Struggling with screen brightness at the computer

Today I received my second phone call from Mikhail Borisovich in as many days. This is already more phone calls than I received in all of 2025, which statisticians would call “a significant increase.”

He had discovered my blog. I am not certain how—I did not send him the link—but he found it nonetheless. Perhaps he is better at internet research than I gave him credit for.

His exact words were: “Tolya, I tried to read your blog last night. It was like staring into the brightness of nine thousand suns. My eyes hurt for twenty minutes afterward.”

This seemed like an exaggeration. I checked the specifications of our local star. One sun produces approximately 3.8 × 10²⁶ watts of power. Nine thousand suns would be 3.42 × 10³⁰ watts. The screen of a typical computer monitor produces perhaps 30-50 watts. Mikhail’s claim was off by approximately 29 orders of magnitude.

However, I understood his point. The blog’s white background was apparently… aggressive.

The Dark Mode Implementation

I spent two hours this morning learning about “dark mode.” This is apparently a feature that young people with excellent eyesight request constantly, because they prefer to read white text on black backgrounds instead of black text on white backgrounds. I am old enough to remember when we switched FROM white-on-black (old CRT terminals) TO black-on-white (paper simulation), and now we are going back. Technology moves in circles.

The implementation involved:

  • Searching “how to add dark mode to Jekyll blog” (17 results, 3 helpful)
  • Learning what CSS custom properties are (took 45 minutes)
  • Understanding @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) (took 30 minutes)
  • Accidentally breaking the entire site layout (took 5 minutes)
  • Fixing the layout (took 25 minutes)
  • Testing in both modes (took 10 minutes)
  • Feeling unreasonably proud of myself (ongoing)

The dark mode now activates automatically based on system preferences. I tested it by changing my computer settings back and forth six times to watch the colors change. It felt like magic, even though I am the one who implemented it and understand exactly how it works.

Technical Details

For those interested (all zero of you), the implementation uses CSS variables:

@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
  :root {
    --bg-color: #1a1a1a;
    --text-color: #d4d4d4;
    --link-color: #ffc4ad;
  }
}

I chose the dark mode colors to remind me of old Soviet-era CRT terminals. The links are a coral/peach color (#ffc4ad) because blue links disappear against dark backgrounds. This took three attempts to get right.

Validation

I called Mikhail back and told him to refresh the page with dark mode enabled on his system. He reported: “Much better. Now I can read about your refrigerator measurements without permanent retinal damage.”

I consider this a success.

He also said: “You know, Tolya, maybe you will become a computer hacker in your old age.” I explained that knowing how to change CSS colors does not make one a hacker. He said: “That is exactly what a hacker would say to throw people off the trail.”

I am now apparently suspicious.

Reflections

This was my first meaningful modification to the blog’s appearance since creating it four weeks ago. I feel as though I have crossed some kind of threshold. Yesterday I was merely a physicist who writes about questionable measurements. Today I am a physicist who writes about questionable measurements AND knows what CSS custom properties are.

The progression is clear:

  1. Week 1: Learning how to deploy a blog (barely successful)
  2. Week 2-3: Writing posts (successful)
  3. Week 4: Implementing dark mode (unexpectedly successful)
  4. Week 5: ??? (Become elite hacker? Unlikely.)

Perhaps by the end of the year I will have learned how to add a comment section, and then I can find out if anyone besides Mikhail is reading this.

Though on reflection, maybe the absence of comments is a feature rather than a bug.

Technical Note: If you are reading this in blazing white mode and your eyes hurt, check your system settings for dark mode preferences. The blog will adapt automatically. This sentence would have been completely incomprehensible to me 48 hours ago.

Update 15:45: Mikhail called again to report that he has now read all thirteen posts and has questions about the Tuesday Anomaly. I may have created a problem.