EVERYTHING is getting quicker. Cars, trains, commuting and travel are getting quicker. Communications, computers, and the internets are getting quicker. Nearly everything in our increasingly busy days feels like they it’s getting quicker. We are living in an age of instant knowledge, instant gratification and instant action.
This being the case, why does it seem those new fandangled fluorescent light bulbs we are all being encouraged to switch to didn’t get the memo stating the general public’s expectation of instant action? For some reason those asinine fluoro light bulbs seem to be on a go slow. I had one of those Smart house/electricity audits done at my house quite a while ago and they went through the place replacing tungsten light bulbs with fluorescent ones, ostensibly because they last longer and use less power.
But no body mentioned that those fluorescent light bulbs suffer from shutter delay – you know, the lag between the time when you press the button on your digital camera to take a picture and the time the shutter actually activates and takes the damn picture? How friggin’ annoying has that been for the last ten years or so on point and shoot happy snapper cameras? Well, for some reason many of my fluorescent light bulbs seem to suffer the same malaise. You flick the switch and there’s a ‘shutter’ delay before the light comes on. And when it does come on, it takes its sweet time ‘warming up’ before it actually becomes bright enough to see. So, if you have the stupid things in your bathroom, it’s just about bright enough to see your hand in front of your face by the time you’re finished peeing!
Now I ask you, if everything around is getting quicker and quicker… why on earth are light bulbs getting slower? :S