A New Light

How fast does a light turn on?

I was sat on the train a few weeks ago, and around a bend I could see the light for a level crossing. I noticed that the lights were snapping on and off, obviously LED based. I remember the old slow fade on/fade off of incandescents. The old lights were mellow and soothing, the new ones curt and abrupt.

When I turn on my lights at home there is a lag, a second or two while I have to wait to see if I just turned it on, or the "bulb" has worn out. All the lights in my house are now compact fluorescents.

For the last couple of years I've been noticing how certain cars, predominantly from Lexus, have strobing tail lights. The regular red rear lights are LED based, and driven quite bright. To preserve the LED's, protect them from overheating, they are strobed. Where's the problem? Well, when I scan from looking forward to looking in my rear view mirror the after image of the LED taillight manifests itself as a series of discrete red dots. It's quite distracting.

As wax, oil and tallow gave way to gas, and gas gave way to arc lights and incandescents. Incandescents and strip lights are yielding to LEDS, EL panels and compact fluorescents. I wish I was smart enough to perceive what will be next.

Sloughing off on blogging

I've come to the realization that I can blog when I have nothing to do. Trouble is, for the last few weeks I've very much had something to do, so I haven't blogged.

In all fairness, I have been blogging, but over at iVillage. I've also been stealing space and notoriety on other peoples blogs. Anyway, I guess I should show more commitment and keep up my blogs.

Why am I polyblogging? I'm trying to find a home. Since I've been an iVillage member for 8 years I've managed to keep that one the busiest. I'll give this upstart Google thing a try, they might have lasting power too ;-)

Where have all the pay-phones gone?

I was at the airport yesterday and I noticed something different.

In these two photos you see a lot of shiny metal plates on the walls. Each of these plates covers where a pay phone used to be. Where there used to be about 20 pay phones there are now three pay phones, on wheelchair accessible, one TDD and one regular.



There is also a single phone card vending machine, and the white courtesy phones remain. This is all because of the advent of the cell phone. I can remember how these phone lobbies used to be so crowded and noisy. You'd have to stand patiently in line, and make sure you had a pocket full of quarters (or Thatchers in the UK). When I have my cell phone with me I think it's a good thing, but seeing these empty slots makes me think my cell phone is now essential. I wonder how many telephone engineers now work maintaining cell sites and microwave backbones, and how many used to work fixing land line pay phones and copper infrastructure.

As a point of interest, the photos were taken on my cell phone. I could even have posted this blog right there on the spot from my cell phone. If I had stood there trying to tell my thoughts to a passerby they would have thought me a loony, but if I blog it to thousands I'm sane?