The Mayor DJ 10: Effortless Light Street

Dear Siriburites and all citizens of the planet, I'm thrilled to talk about Maci Foster's new project. I'm happy to present Effortless Light Street. Maci and his new organization Central Soultelligence have taken over a soy, a little street in our town, with the purpose of experimenting with light. Their intention is simple. They want to reduce light pollution and let starlight shine through. 

The meditators are mostly people in the Central Soultelligence project who are observing the effects of Effortless Light St. Some are observing without looking for something in particular. While others, are jotting down notes on particular aspects of the experiment. There are also volunteer observers who are involved in the project as well. Maci and his team's goal is to expand the network of Effortless Street Lamps to cover the whole town. This is something I support. Many of the parks don't have nightlights as it is and Siriburites have expressed their joy over this. They love gathering in the parks at night for stargazing sessions that sometimes run until dawn. 

The new street lamps follow certain patterns. Maci has allowed me to share with you just a few examples of how these patterns work. Firstly, the lamps are programmed with timing information. Once it starts to get dark in the evening, the lamps don't come on full blast right away. Only a few of them come on. And they come on only dimly at first. They gradually get brighter and brighter following the setting of the sun. The lamps are programmed with the time of the year and what that means as far as how much sunlight we're getting at each hour. Maci and his team have uploaded a world of data into the program of these smart street lamps.

Secondly, the lamps start to get dimmer once again around midnight.  From 10pm onwards, the lamps start their gradual shift towards darkness. They can be seen at their dimmest at around 11:45pm. Of course, all of this sways with the seasons. The lamps are programmed to know that it gets darker faster during the winter and they adjust accordingly. At midnight, the lamps are turned off. If anyone passes by between midnight and 1am, the lamps turn on to guide the passersby so that they're not left in the dark. Once the sensors on the lamps observe stillness after someone has passed by, it will take them five minutes to gradually get dimmer and turn off. 

After 1am, it's a different story. From 1am until the light of dawn - whenever that may be depending on the time and place - the lamps will turn on only briefly for passersby. They'll turn on when the sensors detect human movement. They will stay lit for a minute and get dimmer and dimmer gradually until the end of the 60 second interval. The smart lamps know the difference between human movement and other things like leaves in the wind and animals - the lamps don't turn on for animals. 

Maci says, the lamps can be further programmed depending on the needs of the people living on that street. Let's say that the people on a particular street have agreed to keep their lamps lit brightly until 11pm. Let's just say that particular street loves to party and wants to keep the lights on outside as long as possible. Well, thanks to the Central Soultelligence initiative, they absolutely can. Or let's say, the local community on that street decides to program specific times. They can designate certain festive times. They love to party in May and they love to party in July and August. They can have that programmed into their local lamps. And they can expect me, The Mayor DJ, to show up to DJ their parties. 

I personally hope that the network of lamps expands to cover the whole of Siriburi sooner than later. Let's just see how it goes on the pilot street of the project, Effortless Light St. I want to live in a town where we can see the stars at night. We're not content with just a star here and a star there. We want to see the whole blanket of stars sending their reassuring light, helping us feel more connected to the whole universe. Who knows? Maybe Siriburi will transform into an intergalactic hub of communication and space travel. And maybe turning off the lights at night is a step forward.