
Archaeologists investigate what life was like after dark in the ancient world - pepys
https://psmag.com/news/historical-night-life
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signal11
Very interesting. There was one other scholarly work in this general area —
but that was comparatively much more recent: Roger Ekirch’s “At Day’s Close”
[1], which is very well-researched and covers pre-artificial-light Europe.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/At-Days-Close-Night-
Times/dp/03933290...](https://www.amazon.com/At-Days-Close-Night-
Times/dp/0393329011)

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throwaway5752
I've wondered how particulate pollution affects this, also. Discussions on
this topic always seem to always focus on light pollution, but anyone taking a
flight can see a haze just about anywhere from pollution. I'd imagine it
diffuses incoming light from extraterrestrial sources and it reflects light
pollution, for a double-whammy.

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jhallenworld
An associated topic is the history of artificial lighting. A good exhibit is
the one at Old Sturbridge Village. Here are some pictures of it:

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/mytravelphotos/14693172893/in/...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/mytravelphotos/14693172893/in/photostream/)

It's crazy to me that no so long ago people had to make do with rushlights
which were far more primitive than the oil lamps of the ancient world.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rushlight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rushlight)

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vinceguidry
As I optimize my daily life, I find myself needing less sleep, and with more
time to kill at night. I'm starting to get very familiar with the brightness
control features of all my devices, as it's physically painful now to look at
too much light at night.

But I can now go to bed at ten or so and wake up at three, and so long as I
avoid light sources I can get a lot done. I just wish my fridge had a night
mode.

~~~
TheDanielD
I'm curious about what optimizations you are making that reduce your need for
sleep (as someone with lots of things they want to do and not enough time in
the day to do them all). If you wouldn't mind briefly sharing I'd be much
obliged.

~~~
vinceguidry
They mostly revolve around turning things of my life that you ordinarily would
handle as one-offs, as structured, routine tasks. This reduces my daily
cognitive load, allowing me to spend ever more time with my default mode
network activated instead of in focus state.

So if I'm ever in a situation where I'm not really quite sure what to do, I
come up with a rule and do it that way the next time.

I've been optimizing this process for perhaps a year after I got interested in
it. Everything in my apartment has a history and a little set of rules. I keep
a spray bottle of daily shower cleaner in my bathroom. It lives on the ledge
of the sink when I'm not using the sink and moves to the lid of the toilet
when I am. I don't feel comfortable yet putting it away because I think if I
do that I'll forget to use it after I take a shower. Maybe in another year.

Having to remember to do stuff sucks. I always make a visual reminder. A few
times I forgot to put washed clothes in the dryer. Now when I'm washing
clothes the hamper gets put in the way of the door so I can't miss it.

Nothing stays in mind, so it's free to imagine and wander. I do this at work
too, every task gets routinized. Very rarely am I caught off guard with not
knowing how to do something.

About a year in I noticed myself naturally waking up earlier. It helps that I
don't set an alarm clock anymore. But I'm routinely the first one on my team
into the office anyway.

I live alone, and I've often wondered how my lifestyle would alter if I had to
live with somebody. Well, the few times I've had someone over regularly, my
routine adapted to accommodate them, I was surprised how easy it was. If
things got out of place, I'd just return them to their place when I noticed.
The little routines have accumulated their own inertia.

The most fascinating thing about it is, even though I feel like I'm _doing_ a
lot less, in reality a lot _more_ gets done than otherwise would be.
Routinizing something makes it ten times easier and take ten times less time
to accomplish. It's so worth doing that before I even get started I look for
ways to optimize.

I think this is how primitive peoples must've lived all the time. Tons of
stuff that needed to be done, day in, day out, over and over again. Optimize,
optimize, optimize.

~~~
TheDanielD
Thanks for your detailed reply! I have been attempting to incorporate more
routine in my life, but I hadn't considered the why, really. The concept of
reducing cognitive load makes sense, and I agree that "having to remember to
do stuff sucks" 100%.

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matte_black
The concept of night mayors is interesting, and I’d love to see the concept
extended further into other sectors of government.

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irrational
As I recall from the 1980s sitcom Night Court, there are night judges (though
I have no idea if that is a real thing, I doubt my town has night judges).

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adrianratnapala
Night Court was a great show.

The TV Tropes
([http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/NightCourt](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/NightCourt))
page says that "many legal professionals confide that Night Court is far
''more'' realistic than most straight Law Procedurals." I can't vouch for
that, but my father is a lawyer, and it was one of his favourite shows too.
His other favourite was Rumpole of the Bailey
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumpole_of_the_Bailey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumpole_of_the_Bailey).

The common thread here that both shows are both (a) funny, and (b) portray
defense lawyers as more-or-less good guys. (My father worked for the Attorney
General's department).

I can't think of a law procedural from the last two and a half decades that
has either of those features. Why is that?

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mmanfrin
This was unfortunately titled, there is a movie titled "What We Do in the
Dark".

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Fezzik
I think we are all thinking of 'What We Do in the Shadows'... FWIW. Great
movie.

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ryandvm
Came here wondering why the hell HN was discussing a mockumentary about
vampires...

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adrianratnapala
> From that point on, most people have had access to some form of "artificial"
> light, at least occasionally.

The scare quotes are silly. It seems to come from the mentality that any
technology that Hobbits can understand is "natural" but anything else isn't.

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jbattle
I've never understood why this topic is being studied primarily through
archaeology. There are plenty of humans alive today that live far from much
artificial light and could tell you exactly what their life is like right now,
what they did _last night_. Shouldn't have to be so hard / so mysterious

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imjustsaying
How are you going to contact people who live far from artificial light?
Typically that's concomitant with not having electricity needed for internet
communications, as that typically prevents powered cell phone internet
communication as well.

You could fly then drive there, but the costs are going to add up quickly.
You're going to have to find them, get someone to communicate with them, and
have liabilities covered. This quickly becomes very expensive with even just a
few people.

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bane
It's funny, just came back from a trip into the American South West. Stayed at
a cabin in the middle of nowhere on a 500 acre ranch surrounded by only the
wilderness and other giant ranches...on a new moon.

I've never seen so many stars in my life, even in places I thought of as raw
wilderness and I've spent quite a bit of time camping in national parks and so
on.

Those places seemed like light filled cities in comparison. It was about a 4
hour drive from the nearest major population center.

I suspect there's plenty of these places still left even in relatively
developed areas.

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derwiki
I felt that way at Capitol Reef. Where were you?

~~~
bane
Southwest Utah.

