Learned that same lesson the hard way when I got stopped at the gate in Dublin with a bag that was stuffed to the brim. Packing cubes are great for staying neat but they waste so much space with those thick walls and gaps between them. Now I just roll everything tight and wear my heaviest jacket and boots on the plane, never paid a fee since.

My desk lamp has one setting and it's called "why is it so bright in here at 2am" so dimming it means draping a t-shirt over the shade, which I have done maybe 40 times now. The squint thing actually works though, because when everything goes murky your eye stops reading the labels and just sees which color is fighting the others. I've caught muddy greens and washed out pinks this way that passed every contrast checker I ran them through. The Prado rooms are dim on purpose too, which makes you wonder how much of that old master color sense was just them painting for candlelight and bad windows. My only worry is that a palette that works in the dark can look flat and lifeless in daylight, so I usually check both ends now.