I found a very odd Google search bug/misfeature on android: I've somehow gotten stuck in Brown Mode.
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Same for the OS-level dark mode. I had it on, but turning it off (and turning on the Google-search settings dark mode) still gives me brown.
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Also not affected by if Firefox's dark mode is off or on.
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I'm starting to think we have too many dark mode switches.
You should have one, not multiple intricately nested ones, but I fully understand why it's not easy to make it work that way. -
@foone isn't this the Night Light option? (Nachtverlichting in Dutch) that turns to less blue more reddish brown lights.
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Annoyingly this is only happening on my personal account, so I'm not set up to easily lie to Google about where I am or what time it is.
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@foone
light mode dark mode inverted light mode inverted dark mode inverted mode negative light mode negative dark mode negative inverted light mode
negative inverted dark mode negative mode negative inverted mode -
@Dany nah, because that would affect the UI of the Browser/OS as well. Plus, why would it only be in effect when I'm logged in?
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It's not the "eye comfort shield" blue-light filter either. When that's on, the UI of the Browser and OS are affected, not just Google, and Google looks different: this is a clear theme, not just a full screen color filter.
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For my final test, I need to wait until it's "a time Google thinks I should be awake" in my timezone, because right now my leading theory is that Google is applying their own blue-light-filter by switching into a second THIRD SEARCH SKIN based on the current timezone + location.
And when I log out*/use private browsing/use incognito: it doesn't know my location to personalize it to.
*haven't actually tried logging out, just private modes. I hope that is not an oversight.
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It is way too "I have been awake for 20 hours" for me to attempt logging back into my Google account without accidentally deleting everything and forgetting all my passwords and my mother's maiden name*.
* hey what if I have two dads, neither of which changed their name? It's the 90s, it's possible! These poor kids can never have a quite-shitty password-reminder!
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@lritter you forgot:
Brown -
It's also possible there is nothing at all I can do that affects this, and it's just some A/B testing that one of my accounts got in the segment for and the other didn't.
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@foone Silly suggestion: have you tried rebooting? Maybe some of the color inheritance gets set at boot? Or a new launch of the app?
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In 1948, B. F. Skinner's "Superstition in the Pigeon" showed that if you fed pigeons at completely random times, they would still try to predict when they'd be fed. Absent any information or pattern for when they'll be fed, they become "superstitious".
The repeat specific behaviors, turning in place, waving, pecking at a specific spot on the floor... -
They do this, he asserts, because they're trying to repeat the meaningless actions that happened the last time they "won", and got fed.
It's like a lucky pair of pants you always wear when your team wins. -
In both cases, there's no action that leads to the win condition, and no information to accurately predict the outcome.
But both our brains and the pigeon's brain don't work like that. They assume there are patterns and tries to find them. They assume it's not just all random and unpredictable.
That's usually a good thing! It clearly is very useful, for both us and pigeons, to figure out the patterns... because usually there are!
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Many things are related and predictable. Basic physics for example: if a thing is in the air, it will fall down. Get out of the way.
Definitely a pattern there!
(Although you may need to adjust for the "flying" loophole) -
That's why we evolved a "pattern finding" brain. Because there's patterns in the world, and recognizing them is useful.
Anyway, I think of those pigeons, spinning in place, perhaps praying to some God of Food Pellets they invented, and how they don't know there's no pattern and all there actions are meaningless. The cruel scientist man built this game so you can't win, and worse: you don't know you can't win, so you have to keep trying.
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I thing about them and how I've been doing professional "computer stuff" for like two and a half decades now and BOY does it feel like we're spinning pigeons a frightening amount of the time.
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Anyways, A/B testing: because gaslighting is cool if you do it in parallel at scale!
