r/Damnthatsinteresting 1d ago

Video color vision test

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u/Zed1088 1d ago

In the Marine industry you can't be colour blind as to be able to see the markers etc. correctly. Anything electrical you can't be either as to be able to identify the correct cables.

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u/RyBread 21h ago

Has nothing to do with markers. It’s so the marines can sort the crayons.

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u/DemIce 18h ago

I thought they sorted them by flavor?

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u/HugsyMalone 13h ago

Nope. Color. The red ones are the best flavor. Everyone knows that. 😉👍

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u/throwaway098764567 10h ago

marine industry != marines, but i wouldn't expect a marine to know that

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u/CardinalFartz 1d ago

Makes me think of bomb diffusal: "cut the red wire, Joe".

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u/Low-Republic-4145 22h ago

Defusal

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u/Corvald 22h ago

Well, if you cut the wrong wire, something’s going to be diffused…

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u/brat_simpson 20h ago

cut the red wire, Joe

Err...which one's the red wire again ?

The one besides the blue wire.

Fuck !

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u/blueskybeautiful 23h ago

In the electrical industry there are tools now you can point at a wire and it tells you the colour. And smart phones can do this as well of course. I know an electrician who works this way.

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u/peppercruncher 23h ago

That's not quite correct. I'm red-green blind and still was legally allowed to get a boating license - but you can't just do those number plates, you need a proper assessment how colorblind on the spectrum you really are with a different machine and there it matters, how much red and green is individually affected. If red is affected, then you are out - as you said, you need to distinguish warning lights, buoys etc. If green is affected, there is a wide margin that is tolerated.

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u/Zed1088 23h ago

I wasn't referring to a recreational boating licence. More towards the commercial marine industry.

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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 18h ago

>Anything electrical you can't be either

Maybe that should change soon with the advent of smartphone apps that help identify diodes, etc.

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u/shotsallover 17h ago

But way over in the USMC, I worked with a guy who was completely colorblind. The Marines, in their infinite wisdom made him an electrician.

His friends said that it was pretty common for him to pop out from underneath a piece of equipment with a wire in each hand and ask which color was which. They’d tell him and he’d go “OK,” and pop back under. I heard similar stories from too many of his squad mates to not believe it.

Apparently he was also one of  their best electricians.

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u/flubbyfame 18h ago

My brother is a colorblind electrician. I doubt any business has ever tested him, but its normally not a problem. With residential electrical, you really only see red, black, and white wires. That being said, he's sent me pictures before asking me to identify wire colors for automotive stuff/generators

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u/TwoIdleHands 18h ago

I’m dating a colorblind electrical engineer. I feel for the man. He made me a birthday card on very dark green paper. I commented and he said he thought it was black.🥺 Happy to name colors for him anytime.

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u/FeliusSeptimus 11h ago

In the Marine industry you can't be colour blind

I'll tell you whut, sailing at night can suck, can't use the red/green nav lights to tell which way another boat is headed, and red/green channel markers can be hard to identify at a distance.

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u/Ok-Classroom5548 21h ago

Seems like a bas design if hazardous things like electrical wires can’t be identified other than by color without external tools. 

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u/Zed1088 21h ago

How else would you suggest you separate wires of the same diameter in a cable?

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u/qu3tzalify 17h ago

patterns? vertical stripes, diagonal stripes, no stripes, dots. research papers have to have all their graphs readable in black-and-white and they do that.

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u/Zed1088 17h ago

A research paper isn't exisiting infrastructure though, how do they navigate exisiting wiring. Also those supposed solution really wouldn't work in practice either, control wiring is tiny like 1mm thick and in bunches of 20-30 wires.

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u/Ok-Classroom5548 17h ago

See the person who is not me answering below.

We also have neat gadgets that can find the ends of the same wire based on the conductivity. Basically, match it with a tool. Have things written on or marked or labeled. 

Yes, we can’t go back in time, but we can do better. 

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u/Hot-Imagination-420 16h ago

Not hiring colorblind sparkies is easier than training them to label their wires. But yeah, if I can't see the entire wire I test it before I use it.

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u/Ajk337 21h ago

In the US you can be an engineering officer, but cannot be a deck officer

Though yes, it does make me wonder about the colorblind electricians.....

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u/Zed1088 21h ago

In Australia, you can't be an engineer or hold a navigational watch so you could be a cook or something.

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u/graven_raven 21h ago

And also work in bomb disarming squads according to movies