Comments on: Colorblindness

By: Brad

Brad — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 12:47:30 +0000

Hi would just like to say that I being colour blind did not find a problem distingishing RGB(255,255,0), from RGB(0,255,0). I also found that I could see the 5 fruits in the first pic. Apperently I am weak in red however I have only ever found this on the tests. Traffic lights are no problem for me and I have never got confused between a green and red flashing lights. I have found that it’s justthe accasional shades that i get wrong normally blue/purple red/brown red/green as the red eliment must be slightly weaker. This however is a majorly overplayed issue I would like it to not be an issue attoll unless you suffered from not being able to distingish basic colours such as the prime colours. The fact that this is able to be used as a discrimination excuse for employers is unacceptable. There is a cure in development useing gene theory which I am awaiting as I want to be a pilot.

I would also like to see more education in health professionals to be able to let the less effected colour blind people just live like normal people. I suffer from nothink else and did not even relise I was colourblind untill I did the stupid dots test. If not I wouldn’t even know now. There could be a much higher number of suffers out there who didn’t even now. Therefore why is it played up to be a probblem. I have not yet come across any evidience to show that being colour blind has caused crash, explosions or desasters. Its just played up to discriminate aggainst normal people!

By: Bill Dwyer

Bill Dwyer — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 21:44:00 +0000

Have you guys heard of human tetrachromates, who have four color cones instead of three and who can see colors normal trichromates (having only three color cones) cannot see? All of these human tetrachomates (and there are very few) are female. Just as trichromates can discriminate between colors that look the same to color-blind dichromates, so tetrachromates can discriminate between colors that look the same to trichromates.

Question? Are trichromates color-blind relative to tetracromates, just as dichromates are relative to trichromates? Or are they just differently color-sensitive? That was a PC joke! There are also other animals (birds, I think, and maybe some insects) who are tetrachromate and even some who are pentachromate (I think that’s the word for it), with five color cones. Are we color-blind relative to them? Yes, I think we are. Our color senses don’t give us as much information in response to different wave lengths of light as theirs do. And, of course, many four-legged mammals are dichromates. So they are color-blind relative to animals with more than two color cones.

So, if you happen to meet a tetrachromate who tells you that you look flushed, pay attention. She may be telling you something!

By: Pete Dunkelberg

Pete Dunkelberg — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 19:53:24 +0000

You’ve go to see this exploration by Wendy Carlos, a musician:

http://www.wendycarlos.com/colorvis/color3.html

Do you (if you can see red and green) consider yourself color blind because lots of bugs and birds see ultraviolet?

By: dr. dave

dr. dave — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:55:04 +0000

I should note here that this kind of colorblindness is not an either/or thing, but rather a continuum. For instance, I can’t see the 45 (although I can tell that something fishy going on there) but I can usually tell a green banana from a yellow one and DEFINITELY a yellow traffic light from a red light. I can tell RGB(255,255,0), from RGB(0,255,0) easily side by side, but I might occasionally label an isolated light green as yellow, or a light blue as purple.

(And yes… the color blindness tests freaked out MY wife too!)

By: Peter Szabo Gabor

Peter Szabo Gabor — Tue, 10 May 2005 09:11:55 +0000

Well, I think Dweep looks very good though. If you drew it all by yourself then congratulations. If you outsourced it than you had to trust the artist quite well!

This article link about colour-blindness was very valuable info for me, thanks!

By: Tony

Tony — Sat, 07 May 2005 21:38:28 +0000

The protagonist of Robert Sawyer’s latest novel (”Mindscan”) is colorblind. When he has (a copy of) his mind uploaded to a new body, his colorblindness is cured. Some interesting passages on what its like to suddenly see “new” colors.

By: Daniel Ehlke

Daniel Ehlke — Thu, 05 May 2005 22:44:11 +0000

My computer monitor has individual adjustments for the percentage of the R(ed), G(reen) and B(lue) values of the monitor image. Normally they are all at 100%, so I see everything on the monitor just like in reality (I have “normal” color vision).
But when I set the value for red to zero, I found out that I can easily simulate red-green colorblindness. This “simulation” isn’t perfect, but I don’t need to have extra hard- or software.
Setting red to zero, I also fail in tests like these “Colour Blindness Tests”:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/teares/gktvc/vc/lt/colourblindness/cblind.htm
And the pictures at the site you mentioned also appear to be (almost) the same then.

By: Dmitry Chestnykh

Dmitry Chestnykh — Thu, 05 May 2005 11:49:26 +0000

anonymous: AFAIK, Dexterity.com was all yellow-blue, so there’s no connection.

By: Ali

Ali — Thu, 05 May 2005 07:01:33 +0000

Hmm.. steve is also color blind. Is it just me, or are all successful people color blind? (I know another guy that I idealize, and he’s color blind too)

By: Dustin coffey

Dustin coffey — Thu, 05 May 2005 06:42:57 +0000

Nice! I have a younger brother who is deaf so I understand that one. I have to say I would rather be color blind than deaf, but that is from a musical standpoint.

By: Bert

Bert — Wed, 04 May 2005 20:31:46 +0000

My sister used her husband’s color blindness to her advantage — she got the pink house she always wanted…and never told him.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Wed, 04 May 2005 16:04:06 +0000

Hi Steve, I always wondered about the color selection on Dexterity.com… it seemed less professional than your other efforts. Now I understand

By: Entrepreneur's Journey

Entrepreneur's Journey — Wed, 04 May 2005 09:31:46 +0000

Time Management and Perceptions

Over at the YoungEntrepreneur.com forums there is a discussion about time management. Another member posted a link to an article by Steve Pavlina titled Do It Now. It’s a lengthy article so set aside a good 20 minutes to digest…

By: Tess

Tess — Wed, 04 May 2005 09:21:51 +0000

This is so very interesting. I’ve never understood colour blindness before and reading your post and checking out the pictures at Vischeck has finally made it click for me. If I thought about it at all before, I always thought it was just some minor lack of visual adjustment that meant colour blind people couldn’t be pilots. Now I get it.
I love stuff like this that helps people understand each other better.

By: Harvey

Harvey — Wed, 04 May 2005 08:33:40 +0000

I heard of an instance where this disability turned out to be an advantage. A friend of mine who flew fighter bombers in Korea had a colleague who had an unerring ability to pick out camouflage nets over potential targets in the jungle. It turned out that he was color blind and had cheated his way through the pilot’s examination by memorizing the numbers in the colored-dot tests, and he saw the camouflage completely differently from what it was intended to look like.