alt Hacker NewsLikely you experienced later gens where they toned it down. ~2010 it was one of the brightest LEDs you could purchase. As in they literally put a torch LED on the all white Intel macbooks of the era and it would shine through the laptop bags, pulsating.
There's people who live their lives with the low battery beep on their smoke alarm going off every 5 minutes in their home and don't even register it happening.