If it's so DANGEROUS why isn't there some kind of active display filter available to dampen temporal frequencies between 2 and 55Hz?
That, and--though it wouldn't have helped in this case--the most I heard about epilepsy complaints is on forums with flashy animated GIF images. Why do they browse with GIF animation enabled? Really, if it's such a health hazard, and images posted on a forum can give you dangerous seizures, why would you take a risk and trust on the goodwill of the community and take your chances with the occasional troll?
I don't want to dismiss the problem, not at all, I just wonder about the victim mentality displayed and lack of proactiveness.
Especially the display filter. If it's an actual health hazard, you shouldn't be asking people not to show flashing imagery on their sites, you should be taking action yourself, making sure your computer display is unable to display this imagery. Any kind of modern 3D GFX card should easily be able to detect flashing areas and dampen and/or motion blur them so they're safe, without much processing power needed. You'll be erring on the side of caution of course, so some video content might be degraded (though with a well-designed filter this should be minimal) so you'll want a key-combo to (at your own risk) temporarily disable the filter (with a parental lock for the children, of course).
Yeah, it would be great if everyone who had epilepsy was up to hacking their video card driver to simulate an e-ink display's slow updates. I'm interested to hear what modifications you've made to your own system software to make it suit your preferences.
Except that it's not even that. In firefox there is just a setting that disables animating gifs, if this is something that is affecting a significant number of people at any significant level of danger, then why don't people disable it?
It seems to me that the most likely explanation is that the risk is so minimal that people with epilepsy aren't even willing to give up lolcat gifs for it, though it is possible that people are unable to conceive of a setting existing to disable a largely unnecessary feature in a piece of software.
If it is a significant danger, and people don't realize you can disable it, then that seems to indicate a significant failing of the entire system, from doctors to parents to people taking care of themselves properly. I really want to believe that it isn't the case.
That, and--though it wouldn't have helped in this case--the most I heard about epilepsy complaints is on forums with flashy animated GIF images. Why do they browse with GIF animation enabled? Really, if it's such a health hazard, and images posted on a forum can give you dangerous seizures, why would you take a risk and trust on the goodwill of the community and take your chances with the occasional troll?
I don't want to dismiss the problem, not at all, I just wonder about the victim mentality displayed and lack of proactiveness.
Especially the display filter. If it's an actual health hazard, you shouldn't be asking people not to show flashing imagery on their sites, you should be taking action yourself, making sure your computer display is unable to display this imagery. Any kind of modern 3D GFX card should easily be able to detect flashing areas and dampen and/or motion blur them so they're safe, without much processing power needed. You'll be erring on the side of caution of course, so some video content might be degraded (though with a well-designed filter this should be minimal) so you'll want a key-combo to (at your own risk) temporarily disable the filter (with a parental lock for the children, of course).