So, my brother shared this color test with our sibling group chat:
What's My ΔE(OK) JND?
He also shared the very long explanatory post (which is also linked in the test results page) https://www.keithcirkel.co.uk/too-much-color/
Anyway, my first try got me a score of 0.0041, and my second score was 0.0028, which is the creators best score too! (you can find it shortly after the bullet points under the first heading after the title in the explanation post.)
Human vision is hacks upon hacks upon hacks. Forget about how our brains just make wild guesses about things we see, or how there are whole parts of your vision that your brain can't see and just does "content aware fill" on it, or how your peripheral vision isn't nearly as good as you think it is.
Our brains just make up colors because we don't like to see two colors next to each other.
Magenta doesn't exist.
****
“Ugh, what is going on?” The Gren moved to cover their eyes as they staggered back, their reverse articulated legs unsteady.
“What? What is it? What’s wrong Peni’tam?” Jalisa stared at her friend as they moved back, their 2 pairs of eyes squeezed tightly shut.
“That… that thing. It hurts to look at!“ Peni’tam finall turned away and with their back to it, opened their eyes. They looked down at Jalisa. “It doesn’t hurt for you to look at? Is it some kind of human weapon?”
Jalisa peered around Pani’tam. Behind her, on the landing platform was a starship. It was small as starships go, likely only holding 4 or 5 people. With a Flip drive, you didn’t really need a large spacecraft for anything. Most destinations were no more than two or three days away, but humans tended to build large anyway. No reason not to when space is nearly limitless. Interdiction ship probably. Military, or at least formerly military.
It was small and sleek, with very few protrusions. Currently sitting on spindly landing legs, it almost looked like an insect.
It was also bright magenta.
“It’s just a ship Peni’tam. The color is a little unusual, but humans tend to paint their ships wild colors anyway. It’s got a bit of a dazzle camo pattern, made up in two or three shades of magenta.”
“Magenta? What’s that?” Now that Peni’tam wasn’t facing the ship they were much more steady on their feet.
“It’s just a color. Like, a really bright pinky purple?” Jalisa looked down at her pad. “Here, let me see if it’s emitting something.” She touched a few points and ran a scan. “Pani’tam, it’s cold. Even the reactor is off. It must be here for a refit.”
Pani’tam turned again and immediately winced. “Ow! No, something is up. That ship hurts to look at. I don’t mean like figuratively, I mean, literally it is painful. It is doing something.”
“Well, let’s step away from it then. We can find another way to the cafe. I just wanted to pass by the pads because I like to look at the ships.” Jalisa said, wistfully.
They went to the cafe by circling around the station past the gymnasium. Inside, Jalisa saw people running and lifting weights that seemed almost comically tiny until she looked over at the sign over the entrance.
OPERATING AT THREE GEE TODAY. EXERCISE CAUTIOUSLY.
She rolled her eyes. Of course the gym nuts would find a way to use the gravity generators to make the workouts more intense.
At the cafe, Jalisa and Peni’tam got their drinks and sat down at a wide, long table. “I just can’t believe that color doesn’t hurt you.” Pani’tam took a sip of their tea. “Your vision must be completely different than ours.”
Another human at the table heard their conversation and turned. “Oh, you saw the Variegated Elegy?”
“The little magenta ship? Yeah, Peni’tam here-“ Jalisa gestured at her friend “-got a massive headache when she tried to look at it.”
The human nodded. “I’m not surprised. It’s an old interdiction ship, originally designed to strike deep into Gren territory during the war. Now that the war is over, it’s here to be refitted into a yacht, and probably repainted too.”
“Oh really? That’s too bad. The magenta dazzle camo is so interesting.” Jalisa sipped her coffee and looked at the human. She was tall, with close cropped hair on one side, and the rest was swept up almost into a dark asymmetric pompadour. She was wearing a tailored uniform without any indicators of rank and just two silver pips on her left breast. She had a scar along her right cheek as well. She looked very rakish, and Jalisa had to look away quickly.
The human laughed. “It’s pretty neat isn’t it? Unfortunately, the Confederation races can’t process magenta. For some it just looks like a very odd blue, others see a very odd red. A few races like the Gren with very accurate color reproduction get headaches and it causes them pain. The color was chosen on purpose for that particular ship.”
“A color… hurts? Also I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
The woman winks. “I didn’t throw it. You can call me Tyler.”
Jalisa blushes just a bit. “Hi Tyler, I’m Jalisa.”
Tyler nods. “Works over in HVAC with Pam and Lan’urian? Nice to meetcha.”
How did she know that? Tyler continues. “Anyway. Yeah, for the Gren, when they see magenta they try and process it, but since the wavelength for blue will never be with the wavelength for red, the color can’t really exist.”
“But we see it?” Her coffee forgotten, Jalisa leans forward.
Tyler laughs. “That’s because our eyes are hacks upon hacks upon hacks. Half the things we ‘see’ aren’t real. Our brains just invent magenta when we put red and blue next to each other. We learned early in the war about Gren vision processing and were able to use it to our advantage. Now that the war’s over, we’re retiring the pain job. Gotta be good members of the Confederation after all.” Tyler rips off a sharp - though sarcastic - salute.
“So, the color of the ship itself is a weapon?” Peni’tam said, with a note of amazement in their voice.
“Yup! Pretty neat right? A weapon with no power and no ammunition and still causes nearly incapacitating pain if a Gren doesn’t look away.”
Jalisa looks at Tyler more closely. She seems so effortlessly confident. “How do you know so much about this, Tyler?”
Tyler shrugs. “Oh, it’s my ship. In the war I was an Intelligence Collection Agent and I ran the Variegated with a small tight crew.”
Jalisa nearly chokes on her tea. “You’re a spy?”
“Was a spy. War’s over, so we don’t need spy’s anymore, right?” Tyler winked again. Jalisa wasn’t sure if Peni’tam caught the gesture or knew what it meant. A wink was very situational and could mean lots of things. Tyler tossed back the rest of her coffee. “Anyway, I’m here for a few more weeks while the refit takes place.” She stands and looks down at Jalisa. “I’m free tonight. Call me, we’ll get dinner.” And without another word, she turns and walks out of the cafe.
After she left, Peni’tam stares at Jalisa. “You aren’t going to go to dinner with her are you?”
“And why not, Peni’tam?”
“She’s a spy! She spied on us during the war!” Peni’tam’s grey fur ripples and her mouthparts clack with stress.
“The war is over Peni’tam. Everyone on both sides fought it. I’m sure you had plenty of your own spies.”
Peni’tam shakes their head. The fur whooshes back and forth while they do it. “She’s so… cocky and self-assured. She practically made your date invitation a command.”
Jalisa blushed again. “I know. It was pretty cool.”
do you have colour vision deficiency? And if yes, what’s your (birth) gender if it’s not too personal? (It‘s about the X chromosome so men have it more often than women, just curious ^^)
Thanks to @about-that-teenie-girl2 for the poll request! Keep 'em coming, folks.
Do you have colour vision deficiency (colour blindness)? If yes, what is your birth gender?
Light bulbs are ranked in color from reddish to bluish light based on their “color temperature” - what temperature of glowing metal would emit the same color. A “warm white” bulb could be 2800 Kelvin, neutral white 3500 K, and noon sunlight 5500 K.
Metal heated to 1250K does not emit what humans call visible light. It does, however, emit infrared light, which is visible to a pit viper - thanks to the pit organs on her face.
