电光天空、交通信号灯设计以及其他值得关注的理由

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本文发表于《大众科学》的前博客网络,反映了作者的观点,不一定代表《大众科学》的观点。


世界正在试图提醒你保持警觉,不要认为一切理所当然。不要忽视日常事物:在那里寻找突破。

考虑一下一家德国电气工程公司创造的电光天空,它旨在模仿真实蓝天下生活中不断变化的云景。根据Wired.co.uk 上的一篇文章,这个想法是通过让他们感觉仿佛身处户外来改善员工的幸福感。每块天花板瓷砖都是 50 厘米见方,并使用 288 个 LED 灯在全光谱中产生数百万种必要的颜色。漫射光栅——还记得旧的装满圣诞彩灯的扬声器箱商店项目吗?——赋予整个装置朦胧、多云的效果。

在 Wired 文章中,Matthias Bues 博士表示,波动的色彩“有助于集中注意力和提高警觉性”。志愿者在面板下花费时间,当面板缓慢波动、快速波动或保持不变时,他们更喜欢快速波动,这似乎最像真实的户外环境。


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当你真的在户外时,注意一下像交通信号灯这样简单的东西。Weburbanist.com 上的这篇文章调查了一些很棒的新设计,这些设计使信号灯能够给你更多信息——例如,通过沙漏、倒计时、形状或时钟表面——通过让你知道你需要等待多久来防止沮丧并使交通更顺畅。异形灯也有助于色盲人士。在你真正关注之前,你不知道你能从你的交通信号灯获得多少更多信息,对吧?

最后,对于一般的注意力培养,请查看《城市工程观察者指南》,这是一本介于袖珍便携的《路边技术野外指南》和不可替代但笨重的《基础设施:工业景观万物手册》之间的新书。《观察者指南》有点像放在袖珍《野外指南》和百科全书式的《基础设施》之间的厕所读物。对于口袋来说太大,但又不是非常详尽,它是一个很棒的入门之地——运河船闸是如何工作的?世界上最复杂的环形交叉路口?一种卷曲而不是升降或旋转的活动桥梁?这一切都在这里。

现在,请注意。

Scott Huler was born in 1959 in Cleveland and raised in that city's eastern suburbs. He graduated from Washington University in 1981; he was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa because of the breadth of his studies, and that breadth has been a signature of his writing work. He has written on everything from the death penalty to bikini waxing, from NASCAR racing to the stealth bomber, for such newspapers as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Los Angeles Times and such magazines as ESPN, Backpacker, and Fortune. His award-winning radio work has been heard on "All Things Considered" and "Day to Day" on National Public Radio and on "Marketplace" and "Splendid Table" on American Public Media. He has been a staff writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Raleigh News & Observer and a staff reporter and producer for Nashville Public Radio. He was the founding and managing editor of the Nashville City Paper. He has taught at such colleges as Berry College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His books include Defining the Wind, about the Beaufort Scale of wind force, and No-Man's Lands, about retracing the journey of Odysseus.

His most recent book, On the Grid, was his sixth. His work has been included in such compilations as Appalachian Adventure and in such anthologies as Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont, The Appalachian Trail Reader and Speed: Stories of Survival from Behind the Wheel.

For 2014-2015 Scott is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, which is funding his work on the Lawson Trek, an effort to retrace the journey of explorer John Lawson through the Carolinas in 1700-1701.

He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, the writer June Spence, and their two sons.

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