back to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (which controls circadian rhythm) arenât being adequately stimulated during the winter in temperate (and more northern/southern) latitudes. The lack of direct sunlight causes the circadian rhythm to become dis-regulated, resulting in problems with sleep and wakefulness, stress, depression and fatigue.
So thatâs why you need to actually have your eyes open for SAD light treatment to work. If your eyes are closed, then those ganglions arenât getting stimulated. And we all know ganglion stimulation is super important. Especially in the middle of winter, when thereâs really nothing better to do
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This might be of interest.
Two things:
Conclusion The results of this ***pilot study*** support the hypothesis that light therapy with the Litebook is an effective treatment for SAD.Emphasis mine, and
Of the 26 participants randomized, 23 completed the trial.
This doesnât qualify as acceptable evidence for making a medical decision. The n is way too small. Also, they inappropriately used ANOVA in their analysis even though there were only two statistical groups. ANOVA is often used in clinical trials to massage favorable results out of inadequately powered studies.
ETA: Further reading through the study protocol appears to include some self-contradictions. The study claims to be double-blinded, but several paragraphs in, says that during the randomization process, the physicians handing out the Litebooks, and controls were unblinded. So, this isnât really a double-blind test at all.
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